Here me and Matias Parmala engage in some friendly and relaxed free fencing after a session of (relatively strenuous) training, using ‘sideswords’, or what we should perhaps call Bolognese swords, or even play swords after ‘spade da gioco’. The video ends abruptly with me being disarmed and knee-stomped in the diaphragm. It remains unknown to me what malice I must have committed towards Matias to deserve such a manhandling.
It didn’t hurt, though.
The strongest lessons learned during my six-some years of pursuing the arts of swordsmanship have been about seeing, and what to look for. The present state of my skills and knowledge have never been as important as the ability to establish a good direction for the future. A topic worth a book-length analysis in itself, this ability lends not only to self-assessment but also to the skill of teaching and ultimately to swordplay itself: without seeing and knowing what to look for there is not much hope for overcoming the adversary. For those wondering, I tend to use the expression to see interchangeably with the expression to feel. Instead of being about myself (there’s bound to be enough if not too much about me in this blog anyway) this post is about the study of swordsmanship in general, about its current state and future horizons. Still, it will just be my take on it, my current position and therefore just as much about me as anything else, and as we will see, I have only seen so much, literally felt so much – but there is a lot more I feel about it – the way I have been taught has instilled in me a picture, or rather a feeling, of how things should be, and boy is that far from what I see everyday in myself and in others. But this is not necessarily to be taken as a rant or anything negative – as it is this particular contrast that drives me and probably others as well forward. If it wasn’t for this feeling, how could we find a direction and measure progress?
For some what I write may be stating the obvious (or they may disagree), but I wish that every mind would run a check on their honesty, leaving aside all ego, all anticipations, all that they have to lose. In an art which will never be brought to its purest form of expression there will eventually be a lot frustration. Big words, strong arguments, distorted theaters to put people in order of ability all only serve to distance us from what we are actually trying to accomplish. I am here taking a position of authority in defining what our goals are as a community, but if you find yourself in disagreement, please read it as my own approach instead – I know there are different goals and motivations and these don’t necessarily compare in any level. I have no wish to offend anyone.
There has lately been quite a lot of talk about core assumptions. How I see it, the only core assumption we should make is that what we read in the sources is to be initially taken as true, and something we are trying to understand and be able to reproduce. Not only interpretations of the techniques, but also to understand the process of creating the treatises, so that from our own understanding we could reproduce similar texts, and understand why we would make the same choices the original authors did, and also why we would differ should we wish to.
Everything outside this goal is more modern, more private to us. I have seen good scholars interested in the texts but with less value in their own skills. I have seen good scholars who – more than anything else – strive to be good swordsmen. They look to find out what being a swordsman entails, and they often find answers from the source texts. I have also seen those who want to be good swordfighters, and while they often (encouragingly) find it useful to follow what is said in the sources, they sometimes end up concentrating primarily in looking for a context in which to prove their ability to themselves and often others as well. This leads to the tournaments, of which I will write later.
For me, the truest context has always been teaching, and the sources also tell us how they greatly valued this skill as well, as did their ancient authorities. This leaves the question open about what exactly is it that is being taught, but at the same time it offers the greatest venue for openly approaching all ways of looking at the arts. One can refine their skill in teaching regardless of the state of the art itself, and the personal goal for development can always be pursued even if the understanding of the art itself underwent drastic changes.
Some of the feed-back, or the lack of it, regarding the recent discussions on the concepts of Italian swordplay has been interesting. The most positive feedback received has come from people who have both a very deep (in comparison) understanding of the arts as well as personality to humbly acknowledge how much there is that they don’t yet know. Not saying that it could not be all understood, but taking no shortcuts because of thinking that they had to know more. The other side of this is, that I get the feeling that there actually are only a handful of people out there who are able to discuss something like Italian swordplay with any sort of true attempt to use the original concepts, the terminology and so on.
Now the big thing is, that it is OK. Perfectly so. There is no rush – but tell me if I’m wrong – how many are there? I often expect others to know better than I do, I often overstate my case in humility, but I believe I am starting to get a better feeling of the real situation out there. Now I’ll be the first to admit that my own abilities are not of an admirable rate in any aspect of this study. Every now and then people tell me otherwise, but when I compare myself to the feeling of how it should be, and how much more I know there is to understand (and be able to physically execute) there is an endless amount of work to do… I don’t even read Italian fluently to begin with, if we start from the more ‘academical’ end of this pursuit.
