How to Fight Like a Lupold (Previously called: Last Pre-Pennsic Violence Practice)

The last practice before Pennsic was pretty good, despite the fact that I only fought a few people. For my own future reference, here are the tl;dr takeaways:

• That push-through thrust from the outside line only works if your sword is in a guard which is closer to Giganti than to Fabris. So, tip should be pointing toward their shoulder, and arm should be bent at the elbow.
• I managed to get the yield from inside to outside line to work!

OK, so now for the real entry.

While fighting people, I realized that there are several effective tactics which I was just not using. For example, I wasn't harassing my opponents by throwing shots to their arms and throwing feints, to feel out how they might parry. While I have been obsessively pursuing the "true" fight, I have sadly let this aspect of my game fall by the wayside a bit. To be fair - feints are only effective if my attacks are a true threat. And studying the "true" game allows me to understand better what is a true threat.

I also realized that, without really being cognizant of it, I had changed from pointing my tip to my opponent's right side to having my sword fully extended. This is very nice if my opponent just cedes the center line to me. But a lot of the time, my opponents would counter this very-extended Fabris-esque stance with two-tempo parry-ripostes, which were an effective counter. So I started integrating a slightly bent elbow and wrist into my game again, which has allowed me to perform much stronger "scoops" and "yields" from the outside line.

I just realized that I have not described "nail", "thrust in prima-seconda", "scoop", or "yield" in this instance of my blog! This can not stand! These definitions primarily exist for righty-on-righty-fighty. The principles work for the righty-on-lefty fight, but they are much different. This next bit exists mostly as a self-indulgent exercise in flowcharting, to think about my own fight.

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ACTIONS ON THE OUTSIDE LINE

Where the "appropriate stance" for the outside line is somewhat like Giganti's specified stance on the outside line, except that you don't care deeply if your opponent has their sword on top of yours.

These are the things I drill when I am at home by myself. In order of importance but not appearance, they are:

1. Thrust in prima-seconda
2. Yield
3. Scoop (Useful illustration of a general principle of distance)
4. Nail (to provoke situations in which one can yield or perform a thrust in prima-seconda)
5. Full-circle yield (only really useful against people who refuse their blade)

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Nail

The nail is a thrust taken when your opponent has their blade somewhat raised and to their right side, more pointing forward than upwards, such that they are presenting the weak of their blade to you. This is an effective technique when you are relatively far away from your opponent, as well. Their blade is not across their body - if their tip is past the center of their body, this technique becomes difficult if not inapplicable. Do the thrust in prima-seconda instead. If your opponent is in a somewhat central position in which they are presenting enough weak that you can just push through it with your false edge, just roll from your standard Giganti seconda-terza outside-line guard into a thrust in quarta. This is just a full-intent thrust. Hand positioning is important - you are using your hilt to protect your head and body, so your hilt should be about as high as your forehead. You can err your hilt positioning to the right if you have a dagger. Your thrust's target should be the head or throat. If your opponent has more reach than you, you should protect your body by leaning forward and using your dagger or hand to defend against this possibility.

• If your opponent performs a two-tempo parry-riposte, this should provide you ample time to perform a yield, described below.
• If your opponent can do a two-tempo parry-riposte while stepping forward you are somewhat but not completely boned. If you can perform a very tight yield, you can still succeed. You might need to defend yourself against their blade with your off-hand, but their line of ingress should be relatively obvious so dagger parries should be easy.
• If your opponent pushes just strong enough to prevent you from touching them, but does not pull their hilt and blade back into a two-tempo parry-riposte, you can take a diagonal offline step and roll your blade into a thrust in prima-seconda, because you are already pushing them farther off-line.
• If your opponent combines this with a step toward their right, you are somewhat but not completely boned. The response here should changed to be a yield. It needs to be tight, and you need to defend with your dagger, but their line of ingress should be relatively obvious.

