Daily Archives: 25 Jul 2015

Website updates

Renfence Website updates 25 July 2015

I’ve been working on the site, doing some catch up with the lessons from Term 2 at Drummoyne and Epping which I haven’t posted yet. One of the main reasons for the delay is the time it takes me to convert my brief teaching notes into detailed step by step instructions. Most of the time my drill notes will be a simple single sentence for me to remember the drill. A drill that states “Feint disengage to hit on the pass” is not in any way useful for a student to understand the actual drill. The more detailed explanation requires me to describe starting guards, and detailed actions in sequence, roughly 5 to 6 times greater wordage compared to my teaching notes. I also have to add the teaching notes which explain the subtlety of each individual action and the various mistakes that can occur, all of which make the drill information useful for remote readers.

As a part of this catch up I’ve also added a new menu group for the Spadone lessons. This menu page also has the lessons listed in order for the teaching curriculum I followed during the course. This now brings the number of teaching curricula to 3 for the site. Each of the spadone lesson posts now also has links at the bottom of the page to the lesson either side of the lesson being viewed in the program, as well as a link back to the main index page.

I’ve also removed the individual menu item lists for the Italian Rapier teaching curriculum, as I’m adding the next set of lessons. The extended menu for the individual lessons was becoming too unwieldy to use and maintain. It also reflects the shift from pages to posts for the ongoing lesson notes, which allows me to automatically post to Google + and Facebook, as well as provide the blog syndication feed used by the site. None of these notification processes work with pages, which is important for many of my readers.

Italian Rapier, Stocatta, Drummoyne

Giganti Lesson 9 – Attacking on the Pass

Review Lesson 8

  • The 3 measures – close, wide, out of distance
  • Covering the line from out of measure, then using footwork to come into measure with a gain.

Attacking on the pass

The attack on the pass can be used as an alternative to the attack with a lunge. The primary advantage of using the pass is the increased measure at which the attack can be thrown. Since the action takes us to the outside of our opponent the action preceding the attack on the pass must pull the opponent’s sword to the high inside line.

Attacking on the Pass with Feint Disengage

  1. From Guardia Terza, feint a thrust to the opponent’s high inside line.
  2. As the opponent moves to parry 4th, cavazione clockwise, extending to hit to the stomach or chest and passing forward with the rear foot to deliver the thrust with the hand in 2nd.
  3. Repeat 5 times and then reverse roles.

Note: The torso as it comes forwards leans over the now forward left leg, which pulls the torso to the side and away from the opponent’s sword.

Increasing Our Safety With The Hand Check

The attack on the pass relies on speed and the opponent being caught out of position. The technique used in the above drill does however leave the fencer susceptible to a counterattack in the high outside line.

  1. From Guardia Terza, feint a thrust to the opponent’s high inside line.
  2. As the opponent moves to parry 4th, cavazione clockwise, extending to hit to the stomach or chest and passing forward with the rear foot to deliver the thrust with the hand in 2nd.
  3. As you extend the sword to make the hit, simultaneously reach forward with the offhand, bringing the palm towards the opponent’s hilt or blade to prevent the counterattack in the high outside line.
  4. Repeat 5 times and then reverse roles.

Attacking on the Pass From the Opponent’s Engagement

  1. Opponent engages the sword in the high outside line.
  2. Cavazione counterclockwise to make a thrust feint to the high inside line.
  3. As the opponent moves to parry 4th, cavazione clockwise, extending to hit to the stomach or chest and passing forward with the rear foot to deliver the thrust with the hand in 2nd. Hand check to the high outside line with the offhand.
  4. Repeat 5 times and then reverse roles.

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