Italian rapier drills

This post will primarily be of interest for those who come to the drills only session on Monday nights, but is useful for anyone who comes to rapier class, either at FAC or at UofT. I've been thinking of ways to make our training more efficient for two reasons: 1) I don't have any time to waste (and this is quite literal), and 2) If we already know the drills and are familiar with them, we can skip the often-long demonstrations of each drill, which means more fencing time. As we gain more experience and become level 2 or 3 fencers (with a +1 bonus to attack and defend), we can modify/upgrade or even replace some of the drills listed below; but as of now, here they are:

1) Thrusting: 15 thrusts at misura stretta, 12 lunges at misura larga, and 10 passate at misura larghissima.

2) Footwork: leader/follower drill with frequent role changes.

3) Tessitura*: 20 continuous attacks against a cooperative partner in various hand positions and various ranges.

4) Basic approaching drills, aka "The Spiral drill": beginning from out of measure, approach and strike the opponent using cavazione only, opposition only, and a combination of the two.

5) Cavazione di tempo drill: during the agent's step to misura larga, the patient will perform a cavazione and lunge, striking the agent before his foot lands.

6) The rock defense drills, aka "The counter-Spiral drill": if the agent attacks with a cavazione, counter with an opposition; if the agent attacks with an opposition, counter with a cavazione (with or without a piegatura di vita); alternatively, counter with a scanso della vita on either side.

7) False attack drill: knowing that the patient will defend, the agent will do a false attack to draw out the defense, and follow on with an appropriate second attack (under the sword, transport, cut, etc.)

8) Attacker/defender: application of all the previous drills in a restricted game.

*Literally, this term means "weaving", which resembles the interplay between the swords. I can't explain it in words, so I'll get some video on Sunday and put it up.

Back to the drawing board

We're well into the New Year, and nary a post from me to be seen. But no longer! I'm back into the groove, and the number of sessions I'm running per week at AEMMA (and at UofT again) has doubled since last year. I've been working on a lot of new drills for our Dall'Agocchie study group; our seminar with Jared Kirby has given us plenty of rapier drills to master, and sword and dagger is not too far off in the horizon...in short, there is plenty to look forward to.

As for this blog, it's become quite clear that rather than posting up long sections of text, it would be much more useful to regularly post shorter descriptions of the class with photos and video from each session. Considering how difficult it is to interpret the systems from the written version in the first place, it only seems to add more confusion when I paraphrase the masters' words here. So instead, I'll be making much better use of visual content in the coming weeks.

For those of you who haven't been around recently, here are some of the events that are going on right now, or in the very near future:

Classes

1. Monday 18h00-19h00: rapier drills
2. Wednesday 21h00-23h00: Dall'Agocchie study group
3. Thursday 16h30-18h00: rapier class @UofT
4. Sunday 13h00-15h00: rapier class

Events and seminars

1. Starting 22 January (this Saturday), I'll be teaching an introductory course in Italian rapier at FAC through the ROM, from 14h00-15h30.
2. On 30 January (next Sunday), FAC will be having its annual open house, where all the schools that make up the Collective show off their stuff to the public. Everyone is welcome! 14h00-16h00.
3. On the first or second weekend of May (to be confirmed), we will be hosting Maestro Ramon Martinez for another Destreza seminar. More details to follow in the coming weeks.

Class review: new curriculum drills

The principles underlying fencing have become crystal-clear to me over the past month or so. Though I would not go so far as to say that I'm great at it - I still need much more practice to get to where I need to be - I know exactly how to get there. I've added to and refined somewhat the drills that Jared gave to us in September, and here is what class looks like now: a combination of "technique" drills, more stressful versions of those drills, and fencing drills.

Technique drills:

1) Cavazione di tempo, simple version: both fencers begin in terza with the tips crossed, and the agent will step forward to stringere. In that time, the patient will perform a cavazione and thrust to the opposite side. As in every other drill, the timing on this is of the utmost importance.

