The Plan

For the record: the alcohol, enthusiastic newbies (Hi, Gawin!), and enthusiastic baronages DO mix, but sometimes in unpredictable ways.

For instance, they can (but have not in Windmasters) led to some scandals.  Or they can lead to dancing that should never happen.  Or they can result in somebody saying “You know, next year is Pennsic 40… what if we had 40 rapier fighters, 40 heavy fighters, and 40 A&S displays…”

When this idea failed to follow the hangover into oblivion, dissipated by the morning light, it then became The Plan, and has now been widely announced to the barony as The Plan.

And as the over-energetic baronial rapier… oh, wait, I got rid of those titles.  And yet… somehow I’ve decided I’m going to be the one to make 40 rapier fighters (yeah, nobody else has a say).

Now, as has been said by Fred Thompson onscreen, and as is one of my mantras, “Ruskie don’t take a dump without a plan”.  Don’t enter range without a plan.  Don’t try to double the most fencers we’ve ever had at Pennsic without a plan.  Not much of a plan, but…

How to get to 40
First, I have a list of the SCA names of the barony’s authorized fencers that Our Favorite MoL gave us.  It turns out there are more than 50 authorized rapier fighters in the barony.  50!  Of course, the hard part is getting more than a third of them to show up.  Plus, some people have moved/drifted away (especially with a military base), so after getting the list I removed the names I/the other marshals didn’t recognize, and that put us down at 50.  Then came the honest assessment:

As I count it, we have slightly less than 10 guaranteed to turn out for a large-ish Pennsic.  We have another 20 or so who have turned out at various Pennsics in the past, but no guarantees are made.  Dragging them out and dragging some of the non-Pennsic going fencers out will get us close, but not there.

Going over the list showed some interesting names.  Many, if not most, of the knights of our barony are authorized rapier (and I know some not appearing on the list have been authorized in the past).  We won’t get to 40 fencers without some of those being heavy crossovers, and my impression of the armored community is that the best way to get heavy crossovers is to get knights to crossover and bring their squires (the best way to get fencers to crossover to heavy involves booze.  Sometimes for the fencer, sometimes for an over-enthusiastic free scholar.  Hint hint, your Excellency).  Those rapier-authorized knights rarely, if ever, turn out for Pennsic battles.  That’s the next step, and that gets to be His Excellency’s problem.

And then there are the new-to-fencing fighters: Not heavy fighters, just loyal Windmasters.  Master Nikulai, Pelican and Our Favorite MoL, has picked up a rapier (and is picking up a rattan stick).  She Who Must be Obeyed is even giving it a try.

So, the numbers are doable.  But then what?  The Chinese “Human Wall” would be AWESOME to throw at the enemy, if a) the humans weren’t my friends and b) the enemy wouldn’t drop a pantload having 40 blue-tabbarded bastards run them down with little concern for parrying.  Gotta find something else.

How do you teach a non-fencer how to fight?

I’m pretty sure I’ve got this one covered.  But what is materially important to cover in the next 11 months to make a fighter an asset on the melee field?  Really, they won’t need to win a single one-on-one fight in their entire lives (unless they start liking fencing).  What can be filtered out of the curriculum, or deprioritized?  This is the first consideration.

How do you teach 10 non-fencers how to fight?

At practice the past few weeks, we’ve had upwards of 6 unauthorized fighters, with experience ranging from ready-to-authorize to “this is called a ‘sword’.  S W O R D.”  We’ve got a set of senior fencers to work with them in one-on-ones, but I’m also having to pull from my dusty strip-fencing memory the line drills I used to do.  So the second consideration, and one for which I am more than willing to accept advice, is: How do you train a shit-ton of new fencers simultaneously?

How to teach non-fencers to fight melee?

This has a couple of sub-questions:

For those newcomers who, as mentioned, are unlikely to ever need to win a one-on-one fight, do I bother teaching them to lunge and other nuances of tournament fighting?  Or should I focus on the point control and reaction time to gain handshots in a line fight?  Do I consider that they’ll still have to authorize (heh… Mass Melee Authorization… it could be so miserable but such a… no, no it could only be a CF).

For the cross-overs, do I start with the assumption they will their heaters as an off-hand device (unless a different intent is expressed), essentially as a misshapen rotella, and then work through how to fence and fight melee without switching into Old Castle?

Once they authorize, do we go with an all-melee practice?  And what fundamentals should I work on?  I’m thinking line fighting, exploiting numerical advantage, surviving when outnumbered?

And lastly, there was that idea from a month or two back: Unit attacks into tempo.  I wonder if I can train 40 newly minted fighters to do this.

Gawin here again to finish up the postings about the Pennsic melee battles.

Woods Battle:

After winning the town battle on Monday, Atlantia lined up with the East and allies Tuesday to take part in the Woods battle. The new woods are fairly thick with lots of poison ivy (that I still have) and is mostly uphill in all directions. There was a nice bowl just outside our rez point that meant we had to go uphill both ways. I don’t know what the other side looked like.

There were 3 flags laid out in the woods. From our rez point, the flag on the right was fairly close and across level ground. It was situated pretty evenly between rez points and the East chose to assault that flag. The center flag was allowed to be moved by the Mid (due to their loss at the town battle) and they moved it closer to their lines (obviously). The flag on the left was about a quarter mile from rez uphill and Atlantia’s Dragoons (or was it Gardiner’s?) were initially charged with taking that flag and defending it.

Letia and I were again placed under Raph’s command in the Southern Atlantia unit along with Thomas, Michael, Iain, and Greylond (sp?). We were initially to advance to an intersection in the road, but halfway up the hill we were redirected to help stop a Mid kingdom attack first towards the bottom of the hill, then near where I think the center flag was (I never actually saw it, but we were fighting in its general vicinity according to the map).