Thrust in Prima-Seconda

This is a beautiful technique for not dying, but still killing your opponent. It requires you to be able to throw an appropriate, controlled thrust in prima, which is hard and requires you to drill it. This technique is initiated when your opponent has their blade relatively far to your right, across their body. This will usually be because you have pushed them there, because most people understand that it is bad to have their blade crossed across their body. Once you have your opponent in position, you take a left-diagonal passing step. You roll into prima-seconda, and extend your arm. You might need to extend your tip above your opponent's shoulder and then rotate your wrist to bring your tip on-line, if your opponent's sword is angled more forward than upward. If possible, it is nice to grab your opponent's blade between your blade and your front quillon by rotating toward prima from seconda.

• If your opponent raises their sword or thrusts in such a way that they push your sword away, keep walking in a diagonal line and use your hilt to control their blade and defend yourself. It is extremely unlikely that they will be able to launch an effective reprisal until you leave measure.
• I wonder if disengaging around the outside of your hilt such that your blade goes from being above their blade to below their blade in prima would be effective? It's a thing to try.
• If your opponent does a very hard two-tempo parry to the outside, you can change your step direction from diagonal left to diagonal right and turn this into a yield. It will take longer, because your true edge is touching their blade, but it isn't a bad choice.
• This is also a useful technique for the "riposte" part of a two-tempo parry-riposte.

Scoop

A "scoop" begins with my sword sitting in terza on the outside line. This works if my opponent is in a sword-low stance, so long as their sword is not refused. The movement begins with a false-edge upward push on someone's sword, followed by a left diagonal passing step as I transfer into performing a rightwards push with my blade. As I push right, I transfer into performing the thrust in prima-seconda as described above, with the following exception. My tip ends in their flank or sternum, because the thrust begins lower. This is intentionally a weak action, the purpose for which I will flowchart out. Positioning is extremely important for this technique, as you need to be far enough that your opponent can't strike you until you have finished pushing their tip across your body.

• If your opponent responds early by holding their sword pointing downwards far enough that you cannot scoop it, you need to respond with a full-circle yield, described below.
• If your opponent responds early by holding their sword pointing outwards, you need to respond with a yield, described below.
• If your opponent responds by throwing a thrust as their tip crosses past your body, you need to perform a yield and probably defend with your dagger.
• If your opponent responds by throwing a thrust as their tip passes your body, respond as outlined in the thrust in prima-seconda.

Yield

A yield is a form of disengage which begins by raising and leading the action with your hilt. The purpose of this is to establish your defense before you establish a new offensive threat by actually disengaging your blade. Generally, a yield is a second-intention action, though it can be performed as a first-intention action if your opponent's blade is far enough to your left and either straight toward you or offline. Your tip should end in their gut or flank.

The action is performed when your opponent's blade is on top of yours, and their true edge is touching your false edge. You twitch your blade to the left at your wrist, so that you can be sure to clear their quillons. Then you raise your hilt and drop your tip, taking either a lunge forward and to the right, or an inquartata-step (back foot moves behind front foot, ending in front of the front foot). As you move slightly to the right, your blade should clear under theirs, while still leaving your hilt in such a position that it is still defending you. This probably means your hand will be somewhat to your left, but not always. You will ideally strike your opponent while your hilt is higher than your tip.

• If your opponent holds their blade low, holds it angled far upwards, or is far away, you might need to flick your wrist upwards, in order to put your tip above your hilt. This will let you defend against those positions, and also slightly extend your range. This will mean your tip should end in their sternum or solar plexus.
• If you need additional power for this, you can roll over your hand instead of flicking your wrist. This will turn it into a half-cone-shaped cut leading with your false edge. This is basically the full-circle yield, outlined below, but used in a different place.
• If your opponent successfully defends against this, it is possible to do things here, but I have not thoroughly flowcharted it. Usually I just try to exit measure, or if my opponent is confused I take an additional step and perform a lunge with my dagger.
• If your opponent defends by moving backwards, you can lunge toward them if you performed the inquartata-step.

Full-Circle Yield

The full-circle yield is a form of yield with relatively limited application. Its main use is when your opponent's sword is too low or has moved such that it is pointing to your right, after you begin a yield. It is also useful against opponents fighting long case who keep their swords close to each other, in that you perform a full-circle yield around both blades, then push into their swords with your hilt to prevent reprisal.

