Re-focusing on my 45 and dagger

Hello!

Today, I write a post in order to help me re-focus on my 45-inch rapier and my dagger. Pennsic is coming, and I have been slacking. So, in order to re-focus, I should take inventory of the largest holes I see in my sword-and-dagger game. Even though this will be less correct before practice than it would be after practice, doing it now means I'll be thinking of it at practice.

• WEAKNESSES
• My sense of distance can be shaken with timing. Frequently I fall into a trap of viewing my opponent's measure as being the same as mine, even if they have a longer measure.
• The first problem can be fixed by a variant on the Peony Visualization Technique (which I have never described here, at least never under that name). Essentially - at all moments, I should be automatically visualizing where my opponent could place their center of mass, one quarter-second from now. I should be acting based on the worst-case scenario that this presents, not based on their current location.
•  The second problem can be solved by being mindful of their measure. I can work on starting each match with an internally verbalized inventory of my opponent - "Slightly taller person with a slightly shorter sword and dagger", "much shorter person with case of much shorter weapons", etc. This will force me to be mindful of their distance.
• In this example, "slightly" means about 3 inches in terms of blade length and 2 inches in terms of height, whereas a lack of descriptor means 4+ inches of difference in terms of height, or 6+ inches of difference in terms of blade length. Donovan is equivalent height to me or slightly taller than me, depending on what shoes I'm wearing. Doroga is taller than me.
• Here, we care about relations more than exact values. If I have a longer weapon and they are not taller than me, I can likely throw shots all day and have a very narrow area to defend against counter-attacks. If this isn't the case, I have to Actually Fence.
• I have grown to be hesitant and less likely to recognize and seize upon moments where I can win.
• This is likely because I have been working the defensive side of things more than the offensive side of things - "how can my opponent confound my parries". In order to solve this without losing what I've gained in terms of defensive skill, I need to start recognizing German-style "master strokes", which allow me a defense and a counter-attack in the same tempo.
• More, I need to recognize when one of the elements of Six Elements Theory isn't applicable, and what portion of the Perfect Defensive Paradigm I can break from because of it.
• Perfect Defensive Paradigm is essentially performing my interpretation of Line in Cross or Narrowing - a parry that carries my hilt slightly out of my presence, and takes my tip off-line in an arc that prevents opposition.
• This is a homework assignment. I need to look back at my original Six Elements Theory post and read when each Element is inapplicable. Then, take that and develop a counterattack for it. From there, drill the counterattacks into my fencing, either by drilling or by mindful and focused fighting.
• My style has grown too diversified. Every time I fence, it's a game of "what bullshit can I make up centered around these base principles". This slows me down.
• I need to re-develop a core set of techniques that are my go-to techniques for Just Winning Bouts.
•  I miiiiight be concentrating too much on defense.
• Keep an eye on this. While "defense is most important" is a very useful philosophy for growth, going too far into that world means not winning.
• I am very used to doing cuts with my shorter sword.
• Cuts are still possible with the longer sword, but I need to figure out exactly the threshold where they become practical, for the longer weapon. This means drilling my hilt-first approaching-defenses some, because that's where the fastest cuts come from.
•  People don't seem to believe my feints any more.
• This might be just that people have gotten better, but my old strategy of "twitch at people to make openings" doesn't seem to be working well. It might be a side-effect of me moving overall slower when I fence these days, but I need to figure out why this is.
• If it's just that people are fencing in a more technically sound manner, I need to make smaller feints and be able to take advantage of smaller reactions.
• If people are just not trained to respond to my feints any more, this doesn't mean I need to re-train them - it means that my feints weren't a well-founded set of techniques in the first place, and I need to understand better how, in the midst of a single bout, to figure out the "volume" of feint that someone needs to see in order to respond, and how large that response will be.
• This one is probably the one to go with, since it will be less possible to do as I get back into the groove of things.

So, that's a decently-sized list of things I get the opportunity to learn to do better. That's awesome! I look forward to fencing people and working on these things.

Six Elements Theory

Practice Monday night kinda sucked.

tl;dr: I work through a theory of fencing in this post. If you want to, you can skip to the end and just skip back if something doesn't make sense. I don't mind!

I was trying to work on my recent "6 elements of attack" theory. Essentially, I argue that there are 6 types of attack, and to be defended you must defend against all six of them. Each one has a corresponding way-to-defend, and so an ideal defense includes all six elements of defense. And an ideal attack contains as many of the six elements as possible, to try to take advantage of any flaw in defense.

This post, I want to work on building up this idea which has been in the back of my head. This involves going through all possibilities related to it and branching out ideas,  until we have covered everything necessary for it to be useful.

Those elements of attack are:

• Technique: Attack to absence. In general, the Italians call this a "disengage". Super obvious. When your wrist moves your tip in a circle in front of you, dipping past your opponent's tip or pommel. I call this "attack to absence", since it's literally moving your sword to the place that their sword isn't and attacking.
• Technique: Yielding around. That thing where someone pushes their hilt "outwards", perpendicular to the line between two fencers, while moving their tip "inwards" toward that line.
• Technique: Pulling out. This is when someone's sword moves in a way that moves the tip away from your shoulder, meaning that their tip can get around your sword. If their sword is below your shoulder, this can mean a move straight down. The key here is that the attacker's tip (or pommel in really really really weird circumstances) is the one that makes way for the defender's sword, whereas in Attack to absence, the attacker's tip stays forward, but the blade makes its way around the opponent's tip or hilt. This also means that some things which would normally be called a "disengage" would be considered to be this technique, too.
• Technique: Opposition. This is when someone uses a stronger part of their blade to push through a weaker part of your blade.
• Technique: Attack to slowness. This is when someone attacks right next to your hilt, meaning you can't parry them with your blade. This is mentioned in several manuals, but Fabris is notable for how he talks about doing it.
• Technique: Feinting. This is a weird meta-technique. This is when you half-attempt one of the above techniques in order to attempt to "draw out" a response which leaves an opening. Usually this is done by Italians using disengaging, since the Italian counter to a disengage leaves you open to a second disengage. Note that a feint can be intended to create a small advantage, and further feints can be designed to create slightly larger advantages until you are stabbed, which is why you need to react to a feint. Just, you need to react smaller, as we will cover later.