2) Ceding the vita, simple version: both fencers begin in terza with the tips crossed, and the agent will again step forward to stringere, paying close attention to the length of the initial step. As the patient performs the cavazione di tempo, the agent will cede the vita, allowing a mini-cavazione and a thrust in contratempo.

3) Perfect spiral, simple version: from out of measure, the agent makes a threat to the inside or the outside, which the patient will cover. During the patient's action, the agent will perform a cavazione while stepping forward. The patient will perform a cavazione to make the cover, and during that time, the offender will perform a contra-cavazione thrust.

4) Perfect spiral with cavazione di tempo: as above, only the patient will perform a cavazione di tempo and thrust during the agent's first cavazione.

5) Perfect spiral with opposition: as above, only the patient will perform an exchange of guard (opposition) during the opponent's first cavazione, and immediately thrust.

6) Perfect spiral, advanced version: as above, only during the patient's cavazione di tempo, the attacker will cede the vita and strike via a mini-cavazione to the new opening.

7) Imperfect spiral, simple version: as the perfect spiral, only the agent will perform an exchange of guard (from 4th to 2nd, or 2nd to 4th) during the patient's cavazione.

8) Imperfect spiral with cavazione di tempo: identical to number 4.

9) Imperfect spiral with opposition: identical to number 5.

10) Imperfect spiral, advanced version: as number 6, only during the patient's exchange of guard, the agent will perform a ceding of the vita and thrust via a change of guard.

Stress drills:

1) Increase the pace of any of the above drills. (This doesn't mean "go blindingly fast"; it simply means to lessen the time taken between actions.)

2) Vary the tempo of the action. (Again, this doesn't mean "go blindingly fast"; in this case we attempt to eliminate any foreknowledge of the action.)

3) Begin from a weak position, i.e. with the patient stringered.

Fencing drills:

1) Agent/patient, version 1: for X minutes, one fencer is the agente, and the other the patient. During that time, the agente will move in to strike the patient, and will only do so if he has "eyes" for what the patient is doing. No cutting. A constant motion drill.

2) Agent/patient, version 2: as above, only now cutting is also in. A motion and stillness drill.

3) 3 hits: as the above two drills, only this time, the agent/patient element is eliminated. This can be done with either thrusts only, or with cuts as well.

There are many more drills I'd like to put in here, but I'll leave it here for now. More to follow this weekend!

Class review: 19th of November

Tonight's class was a good review for everyone who showed up; since only a few students showed up last week because of the "November Reading Week" (two days, really), it had been two weeks since anyone had picked up a sword. We went over all of the basics, refined some of our motions (particularly in relation to the correct tempo), and went as far as option three, creating motion.

One thing I mentioned tonight that seems to have frightened a few people was that I would be giving the first rank examination next Thursday at the beginning of class. This is both a formality and a necessity: formality because everyone already knows very well what I'll be testing them on, necessity because no one can free fence without passing this small hurdle. What I'm really aiming for with the examination is to make the commitment to Capoferro's system, which necessarily means abandoning anything that does not belong in it (the actions described in the plates are exceptions to this rule), and improve our skill in that system until we can take on anyone from another school, be they Spanish, Italian, German or self-trained. It's not enough for us to be good fighters; we need to be exemplary fencers. Only then can we begin to branch out and begin to examine other methods of performing the same kinds of actions.

Class review: 12th of November

Things are progressing along very smoothly, now that we are two months into the new curriculum. Since UT students experiencing the first ever November reading break (a whole two days...), only three people showed up to class tonight, but that was perfect for what I wanted to do: run through all of the plates of the single sword in Capoferro (save two). Normally, this is not something I would in class, because it essentially means training the wrong thing, which is a bad thing to do, but it was useful in that it shows some excellent responses to someone doing the incorrect move (i.e. attacking out of tempo).

First, a few generalities:

1) If my opponent and I are point high (i.e. at the throat or face), and my opponent performs a cavazione to strike to the head, I respond by passing in either seconda (plate 9) or quarta (plate 18). In plate 9, a pass in prima is also possible, especially if the person doing so is shorter than his or her opponent.