This technique is performed by continuing the upward motion of your hilt, then rotating your hand and wrist in a counter-clockwise direction. There are two useful places you can go with this - either you can push directly against their blade with your hilt, or if you have caught yourself early enough, you can change your step to the right into a passing step to the left. In that case, you would try to place their blade in such a location that their obvious line toward you must pass through your strong edge. At the end of this technique, you will probably be leaning very far forward. Your tip should touch them in the belly or sternum.

• If you manage to get them onto your strong edge, you can perform actions similar to the thrust in prima-seconda. It is very possible that in order to do this, you will not complete the rotation, and will end your motion in terza, then slide up their blade to strike them in the belly or sternum.
• If your opponent returns their blade to the center line, you can easily flow this into the thrust in prima-seconda, by continuing your rotation through seconda and raising your hilt. And then if they push your blade to their outside line, you can yield again and this becomes a set of actions that can eternally flow into each other.

In general, on the outside line, when your opponent is to the center you use the nail, lunging yield, or scoop. If their right flank is somewhat exposed (they are faced somewhere to your left, instead of directly toward you) you use the thrust in prima-seconda, and if their left flank is somewhat exposed you either use the yield or scoop. (There is a blog post about positioning somewhere in here.)

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So anyhow. For the rest of practice, I did some other cool things. I spent some time telling people how I think they should go about killing me. I also performed a couple of really cool single-tempo defense/attacks in the tradition of Viedma's line in cross and weak below strong, assuming I'm interpreting his text correctly-ish. This is something I need to explore and map out as thoroughly in my head as the above techniques.

I also finally figured out the properties of a technique that I had come up with as the foil to the yield. A standard yield moves from the outside line into the inside line - This version of the yield moves from the inside line to the outside line. I will outline it below. It's interesting, but not necessarily useful. 

I also realized that the motion for my tip in a yield in either direction is sort of like an angle-bracket (< >) with either a shorter top or bottom branch. The yield goes left slightly, then right quite a bit. This allows me to perform crisper, prettier yields. This also allows me to generalize and make disengages to the side, from below to above or vice versa, part of my game. Usually below-to-above and then a pushing-down thrust in terza is most useful thus far, but I have not formalized these techniques enough to drill them.

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Yield from Inside to Outside

This technique is useful only when your opponent's sword is on top of yours, and their body is pointing pretty far to your right. Additionally, their sword needs to be somewhat extended tip-out. This technique is performed by twitching your wrist such that your tip dances to the right a bit, then rolling from whatever guard you are in, through to prima. Raise your hilt such that your tip drops as this happens, and you are shielded by your hilt and the strong of your blade from reprisal. You should also take a diagonal passing step to the left while you do this, and exit measure so that you can think very hard about what you and your opponent did to get into that position. The only place that your tip will hit for this is their flank under their arm. You will need to bend your wrist somewhat to make your tip touch them, instead of slapping their belly with your flat.

• If they cut downwards hard in order to parry your blade, you can disengage around to their outside line and hit them with a real technique like a thrust in terza.
• This technique isn't actually that bad - it's useful against people who dive in to take your sword from the inside line, but don't go in far enough. In that case though, you will probably touch their leg rather than their body.

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I am still feeling out and firming up my theoretical flowchart for the actions I believe to be safest on the inside line. I think that perhaps the blade-extended Fabris-esque posture with very direct actions is good for the inside line? But in general I vastly prefer the outside line, and would tend to want to just disengage around their hilt on the outside and thrust in terza instead of dealing with the inside line and all of its double-kills.

Or maybe thrust in seconda from the inside line. Yeah, thrust in seconda is pretty cool.

Learning and Processing New Things

Over the past couple of weeks, my fencing has felt "off". I have been going through a cycle of learning how to deal with particular situations better, and what situations my current style didn't work very well in.

Part of this is that people have adjusted to my newer strategies. You know - that thing which happens when you evangelize the new strategy you're using. So now that my new strategy is out there and part of the understood meta-game, it doesn't work nearly as well. This is sad, but it is not unexpected.