And the elements of defense:

• Technique: Attack to absence.
• Countered by: Cutting to the reverse. Italians do this by default when changing lines, since their hand stays largely in the same place, but their blade moves. In general, you want to cut in a way that gets as close to perpendicular to their blade when your blades impact. This can be weird sometimes.
• Technique: Yielding around.
• Countered by: Pulling your hand away from the center line or back. This is what happens when an Italian executes a "transport". It also happens in Thibault a few times. This can be done by moving your hand backwards and maintaining your blade's angulation, or it can be executed by moving your tip backwards by moving your wrist. The former is probably better.
• Technique: Pulling out.
• Countered by: Following their blade. This means you need to extend your tip farther, or move forward, or lean, or something to prevent them from getting "out".
• Technique: Opposition.
• Countered by: Coming off-line with contact. If you let your tip come off-line, you can refuse them contact with weaker parts of your blade, or at least force them to come off-line as well if they wish to try pushing through your blade. This happens a lot in various dialects of LVD.
• Technique: Attack to slowness.
•  Countered by: Voiding / Pushing. This is changing the relationship between your sword and your body, usually by pushing your sword in one direction while moving your body in another. You can also do just one or the other of those - a sideways void while not moving your sword counts as this, so long as your sword or hilt is between you and their blade. Fabris does this a lot, too, but more on this later.
• Technique: Feinting.
• Countered by: Keeping your previous line closed. This means that if someone is in a position and they move to disengage, your action needs to defend against both the line that you previously had closed, as well as the line they seem to be attacking on now. It amounts to knowing exactly what you are defending against, and how they can take advantage of your openings. Honestly, it boils down to good technique.

In theory, those should be the basic elements of fencing. Unfortunately, time is a thing too, and frequently we can't perceive what our opponent is doing until they are finished doing it. So we need to figure out how to perceive these six techniques as early as we can.

• Technique: Attack to absence.
• Defensive cue: Sudden lack of blade contact. Their blade is completely and very suddenly gone!
• Countered by: Cutting to the reverse.
• Technique: Yielding around.
• Defensive cue: Change in direction of blade pressure. This signifies that they are no longer trying to push through your blade, and now want to get around it and let your blade fall toward their hilt.
• Countered by: Pulling your hand away from the center line or back.
• Technique: Pulling out.
• Defensive cue: Avoiding blade contact. It's hard to pull out or away when blade contact has been established, so the best way to pull out is to avoid it in the first place. This can be accomplished by maintaining distance, using a refused stance, or moving their blade parallel to yours.
• Countered by: Following their blade.
• Technique: Opposition.
• Defensive cue: Movement toward your blade. This is what allows them to push through. This can be accomplished by snaking around behind your sword, too, which is an altogether more effective way of moving toward your tip.
• Countered by: Coming off-line with contact.
• Technique: Attack to slowness.
• Defensive cue: Coming on-line with your hilt. There is no reason they would do so otherwise, since coming on-line with your hilt leaves them terribly open to counter-attacks.
•  Countered by: Voiding / Pushing.
• Technique: Feinting.
• Defensive cue: Attack that could not succeed / is too far away. If your opponent couldn't actually strike you if they followed through on their newly-attempted attack, it has to be a feint. Anything else is committed enough that it can be countered. In general, this is dictated by distance. Note that you still need to act on a feint, since a feint can be used to cover for a movement toward a better position, but the action you need to take is different.
• Countered by: Keeping your previous line closed.

But even beyond this, we need to be able to confirm to ourselves that our defense succeeded, even as we prepare our next defense and consider executing our next attack.  Fortunately for us, none of these defensive techniques is mutually exclusive with any others. As well, most of these are touch-based cues, which are processed faster than visual information.

• Technique: Attack to absence.
• Defensive cue: Sudden lack of blade contact.
• Countered by: Cutting to the reverse.
• Success cue: Hard, sudden rotation-ceasing blade contact. A disengage is a quick movement, involving moving your tip as fast as it can move. This will result is a sharp, clanging impact that will reduce the amount that your sword is rotating.
• Technique: Yielding around.
• Defensive cue: Change in direction of blade pressure.
• Countered by: Pulling your hand away from the center line or back.
• Success cue: Smooth, sliding blade contact. The yield doesn't have a huge amount of force to it in general, and hopes to make its way using reach rather than strength. So a yield, when blocked, presents nice, smooth contact.
• Technique: Pulling out.
• Defensive cue: Avoiding blade contact.
• Countered by: Following their blade.
• Success cue: Continued pressing contact. When pulling out, they are presenting you with their weak. You will be able to feel your weak pressing against their weak.
• Technique: Opposition.
• Defensive cue: Movement toward your blade.
• Countered by: Coming off-line with contact.
• Success cue: Sudden reduction or stasis in pressure. Either they will match your force by winding behind your sword, or they will not get there in time and the possible pressure they can exert will diminish as you move your stronger part of your blade closer to their weaker part.
• Technique: Attack to slowness.
• Defensive cue: Coming on-line with your hilt.
•  Countered by: Voiding / Pushing.
• Success cue: Thudding impact. This impact will not result in your blade rotating, really, since most of their force will be focused forward toward your hilt and body.
• Technique: Feinting.
• Defensive cue: Attack that could not succeed / is too far away.
• Countered by: Keeping your previous line closed.
• Success cue: Smaller versions of other defensive success cues. Less pressure, that sort of thing.

Of course, attacking is necessary to win a bout. So we need to figure out the minimum cue to understand if we have succeeded or failed at our attack, as well, so we can proceed to our next attack or defense as necessary. Similarly, these should ideally have touch-based cues for success or failure, so we can act with as much speed as possible.

• Technique: Attack to absence.
• Defensive cue: Sudden lack of blade contact.
• Countered by: Cutting to the reverse.
• Success cue: Hard, sudden rotation-ceasing blade contact.
• Attacking failure cue: Arrested movement. So if your disengage stops before you would have stopped it yourself, your attack to absence has failed.
• Technique: Yielding around.
• Defensive cue: Change in direction of blade pressure.
• Countered by: Pulling your hand away from the center line or back.
• Success cue: Smooth, sliding blade contact.
• Attacking failure cue: "Pulling" movement. Basically, if your tip doesn't feel like it's quite going in as far as you need for it to, your yielding attack has likely failed.
• Technique: Pulling out.
• Defensive cue: Avoiding blade contact.
• Countered by: Following their blade.
• Success cue: Continued pressing contact.
• Attacking failure cue: Continued pushing against your blade. This means that you haven't actually succeeded at pulling out, since they are still in contact with your blade.
• Technique: Opposition.
• Defensive cue: Movement toward your blade.
• Countered by: Coming off-line with contact.
• Success cue: Sudden reduction or stasis in pressure.
• Attacking failure cue: Sliding toward their hilt. If they have adjusted their blade to overcome your attack by opposition, that means they are in a position that forces your sword to either give up its strength, or slide toward the strong part of their blade.  
• Technique: Attack to slowness.
• Defensive cue: Coming on-line with your hilt.
•  Countered by: Voiding / Pushing.
• Success cue: Thudding impact.
• Attacking failure cue: Blade movement off-line. This is similar to the failure cue for Pulling out, but where you're probably moving backwards for Pulling out, in this case you are moving forwards. They are essentially acting as a bullfighter and allowing your forward momentum to carry you past them.
• Technique: Feinting.
• Defensive cue: Attack that could not succeed / is too far away.
• Countered by: Keeping your previous line closed.
• Success cue: Smaller versions of other defensive success cues.
• Attacking failure cue: Small response. The point of a feint is to draw an exaggerated response so that you can execute a counter to their defensive technique. If they don't respond, or they respond in a very small way, then your feint has probably failed. 