2) If my opponent and I are point middle (i.e. at the chest), and my opponent performs a cavazione to strike to the chest, I respond by either striking with a firm footed lunge in either seconda (plate 7) or quarta (plate 16).

3) If my opponent and I are point low (i.e. at the flank), and my opponent performs a cavazione to strike the flank, I respond by either performing a scannatura di punta (plate 13) from the outside, or press down his sword from the inside (plate 12).

So, considering the inside and the outside, as well as the height of the point, we already have six contratempo actions to the opponent attacking out of tempo. How many other ways can the opponent strike? Not too many.

If for some reason my opponent attacks very low, in this case with a riverso to the leg, I simply void the threatened leg and thrust right to the face. (plate 8) Throwing a mandritto to the leg is just as, if not more crazy.

Finally, we have gli scansi, the voids. Although I love performing the scanso della vita (plate 19), I find the circumstance in which Capoferro describes very difficult to pull off. Granted, as I discussed with Aldo at the end of class, all of these are moments in time, typically four or five moves into the engagement, so "doing" the play should feel stilted. The two instances Capoferro shows are against a thrust to the inside, either to the chest (plate 17) or to the face (plate 19). More on this to follow, because I would actually like to post some video of this up.

Class review: 5th of November

Although a bit late, I have the review materials for the class at UT this past Thursday. Despite the peculiar habit of people showing up whenever they want to - class does actually start at 5pm, people - we managed to get through a great deal of material, so much so that we will be ready to fence starting not this Thursday (the 12th), but the following Thursday (the 19th).

So without further ado, here are some of the things we discussed last week:

1) The tempo window: as with every other weapon, be it fist, foot, sword or whatever, there is a good and a bad time to attack the opponent, particularly if the opponent is wielding the same or a similar weapon to the one you are. Dall'Agocchie and Capoferro mention five specific instances in which I can safely strike my opponent. For the sake of simplicity, these five instances can be distilled into one, easy to remember rule: I can only safely strike the opponent when they're busy doing something else, be that changing hand position, stepping backward, performing a cavazione or opposition, cutting, etc. With a thrusting weapon, such as a rapier or smallsword, this window of opportunity is very small, and with an experienced fencer, the window will be almost imperceptible, due to the size of the motion.

The two main drills we have been working on in class, the perfect and imperfect spirals (the former being a strike via a contracavazione, the latter a strike via opposition) work on the assumption that our opponent wishes to defend himself by closing off the line, and it is during this action that we strike. Our two motions together make one tempo, though my contribution to the tempo will be far smaller than his, because the proportion of our actions has changed significantly, provided I have stringered his blade. But...what if the opponent doesn't react? As we saw in class, if I attack out of tempo, my opponent has a contratempo action immediately available to him. Hmmm....

2) Creating motion in the opponent: the simplest answer to our quandary is to make our opponent move, in this case by removing their sword from the equation by way of a mezzo colpo, or half cut, either from the "true side" (a mandritto) or from the "riverse side" (a riverso). I make an angled cut downwards to my opponent's sword to bring it offline, and during his recovery, I perform a cavazione and strike to the other side; simply striking straightaway is actually quite risky, as we have seen. Needless to say, the rapier fight is one of great patience!

3) The cuts: to wrap up this review, I think it would be worth it to discuss the names of the cuts, and diverse angles. There are quite a few of them, and unfortunately, the direct English translations don't flow very well, so we need to learn the Italian for each one.

- Fendente: a downwards, vertical cut.

- Sgualimbro: a downwards, diagonal cut.

- Tondo: a horizontal cut.

- Ridoppio: an upwards, diagonal cut done with the true edge.

- Falso: an upwards, diagonal cut done with the false edge.

- Montante: an upwards, vertical cut, usually done with the false edge.

- Tramazzone: a downwards cut done from the wrist.

