After a well-deserved holiday break, class began anew. Happy New Year to everyone, and safe training!
We continued where we’d left off – actually, that’s not quite true – we reviewed and got back into the swing of things with some (many) cutting drills, concentrating on form and mechanics. We also discussed the tactical choice of a point-up or point-down parry, which essentially boils down to line. The shorter line will generally dictate what to use – i.e., if you stand in porta di ferro, you employ a point down (hanging) parry, whilst parrying from posta di donna will result in the choice of using a point-up guard (frontale).
The cutting drills employed are simple combination cutting drills, as follows:
- cut mezza fendente to longa with a pass , thrust with an acressere.
- moulinet and cut fendente roverso with a pass forward.
- Pass and thrust punta roverso with a pass.
- Strammazone and cut fendente with an acressere.
- Invert the sword to thrust punta sopramano with a pass.
- Using a wrist motion, cut mezani roverso.
- Return to guard.
Drill 2
- Cut mezza fendente to longa
- Strammazone to fendente roverso
- Invert the sword, cutting around to fendente mandritto down to dente di cinghiale
- Cut roverso sottano falso to posta di donna
- Repeat.
Drill 3
- Cut fendente to centre
- Moulinet fendente roverso to posta breve
- Cut upwards sottani dritto to posta di finestra sinestra
- Pivot sword around balance point and cut roverso sottani dritto
- Repeat
Flow drill
This was followed by a couple of flow drills similar in nature, meant to practice fluidity, timing, measure and footwork while also practising the hanging parry.
- Begin in porta di ferro. your partner begins in posta di donna
- With a compass step left, he cuts fendente mandritto to your head.
- Step to the left, performing a hanging parry.
- return with a fendente roverso while compassing to your right.
- Your partner will parry with a hanging parry while returning to his right.
- Continue, eventually switching positions/guards.
You can make this incorporate both sides by modifying the drill so that each person does a fendente then a roverso, than parries the fendente and roverso, then attacks…etc.