Beyond even this, we need to know how to counter our opponent's defenses. While a perfectly-executed defense might not be easy to take advantage of, all defenses create openings. And for each defense, there is a particular way to best use those openings.

• Technique: Attack to absence.
• Defensive cue: Sudden lack of blade contact.
• Countered by: Cutting to the reverse.
• Success cue: Hard, sudden rotation-ceasing blade contact.
• Counter-counter: An even smaller Attack to absence. The way absence works is by trying to rotate around the physical limits of their weapon. If they have rotated their weapon to defend against your attack to absence, that means there's likely an opening on the other side of their weapon now. Unfortunately, the defensive action is smaller than the offensive action here, so there's no guarantee this will work. This is where mid-blade disengages tend to come into play, for the offense.
• Attacking failure cue: Arrested movement.
• Technique: Yielding around.
• Defensive cue: Change in direction of blade pressure.
• Countered by: Pulling your hand away from the center line or back.
• Success cue: Smooth, sliding blade contact.
• Counter-counter: Opposition / Winding. If you have executed the Yield around, then you have gotten your sword "behind" theirs. This means it is will be hard for them move the strong of their blade in the way of the weak of yours. This is similar to the German concept of "winding", in that you wrap your blade around their blade to make it impossible for them to gain back opposition.
• Attacking failure cue: "Pulling" movement.
• Technique: Pulling out.
• Defensive cue: Avoiding blade contact.
• Countered by: Following their blade.
• Success cue: Continued pressing contact.
• Counter-counter: Attack to slowness. By virtue of your opponent extending their blade, they are presenting you with their hilt. This means it is very easy to attack toward their hilt in response, especially if they are not in a position that allows for a good void. 
• Attacking failure cue: Continued pushing against your blade.
• Technique: Opposition.
• Defensive cue: Movement toward your blade.
• Countered by: Coming off-line with contact.
• Success cue: Sudden reduction or stasis in pressure.
• Counter-counter: Yielding around / Winding. These counter each other in an exciting way. As stated above, the combination of Yielding around and Opposition leads to a concept the Germans call "winding". It is likely that you and your opponent will get into a stalemate here, in which you need to abandon your plan and do something else. 
• Attacking failure cue: Sliding toward their hilt.
• Technique: Attack to slowness.
• Defensive cue: Coming on-line with your hilt.
•  Countered by: Voiding / Pushing.
• Success cue: Thudding impact.
• Counter-counter: Pulling out, depending on distance. Attacks to slowness imply more forward movement than a lot of other actions here. If you are still far enough out, though, you can Pull out. The sideways movement of Voiding / Pushing from your opponent makes this easier. As you get closer, Pulling out becomes less of an option. In this case, the changing relationship between blade and body becomes harder to take advantage of, and you must use a different technique. Of course, a moulinet, which can arguably be either Pulling out or an Attack to absence depending on execution, remains possible.
• Attacking failure cue: Blade movement off-line.
• Technique: Feinting.
• Defensive cue: Attack that could not succeed / is too far away.
• Countered by: Keeping your previous line closed.
• Success cue: Smaller versions of other defensive success cues.
• Counter-counter: Redoubling. So, executing the same attack, but bigger. If your opponent doesn't move at all, then you are likely to catch them off-guard. If they move a bit, but not too much, they can still defend themselves.
• Attacking failure cue: Small response.

So as you can see, this leads to sequences. Attack to absence forms its own little loop. Opposition and Yielding around form a loop called Winding. Pulling out and Attack to slowness have a bit of a looping quality, but eventually lead something else due to the nature of distance. Feinting has its own loop with true attacks, due to the nature of attacks, but that is weird and not the kind of loop we're looking for here.

There's also a relationship between Attacks to absence and Feinting, since the size of your Attack to absence will decrease over time. As the size of these Attacks decreases, the size of what qualifies as a Feint decreases as well. So while a tiny twitch might not be useful at the start of a fight as a feint, after three disengages it might be useful as one.

We can also look at the defensive and offensive actions and guards that make those actions easier. For the defense, this allows us to change and fortify our stance based on what we think our opponents will do. For the offense, that allows us to choose our attack based on what our opponent's stance is.

• Technique: Attack to absence.
• Offensive guard: Angled guards. The idea is that if your guard is angled such that your sword can cross with your opponent's sword, you can use your wrist to move your blade above or below your opponent's guard.
• Defensive cue: Sudden lack of blade contact.
• Countered by: Cutting to the reverse.
• Defensive guard: Counter-angled guards. A similar thing. If you have no crossing with your opponent's guard, it's hard to cut into the reverse of their disengage motion. The important part here is that you know what direction they can move their sword, and how to execute a counter-movement.
• Success cue: Hard, sudden rotation-ceasing blade contact.
• Counter-counter: Attack to absence.
• Attacking failure cue: Arrested movement.
• Technique: Yielding around.
• Offensive guard: Arm or body pulled back. This means you have distance to extend your arm and bend at your wrist, to suddenly gain distance and angle around your opponent's blade.
• Defensive cue: Change in direction of blade pressure.
• Countered by: Pulling your hand away from the center line or back.
• Defensive guard: Blade away from the diameter. This means that your blade or tip is already away from the diameter line between your shoulder and your opponent's shoulder.
• Success cue: Smooth, sliding blade contact.
• Counter-counter: Opposition / Winding.
• Attacking failure cue: "Pulling" movement.
• Technique: Pulling out.
• Offensive guard: Arm has room to pull sword back. This means you can pull your sword away from their shoulder, even if it's not straight backwards. Reserving some space to move forward as well is useful in order to make it harder decide what your end target is.
• Defensive cue: Avoiding blade contact.
• Countered by: Following their blade.
• Defensive guard: Arm and sword extended. If they can't get out, then they can't pull out.
• Success cue: Continued pressing contact.
• Counter-counter: Attack to slowness.
• Attacking failure cue: Continued pushing against your blade.
• Technique: Opposition.
• Offensive guard: Blade "over the opponent's blade". This means that your blade is angled in a way that makes it take longer to regain opposition, and the process of regaining opposition might just put you back on-line.
• Defensive cue: Movement toward your blade.
• Countered by: Coming off-line with contact.
• Defensive guard: Mid-blade at or near the edge of profile. This means that if they try to strike through your mid-blade or the weak of your blade, they will miss you. The idea is to force your opponent to place their weak on your strong if they want to attack you.
• Success cue: Sudden reduction or stasis in pressure.
• Counter-counter: Yielding around / Winding.
• Attacking failure cue: Sliding toward their hilt.
• Technique: Attack to slowness.
• Offensive guard: Attacker's hilt in-line with defender's hilt. This means that you can push your hilt in toward the defender's's hilt, and the line through their hilt will connect with their body.
• Defensive cue: Coming on-line with your hilt.
•  Countered by: Voiding / Pushing.
• Defensive guard: Hilt near or past the edge of the profile, arm extended. This would allow you to have less distance to move your body or your sword to push their sword past your profile. The extension of your arm means that your profile is effectively smaller. Having your hilt near the edge of your profile means that there's really only one direction that they can strike toward your body, near your hilt.
• Success cue: Thudding impact.
• Counter-counter: Pulling out.
• Attacking failure cue: Blade movement off-line.
• Technique: Feinting.
• Offensive guard: A compromise among several. Feinting works by overwhelming your opponent with options. Don't do any particular guard which would let them know what you will do.
• Defensive cue: Attack that could not succeed / is too far away.
• Countered by: Keeping your previous line closed.
• Defensive guard: Counter-guard. Make sure to be in a guard that can defend against all options that they have.
• Success cue: Smaller versions of other defensive success cues.
• Counter-counter: Redoubling.
• Attacking failure cue: Small response. 