After repelling those attacks, we proceeded towards the intersection we were initially supposed to take, but again were redirected to attempt to close in behind the Mid’s attack on a group of Atlantian and Ansteorran fencers. That didn’t go so well. Our unit was surrounded and we all died.

So, we all wandered back to rez, returned from rez and reformed as best we could and again pushed up the road towards the middle flag. I was killed again during this, and went back to rez. After this point, I never really was alive at the same time as the rest of my unit, so I ended up reforming with whatever group of Atlantians was at rez at the moment and rejoining the fight for the center flag.

I think I ended up in the small rez group because pretty much every time I returned to the fight, I joined a group that was outnumbered something like 3-5:1 and it was never very pretty. For the most part we managed to delay them until the rest of Atlantia arrived, but I spent most of the fight wandering between rez and a vastly outnumbered line.

On one of these occasions, I returned from rez to find that the Mid had punched through and was coming down the road towards our rez (and our commander). I joined up with Dom and a few others and I spread off to the right into the woods to threaten their flank and divert a few (4 of them) to pay attention to me. It was then that my best NSTIWAP stories happened. There were 4 of us and about 15 of them and Dom was standing a little forward of the rest of us looking threatening when their commander shouted “Kill him, that’s an awful lot of points for one little guy!” I then got to watch as Dom killed all 4 of them in quick succession, starting with the commander.

I might have rezzed a few more times and returned to similarly outnumbered lines, but towards the end we had lost the far flag and I joined up with Mateu and Giacomo to head up to the top to retake the flag. When we got there we found the King of the Middle holding the flag with a group of fencers and we charged up, killed them all, retook the flag and set up defensive lines as our reinforcements arrived.

The mid tried to counter attack with like 5 minutes left and I went with a small group to defend the road behind the flag (I’m really forgetting who I was with). There were about 3 of us and 3 of them and a fairly wide open space and the fighting got scattered into a 1 on 1 situation. I killed my first guy and went to the aid of another of our fighters and during that fighting, his quillion got caught in the guard of the sword in my left hand. I then got yanked into a gut shot on his blade while stabbing him. The guy apologized for pulling me off balance onto his sword and told me not to take the shot, but the yanking on my left (sprained) wrist pretty much finished my day for me. With 3 minutes left I began the long walk back to rez. The battle ended soon after.
After the battle, I learned that our planned deployment was based on the assumption that the mid and allies would concentrate on the flag on the right (at the bottom of the hill guarded by the East), but instead they had sent only Aethelmearc for that flag while the rest of their army had gone to fight us for the middle and left flags, which left Atlantia and Ansteorra locally outnumbered 3:1. We still managed to win the battle 6 to 3, and we even had possession of the center flag a few times.

That evening I overheard an E. kingdom talking to a Drachenwald fencer about how they felt they outnumbered the mid in the woods battle.

Plateau Battle:

Since the plateau battle was pretty short, I figured I’ll add it to the end of this post. It lasted a whole 7 minutes, and since I was rushing back from the airport to make it in time, I apologize for what will be a very brief commentary on tactics. I spent most of the battle in the second or third rank and didn’t get to fight much.
Basically the plateau battle was a big rectangular field with two long rectangular boulders situated astride the center (basically a bridge battle with 3 bridges). We were lined up behind the boulder on the left, the rest of the East was to our right.
At lay on, the Mid attacked down the center channel to attack the East. Atlantia went left, cut down the opposition pretty quickly and moved around the other side of the boulder. For a moment, we had a clear path to the Mid’s backside, but Aethelmearc noticed and quickly moved to close the gap.

There were a bunch of Aethelmearc fencers with identical bucklers and I ended up facing off against them. I managed to kill 2 or 3 of them by hitting the bottom of the buckler and letting it move like a door, simultaneously blocking their sword and admitting mine. On one of these occasions, I died and walked off the field. The remaining fighters quickly sandwiched the Mid allies in the middle path and killed them all.

The battle was the last necessary war point to seal victory for the East, so we all gathered together for a thank-you speech from Their Majesties of the East. A bunch of us got together and ran the plateau battle again for fun with similar results.
After winning the pickup melee, Atlantia gathered in the kingdom field tent for a brief court. HRM asked the rapier army to escort her into court that evening, Thomas was given a shark’s tooth for his prowess in the 5-man melee tourney, the Dragoons and Gardiner’s co. were given the Vexillium Atlantia (whose name I didn’t know, so thanks to Michael for providing it), and the entire rapier army was granted an augmentation of arms.

The long lost Giganti book has returned from its walk about, with a signature on the inside front cover, and now I can finally resume where we left off before Pennsic.  Having addressed the use of the single sword against single sword, Giganti now moves to the dagger.  Starting with what to do when your opponent has one and you don’t.

How to Use Single Sword Against Sword and Dagger

In my personal experience, dagger tends to degrade an opponent’s form ever so slightly.  Center line and mezzo-tempo attacks open up that weren’t there in single sword.  Giganti illustrates some of the causes of that, a lesson both for those taking single against dagger, and dagger against single.

This illustration shows you… [see the title]

So what does it show?  The opponent has taken a large step forward, shoulder almost squared.  The defender has parried to the inside, and delivered a thrust through his opponent’s eyeball between sword and dagger.

Do not strike first

An attack into a prepared opponent with two weapons seems a great way to get yourself killed, so Giganti suggests against it.  Instead…

show a certain fear of him, so that he may attack you without taking the necessary precautions.

