Lonin

We are continuing our focus on dagger this week. My goal is to cover all the empty-hand masters (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 9) by the end of March, and then move onto the armed masters (6-8), and advanced counter-remedies, in April.

This week we are focusing on the third master of dagger, who is catching a reverso strike and proceeding with a number of breaks, locks, and takedowns that are effective from this outside-the-arm position. The rationale for “why” an opponent would enter with a reverse attack comes from the second play of the First Master: where the dagger-wielding assassin strikes with a mandritto fendente, and then quickly transitions to a reverse hit when the defender attempts to catch his forearm. Thus, we are working on hitting into the reverso in a flowing way, as a follow-up to the mandritto fendente.

There are two nice followups that are reasonably safe to do in class: the first play, and a modified version of the third play of the first master. I don’t like the arm bar because it’s too easy to jack your classmate’s elbow, and I feel that it is difficult to work these locks vigorously while also avoiding injury. So we practice as follows.

The first play involves off-balancing the opponent backwards – coming off the catch, you slide the left hand up to the enemy’s shoulder, and then pull back on the shoulder, or press down on his chest, as pictured in the book. I had the guys modify the third play to cut pressure to the shoulder joint rather than at the elbow. That way, plays one and three are mirrors of each other, and the defender can practice going with the opponent’s energy (e.g., you try to off balance backward by pulling back on the shoulder, he is strong that way, so you instantly reverse and press forward on the shoulder to force his face to the ground). And, we can work these two variants strongly, even going to gentle takedowns.

For safety reasons, I always teach the escape from the arm bar at the same time I teach the arm bar. I learned this escape as part of my Wing Tsun studies. The problem is that your wrist is being held tightly and pressure is being exerted against your elbow, which is rotated up. To release the lock, drop your knee to the ground while simultaneously rotating your elbow in so that it is restored to a natural position. This rotation, sourced in the shoulder and adductive, is very strong. The classic standing arm bar is actually easy to escape. This is another reason I prefer the shoulder pin.

We started with hitting: practicing the manditto and reverso strikes with body shifts, then with shuffles, then with passes. We then practiced the catch a bit: the left hand raises to catch the mandritto, and the right hand is coming up to cover as well, when the opponent reverses the strike. Now both of your hands should be up to cover. I like to think of the catches of all of these masters, as transitional movements that can flow one to the other as you adapt to the changing position of the attacker. At some point, we hope you will gain a solid catch and be able to proceed with Fiore’s instructions: strike, take the dagger, lock, break and throw. Obviously, the longer time that passes with the enemy swinging a sharp blade in your proximity, the greater chance of getting hit.

We then drilled the two basic follow-up options technically and then worked them intensively with two feeders attacking three defenders. The feeder won if he was able to get either the mandritto or reverso strike to hit home. Net was lots of drilling on the catch, both first and third master. At the end I asked the guys who had it easier, the guy with the dagger or the guy without the dagger.

The secondary activity starting at 8pm was freeplay-oriented longsword drilling. Monday evening we worked on performing the sword grab (5th play of the zogho largo). The drill worked like this.

1. Free hit (mandritto fendente from posta di donna)
2. Defender parries, overbinds and the attacker angulates around his parry *in the time of the parry* to stab.
3. Defender grabs the tip of attacker’s sword and throws a reverso fendente to finish.

As with all longsword plays, if you miss a critical pressure or timing piece, you should get hit. The angulation will not work unless you do it while the defender is binding to the outside. Done against a stationary bind, or a bind whose energy is directed on you, you should get hit.

This week we worked on parries from the left side, building from a couple of plays that Guy Windsor teaches. We are defending attacks from the strong side (mandritto fendente).

The first left-side guard comes from Fiore’s Master of the Sword in one Hand. This master holds his sword on the left, with his back to his enemies. The parry movement out of this guard starts with a volta stabile with right accressere, accompanied by a large sweeping parry rising from the left, with the true edge.

The second left-side guard is dente di zinghiaro, or boar’s tooth, in which the sword is held at the left hip, point forward, with right foot forward. The parry in this case is a false-edge sottano, also rising from the left.

When defending using either of these parries, you are sweeping your sword upward, collecting the opponent’s blade from the outside. Your accressare right helps to power the motion of the parry. As with any parry, you want to meet the middle of the opponent’s blade with the middle of yours, and you achieve a mechanical advantage if you are parrying your edge against his flat.

