This is a little overdue, and we’ve slacked off on hitting the Giganti recently, though it’s coming back out at practice on Thursday (heads up, Gawin and Letia) to change that. Having segued to dagger, then, on to the first set of dagger chapters, of the form “how to parry a thrust to the ____”. So, okay, he discussed parrying thrusts to the face in the bit covered previously, but that won’t stop him from discussing it again.
The chapters are thrusts to the face, left flank, and right flank, and then the face again. Interesting that these are pretty much the three targets he cares about, ever, whereas other Italians go into much more detail about targetting.
How to Correctly Parry a Thrust to the Left Flank
Start in guard, of course, and…
Keep your dagger guarding the opponent’s sword
Which is straight from the first chapter of the book
in the tempo of his attack to your left flank, parry with the edge of the dagger and strike him in the right shoulder. Do this in one tempo
This was one of the great “a ha” moments of my study of Giganti. My dagger defense, and the dagger defense of most fighters, is largely two tempo: Parry with dagger, then counter-lunge. Here, it’s a single action “messotempo” counter lunge, parrying at the same time as the counter in the time of the initial attack. And boy is it pretty when it comes off, but also painful as it is another instance of defense via stop thrust.
Stay alert with your eyes and mind, solid and tight with your body
Being alert and constantly ready is the hard part. It’s what separates my “teaching mode” from my “kill mode”. Kill mode is that full focus of mind and body so that opportunity recognition is instantly matched by single-tempo response, and a two-tempo defense is generally my indicator to myself that I’m not in it.
He will be unable to parry, since your thrust will arrive as he is coming forward
I think more and more the use of historical techniques is going to have to come with an acknowledgment that it’s going to hurt. That may lead to a more conservative fencing style throughout the community, which will then lead to Dante being insufferable as he says “See, I told you! When you fight like they’re sharp you don’t do stupid shit like start in measure.” He’d probably be justified, but still, maybe I’ll work at softening my stop thrusts enough so that people will still set up in my measure.
How to Correctly Parry a Thrust to the Right Flank…
If the opponent advanced on you with his sword low to attack your right flank, lift the sword arm and stay in the third guard [not Tierca, but instead a guard presenting an opening between the weapons] to deliver an imbroccata [strong thrust from Prima]
So your opponent enters aiming low, and you raise your arm. This is kind of counter-intuitive for me, but I can see where it’s going, I think.
Keep your dagger low and your arm guarding the opponent’s sword
Right there: So, sword is high and at his face while your dagger guards your low, open right side.
As the opponent begins his thrust, parry and deliver the imbroccata to his right shoulder all in one tempo
A very nice, elegant response: block and stab him in one motion. This works really well on short fighters, by the way (Hi, Letia!)
Even better, as soon as you see that the opponent intends to attack, launch your thrust and you will strike him even more easily
Stop-thrust, again. Relying on the fact (that Dom used) that your opponent’s arm can only do one thing at a time.
These are the four ways to strike and parry with a stoccata or imbroccata. They all share the same nature, which is to parry and counterattack in a single tempo… be always sure to advance your right foot as you deliver your attack, keeping your left foot steadily on the ground.
I haven’t quite figured out which are the “four ways” he’s talking about, but that doesn’t matter so much as the other two sentences. They attack, parry and counter-lunge in the same tempo.
How to Parry a Thrust to the Face in Sword and Dagger
Here’s the same chapter title as a few back, and is almost an abstract of the earlier chapter, repeating some of the points but not all, and taking only a couple of paragraphs. I can’t really say I gained new knowledge from it.
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