Class review: more drills

After teaching today's class, which went very well, in my humble opinion, I realized that there is another way to categorize the drills we do: drills where the attacker wins, drills where the defender wins, and drills where the attacker wins again. In other words, the drills go from the most simple to the most complex.

Simple drills in which the attacker wins:

1) Spiral drill, version 1: the attacker thrusts via a contra-cavazione because the defender simply goes to cover himself.

2) Spiral drill, version 2: the attacker thrusts via a change of guard (i.e. opposition) because the defender simply covers himself without threatening. With weapons of equal length, this must be done earlier in the tempo, whereas with weapons of varying lengths, the fencer with the shorter blade will almost always do this version, whereas the fencer with the longer blade will perform the first action mentioned above.

3) Spiral drill, version 3: the attacker cuts to the blade in order to create motion from stillness, and then does one of three things -

a) follows immediately with a falso dritto or falso manco with a step to the face or throat. It is important that the hilt stays low to cover a flailing action from the defender.

b) if the defender cuts back up with the sword, the attacker will perform a cavazione with a change of guard and thrust to the open target.

c) if the defender performs a cavazione to cover, the attacker will exchange guards and thrust to the open target.

Complex drills in which the defender wins:

1) Cavazione di tempo: can be done against actions 1,2 or 3 mentioned above.

2) Exchange of guard di tempo: can also be done against actions 1,2 or 3 mentioned above.

3) Cavazione with a cut to the sword: can be done against actions 1,2 or 3 mentioned above. As with action 3, the ultimate attack depends upon the attacker's follow-up action.

4) Half-cavazione: can be done against actions 1,2 or 3 mentioned above.

5) Ceding of the vita: performed against the cut mentioned in part a of the third version of the spiral drill. The defender cedes the vita together and thrusts to the open target.

Most complex drills in which the attacker wins:

1) Ceding of the vita: can be done against complex actions 1 and 2 of the defender.

a) if the defender performs a cavazione di tempo, the attacker will cede the vita and thrust in the same guard.

b) if the defender performs an exchange of guard di tempo, the attacker will cede the vita and peform a cavazione together with a change of guard.

2) Ceding of the vita against the cut: identical to action 5 mentioned in the complex drills.

The only thing we need to add now are strikes below the sword (covered in the coming weeks), voids of the body, and what to do against an unorthodox fencer. Well, maybe the phrasing on that was a bit unjust; "only" implies that this will take but a short while, when in reality we will be working on and refining this actions over the course of the next couple of years.