Companion Class 9/01/2012

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:

  1. cut mezza fendente to longa with a pass , thrust with an acressere.
  2. moulinet and cut fendente roverso with a pass forward.
  3. Pass and thrust punta roverso with a pass.
  4. Strammazone and cut fendente with an acressere.
  5. Invert the sword to thrust punta sopramano with a pass.
  6. Using a wrist motion, cut mezani roverso.
  7. Return to guard.
Drill 2
  1. Cut mezza fendente to longa
  2. Strammazone to fendente roverso
  3. Invert the sword, cutting around to fendente mandritto down to dente di cinghiale
  4. Cut roverso sottano falso to posta di donna
  5. Repeat.
Drill 3
  1. Cut fendente to centre
  2. Moulinet fendente roverso to posta breve
  3. Cut upwards sottani dritto to posta di finestra sinestra
  4. Pivot sword around balance point and cut roverso sottani dritto
  5. 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.
  1. Begin in porta di ferro. your partner begins in posta di donna
  2. With a compass step left, he cuts fendente mandritto to your head.
  3. Step to the left, performing a hanging parry.
  4. return with a fendente roverso while compassing to your right.
  5. Your partner will parry with a hanging parry while returning to his right.
  6. 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.