And then parry and kill him.  Lessons then: If carrying sword and dagger, don’t be tricked by your opponent acting scared, and attack with the same caution you would against an equally armed opponent.  For the defender, Giganti doesn’t go into the details of how to look scared.  This is the only clear instance of discussion of “mental combat” that I’ve found in Giganti, or in most of the manuals I’ve had the chance to read.  Giganti’s general plan of assume your guard, execute your single action when the opponent comes into measure, recover, and repeat, doesn’t really admit much room for  intimidation, distraction, and deception.  Yet here is an acknowledgment that it plays a role.

As he launches his attack, parry strongly with your forte and strike him in the face… his dagger will likely offer the opening

Kind of a weak assumption build your strategy on, so he goes on:

Be mindful not to direct your thrust to his chest… [he] will be very much emboldened, so he will likely come forward and attack you rather carelessly.

It still carries with it the hint of assuming your opponent’s behavior, and I’m not quite sure how much I can get behind his strategy here.  He mentions that if your opponent performs a cavazione you can just turn your hand and counter-attack, but it still all has an assumption that he’s not covering his face because he is incautious.  It’s just a little unsatisfactory.

How to Parry a Thrust to the Face in Sword and Dagger

Starts as usual: set yourself in guard, point your dagger at your opponent’s shoulder (“guarding the opponent’s sword”) Then:

If he attacks you with a thrust to the face, parry with the edge of the dagger and, in the same tempo, strike him with a thrust into the right armpit.

So, parry with the edge, and counter in the same tempo.  Not much difference from single sword.  The targeting is noteworthy, just about as far away from the opponent’s dagger as you can get and still land a lethal shot.  Adding the dagger adds a twist to the shallow or most lethal target options, and adds “least likely to get parried by dagger”.

Back to the “in the same tempo” statement: Most of the rapier fighters out there perform this with two tempi, parrying with the dagger and then lunging.  This opens the gate for an easy disengage during the attacker’s recovery which ends in a stop thrust on the lunging opponent.  Combining the dagger block and lunge into one motion shuts this down.  Of course, this also tends to result in your opponent still being mid-lunge as you lunge forward with your blade.  Hurts like a mother fucker, but only if you miss your parry.  Generally when this is successful, I apologize, and hope my opponent learns to parry next time.

To make this action succeed, you must not only understand the theory behind it, but also have the necessary agility to put theory into practice.

So, don’t just read the books, but work your ass off to be able to lunge instantly and recover quickly.  This is not just lip service.  This coming Thursday practice is going to hurt everybody before anybody even masks up.

Nuances:

Start from a strong guard… the left foot steadily supporting the wholte body
Be ready to quickly advance or retreat while keeping the point of your sword… at the opponent’s face
Lean back with your body rather than forward, to keep your eye lively and attentive

And he closes out the chapter with this advice:

Recover correctly… first withdraw your head and body followed by your leg.

and

Although he moves first, you strike first

Which is back to Giganti’s fundamental plan: Take a tempo and kill the bastard.

The objective in the town battle was to hold 3 flags that formed a line across the middle of a symmetric field between the two armies. The flag on our left was placed on a bridge extending from the castle entranceway with a path towards it on either side. The flag in the middle was located in a large rectangular building and the flag on the right was located in “the ravine” which was a narrow path with a broken wall separating it from the rest of the field.

Atlantia was charged with taking the flag on the right (in the ravine) leaving us with a limited front battle (with no DFB (Poor Giacomo)). The East and other allies were in the middle, and Gardner’s Company was assigned to take the flag on the bridge (far left).

At lay on, the mid quickly ran up and took the ravine and center flags, but I’m not sure what was going on at the bridge (it was the other side of the field from me). Atlantia advanced through the ravine 3 or 4 fighters deep and formed up in front of the army of Aethelmarc. The Mid was holding the middle, and from others’ accounts, Northshield was squaring off against Gardner’s.

As soon as we formed up, we were given orders to step (repeatedly) until we had pushed them all back/killed them and we took the flag. We advanced a bit further forward until we were about 15-20 feet in front of the flag and then we held that position most of the battle. I stayed alive for quite a while (partially because I was in the second rank initially), but eventually had to go rez.

As I returned from rez, I noticed a significant hole forming in the East’s line near our forward rally point and I ran up to fill a 6 person wide gap. I did a bit of arm waving to shock them into stopping their advance (which worked), but I think it also left them a bit dumbfounded as I quickly killed 6 or 7 of them in rapid succession. Reinforcements arrived during this process and also killed a lot of them, allowing the East’s line to push forward to the doorway for the middle building.

I died at some point during that advance, went back to rez and figured I’d rejoin Atlantia so I stopped to visit Dominyk who instructed me to “Go show them how an Atlantian takes a doorway!” So, I went over to that doorway, saw the Mid had a killing cup inside and that the East had one on the outside. Initially I just shouted that it was a rez battle and that they should charge the doorway. Two of them did and I followed, but then we died.

I returned from rez, and shouted the same instructions. Nobody really moved, so I kinda pushed 3 or 4 fighters into the doorway and followed them in. I think they got the picture because several people followed me into the doorway. I think I got 4 or 5 kills as I walked into the doorway (their blades were busy stabbing the guys who went first) and the rest of the group swarmed in and took the flag.

We then set about pushing them out of the building. I died being over-ambitious about clearing the other doorway too, so the line outside could form in front of that entrance and the entrance to the bridge, protecting them both.