In other news, Saturday's class may be moved to 12-2. More details on this later in the week.

Class review: 22nd and 23rd of October

It's been awhile since my last update, and a lot of things have been happening in class lately. Very, very good things, I might add. The curriculum that Jared has passed on to me is beginning to bear some fruit, and I think it is worthwhile to discuss here some of the drills we have been working on, so those who are just visiting the site for the first time will get an idea about how and what we practice, and current students can review what they learned in class.

Strictly technical

One thing I had been struggling with for a long time was how to improve the fundamentals of the rapier in the Italian school, notably striking accurately and in tempo, all while staying completely covered. I have stuck with some of the older targeting drills to focus on one thing at a time - proper measure, order of the lunge, and accuracy - while introducing a drill inspired by what we had worked on with Jared, adding in the elements of time and proper defense.

1. Striking various targets: I usually adopt the same three every time - open hand, index finger and knothole - and occasionally add in a moving target, a second target, a sometimes target, etc. This is great to get people warmed up, and really have them focusing on the proper order of the lunge, and if done correctly, the accuracy that comes up with proper order.

2. Striking to the body on a cavazione: this is a drill I have borrowed from Jared, which forms a nice bridge between a strictly fundamental drill, and a drill rooted more in timing, or rather, the correct tempo in which to strike. The agente will start in terza at misura larga, and will change to seconda or quarta in order to stringere the patient's sword. The patient will take advantage of this motion and perform a cavazione and thrust to the opening created by the agent.

3. Cavazione and opposition drill: another mechanical, albeit essential, drill. This can start either in or out of measure, though I find the best instance is when the agente starts at the first distance (i.e. tip to tip, or larghissima), and steps in to stringere the paziente, who will immediately perform a cavazione. Agente will perform a contra-cavazione, and so on, and then they change roles, so they have practice doing a cavazione on both sides. To make this drill more interesting, the agente will oppose, i.e. exchange guards, on each of the paziente's disengages. The important thing in both of these drills is to ensure that the physical guard is always in a position to defend the threatened parts of the body.

Working towards fencing drills

We haven't yet reached the point of practicing combat specific drills, but a lot of these drills are in preparation for fencing, as they rely exclusively on the fencer's ability to act in the right measure, and in the right tempo. For some bizarre reason, I have decided to call these the true fusili drill and the false fusili drill; why I felt the need to reference a lovely pasta, I have no idea.

1. Striking via a contra-cavazione (i.e. true fusili drill): both fencers will start out of measure. The agente will create a threat to either the inside or the outside, and paziente will go to close that line with the physical guard in either seconda or quarta. During his motion, agente will perform a cavazione with a step in. Paziente will go to close that line again via a cavazione, and agente will perform a contra-cavazione and lunge. As we have noticed in class, a shorter person will have to take at least one more step to get within range.

2. Striking via an exchange of guard (i.e. false fusili drill): both fencers will start out of measure. The agente will create a threat to either the inside or the outside, and paziente will go to close that line with the physical guard in either seconda or quarta. During his motion, agente will perform a cavazione with a step in. Paziente will go to close that line again via a cavazione, and agente will interrupt by exchanging guards (i.e. going from seconda to quarta or quarta to seconda) and lunge.

The difference between the two of these is timing: in the first case, agente is acting in the middle of paziente's tempo, so he must go around his sword in order to strike safely. In the second case, agente acts early in paziente's tempo, so he is able to simply exchange guards (which actually takes more time than a cavazione) and thrust.

Starting next class, we will begin alternating freely between the two of them, and then gradually increasing the complexity by adding in some very specific factors: what happens if the paziente performs the "wrong" action? What happens if paziente doesn't react? How do I induce a tempo? Finally, and what I think is the most interesting, what if paziente attacks? Hint: look at the plates!

That'll be all for now; more to follow this Saturday!

UofT class update!

