Fencing Fest and Improving Understanding of Bolognese Offence

Last weekend I was up in Brisbane teaching Bolognese material at Fencing Fest 6. It's a lovely little event, and this year moved to the Vigoro Club in East Ipswich. Up to now it's been held at the Riverhaven Hall in Lutwyche. It's the first Fencing Fest that the MediumMe Slugboy has travelled to, so it was fun to see him playing against people not from Sydney. He actually did the best of all the Sydney folk playing in the tournament, and bounced afterwards since he beat Owain (one of the Guildmasters in Canberra). Fun all round, and we loved the Villiers B&B just around the corner from the site. Slugboy however had to make do with a regular billet, but he's young and resilient. Each morning we came down to a relaxed formal breakfast, Loni and Zebee taking turns to play mother pouring the tea, and I'd take the plunger coffee since I can't stand dishwater.

I've been pulling together the teaching notes for Brisbane Swordplay Convention 2009 at the end of August, and this event was a great opportunity for me to field test the ideas. I also got a chance to bounce ideas off Zebee, who makes a great sounding board. It's given me a bit of a break through on the offensive aspects, which allows me to get further into the system.

So the refined offensive overview is:
Redoubled Decending Blows
Redoubled Ascene lifting muscles, so it's much smoother as they are not fighting the supporting muscles. Another way to think about it is to keep your sword hand between your shoulders or hips, as that also encourages you to use those steeper lines. Coming up the same line with the falsi also improves the efficiencies of those cuts.

The other problem for people was the false edge parry from a stretta guardia. I've always tended to teach this action from Coda Lunga Alta, but was finding most people tend to mess upding Blows, aka elsa e tire (ward and strike / send into flight)
Draw the response, which lets you use invitiation, or retain the intiative, or deliver an immediate defence, or attack in 2nd intention.
Attack with feint
Attack the hand, forcing them to move, and controlling their sword
Control the sword point, either through deflection or beat

What that does is it allows me to teach someone core elements, as well as flowing through the tactical options. I really want to get it across to people that the various actions have multiple uses. It also builds in repetition, so people get to see the various ways of using the redoubled actions to achieve the goal. I did just one on one classes this year, so I got to run through the presentation 3 times over the weekend. Two of them was recorded, so I'll see if we can get an edited version up onto Youtube. One of the Macs at home should be able to do it, so watch this space.

Decoding the Bolognese guards via hand position, point direction, hand position and leading foot seemed to give people an easier insight into how to read the material, especially if I work out of just the stretta guardias for the lessons. By breaking it down, it helps overcome the overwhelming terminology that seems to cause the brain freeze people have when they start reading the material.

The main mistake I noticed with all the students was a tendency to cut fairly flat at 45°. Manciolino gives beautiful instructions in Capitolo 2 (courtesy Jherek Swanger's translation):

If, then, you will naturally throw a blow at your enemy travelling beginning at his left ear and continuing toward his right knee, or to whatever part you want, provided that the blow was thrown at the left side of the enemy, it is called “mandritto”.

When you cut flatter than that you are using supporting muscles to hold the arm up, which get strained by the weight of the sword out the end of the arm. The big lifting muscles are working against the supporting muscles hence the strain and pain. The cutting line recommended above by Manciolino utilises just the lifting muscles, so it's much smoother as they are not fighting the supporting muscles. Another way to think about it is to keep your sword hand between your shoulders or hips, as that also encourages you to use those steeper lines. Coming up the same line with the falsi also improves the efficiencies of those cuts.

The other problem for people was the false edge parry from a stretta guardia. I've always tended to teach this action from Coda Lunga Alta, but was finding most people tend to mess up the blade orientation. I'm going to teach it from Cingiara Porta di Ferro instead, since that should stop the tip coming through too early. I also discovered that the phrase "smack your false edge into the back of my sword" helped people understand the action. Using a point forward Guardia instead of an angled Guardia should make it easier for people to see the correct action as the hand is really just turning over to make the parry.

Overall I like the order. It's logical and the topics flow from one concept to the next. Now I just need to build up the drills for teaching it.

Richard