I engaged in some line fighting and reinforcing the middle line before returning to Atlantian lines in the ravine where I again managed to be returning from rez as a giant hole was opened. Once again, I ran up, looked scary, they all stopped advancing and let me poke holes in them and I got a bunch of kills. I fought in that point in the line most of the rest of the battle.

At one point I managed to kill a Midrealm Bronze Ring who was organizing a pulse charge just before he called charge. That left the group who was about to charge pretty dumbfounded and we quickly swarmed them and wiped out the entire Aethelmarc line. I got within 15 feet of their forward rally point and wanted to go kill their commander, but Letia yelled at me to get back in line.

The rest of the battle was pretty uneventful. I ended up on the other side of the ravine line after a rez and then they decided to change the rules and suddenly there was no more rez. Aethelmarc launched another pulse charge with similar efficacy, but I was killed in the process. I walked off the field and watched as the rest of the army basically killed them all in short order.

Remember, if you can’t take the flag, change the rules

Overall, there were a lot of holds and I think several of them were due to dehydration/heat exhaustion. I think we even had one from someone collapsing before I even made it to the front rank (like in the first 5 min). In one case, a guy who was dehydrated/tired took a mask shot and blacked out. I heard he got a concussion from when he hit the ground. On the flip side, Atlantia didn’t lose a single fighter to dehydration/heat exhaustion in this battle, so perhaps the first step to fighting like Atlantians is hydration.

Since Wistric was unable to be at Pennsic this year, he asked me to write about the battles. First, a general overview:

The Windmasters’ group included Letia, Calli, and myself and we were placed under the command of Raphael as part of the southern regional unit. Our unit included the fighters from Black Diamond (Michael and Thomas) as well as Iain, Greylun (sp?), and for the town battle, the Triplette staff.

Descriptions and illustrations of the battlefield layouts can be found here: http://www.pennsicwar.org/penn39/MARTIAL/warpoints.html#town

Atlantia was allied with the East Kingdom this year, and on the Rapier field we were joined by Drachenwald, the West/An Tir/Caid (who all fought as one unit combined), and Ansteorra (even though they declared for Trimaris who declared for the Mid)
The town battle occurred Monday, the Woods battle occurred Tuesday, and The Plateau battle occurred Thursday. The descriptions of these battles are separate posts.

-Gawin

Practice was canceled this week, so there’s nothing to talk about, except…

Congratulations, Gawin, on winning the first tournament of Pennsic!

There will, eventually, be discourse upon the first sections of Giganti’s instructions on the use of dagger, however since my Giganti book is now at Pennsic, without me, on a quest for Tom Leoni’s signature, it will have to wait. And now that I think about it, I should have sent a dollar bill instead. I have a collection of obscure signatures on 1 dollar bills (The Capitol Steps, Ray Benson, Roger Ebert), and this would seem a wonderfully obscure addition. Hindsight, 20/20, eh.

What to do in its stead, because I know how many of you wait with watering mouths, rapt attention, unable to concentrate or even find satisfaction or a comfortable sitting position, until you read the mental effluvia that results from me having a keyboard late at night.

But first: I REALLY wish there was an armored river battle at Pennsic this year. Not that I’ll even be at Pennsic, but the possibility would exist that I could bribe/coerce a knight into shouting “Look at your hand, you have a sword. Look at my hand, I have a sword. I’m on a horse. HIYA!” Thus do all my great ideas usually result in other people doing shit for my entertainment.

Thursday

Practice this week was pretty spiff.  We had our quotae of provosts and free scholars, and a slew of scholars and even new comers.  In roughly the order I fought them:

Gawin

We warmed up with each other, which of course is a great way to have a bunch of wasted passes that don’t accomplish much.  Still, after the first five or ten, the joints and muscles are ready to move, so that’s when I started commenting on Gawin’s single greatest need for improvement: Lunging.  He needs to do it more, and needs to do it better.  The lad, and this has been mentioned to him, processes most input quickly and applies it so that we can throw lots of ideas at him and basically play a game of “See what sticks”.  The stubborness of his lunge, though, is verging on making him do drills all practice.  Not that I don’t need to do exactly the same thing myself.  Too many passes, not enough actual lunges/quick recoveries.  The quick recovery is the focus of lunge drill for, pretty much, this entire month for me.

Skyler

We had a new guy, 16 years old, show up at this practice.  He’s a friend of Adam (the less-feral fencer, nowadays), who’s fought Letia at the gym sparring sessions.  So I took him out for a quick checkup.  He’s got pretty extensive strip fencing experience, which was pretty funny to see.  Stuff that works on the strip just doesn’t work so much on the rapier field, and the difference in momentum of the weapon was putting him off.  On the other hand, his calibration was perfect, light and delicate, better than I can imagine mine ever being.  I hope he doesn’t change that at all.

He set up, and stayed, at “long measure” plus two steps back.  It would have taken a lunge and redouble to get to him.  He didn’t attack in all that much, so there were quite a few times where I didn’t bother really standing in a guard, being so far out that it was safe.  I’m not sure if he was just mimicking me, or if he had his own plan, but he usually also assumed a sword-lowered stance when I did that.

At one point I was watching a car pull in while we were fighting, and he “appelled” at me, causing me to tense and back up.  I think that gave him the idea that appelles were effective, as he kept doing them.  But they really just aren’t useful.  In foil, where motions really are fast enough, they do tend to work as a feint, but very rarely on their own in rapier (I occasionally… more than occasionally, do an appelle-lunge, but he was so far out of range there was nothing gained by him stomping his foot).  I think next time I fight him I shall simply sit down and wait for him to come in to range.