Guy prescribes a canonical drill that uses this exchange, as one of his foundational exercises:

First, you allow the strike to land. Second, you perform the parry, the attacker’s point is beaten wide, and he is open to your mandritto fendente counter-attack. Third and fourth steps play through counter-remedies using the pommel strike for follow-up. Playing through to the third or fourth steps, everyone continues their roles. In other words, when performing the pommel attack, the attacker is forced to cover properly, because the defender is performing his fendente as planned.

Note that in this sequence, the attacker *allows* his point to be beaten wide because he has chosen to continue his attack by covering with the pommel strike and stepping in.

We then looked at some stretto variations of the above, also taught by Mr. Windsor. Both of these stretto variations occur when the parry succeeds in moving the point to the right, but the attacker resists having his point beaten wide. So, as the defender, you have an open line on the left of the blades. Your blade is on your right side, and the attacker’s blade is parried to the right of your blade. But, he is not going wide with his point. He is sticking with the bind.

The two defender options we explored are the following:

• You move in slightly, maintaining the bind and reaching with the left hand to palm the attacker’s hands. With a good hand-check in place, you can then march in with your stance behind your arm, forcing the attacker’s hilt upward, while simultaneously stabbing from the right side.
• You slide up on the attacker’s sword, bringing the edge of your strong (hilt) in contact with the flat of his weak (point). The resulting leverage advantage lets you perform a clockwise circle, driving his point down, while palming his hilt left to right from the outside. The circle brings your point on line to his body and you can then complete with a thrust, and/or perform a disarm.

If he is binding hard enough to bring his sword more into the middle, you’ll be forced to cover, wind around and hit, enter with the pommel strike, or move to one of the stretto plays that deal with the opportunity created when there is a lane made available to the right of the blade. I note these here, even though we did not practice them.

Tips and thoughts collected during these practices include

• The acressare is a sideways movement. You don’t advance.
• Proper timing of the parry arm movement with the accressare, contributes to a more substantial parry that does a better job of clearing the line. Start the hit first, cross in the middle and then accress right.
• When delivering the pommel strike counter-remedy, if the attacker’s hands are high, you can strike upward through the triangle of his forearms, if you are in front of his arms. You can also hook your pommel over his forearm and slam it down, cutting into his face, if you are on the side of his arms.
• As Guy points out, Fiore did not show hand snipes with the tip. He does show attacks to the arms, across the forearms. The former does not mechanically control the enemy’s sword, while the latter does.
• Fendentes delivered with the hands high are susceptible to hand snipes. Fendentes delivered with the hands low, are much less susceptible, as the sword point is brought into threat more quickly. That said, partners sometimes attack with hands high, which causes this parry to feel different. The parry will be more on the tip of your sword than in the middle, due to the partner’s position. So attack the hands in this situation.
• The parry for both of these movements, is a large motion. The sword point ends up well in front of the right shoulder. The point needs to clear high enough to decisively knock the opponent’s point out of line. For the sword in one hand version, the hand ends up in front of and above the right shoulder. For the sottano version, the hands end up in front of the body, in the middle of the trunk.

We are continuing to assimilate newcomers on a weekly basis. This is both exciting and challenging.

Monday we worked on a basic crossings drill, courtesy Mr. Guy Windsor:

1. You wait in PDD destra.
2. Defender also waits in PDD destra.
3. You attack the defender with a mandritto fendente, passing.
4. Defender strikes as well, aiming to cross in the middle of your sword, to cover.
5. Seeing this defense occurring, you shorten the strike somewhat so as to force the crossing to occur higher on your blade, giving you an opportunity to do a quick tip release, offline step and doubled mandritto fendente through.

Light (2 person) turnout. We worked Guy Windsor’s new Fiore spear drill. This turns out to be a formidable workout when using the heavy thick rattan poles that we currently have in lieu of spears. When moving out of fendente with a spear, it’s easy to make the mistake of leaving yourself open to a direct thrust for a moment; a way to drill this is to have the adversary attempt a quick “pool cue” thrust into the opening.

After that, mostly free sparring and looking for teachable moments. A useful discussion ensued about footwork: how to watch your opponent for moments when he makes himself vulnerable by moving incorrectly, and how to avoid making such a mistake yourself.