Beyond this, there are things which we can call "master-strokes", in the German tradition. The Germans tend to believe that the person attacking has the advantage. In order to win from the defense, you need to perform an attack that also defends you, which is difficult to do. The Italians would call this a single-tempo parry-riposte, in some circumstances. You do need to do a tiny bit of prediction, to know what your opponent will do. Master-strokes are good to execute if your opponent over-commits to a technique.

• Technique: Attack to absence.
• Offensive guard: Angled guards
• Defensive cue: Sudden lack of blade contact.
• Countered by: Cutting to the reverse.
• Defensive guard: Counter-angled guards.
• Success cue: Hard, sudden rotation-ceasing blade contact.
• Counter-counter: Attack to absence.
• Example master stroke: Single-tempo parry/riposte. This is a largely Capoferro thing. The idea is that you extend and counter-rotate into their disengage, attacking to their body. Thibault also has a similar concept. This can be difficult to do if the attacker's blade is very low. This is a special case of Attack to slowness.
• Attacking failure cue: Arrested movement.
• Technique: Yielding around.
• Offensive guard: Arm or body pulled back.
• Defensive cue: Change in direction of blade pressure.
• Countered by: Pulling your hand away from the center line or back.
• Defensive guard: Blade away from the diameter
• Success cue: Smooth, sliding blade contact.
• Counter-counter: Opposition / Winding.
• Example master stroke: Leaning thrust with shoulder away from the diameter and elbow bent. Here, you lean forward while pulling your arm to the side so that your weapon moves forward, while your hilt and blade create space. Your face will likely be closer to their body than your hilt. This is a special case of Opposition.
• Attacking failure cue: "Pulling" movement.
• Technique: Pulling out.
• Offensive guard: Arm has room to pull sword back.
• Defensive cue: Avoiding blade contact.
• Countered by: Following their blade.
• Defensive guard: Arm and sword extended.
• Success cue: Continued pressing contact.
• Counter-counter: Attack to slowness.
• Example master stroke: Circling thrust. This is essentially pushing their blade in a circle, while presenting your tip to their body as a threat. They may pull back far enough that you can't continue to do that, in which case you should probably cut them or stab them or some such when they are so far back that they can't attack. This is a special case of Cutting to the reverse.
• Attacking failure cue: Continued pushing against your blade.
• Technique: Opposition.
• Offensive guard: Blade "over the opponent's blade".
• Defensive cue: Movement toward your blade.
• Countered by: Coming off-line with contact.
• Defensive guard: Mid-blade at or near the edge of profile.
• Success cue: Sudden reduction or stasis in pressure.
• Counter-counter: Yielding around / Winding.
• Example master stroke: Jam your hilt into their mid-blade and attack. Essentially, you want to short-circuit the opposition game by putting your hilt onto their mid-blade. This lets you win opposition handily and frequently cut to them. This is a special case of Opposition.
• Attacking failure cue: Sliding toward their hilt.
• Technique: Attack to slowness.
• Offensive guard: Attacker's hilt in-line with defender's hilt.
• Defensive cue: Coming on-line with your hilt.
•  Countered by: Voiding / Pushing.
• Defensive guard: Hilt near or past the edge of the profile, arm extended.
• Success cue: Thudding impact.
• Counter-counter: Pulling out.
• Example master stroke: Thread through their blade. In this case, you thrust in the direction of their blade redirecting your tip toward their body at the last moment. Your hilt will likely follow a curved path through space, since you are pushing their blade with your hilt and quillons. This is a special case of Opposition.
• Attacking failure cue: Blade movement off-line.
• Technique: Feinting.
• Offensive guard: A compromise among several.
• Defensive cue: Attack that could not succeed / is too far away.
• Countered by: Keeping your previous line closed.
• Defensive guard: Counter-guard.
• Success cue: Smaller versions of other defensive success cues.
• Counter-counter: Redoubling.
• Example master stroke: Just attack. If a feint isn't sincere, you can simply attack them and be fine. If you can't tell whether or not it's sincere, you can't take that gamble.
• Attacking failure cue: Small response. 

In reality, the master-strokes listed here aren't a full list. There are many other ways to attack and defend at the same time. While I think that the earlier parts of this post are very good, the deeper into the rabbit-hole we get, the farther from certainty we go. As well, I have an obvious bias toward using Opposition to attack people. I can imagine many different master-strokes that involve many different types of attack. So let's leave things at the previous bullet-point list, shall we?

THE END OF THIS POST

This is our end result, with the example master-strokes removed.