Mostly, and I’ve found this against a lot of strip fencers, his shots came in to my inside, right in to my left hand parry.  I was feeling actually pretty bad that all his shots were so easy to swat away.  I remember when I first heard about the SCA, and again this was when I was a sport fencer, it was in the context of “Yeah, they don’t know anything about tempo or anything, you can just disengage and kill them.”  And, maybe it was true only specifically for the part of the Outlands where I was hanging out, but I’m always a little wary of using cheeseball techniques on newcomers that might discourage them.  The top-end fencers in this kingdom have mastered all the skills of high-end sport fencers, at least those skills not dependent on the specific mechanics of the weapon (no, really, Dante, throw a flick.  It’s easy!).  I wonder how the person who expressed that opinion so many years ago would react fighting in an Ymir or Sapphire Joust.  Or maybe they just had their ass handed to them and were bitter and trying to mask it.

Jason

Letia’s boy toy is being a good lad, so far, and taking interest in her interests.  Which means: NEW FENCER!  Hopefully he’ll stick around.  He’s been to three or four practices, and is coming along nicely.  He’s one of those naturally athletic types, with a background in dance, so the first step for him isn’t getting him moving, but getting him moving LESS.  He exhausts himself with wasted motion, too much body twisting in his lunges and too much dancing around.

I was watching two of our armored fighters go at it, one of them at his first practice and throwing horribly inefficient shots, and thinking “That boy needs to drill a lot more before he armors up.”  And then, fighting Jason and noticing his inefficiency of motion, I thought about glass houses and whatnot.  So perhaps he and I shall drill ourselves stupid on Thursday.

Percy

Started the fight with a “tired old provosts” sob story, and I fell for it.  He then proceeded to bounce around like a three year old on a pogo stick after three shots of espresso.  My fight was a bit sloppy.  I’d blame having already fought three times, but balls to that.  I just need to train myself back into fighting form.  To that end I did three runs last week.  I’ll do three more this week.  Damn the heat, but also nuts to it.  That’s what warming up is for.

Letia

Took her 20-10 in our thirty passes.  She surprised the hell out of me a few times, especially in buckler she was able to setup in my range (usually a fatal mistake on her part) and deny me target area long enough for her to land a shot on me.  I shall have to be wary of that, and possibly find a different way to screw with her when we fight buckler (does a Fabris-esque guard lend itself to buckler?)

Adam

Adam and I fought at the end of the day.  I was pretty well bushed, so we went for just five passes.  I had watched him working with Jason earlier, and he’d been in really good form, not squared up at all as he usually is.  Normally, he fights almost in horse stance, and throws evil punching blows.  We are working to get rid of these, but bad habits are hard to kill.  Against Jason he looked like an honest-to-god fencer.  Against me he slightly squared up, and I said “Try fighting me from the same stance you had fighting Jason”.  And so he squared up more.  *sigh*  He’ll also be drilling with us.

Myself

As is always the case, my first opponent when fighting is me.  I think Adam’s reaction to me is something I see in myself: This opponent is less challenging, my form shall be balls awesome.  This opponent is more challenging, I shall sacrifice some of my control in favor of more aggressive fighting.  Horrifying idea, but it’s a subconscious switch.  I think it shows up most in my fights against Percy.  I can turn around immediately after wildly flailing at him and fight somebody else, never moving my sword more than a few inches to either side as I parry.  Hmmmm…

I need to work on my ability to maintain stance.  I need to work on my ability to lunge precisely and RECOVER immediately.

A small rant about the pharmaceutical industry

Lastly, I need to get a new preventive inhaler prescription.  I normally take Advair once a day to help relax my lungs, which otherwise are less than happy when severely stressed.  I also have Albuterol for specific asthma attacks.  Albuterol’s a generic, it’s dirt cheap.  But Advair is not, and it’s expensive.  The new job’s health benefits get real sucky when it comes to prescription meds: brand name meds have a co-pay of $140 from the local pharmacy, $100 if I get a three-month supply from the HMO’s contracting mail-order pharmacy.  All of which boils down to a great big “WTF?!?!”  No other health insurance I’ve ever been on has ever been that ridiculous (and it’s not like the premiums are stellar, either).  The Q’s, State of NC, the temp agency, all had brand name costs between 20-35 for about the same premium and deductible.

All of which reminds me that, yes, there are some consequences to having a pharmaceutical company fly me out to Stockholm, Sweden at the end of September to attend a few hours of a meeting, stay in a posh hotel, and hit up as many museums as I can.  The Vasa (17th century 64-gun ship), the Royal Armory, the Army Museum, I shall get my little historical jones sated.  And, that I will get a prescription for some generic preventive inhaler.  Because seriously?  Fuck that noise.  $140… jebus.

This week brought two more voids, with an interlude of sword positioning for advantage (and that skipped page about fighting aggressive fighters)

How to Parry Thrusts to the Chest with Single Sword

This illustration shows you a safe way to parry thrusts to your chest and to deliver a counterthrust… in different ways; some pass from out of measure, others start in measure and others yet get inside the measure.

He starts with the variations on the theme, without yet discussing the theme itself.  We’ll come back to this.

If you have a good notion of tempo and are proficient at parrying like my illustration teaches you…

So, how does the illustration teach?  All previous illustrations, and almost all discussions, show the eventual parry performed with the guard below your opponent’s.  This one, though, ends, with the guard above the opponent’s, blade angled down and striking below the opponent’s pommel into their chest.  How to get there:

[Start] without any of you having the advantage of the  blade… [when] he passes to attack you with a thrust to the chest, in that same tempo, follow his blade with yours, lower your point by lifting your hand and parry.

