This week our smallsword class revised Plates VII, VIII & IX – thrusts under the opponent’s elbow to the low line. They then worked on Pages 22-25 which looked at recoveries from tierce and carte thrusts into an upright, feet together posture, rather than a ‘natural’ guard.
It was the start of new training blocks at our Godalming Chapter tonight. John took students through an introduction to Smallsword, while Mark ran a class of Sword & Buckler and Luke & Leigh worked with the Candidati.
It was free sparring night at Swindon tonight, where students got the chance to spar with a number of different weapons including daggers, rapiers, and smallswords. Students also got to play with Montantes, longswords and polearms in what was a fun filled but exhausting evening.
The impending storm meant that we were a little light on the ground at Swindon tonight, so we had a “Try-A-Weapon” night, where students got to sample a combination of main hand and off-hand weapons including: smallsword, rapier, dagger and cloak. We all had a lot of fun and there is definite interest in progressing some of these weapons further.
In tonight’s smallsword group we again practiced Angelo’s salute, then revised the Volte and Demi-Volte which we covered last week. We then held a King of the Hill tournament where each fencer started with 5 ’lives’. If you were hit you lost a life, if you hit your opponent you stayed on, if both fencers were hit in the same tempo both lost a life and a new pair took to the piste. When you lost all your lives you were out of the game.
Feedback from the fencers indicated that this idea of loosing lives made them more defensive in their approach. We also learned that judging smallsword is very difficult! Apollon came out the winner with one life remaining, beating Phil in the final head to head. Leigh came an honourable third. We ended the session with a period of Freeplay.
Another busy night at our Godalming chapter with multiple streams for students to choose from. In our Sword and Buckler group tonight we looked at the 15th and 11th falso on falso plays from Chapter 3 of Manciolino. Whilst in tonight’s smallsword group,we revised Angelo’s salute, practiced thrusting in carte and tierce at a fixed target and worked on Angelo’s feints, ending with a session of Freeplay.
In tonight’s smallsword group at our Godalming Chapter we revised Angelo’s salute and worked on Angelo’s ‘Method of Thrusting and ParryingTierce and Carte, Called Thrusting at the Wall’. Meanwhile the sword and buckler class today was starting to look at some strette plays (when sword are crossed at halfsword etc) – and using it as a way of identifying correct distance in fights.