• Technique: Attack to absence, aka Disengage
• Offensive guard: Angled guards
• Defensive cue: Sudden lack of blade contact.
• Countered by: Cutting to the reverse.
• Defensive guard: Counter-angled guards.
• Success cue: Hard, sudden rotation-ceasing blade contact.
• Counter-counter: Attack to absence.
• Attacking failure cue: Arrested movement.
• Technique: Yielding around.
• Offensive guard: Arm or body pulled back.
• Defensive cue: Change in direction of blade pressure.
• Countered by: Pulling your hand away from the center line or back.
• Defensive guard: Blade away from the diameter
• Success cue: Smooth, sliding blade contact.
• Counter-counter: Opposition / Winding.
• Attacking failure cue: "Pulling" movement.
• Technique: Pulling out.
• Offensive guard: Arm has room to pull sword back.
• Defensive cue: Avoiding blade contact.
• Countered by: Following their blade.
• Defensive guard: Arm and sword extended.
• Success cue: Continued pressing contact.
• Counter-counter: Attack to slowness.
• Attacking failure cue: Continued pushing against your blade.
• Technique: Opposition.
• Offensive guard: Blade "over the opponent's blade".
• Defensive cue: Movement toward your blade.
• Countered by: Coming off-line with contact.
• Defensive guard: Mid-blade at or near the edge of profile.
• Success cue: Sudden reduction or stasis in pressure.
• Counter-counter: Yielding around / Winding.
• Attacking failure cue: Sliding toward their hilt.
• Technique: Attack to slowness.
• Offensive guard: Attacker's hilt in-line with defender's hilt.
• Defensive cue: Coming on-line with your hilt.
•  Countered by: Voiding / Pushing.
• Defensive guard: Hilt near or past the edge of the profile, arm extended.
• Success cue: Thudding impact.
• Counter-counter: Pulling out.
• Attacking failure cue: Blade movement off-line.
• Technique: Feinting.
• Offensive guard: A compromise among several.
• Defensive cue: Attack that could not succeed / is too far away.
• Countered by: Keeping your previous line closed.
• Defensive guard: Counter-guard.
• Success cue: Smaller versions of other defensive success cues.
• Counter-counter: Redoubling.
• Attacking failure cue: Small response.

And this should be a full system list of what makes a valid fencing strategy. This isn't a "how to fence" - it's more of a blueprint for constructing valid strategies, and seeing where a particular system might fall down.

Next post, I plan to do a take-down of a few systems and show how they can be modeled in this system.


Edit: Oh shoot, I forgot to include "conditions that will make this technique work without question". Oh well.

A Semi-Universal Swords Theory

Hello, friends!

This theory was developed over the years based on when attacks did and didn't work, with my longer sword. I stepped away from working on it for a while, because I didn't see its potential as a universal method for executing swords. Previously, I had only understood it in terms of its applications for attacking. As I've worked with shorter swords and in different styles, I've started to see how it applies to defense as well.

So, let's get started.

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First - a convention. If two fencers are described, they will be Alexandra and Zachary. Alexandra will be on the right and doing the "correct" thing, if there is a correct and incorrect thing. Zachary will be on the left and doing the "incorrect" thing. Alexandra uses feminine pronouns, whereas Zachary uses masculine pronouns. Unless mentioned otherwise, they are both right-handed.

(I choose these names because Thibault uses these same conventions, except that women are under-represented in a fencing context, so Alexander is now Alexandra.)

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SWORD ANATOMY

There are three parts of a sword that matter, for our purposes. I will call them key points of the blade.

1. There is the hilt and quillons or hilt-point.
2. There is the point in the middle of the blade, or mid-point.
3. There is the point on the blade about six inches from the tip, or tip-point.

(I will be happy to describe how I chose these later. Stay with me now.)

Beyond that, we can ignore the rest of the blade for the time being. Our aim here is to reduce sword interactions to a simplicity that allows them to be considered in-combat.

The contact of two swords can be described by where on each sword they either touching or near.

(The meaning of "near" is left deliberately squishy. If you need a number, it's something like within six inches. Close enough to a part of their sword, usually their hilt, that they can't easily place the middle of their sword on your sword without a large arm movement.)

So, if Alexandra parries Zachary's thrust with the middle of her sword, you might say that her mid-point is touching Zachary's tip-point. Or, for shorter terminology, her 2 touches Zachary's 3.

Similarly, if she places her tip on Zachary's hilt, we would say her tip-point is touching Zachary's hilt-point.

If, as Thibault advises, she places her sword under Zachary's, we could say that her tip-point is near Zachary's hilt-point. In the particular case described by Thibault, where he wants your sword to be parallel to their sword, this would also mean that her mid-point is near his mid-point, and her hilt-point is near his tip-point.

This isn't necessarily the case - Alexandra's tip-point could be near his hilt-point without her mid-point or hilt-point being anywhere near his sword. We could define this exhaustively every time, but in general we won't because that wastes a lot of time and honestly, it usually is only important where one or two parts of their sword are.

In general, only one part of your sword can be touching one part of theirs. It's true that we can do silly things like lock their sword in place between our quillon and blade, but that usually limits our movement too much to be useful and should be avoided.

(Beyond this, the side of the blade that you are on or they are on is important, but not being covered in-depth right now. I'm hoping it will be obvious when we get there, but I leave this here for future-me to reference. In general, "side" is dictated by the direction, clockwise or counter-clockwise, that your opponent would have to disengage in order to get around your sword and stab you in the shortest and easiest path.)

(Beyond even this is "inside of presence" and "outside of presence", which is dictated by the line drawn from one of the three points on your opponent's sword to an arbitrary point on your body, and whether that line is intersected by your sword. So if your sword isn't in the way, that part of their weapon is "inside of your presence". Otherwise, that part of their weapon is "outside of your presence".)

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We only want to consider three points on the sword because humans have a limited reaction time, determined by the number of options available to them. Most Spanish systems have at least eight divisions of the blade. If we want to exhaustively enumerate the ways blades can interact, that means we need to multiply our blade's divisions by their blade's divisions, resulting in 64 different relationships. This is before mentioning distance, timing, off-hand usage, or anything else.

In order to be able to react, we need to simplify things. Three times three is nine, which is a reasonable number of things for someone to keep in mind in a fight.

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ANATOMY OF AN ATTACK, Part 1

Our sport begins with attacking. We win by stabbing our opponent, and we prevent them from winning by defending ourselves from attacks. The basic attack is a simple thrust, in which we extend our arm toward our opponent and hope to hit them.

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ANATOMY OF A DEFENSE, Part 1

The basic defense is a parry. Intuitively, this is easy to grasp - we push their sword such that their blade will pass by us. Generally this is done to one side or the other. Simple, right?

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ANATOMY OF AN ATTACK, Part 2

Attacks, however, are harder to stop than that. Our opponents can confound our defenses in several ways.

1. They can slow their attack or pull out or move through, allowing our parry to sail uselessly by, and stab us when our sword has gotten out of the way.
2. They can take advantage of the fact that the sword is a line connected to our hand, disengaging below our sword, getting to the other side of our weapon in that way.
3. They can travel with our parry, pushing their hand out and rotating around the middle of their blade such that their tip can point at our body again, while their blade yields around our defenses.
4. They can use their sword as a lever, placing a part of their blade closer to their hilt on a part of our blade farther from our hilt, allowing them to exert more force and push through our parry using opposition.
5. They can attack to our hilt's slowness, taking advantage of the fact that the hand is slower than the wrist and thus batting an attack out of the way with your hilt or the strong of your blade will likely not complete before they stab you.
6. They can use a combination of any of these methods.

In general yielding around is only applicable at middle range or closer.