The slightly ambiguous part of this is “follow his blade with yours”.  It could mean just maintain contact, but I think  it also means that a slight withdrawal is needed as he extends, to buy space and time in which to rotate your blade down.  In practice, without the withdrawal, my tip usually ends up caught on the opponent’s quillons.

Finish with the pass of the left foot and thrust home, and

perform a cavazione… and recover.

Here, and Leoni has a footnote to the same effect, cavazione indicates a line change different from the typical basic disengage.  Instead, its a reversion back to the high line of the standard guard.

The Thrust to the Face, Turning the Hand

This illustration shows a splendid way to strike your opponent in the face

But really, what way of striking your opponent in the face ISN’T splendid?  “Opponent has sword in face” is kind of a good definition of “splendid.”  Well, assuming you defend yourself properly at the same time.

Setup:

Make the opponent parry by feinting with a cavazione;

Setup on the outside, and cavazione to the inside.  Or, if setup on the inside, cavazione… more insiderly?  The goal is to get your opponent to parry to the inside, then…

In the same tempo, turn your hand, place your left hand against his hilt, and pass while delivering a thrust to his face

Here again we have a complex single action, a “turnplacepass”.  This was a concept that Gawin got, but I’m not sure everybody listening to us talk about this at practice did.  It’s not three separate actions, it has to be one single, smooth, combined action.

And then there’s “turn your hand”.  What’s that mean?  I don’t know that it is even properly described as a turn of the hand, as it’s more a turn/bend of the wrist, that can be performed with your hand in any of the “Big 4″.  The important result, which caused Gawin to furrow his brow as he realized it, is… well…

It’s a little hard to tell from the illustration in Giganti, but it appears to be something like Agrippa’s position K:

(Borrowed from ARMA. It’s worth noting, though, that Agrippa’s footwork is different, with a slope step to the left instead of a pass)

Your opponent’s blade actually ends up between your head and your sword, an initially horrifying thought.  The hand on their guard, though, protects you from a cut to the head, and your own thrust drives into their face, bending around their parry to get there.  The few times this has worked, it’s been awesome.  The few times this hasn’t, it hurts.

Counterattack with a Cavazione from out of Measure

The basic setup for this one is an opponent in refused guard, out of your measure, who to close measure is very probably going to throw a passing lunge.  This is a big, slow, ugly action, which opens up an opportunity to…

Make sure you are in a guard… giving him an opening to attack your chest.  A good opponent will quickly pass forward with his right foot and turn his hand [to the inside] to shield himself from your blade.

In that same tempo, perform a cavazione under his hilt, lower your body as illustrated, and strike him in the face before he finishes his attack

Passata soto, or “DUCK!”   You close the line of the incoming attack, stick him, avoid his thrust, and his great big passing lunge pushes him thoroughly onto your blade.  Giganti adds a bit of nuance:

[Hit him] even before his right foot hits the ground.  He will be unable to parry this action.

Another rule on Triplette’s salle wall: attack when your opponent’s front foot is in the air.  With this big step forward, you have plenty of time to start your attack, and your opponent must end his first action before he can start another, which will be way too late.  I kind of wish Giganti had discussed that a little more thoroughly, but there are so many topics I wish he’d delved in to more deeply, and so many he plumbed too deeply.

Next: DAGGER!

Giganti teaches, basically, two voids, though he breaks the Inquartat (aka demi-volte/volte) into three ways to get there.  The “scans0 della vita” of Capo Ferro shows up here for discussion at length.  His (and here I’m paraphrasing the labels provided by Dante) “strike under the sword” and “passata to the left” show up elsewhere, but not necessarily discussed as voids.  Capo Ferro’s “pie dritto” doesn’t show up with discussion, though the opponent receiving a thrust to the eye in plate 7 seems to have attempted just such a void.  Subtle commentary on Giganti’s opinion of the technique?  Who knows.  Well, maybe Tom Leoni.  And, of course, the Shadow knows.

The Inquarta or Void

The inquartata (or void) is necessary to refine body control.

And definitely worth practicing.  It requires being in a balanced stance, while having feet ready to move.  Of course, it’s good to find somebody to practice against.  An entirely anecdotal polling of other fencers shows, though, that most practices have an unwitting inquartata practice partner.

This action is not ordinarily used in schools… but it’s used by the French

This one gets a ‘WTF?’  Seriously, like, the Bolognese have it, the Italians-in-England, so I can’t figure out where this comes from.  Any ideas?

…I chose to only show three as the safest and the more showy.

Again, what he really seems to show is three different ways to end up in, essentially, the same position.

First Inquartata

Setup – it’s a bit complex:

In guard to the inside… right foot forward… sword and arm extended… blade to the opponent’s face

Then cavazione to feint a little wide to draw a parry as your opponent comes into measure, then cavazione again, and execute the oblique step with the left foot (the volte).   Your body’s void and movement forward, and your opponent moving in to measure, brings your sword into your opponent.

It boils down, to my interpretation, as “open your opponent’s center line as he comes forward, then volte”.

Notes from Giganti on the proper way:

Keep your arm taut, and use your hilt to protect yourself and to keep the opponent’s steel away from you.

and

Look into the opponent’s face, and make sure you do not turn your head as you perform this action (as some do).

Heh… just a minor dig at Agrippa.

Second Inquartata

This inquarta only differs… in the strike, which stays close to the opponent’s guard but ends under the opponent’s pommel, with your arm and hand lifted.