It is a useful exercise to go through the reasons I have been playing a blade-extended game, to understand why I am changing it. Here I shall outline my standard stance, and then the other two I have been using. They exist on a kind of a continuum, from blade-extended through Fabris 60, into the "back" stance. They could also be called "Front", "Mid", and "Back" stances, due to the location of my sword in the stance.

Blade-Extended Stance

The dude to the left, on the right page is the one you should look at for this.

I fight with my arm fully extended because my sword will need to go there anyway. It is the best way to make it hard for my opponent to gain good opposition on my blade, since my strong will be farther forward than their strong. As well, my blade will have to pass through that space anyway. A skilled opponent will be able to parry my full-intent lunge on reaction, so giving additional time for them to do this won't change anything.

The result is that my "far" stance can gain opposition on a blade easily, if my opponent has worse opposition than I do. As well, I have faith that my disengages are stronger than my opponent's disengages in that stance, because I hinge my disengages around the point of balance of my blade, rather than my hand or wrist. (For more details, see Guy Windsor's Capo Ferro-based text.)

This stance has trouble when my opponent does one of two things:

• Refuses blade contact
• This is generally only a problem with they have either more range or aggressive blade opposition. (Ogedei's "zone blocking")
• Uses their dagger to get out of opposition
• So, according to Meyer, there are a few ways you can parry things. One method is to use your blade solely for offense and your dagger solely for defense. (Is that really canonically Meyer? Note to self, re-read that part of his manual.) When doing this, if I have good outside-line opposition on their sword, they will be able to lever through with their dagger and then use the line they have created to pool-cue me with their sword.
• I could respond to this by switching my blade from an attack to a zone-block and taking their hand with my dagger.

Some of these things are surmountable. But my mind has trouble staying in one place for a long time, so I wanted easier, more reliable solutions. These are the solutions I came up with.

Fabris Plate 60

Either dude in the left page works for this.

I actually came upon this stance by parallel construction. I wanted a place in which I could manipulate their sword, reinforce with my dagger, and still throw strong feinting shots. I tend to keep my dagger a bit lower than pictured, so that my head is bait. This is probably Bad Fencing, but it works a surprising amount of the time.

This stance allows me to overcome dagger-based opposition by putting my own dagger into the mix. Alternately, it allows me to initiate a motion with my dagger and cut over my dagger with my sword. It's pretty great.

It is of note that this stance allows for me to drop my dagger toward their sword, if they're gunslinging. Then, terrible things happen to them, because all of their actions are so large.

"Back" Stance

Reprinting this picture. The dudes to the left are the closest historical basis I've found for this yet, though it's sort of like being in Vom Tag with your dagger extended.

This stance is funny. In the picture above, rotate either fencer such that their dagger and left foot are pointed toward their opponent's right hand. The idea of this stance is to use the dagger primarily for defense, and then to do tricky cutting things in order to land a thrust. This can include cutting through their blade, if their left-hand blade is mostly parallel to the ground.

This is the most effective stance I have yet found for fighting against longer-range-than-me blade-refused case. I stole it from a short fighter who has used it to great effect.

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Those are my ways to stand, as of now. They will probably last me through Pennsic, and then I will start work on Thibault or something like that. I will likely outline some likely spitballed-and-flowcharted actions for these stances, but for the moment this is all I've got.

(Images are from here: http://www.faegtekunstensvenner.net/SalvatoreFabris/Index.htm)

Circular Cuts

Instead of talking about the rage-inducing discussions about the Confederate Flag on the internet in which there are already enough people participating and I'd just be lost as extra noise, I'm going to talk about fencing.

I really need to work on my circular cuts. For those who don't know, a circular cut is a type of cut centered on the wrist, which involves your blade moving in a full circular disc around your hand. It's really easy to generate a lot of force quickly with a properly-executed circular cut. In the Italian tradition, they are sometimes referred to as a "moulinet". In the Spanish tradition, the "tajo" and "reves" are types of circular cut.

In the type of fencing I do, a circular cut can be a super effective way to escape really bad positions. Unfortunately, it's hard to turn that circular cut into a thrust or cut that isn't too hard. So I need to work on my circular cuts, and my positioning with them such that I have the extra time needed to slow them down at the end of the motion.

Maybe striking specifically at the blade would be a good use for a circular cut, as well. Hmm.