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TERMINOLOGY

profile - This is the shape of your body, with respect to their weapon. "Out of our profile" means that they can't attack us without their sword beating against our sword.

control - This is a weird one. It's generally used in terms of two points; "my tip point controls your hilt point". It means that, if you draw a line from their point to the edge of your profile, that particular one of your points is somewhere in the middle of that line. This means that part of your sword presents an obstacle to your opponent's sword becoming "in your profile".

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ANATOMY OF A DEFENSE, Part 2

That sucks to have to deal with! But it's not impossible. At a base, we want their blade to be out of our presence or too far away. In addition...

1. To counter pulling out, we follow their sword with ours, making sure to maintain contact.
2. To counter disengages, we move counter to the clock-direction they are moving their sword.
3. To counter yielding around, we either move our body forward or pull our sword back to force their defense wider.
4. To counter opposition, we gain stronger opposition and rotate ourselves until our opponent over-commits away from our body, at which point we leave the bind.
5. To counter attacks to slowness, we push with our hilt or void with our body, or use a faster part of our blade to defend.

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ANATOMY OF AN ATTACK, Part 3

Most people gain the ability to deal with the above techniques relatively quickly. It's not easy, but people usually gain an intuitive sense of what does and what does not work.

At this point, things get more interesting. When people see others defend, they realize that defenses can leave openings. So they start launching false, feint attacks, to take advantage of the openings that their opponents leave.

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ANATOMY OF A DEFENSE, Part 3

At this point, the fencer realizes that committing to defenses too much results in holes and flaws in their guard. As well, there are ways to make the various types of attack take longer or be more predictable, allowing more time to execute defenses.

1. Pulling out requires pulling back from your blade.
2. Disengaging requires moving around your blade.
3. Yielding around requires you not having contact with their mid-point or their tip-point.
4. Opposition requires their hilt-point or mid-point to touch your mid-point or tip-point.
5. Attacks to slowness require their tip-point to be near-but-not-touching your hilt-point.

These act as tells. Further, we can look at the actions that will lead to these requirements being fulfilled.

1. If they don't have contact with your blade, they can more easily disengage or yield.
2. If you have opposition on their blade, they can more easily yield around.
3. If your blade is across your body, they can more easily attack with opposition.
4. If their hilt-point is blocked from being in-presence by your hilt-point, they can likely attack to slowness.

So we want to stop them from getting into these positions where they can do these things.

1. To deal with pulling out, we need to make sure we always control their blade deeply enough that we have time to react if they try to pull away. This place is the tip-point or deeper.
2. To deal with disengaging, we need to make sure that, in order to disengage, their tip has to move a very long distance, to allow us time to react appropriately. This means we need to either have contact with their blade, or our mid-point has to control one of the points of their blade.
3. To deal with yielding around, we need to make sure that we control either a point far enough toward their hilt that their yield can't hinge appropriately, like the mid-point, or a point close enough to the tip that they can't come on-line, like the tip-point.
4. To deal with opposition, we need contact with their blade so we can react in time, or we need our hilt-point to control their mid-point.
5. To deal with attacks to slowness, our hilt-point needs to control their tip point or their hilt point, but not both, unless we also control their hilt point. This last scenario would allow us to void if they try to take advantage of slowness of our hilt.

All of these only matter when we get close enough that our opponent can, with a small lunge, strike us.

This is all doable and doesn't conflict with itself. In general, it means that we want contact with their blade, and we want to have one of the points of our blade intersecting the line connecting one of the points of their blade to us.

In practice, this means that as long as one of the key points is touching one of the key points of their blade, we're safe enough.

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ANATOMY OF ATTACK, Part 4

At this point, the game becomes making your opponent fail. We do this with compound attacks and feints. The easiest way to do this is to feint to one side of your opponent's blade, then disengage and attack using one or more of the above principles, to one of the key points of their sword.

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ANATOMY OF DEFENSE, Part 4

At this point, the game becomes not allowing them to do this. Their attacks create weaknesses in their form, depending on what way they attack. These weaknesses can be taken advantage of in the following ways.

1. Pulling out gives you free reign to approach.
2. Disengaging allows you to choose where on their blade the re-engage happens.
3. Yielding around allows you to win opposition and approach.
4. Opposition means that they need to approach or they will lose.
5. Attacks to slowness can be either voided or cleared with a wide sweep of your sword, allowing you to win opposition.

Beyond this, it's your game to win.

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A brief interlude.

Pre-Review Review

Short little post about specifics for what I want to work on, fencing tonight.

Since my shoulder is still a barely-perceptible bit unhappy, I'm going to continue avoiding fighting Spanish for another week or two. This means that this week, I get to work on my Italianesque game more!

The past few practices, I've focused on a few things:

-Thrusting through either the hilt, the middle, or in complete absence of their sword, and alternating sides.
-Forward / Middle / Back counter-guards to deal with my opponent's guards, with Old Lupold Guard thrown in there when my opponent successfully counterguards against Forward without creating the opening that would be exploitable by Back.
-Creating openings and making them larger.
-Acting at the exact correct time and not *before*, which leads to slowness and being parried, or *after*, which leads to being barred out of my attack.

Moving forward, I need to maintain those things while working on some selection of the following few things:

-Practicing entering and maintaining the "no-mind" state, in which verbal thought doesn't exist. Only the awareness of how things are "right now", and what to do moving forward.
-If someone resets for the next bout inside of my measure, attacking before they're fully in-guard, rather than allowing them to gain illegitimate advantage by closing measure before the bout even begins.
-Economy of motion, when applicable.
-Continuing to figure out which things can and which things cannot be applied from Destreza into my Italianesque game, and why. (Sword length, etc.)

Review???

I need to review my blog.

My shoulder has been a touch unhappy with me when I fight Spanish, lately. This is likely because I drilled too much a few weekends ago. Fortunately, fighting Italian doesn't seem to bother it at all, so it appears that I'm taking a break from Spanish.

As well, I've been so focused on my shorter-rapier game that I've lost sight, somewhat, of how to correctly fight with my "standard" load-out.

I fought seriously with my 45-inch rapier and my dagger for the first time in a long while, at that regional. It was good, but I kept starting off sets of passes doing badly, then remembering little bits of guiding principles over the course of passes which improved my game.

Such principles included:

-Use counter-guards. Rock < Paper < Scissors exists, and it is defined in terms of dagger position. Sword-forward-dagger-back is paper < Dagger-middle-sword-middle is scissors < dagger-forward-sword-back is rock.

-The primary driving goal should be to "create openings", rather than to try to figure out how to strike my opponent. This is easiest to apply against less-skilled fencers. The more skilled a fencer is, the smaller the "openings" one can create, to the point that an "opening" might just be the ability to create a slightly larger and larger "opening", and so forth.