Sometimes I wonder if he was just trying to fill space.  “Look, I’ve reduced measure, tempo, and guards to easy to comprehend, straightforward concepts with a minimal amount of words.  Oh wait, you want 50 pages?  ummmmm…”

The second inquartata is extremely difficulty to parry – I would say impossible – when done with exactness

I’m always distrustful of the “My attack is unstoppable!” claims of certain fencing manuals.  However, this does open a door to discuss parallel attacks: the targeting, below the opponent’s pommel, means that your blade comes in parallel to your opponent’s, rather than across it.  Connor mentioned this the last two times I fought him: most of his attacks are launched parallel to his opponent’s blade, to make parries more difficult.  Giganti doesn’t enumerate this principle, but it can be derived from this illustration, with some difficulty.

Third Inquartata

Setup:

Set yourself in guard like the other two… sword to the inside… arm extended and firm… Opponent advances and gains your blade, wait until he is in measure; perform a cavazione and turn your hand.

As with other techniques, no parry = lunge and strike.

If he does [parry], your swords will be in parity.  Press with your blade against his, so he will press back.  As you feel his pressure, perform the cavazione and the inquartata, and strike him in the chest under his pommel.

Pressure-no pressure, another part of Triplette’s “Drill of Five Things”: When there’s pressure on your blade from your opponent, you disengage and attack, or, if they’re attacking, disengage and void.  If there’s no pressure, you thrust.  Triplette’s drills are based in foil and epee fencing, but as “artificial” and “sport” as those forms are, they still follow the same principles as were taught by Giganti.  There are only so many ways to defend yourself and kill a man with a sword.

Giganti, though, has been way too verbose for all of this.  Second Inquartata could have been “You can also target your thrust below the enemy’s pommel”.  Third Inquartata could have been a brief discussion of the pressure against your blade.  It really didn’t need to be over a page.  But maybe I’m missing something.  Anybody else have thoughts on why he plotted it in this way?

An Artful Way to Strike the Opponent in the Chest after Pressing against Each Other’s Blades

Now, just a bit of application of the skills taught, with a slight reversal: Previously the strike was to the inside, now the strike is to the outside.

Setup:

As your blades meet, press smartly against his with your edge, keeping your point aimed at his face and ensuring that your forte is above his blade.

Here again, pressure-no pressure.  No pressure = strike.  Pressure =

As soon as you feel his pressure, perform a cavazione under his hilt (and his sword will fall towards the ground)…

I’m not actually sure I’ve figured out how to execute this piece just right.  The description of “your forte above his blade” would mean your foible would be below his blade.  He would press down on it and, conceivably, as you disengage his pressure would continue his blade downward.  However, from that position, I’m not terribly successful at disengaging under my opponent’s blade.

…and he will receive a thrust that is impossible to parry.  in the same tempo, pass forward, and place your left hand to his hilt.

Here, the passata to the left.

You may then strike him with three or four thrusts, as he will be unable to defend against them.

I love Giganti’s occasional bloodthirstiness.  This, the opponent “unknowingly impaling himself upon your blade”, it just… makes my cockles all warm.

The bind, pass, and seize the pommel or guard or quillons is a technique I do love to execute, though I find some marshals feel the rules ban it.  So, execute with awareness of the climate.  But damn it’s fun.

Really, though, you should be able to control the pommel or quillons with just a couple of fingers, no tight grip needed, because you have a significant leverage advantage.

And that gives you time to even mock discuss with your opponent.  Things like, “care to yield?” or “Man, you’re kind of screwed, aren’t you?”  Usually they spend that time trying to seize your blade to turn it into a wrestling match and force a break.  A good time, then, for guardia alta, or guardia d’alicorno, or coda lunga e distesa, something where you can keep your blade away from them and strike only in your own time, when you have your advantage of position.

The next page was already discussed, in installment 4.  So next we skip along to a couple more interesting techniques.

No fencing journal this week, because it would basically be a C&P of last week’s.  But Giganti brings some interesting fun to the game.  I love the illustrations of these next three sections, and the actions depicted are beautiful little techniques that are actually useful lessons.

The Correct Way to Deliver a Thrust while the Opponent Attacks you with a Cut

Take this one for instance.  The “thrust is faster than the cut” instruction of DiGrassi is here illustrated, complete with gore coming out the eye socket and sword coming out the back of the head.  I have a guess that this is discussed in just about every manual.

As he raises his sword, you can push your thrust while his weapon is lifted and before it reaches you

This is one of those nifty little nuances of the lesson: attack while he’s raising his sword, not when it’s already up and coming back down on you.  Back to DiGrassi, he has a beautiful line to the effect of “Nothing stops an attack like receiving a thrust”.  Put your sword through your opponent’s eye while he’s prepping his attack, and he’ll forget about that cut.  But put it through when the cut’s already en route, and you may be screwed.

This raises a thought for me, though.  Dante has a plan that his next run through of the Art of Defence tourney (and, seriously, if you’re an Atlantian reading this, tell him you want him to put it on.  Apparently I’m the only one to express interest so far) would include a consideration for the necessity to defend oneself while attacking, i.e. your opponent gets a counter-attack even after you land yours.  But should an opponent who receives a face thrust while prepping a large motion still have the same chance that an opponent who receives a minor poke to the love handle while prepping a lunge does?  I guess that’s more an issue for him to think about, but back to a historical perspective, how much does targetting assist in defense while attacking?

Of course, Giganti also provides instruction on how to defend while launching this attack [the only cut discussed and the cut illustrated are a large dritto fendente from guardia alta], just in case your opponent manages it.