Things to work on for next practice:

• Positioning with moulinets
• Engaging and disengaging from "I will only act in ways which assure me victory" mode

Anyone have any suggestions for executing moulinets properly in SCA rapier?

Touch, Small Angle, Large Angle, Renegotiate

In whatever blend of Spanish and Italian fencing I use, there is a very definite flow to fights. In strict Italian forms it is very different and speaks in far more specific terms having to do with thrusting distance at a lunge, and thrusting distance at a lean. In strict Spanish forms, distance has more to do with where you can cut a person, because let's be honest - that feels super satisfying. As well, the approaching blade in a cut can parry.

My own style of combat has its own flow, which I will recount for you today. It is based on what action is necessary for defense. This entry is partially me sorting out whats and whys of my style, so please do bear with me.

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Zone of Contact - The area between 1/2 and 3/4 of the way down the blade, closer to the tip than to the hilt. This is the area in which you can perform productive pushes and force their blade to give. This is also deep enough that a disengage is an action at Small Angle range, and difficult at best in Large Angle range.

Strong of the Blade - For our purposes here, this is just defined as the first half of your blade. It's the part that you can do relatively sure parries with.

Angle - The exact numbers for angles here are a bit fuzzy. Mostly, where I say "45˚ angle", that's really just an angle between 0˚ and 90˚ that I haven't gathered experimental data for. It's probably something like 45˚ in reality, but it could be slightly different.

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Touch range is the range at which your blades touch. It's where you can first perform actions on your opponent's blade, assuming you are both fully extended. It continues to about where your tips can touch the center of each other's blades. Neither of you can touch each other in a single-tempo lunge, though if your opponent takes one step forward you might be able to single-tempo lunge to touch them. It's pretty cool.

The point of this distance is to flirt around with contact and gain advantages in the next range. An advantage is here defined as anything that lets you predict or close off options from your opponent. The most obvious option you need to remove is the single-tempo lunge. Everything else is just static that you try to use to mess with your opponent.

Small Angle is the range at which you can first make a small angle with your opponent's sword. This angle should be made somewhere on the Zone of Contact, probably with your sword's Zone of Contact as well. This range ends about where you can touch your hilt to halfway down your opponent's blade, if your arms were both extended.

This distance is the first point at which you or your opponent can make a single-tempo lunge (or other attack) and have a reasonable chance of touching your opponent, if they don't parry.

The point of this distance is to defend yourself while setting yourself up for the Large Angle. Pay keen attention in this range - if your opponent is distracted, this is the range at which you can move forward and cleanly defend yourself while touching your tip to your opponent. A strong play here is to make an angle between 0˚ and 45˚ with your opponent's blade, slowly moving forward.

Large Angle is the range at which it is possible to place your sword on the other person's sword at the Zone of Contact at a 90˚ angle, if both of your arms are extended. This range ends where your hilt is buried in their chest. This is also the range at which you should be able to first lean and stab your opponent with an extension and no foot movement.

You should ideally place a stronger part of your blade on their Zone of Contact at this point. Otherwise, you need to block every single place they can move their sword to touch you in one tempo with the Strong of your Blade, such that their blade will contact yours with their Zone of Contact.

If someone is not being stabbed here, then there is a problem. The point of this distance should be to use the angles and expectations that you have already set up to put their sword in a place where they can't hit you, but you can hit them. Generally at this range your options are very restricted. It is hard to gain a line if you don't already have one.

If you can, you should have contact with their blade at a 45˚ to 90˚ angle. If there is nowhere that you can use your sword to describe a line connecting the Zone of Contact to their body, then you should probably either retreat or renegotiate.

In case it wasn't obvious, the point of this distance is to stab your opponent.

Renegotiate is less of a distance and more of an action. It is something you can do in the Large Angle range to change their options such that you can injure them, but they cannot injure you. This includes hooking their sword with your cane, stabbing them with your dagger, or performing a tajo or reves.

The basic way of doing this is to establish a strong defense against their large angle, if they have one. Then, you perform some action that establishes a new line of threat.

If you push your hilt really hard against their sword and then thrust with the dagger, that establishes a defense (push) and an attack on a new line (dagger).