-Tip-middle-hilt principle of sword-contact. Which is to say - usually the safest way to engage with a sword is by switching sides that one engages with. So if I engage with the false edge of their tip, I should engage with the true edge of the middle of their blade, and then with the false edge next to the hilt. This confuses opponents, and all of those positions are good for both offense and attack. As well, it creates more obvious "lines" to use to attack through an opponent's sword. In general, the middle of the sword or the hilt are the only safe places to attack through, for various reasons.

-Old-style off-line fighting is very nice, if my opponent doesn't wish to make contact with my blade. It's a different way of doing Scissors, which relies on misdirection more than my dagger to do things. Sweep / tap / through is still a good strategy. However, if they make contact with my blade, my ability to deceive is greatly reduced.

In all, I'm pretty happy with how my fencing was. I just need to get the essentials back into my working memory, and perhaps make some sort of mnemonic phrase to remind myself of the essentials.

Work, Work, Thibault, Blade Length

It has been a while since I've word-vomited into this blog. Let's fix that, shall we?

I really want to work on my 37-inch-rapier game. It's a pet peeve of mine, that so many of the "high-level" rapier fighters use long reach. I want to prove that my skill and success aren't solely due to the fact that I use long reach. And since I can't size-down my body parts without drastic surgical intervention, I can only change my weapon.

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Over the past while, I've been working on my Thibault-with-a-tip-heavy-37-inch-rapier. It's an elegant art that forces me to slow down. The requirements for technique execution are very high, for Thibault. This is because there are a number of elegant "shortcuts", when compared to standard Destreza. These shortcuts are necessary, because using the Thibault grip it is disadvantageous to do certain standard Destreza actions.

Unfortunately, my work has led me to believe that there are a very small list of situations for which the length of blade specified by Thibault is necessary, rather than just suggested. I would use a 41-inch or 42-inch rapier, if I were being completely true to Thibault's text.

There are two principles that apply to this situation.

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The first principle is that, if your opponent's sword is off-line and you are entering their lunge measure, you should use your quillons to defend against its most obvious line of ingress.

The easiest way to do this, if your opponent's sword is significantly off-line and their elbow is straight, is to extend your arm toward your opponent's blade and lightly touch it, such that one edge of your blade is touching their blade. This should mean your quillons are as "wide" as they can be, from the perspective of their blade. Rotating your blade at all should make them less "wide". So if your opponent's blade is down very low, your quillons would be horizontal. If their blade is far to the left or right, your quillons would be vertical. Note that the important part here is the quillon orientation, not the blade contact. You can do this with your blade in a completely different direction, so long as your quillons are still forming a shield.

The second principle is that, if your opponent's sword is "cocked back" in any fashion, the appropriate response is to constrain their blade by making contact with it, and if it is close to the diameter, pushing it away from the diameter.

So if your opponent has their elbow straight and their sword low, you would just make contact with it, making note to apply the first principle as well. If their sword is "cocked back" by bending their elbow, but it's still pointing at your chest, you want to push against a weak part of their blade with the middle of your blade. This will make the area that they can attack through smaller, thus meaning you can respond to all of their possible single-tempo counter-actions with one action, rather than needing to guess and hope you guess correctly.

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The particular stance that I have trouble with is one in which my opponent, who is an inch or two taller than me and is using a 42-inch rapier, has their elbow somewhat-but-not-completely straight, and their rapier in front of and just above their right hip. Their tip is then raised high - just a bit above the line connecting our shoulders. In this particular example, he was using a dagger as well, which further complicated matters.

As far as I can tell, Thibault's counter here is to essentially perform a lunge with your quillons horizontal, which lowers your head and raises your quillons while stabbing them at about shoulder height. If their tip is lower, then you engage in the action I outlined above in the second principle - carrying their tip off-line and then taking advantage of the restricted movement there.

The problem comes when I have a sword that is slightly too short. I can't reach their blade at the distance which they can disengage and stab me literally anywhere, by using a wrist-centered disengage. Their dagger adds to their defense, but the dagger isn't the problem. Even without the dagger, it is likely that this would end in a double-kill, which is Bad and Wrong according to the moral precepts of Destreza.

If I were shorter and their stance were exactly the same, I would be able to advance in and safely perform the lunge with opposition through their blade. In order to create the same difficulty, they would need to lower their tip from their wrist, which would mean that it's farther out and thus I would be able to reach it in order to move it from the diameter line.

If their blade were longer, it would reach farther out and I could move it more easily.

If their blade were shorter, they wouldn't be able to attack me from the same range and I could get better opposition on their blade before worrying about being attacked.

If my blade were exactly right, I could do one of the actions I want to do.

If my blade were longer than correct, they would be able to apply opposition to my sword more effectively than I can apply it to theirs, earlier.

It's a difficult situation.

...and in the process of writing this up, I might have come up with a solution?

I can simulate shortness by leaning forward at my hips. This lowers my head and reduces the vertical target area available to my opponent. This is similar to Fabris's stances, and perhaps a thing I could do to fix my Thibault. It would over-balance me forward some, and I would need to work with that to see if that would cause problems. I could likely compensate for it with my footwork.

Hm.

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(Next section requires some reference to this post, because that language is what I use to refer to my interpretation of the foundations of True Destreza. In particular, the part in which I define what "High Clockwise" or "Left Counter-Clockwise" means in terms of stance.)

This same situation, in my more-standard-Destreza, is much easier to deal with because of the grip I have on my sword. Against that position, I push slightly against their sword using principles similar to the above two, then transition to either a shallow High CW or a shallow Left CCW position. The High CW position, though awkward, would completely refuse a disengage and lead into a very predictable true-edge left-to-right cut. The Left CCW position could be transitioned easily into the counter-clockwise blade spiral, a moulinet-type movement of conclusion, or a safe thrust to the face if they let you get too close without responding.

This is far more possible to do, because in this case you are more able to bring opposition to bear from your hand position. The standard Destreza grip involves the middle finger hooked around the cross, which allows for strong true-edge opposition from a very shallow angle of gain. It might be possible to do this with the Thibault grip, but I don't think that it would transition to the maneuvers that flow from this play very effectively. The lean I talk about above might be an effective technique, but more likely the correct choice would be to use a weapon suited to my height.

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So, that's what I've been working on. I guess I can probably do what I want to using a modified Thibault, but it's possible that using a correct-length weapon would make other things easier in ways that I haven't figured out yet.

For more traditional Destreza, a shorter weapon is completely appropriate. This makes my life easier, and means I don't have to compensate in the same ways. It does mean I don't have quite the same degree of reference material that Thibault provides. There have been a number of times where I have found inspiration or a correct maneuver in his manual, when I was stuck. There aren't really other Destreza manuals available in English that set things out in as thorough a way as Thibault.

SWORDS.

