Workshop review: 17 January

Today I gave a short (just under three hours) workshop on the Capoferro's 1610 rapier treatise. Although it was aimed primarily at new students, there was plenty of material for more regular students to work on. Despite the brevity of the workshop, we managed to cover a lot of things; although we didn't get to the piegatura della vita as a final response for either the agent or the patient, we went through all four intelligent responses to guadagnare: cavazione di tempo, change of guard di tempo (there has to be a better name for that!), cut to the sword via cavazione, and the half-cavazione. Overall, it was a success.

Where do we want to go from here? We'll continue refining our sensitivity through the more complex fencing drills I've introduced in the past couple of weeks, and then (or perhaps concurrently) I'd like to examine some of the feints, and how they affect the fight. I've been thinking specifically about feints that allow the agent to strike underneath the sword, as well as using the half-cavazione as the aggressor; difficult, but I've witnessed it numerous times. After that, it's time to look at the body voids and the plates; by the end of April, we should be good to go on rapier and dagger after the mass examination. More details on that to follow.