As you deliver your attack, turn your hand upward, with the true edge also upward and your arm high and extended, ensuring that your hilt covers your head

Hey, there you go.  In execution, though, this raised another point of discussion.  It’s illustrated as a rotation to prima, however such a position would not necessarily interpose your forte and guard between your head and the potential cut, and the power of the cut would strike against the back of your hand, which is mechanically weaker.  An over-rotated quarta (almost a “quinta”) would seem to solve all these problems: A right-hander’s mandritto would strike the forte of your blade, your guard would well cover your head, and all the force would be in line with your arm, driving straight down to your shoulder and spine.  But that’s not what’s illustrated.

Of course, against cuts other than a dritto fendente or dritto squalembrato other lines of defense are needed, but ultimately these are just the hybrid hand positions (prima-seconda, seconda-tierca, tierca-quarta).  I’m currently reading my way through Dall’Agocchie, and in another six months or so he may appear in this space, to better comprehend the use of cuts in C&T, and defense against “percussive parries” in rapier.

Another thought I had when studying this particular plate is the over-exaggerated motion of the cut.  A stop-thrust delivered in the tempo of assuming guardia alta is not hard, and these days Gawin can land one in the tempo of raising my sword tip to vertical.  I wonder, then, about cuts into “tramazzone”, in the loosest sense of the definition “cuts delivered from the wrist”.  Master Aeron Harper demonstrated tramazzone as full wheels of the sword performed from the wrist, but a quick  cut can also be performed with a flick of the wrist (“swish and flick, children, swish and flick”), not a lethal or even devastating cut at all, but a distracting cut or, in the right place, say the forehead, eyes, neck, or tendons of the hand, a disinclining wound, and that would seem the more realistic tempo to concern oneself with.  At which point you’re addressing two tempi of the hand to the combined tempi of your thrust (wrist, elbow, shoulder, and potentially body and foot).

Ultimately, this section is more about learning to attack into a tempo, as he says:

I have discussed this [parry of a cut] since it is the most useful and the easiest in which to learn to recognize and employ the tempo.

The Correct Way to Deliver a Sure Strike Using Both Hands

Giganti introduces the illustration, and prefaces it by mentioning that there are two ways to end up in this position (roughly, passed forward, left hand on your own forte which is against your opponent’s guard, driving both blades down, tip cocked up into your opponent’s chest)

First method, in paraphrase: be on the outside, in parity of blades, and point your sword at your opponent’s face.  If no parry, strike him.  Or…

if he executes a good, strong parry, pass with the left foot placing your left hand on your sword and pressing down smartly with both hands

Setup (be in parity), feint (point your sword at his face, because this is a feint if you’re already in measure), and two divergent paths.  Just like the feinting section, except here there’s no cavazione, instead this large pass forward and bracing your own sword instead of your opponent’s guard.

Be sure to perform all this in a single tempo

This is the trickiest bit we found.  There is a great temptation to perform each of the necessary movements in its own tempo, confirming you’ve completed it before executing the next.  I think Steven Pearlman described this problem as viewing it as a combination of techniques (“passing + half-swording* + pressing”) when, in fact, it is all one technique: “passbracepress”.  Passing, hand-to-blade, and pressing all as your opponent makes his strong parry is a lot to do, requiring a great deal of coordination and a smooth, quick motion.   But it’s doable.  Apparently Gawin pulled it on somebody at Assessment this weekend.  Go Gawin!

The second method, again paraphrase: Set to the inside, cavazione, brace the sword, and

using the strength of both hands, beat the opponent’s steel with yours.  As his weapon is beaten wide, quickly pass forward with your left foot

Again there’s an instruction to perform this all in a single tempo, but from the description it seems clear that the brace must precede the pass (and a damn awkward anatomical position that puts one in) because the pass coincides with the beat.  Still, we’re left with a description of a cavazionebracebeatpass attack.

I should take to practicing these techniques, but I’ve usually attempted them against Benjamin (who gives me my most regular Italianate fights), and that boy’s cavazione just lays me out dead before I even make my passing step.  Hey, Gawin, care to receive a braced thrust to the chest?

The Correct Way to Defend Against a Mandritto or a Riverso to the Leg

I wonder if every manual has this discussion in it.  I.33 does as, if I recall, the second play illustrated.  Fiore illustrated this as his first play.  I can’t recall Agrippa right now, but it seems right up his alley.  Walter Triplette’s “Drill of 5 Things” (I named it, he doesn’t bother naming them) has this as the third or fourth thing.  I know even the rattan greatsword fighters have this as a mantra: If someone goes for your leg, hit them in the head.

If the opponent attacks you [And here, he should be saying "attacks your leg", per the illustration and section title]… he must extend his right foot and project his body and head forward.

Almost always true, though Benjamin has his insanely low lunge with a body and head void for foot attacks.  Still, that does not keep him safe if you know where he’s going.  A few others apply the same trick, but basically attacking the foot will get you killed.  I almost never even look at it, unless it’s an obvious target (and then it’s usually a trap).

Withdraw your right leg and deliver a thrust to his face in the same tempo; this will cause the opponent to stick himself on your point, without being able to defend or to hit you.

I.33, and all down through the ages ever since, use exactly this same defense.  I bet Roman gladiators practiced withdrawing that right foot while delivering a cut or thrust to the head.  All of which is to say very little, except that a) there really are only so many ways to use a sword, and b) certain claims made in certain classes made me just about laugh my ass off and then walk out.  That’s all.

A last observation: these three plates, which are 12-14, follow an interesting pattern.  The first, thrusts against cuts, illustrates the importance of tempo.  The second, the braced sword, illustrates the importance of gaining mechanical advantage.  This third illustrates the application of measure against your opponent.  Tempo, mechanical advantage, and measure.  Those three, and little else, applied with good judgment, are the foundation of success in combat.

*And, yes, I have learned that “half-sword” in an Italian context is not a technique, but a measure.