Practice Report, and Thibault-esque Position/Find/Gain/Attack

Fencing was good. I'm attempting to budget better, so I didn't grab any of the pre-fencing snacks that I normally would. This resulted in me having less energy during practice than I normally would. This is expected, and I'm trying to lose weight anyway, so it is fine. It does mean I am likely to derive less per-practice improvement, but again, I will survive it.

I did mostly Thibault things this practice. I spent time trying to do the Thibault-esque position/find/gain/attack to people, and it was interesting. I learned a number of things, which can be summed up into a single-ish point that I will mention later in this post.

LATER IS NOW.

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So, from working Thibault these few years, I've come to understand that his basic flow of action is very similar to the Italian flow of action. The Italian flow of action, as I understand it, goes something like this.

1. Position
1. This means to get in whatever guard or counter-guard your particular master specifies.
2. Find the blade
1. This means a small gain of their blade, to make it harder for them to hit you at very large range. "To make it harder" is somewhat ambiguous and squishy. Hard to define.
3. Gain the blade
1. This means to create a larger angle with your sword while moving forward a bit, to make it even harder for them to hit you. This is because you are likely progressing into or close to the range in which they can hit you with a leaning thrust, rather than a lunging or passing thrust. This is faster, so you need to make their attack take even longer.
4. Attack
1. This is mostly self-explanatory, but it's hard to say exactly what ways one can attack with assured safety from all positions. Usually this is, in Spanish terms, an attack by detachment.

In Thibault, the flowchart is similar. I have filled in many details using experience, which I give to you now. I use Italian terms when applicable, since "defensive actions at first instance" is very unwieldy. I realize I should be using different words here, but please bear with me because I view these as being very similar to the Italian things.

1. Step to the edge of measure
1. This has a very specific flow, described very early in the book. Swing your blade left and low as you step forward with your right foot, swing it right and usually low while stepping with the left foot, and then step with the right foot, ending in the intended position.
2. This step wouldn't exist, except that a number of plays later in the book involve altering the way that we do this, especially the blade positioning when stepping with the left foot.
2. Position
1. This is more explicit than the Italian way of things. Thibault specifies a number of counter-guards based on the position of your opponent's sword. The idea is to get to a place where you can step into the next bit.
2. Generally, this is where you get to a position where your blade is parallel to their blade and below it.
3. Find the blade
1. Thibault's plates imply that you want to get to a place in which you will be defended from a direct thrust by your quillons. Specifically by your quillons. Your blade can be used to position their blade to reduce the area they can strike, but the direct attack should be defended against using your quillons.
2. In general, you want to try to position your quillons as close to perpendicular to the line drawn by their blade from their hilt to infinity as possible.
3. Your blade should limit where they can go. Your quillons should defend against their direct attacks.
4. Gain the blade
1. Here, we need to transition to using our blade to defend ourselves. We want to transition from quillons-perpendicular-to-their-blade to blade-perpendicular-to-their-blade. This is because we're entering a closer measure, which requires wider defense.
2. This is usually done because an opponent either starts in a guard that doesn't allow one to find the blade, or they transition to such.
5. Attack
1. In general, we need to be able to place their blade in a position that allows us to attack them with our blade, quillons, or off-hand in a perpendicular position to defend us against their counter-attack, or their blade in a position that doesn't allow them to counter-attack.

That is the basics. However, to do well and to win, you need to know how to cut corners and when one can transition early, or entirely ignore steps.

Thibault's first play in his book shows only positioning, finding the blade, and attacking, because that's all that is needed against a passive opponent in the Destreza right-angle stance. Positioning is barely touched on because you adopt the "default" position which is described in detail previously. Stepping into measure isn't mentioned at all for the same reason. Gaining the blade simply doesn't happen because it isn't necessary.

In searching for these places I can skip steps, I've started classifying Italians based roughly on how angled-up their blade is.

• If my opponent is almost parallel to the ground with their blade, with their arm mostly extended, I can probably do all of the steps here defined, though a little bit less of Finding than with a Diestro in the Right Angle posture.
• If my opponent is less parallel with the ground, perhaps between 25º and 55º from the ground and with a correspondingly lowered arm and hand, Finding becomes irrelevant. By the time I get into the range in which I can Find the blade, I am within their lunge range. I should skip finding, and go directly from Positioning into Gaining.
• If my opponent is even less parallel to the ground than that, I honestly am not sure what to do. Maybe I need to just skip directly from Positioning into attacking? This is how I lose repeatedly to Zohane.

 Two particular plays seem relevant. These are adapted to a standard Italian or Spanish grip, rather than Thibault's grip.

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Against one of the first type of Italians, I Find their blade from the inside line. My sword is in a hybrid terza-quarta such that my blade is above theirs, but my quillon still blocks the direct line of ingress. I feel a disengage and immediately lunge, bringing  my sword into a low quarta, such that my quillons block the most direct path of their sword, and the strong of my blade blocks the less direct path. This allows me to stab them, countering their disengage. I have thus skipped the "Gain" step and move directly into "Attack".

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Against the second type of Italian, I position myself such that my blade is parallel to theirs, sloped downwards toward the ground. If they are attempting to gain the inside line, I'm somewhere between terza and quarta. If they are attempting to gain the outside line, I'm somewhere between quarta and what would be called "quinta" by logical and rotational progression. In the German tradition, it would be the hand position of Left Ochs.

Regardless, my quillons are perpendicular to the line of their blade, and I am just barely hidden from some of the direct thrusts they could perform. While stepping forward, I flip my blade around theirs, such that my false edge cuts into the false edge of their blade, leading with my sword's tip and immediately transitioning to a position where my blade is perpendicular to their blade. Here, I have transitioned directly from "Position" into "Gain".

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ADDITIONAL EDITED-IN-AFTERWARDS PLAY

When someone has significantly more reach than their opponent, they can frequently ignore the "positioning" step, and go from a relaxed lack-of-a-guard into an immediate attack.

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All that said, I think the next evolution of my fencing is to look actively for places and times that allow me to skip or combine steps. As a minor aside, I believe that this sort of "combining steps" is what the Germans mean by their definition of the "master stroke", which combines offense and defense.

I would be interested to talk to people about places where they find that they are able to combine steps in similar ways.

The Capoferro Hierarchy seems like a similar thing, depending on distance and timing. I feel like there's a lot of stuff in there that could be mined for more information. As an example - if you and your opponent are at a somewhat long range and your opponent executes a very committed cavazione, it isn't super possible for them to abort to a duo-tempi parry-riposte, which is the traditional counter-counter. But if they are a bit less committed, they can execute the duo-tempi parry-riposte. It would be an interesting study to find where the borders of each counter and each counter-counter exist, to see when they are viable or not viable.

Anyhow. That's the end of this post. Your homework is to tell me about things you do in your fencing to "skip a step". Tell me the thing!