If you perform a tajo, you place your hilt in the way of their immediate attack (defense), then circle your blade around your head such that your blade goes from one side of their body to the other (attack on a new line).

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That is how the system works, at least for today. Some fighters ignore some of these steps, forcing the fight to remain in certain places. It works for them. But these are the steps which matter for me.

Derping Thursday

I did a bit of fencing on Thursday. This is better than the amount I had expected to do, which was none. This is just a quick "reporting on what happened and what I need to keep in mind for the future" post.

Reverse-foot, blade-extended posture doesn't really foot. In order to get the explosive passing step/lunge that I'm looking for, I really need to put my body's weight on my back foot, instead of my front foot. This allows me to kick off from the back foot, shift my weight to my front foot, then fall forward into a lunge with my previously-back foot. During that last shift of weight I can alter my approach by about 45 degrees - not a huge amount.

My shoulder has been hurting a bit when I angle it down into a Giganti-ish guard with a sword in it. It doesn't get more intense when I throw a thrust from a gunslinger type stance though, so I think that the tendon is just irritated. I bumped into a doorframe in about that place about a week and a half ago, and it has been bothering me since before last Monday, so it's probably a combination injury/overuse thing. I probably am also not using correct form. If I pull my scapulae tight,I load two shoulder tendons instead of one, so that might be a good plan.

Additionally, I've been experimenting with some gunslinger type stance stuff, because why not. That tends to load the tendon harder, and if I do a passing step then it loads the tendon even more. I'll try to rest it, take some ibuprofen, and tone down the amount I fence at practice for a bit. Maybe I'll try to teach? Who knows.

My intensity was pretty good, but could always be better.

I fought a bunch of people. One thing of note is that I didn't get very many chances to do straight-up push-through opposition from the outside. People kept defending themselves well, and also frequently responded well to the yield around. They also fought more defensively, so I should probably be hand-sniping more when that happens.

I totally blanked on how to fight against someone who is way taller than me. I forgot to do the good ol' destreza opposition-from-above thing. Ah well, life goes on.

For next practice, I should keep my already-known strategies better in mind. I should also think about what to do if someone is waiting to pick out their time to approach,

Things to Work on for Next Practice

The things I need to work on for next practice include:

• Put reverse-foot blade-extended posture into muscle memory.
• Are there any times in which standard foot posture is better?
• Think about what other stances I need to practice, and what situations they are useful for.
• A-frame reverse-foot stance is nice for when I need to mess with measure and suppress a sword on their left side.
• What characteristics do various stances have?
• Maintain maximum intensity in first and last three fights.

That's it. Keep doing what I'm doing aside from that, and I should be good.

The Results of Last Entry

Today, I am just posting to confirm that I tried a couple of things inspired by yesterday's entry and they worked.

I practiced diving in and forcing a scrum against one of my opponents who historically gives me trouble. It worked, but probably mainly because it was unexpected. There are many different ways to take someone's blade with your sword, and eventually I started performing a yield but instead of striking to the center, pushing outwards or downwards with my hilt. It worked decently well, and is something to possibly incorporate into my game against buckler people.

Additionally, I started using passing step-lunges. The full action is kind of slow, but it covers quite a bit of ground to touch people when they think they are safe. The exact action starts in a standard fencing stance, but with feet reversed. Perform a passing step, but instead of landing in a square stance, land in a lunge step. It doesn't have to be a large lunge - just a lunge. It approaches like a straight-on lunge, so the defensive blade-work remains the same. I combined it with a sort of leaning-back A-frame sword and dagger posture, to hide my true measure even more.

Lastly, I practiced a dagger-forward posture. This is to make my parrying more effective when my opponent refuses good blade contact. That A-frame pose was one example - it seemed like it would be effective against case users who refuse blade contact. The dagger goes stretched toward the most obvious line, to make it so they have to perform a larger movement get around my parry, than if I kept my dagger back in its usual home next to my right wrist.

This might be a theme for a while - thinking of how they are denying my defensive options and how they are denying my offensive options, and what I can do to overcome this denial. And of course, the exact function of each type of positioning.