Dueling in thirty days: day five

Due in no small part to my negligence yesterday, days five and six will both be posted today; thankfully, I actually have things to say about what we've been doing. Yesterday, I thought it would be useful for us to work our way through Dall'Agocchie's solo form (stepping in the guards) before we started going through the defenses from Porta di Ferro Stretta. The reason for this is two-fold:

1) After a very brief discussion (one sentence) of the first chief skill - knowing which edge is true and which is false - footwork is really the first topic to which Dall'Agocchie dedicates a large amount of ink. And as he says, all fencers must be equally comfortable moving in any direction, be it forward, backward, on the traverse, etc.

2) The action we have been playing with for the past few days - a riverso sgualimbro followed immediately by a riverso ridoppio to an imbroccata - is described as the last forward moving action in the sequence. From Coda Lunga e Alta, the fencer throws a riverso ridoppio to Alicorno, and passes with an imbroccata, ending in Porta di Ferro Stretta.

To make this sound a bit less nebulous, I've broken down the steps for the solo form below; since I've been doing this for the past several years, it all makes perfect sense to me, but if the language is somewhat unclear, please let me know and I'll do my best to clear up the language.

1) Beginning with the feet together, the right foot slightly ahead of the left, and with the sword in its sheath (real or imaginary), throw a falso manco or falso riverso tondo while stepping on the traverse with your right foot, followed by a riverso sgualimbro as the left foot lands, ending in Coda Lunga Stretta. I call this combination a left or reverse ribbon for short.

2) Now throw a falso dritto while stepping on the traverse with the left foot, followed by a mandritto sgualimbro as the right foot lands, ending in Cinghiale Porta di Ferro. I call this combination a right ribbon for short.

3) Throw a dritto tramazzone with a pass forward of the right foot, ending in Porta di Ferro Stretta.

4) Throw a left ribbon while passing forward with the left foot, ending in Coda Lunga e Alta.

5) Throw a riverso ridoppio to Alicorno, and then pass forward and thrust an imbroccata, ending in Porta di Ferro Stretta. (Alternately, throw the riverso ridoppio with the pass forward, and thrust the imbroccata without moving the feet. I personally find the first version more fluid.)

6) Throw a left ribbon while passing back with the right foot, ending in Coda Lunga e Alta.

7) Throw a dritto tramazzone while passing back with the left foot, ending in Porta di Ferro Stretta.

8) Throw another dritto tramazzone while passing back with the right foot, ending in Cinghiale Porta di Ferro.

9) Finally, throw a left ribbon while passing back with the left foot, ending in Coda Lunga Stretta.

A video of this will be up on Saturday when I have access to the salle again.