Yes! After several weeks of uncertainty, we finally have confirmation that rooms are booked for next week! I have yet to confirm with the person in charge of bookings which room(s) is booked, because it will change every week due to a host of other events going on throughout the St. Mike's campus.

As for content, a few things will change in the way I present the material since Jared Kirby's workshop. As of next week, I'll be starting from scratch with the new students, and really work the new things that I've learned. Specifically, I want to play around with the refined notions of guadagnare and stringere, and how to enter the fight safely. The idea of creating an opening as a way to get into measure is an interesting one; let's just see what non-fencers do about it.

UT: Review of the first class

Despite the difficulties with the booking (which should be resolved by the next class), the first class went very well; three new people showed up to class, and three people from FAC came as well, so it was a nice mix of relatively experienced people and new students.

I was very happy with the way classes progressed. In two hours we got a lot of things covered, and we kind of covered some of the material for the next class, specifically a more thorough introduction to measure and a glimpse into the various notions of tempo. Since I introduced so many new terms in today's class, I thought it would be very useful to give a definition of each one.

Prima: the first hand position possible upon drawing the sword from its sheath. It is characterized by being located above the shoulder with the true edge facing upwards, the point going downwards. It is a forward position. Palm out.

Seconda: formed by turning the true edge outwards, sword at the shoulder, and the point somewhat raised. It is also a forward position. Palm down.

Terza: formed by turning the true edge downwards, in its natural position. Capoferro considers this his only true guard position. Palm in.

Quarta: formed by turning the true edge inwards, sword below the shoulder. The final forward position. Palm up.

Misura: the distance between the point of my sword and my opponent's body.

Out of measure: when neither myself or my opponent can reach the other. Tempo does not exist outside of measure.

Misura larga: the wide measure. The distance at which I can hit my opponent with a firm-footed lunge, i.e. with a step.

Misura stretta: the narrow measure. The distance at which I can hit my opponent without moving my foot.

I'll leave it there for now. I'd like to figure out a way to make this a separate part of the blog, like a glossary; all in due time...

UofT class: update!

After a nearly two-week long absence, I finally have some time (and the information) to post something about the class at UofT. It has been finalized as taking place from 5-7 at Father Madden Hall in Carr Hall - that's a lot of halls - on the St. Mike's campus, just off of Bay on St. Joseph street.

For the first two months, I'll be bringing in all the swords I can possibly handle - I think 12 is a pretty good number to start - and we'll be looking strictly at the absolute essentials of using a rapier, notably it's practical use: dueling. I really want to emphasize that fencing with a rapier is not at all a sport, and I want the sporting mentality to stay at a minimum, even during mini tournaments.

Thursday's topic: the introduction. I'll specifically be looking at the rapier's place in history, it's use, how it is properly held (any of the three ways), how to hold oneself in guard, how to move in guard, and how to thrust. That will be plenty for the first class, I think.

Update on class at UofT

The rapier class to be offered at UofT as of next Thursday will be held from 4-6 in Madden Hall (on the first floor of Carr Hall) on the St. Michael's campus. (This time may change slightly; more info as the week goes on!)

My goal for the class on campus is to reach out to the student population at UofT, bringing in some new bodies, which is good for everyone in the long run; the more people we have learning, the more we all have a chance to fence with "many diverse players." Due to the initial equipment dilemma, I'll have to limit numbers to twelve students maximum, and we won't be doing any "fencing" until after the foundations of the Art have been understood to a satisfactory degree. Students will be expected to purchase their own equipment by the end of the eighth class, which includes specifically a mask and a rapier.

Material to cover during the eight weeks:

1: the essentials of posture, movement, the four guard positions, and the lunge.
2: an introduction to measure and angulation of the sword and body.
3: introduction to the concepts of trovare di spada, stringere, and guadagnare.
4: introduction to the various meanings of tempo.
5: the true fight.
6: expanding on the true fight, incorporating cuts, offhand use.
7: introduction to the deceptive fight, i.e. the basic feints.
8: tying it all together, the test.

I'm really looking forward to branching out; this should be good.