Coming back to the topic, is the situation any different on other fronts? Regarding the Italian front, there has been a fantastic deal of advances in the study of Fiore dei Liberi, for example, but even there it seems as if the deeper we get with his texts the more we start to see evidence of what was the state of the art in his time. How big of a part does Fiore show of this art? How much is there to understand of those parts that Fiore leaves blank, perhaps only giving us tools and some key points to guide us through a life-long study to gain this understanding, which in the end will only be our own and the original text will only be there to support our views, not to conclusively prove anything. Who can go through a 17th century text and even start to speculate why the plays therein are what they are, in that order and written the way they are… Regarding the Bolognese, how many can even list the names of the surviving works that we have of the tradition? And who can say having read these texts (anyone saying so without mentioning that a lot of the material is like reading a catalog of fencing actions is subject to suspicion). What about all the texts that are often called “transitional”? Transitional between what? Me personally, no matter what some say, I haven’t read a fraction of all these, and at this time it is important that there’d be a lot of people with breadth in knowledge, before delving into too much depth.
I won’t even start to speak of the German sources, as I am even more ignorant on them than I am regarding the Italian material. But I can’t help myself, where are those people discussing and referring to Paulus Hector Mair on a daily basis? Surely there should be those, as his work is absolutely massive, covering most all of the weapon styles ever practiced in Europe up until the time of its writing. I know there are people working with it in Europe as well as in the States and elsewhere, there is a translation (hopefully) seeing its final proof-reading as a write, but so far I have never read or heard anyone go through the work explaining why it was written, what is covered in the text, what is the style of instruction, what are the moments depicted in the pictures and is there reason to question Mair as a source for being a reproduction or interpretation of older texts, or does it carry true value as a source for practice – and if so – what is the context it was composed for?
When there is a discussion (often) that leads into more specific nature of the texts, it often dies out – I understand how writing and following those threads is hard work – but why is this? Why is it, that very rarely do the discussion take us to the acknowledgement that we don’t know, and into suggestions on what to look for next? Sometimes I hear, that it is not worthwhile to take part in these discussions, but for those who might have something to add or share, how can they take such a position? Can they, even on their specific field of study, answer the type of questions I proposed above? If not they should not take such position. Of course, time is expensive, but I still think that more effort in educating anyone willing to listen (and everyone should be willing to listen) as the time invested just might bring something useful in return.
I promised to come to the topic of tournaments. Right now there is a lot of discussion on regarding them, people looking for the perfect ruleset, people discussing how the audience should behave and all sorts of topics. In many of the events I go to (WMAW being an exception) the tournament(s) are sort of the highlight. For me, the highlight and the reason of going to the events is that something little I might get from lectures, private correspondence or workshops (where it often relates to the art of teaching), that furthers the feeling I have of the whole. Sometimes I have experienced this during free fencing, and often when free fencing with a more experienced person, who, as we fence is actually teaching me. It is never about myself, really. I prefer to run a workshop when I travel to an event, which is of course excellent experience for myself, but just as much I am aware that I have put more than the average practitioner in the pursue of this art, and I am willing to share everything I know, give it to others for whatever it may be worth to them.
Never have I personally got anything from participating a tournament. I am not against tournaments, they are often done for a good cause, and those who love fencing in a competitive setting should be given a venue for doing so. It can (but might not) be good publicity. It can be fun. But regardless I find it funny how much effort is put into it, and how much value is given to the results. But I guess it is an easy way to answer some questions, even fundamental ones. Who succeeds in competition is best (but best in what exactly?). What works in competition, is proven to work (but to work in exactly which context?). This leads me to two other points, which I have emphasized before as well. Firstly, many groups who don’t have access to experienced teaching, emphasize free fencing. The reason is that they lack material to practice. Secondly, competitive swordplay is historical and just as valid as any other form of swordplay. The word play keeps repeating itself, and so for a reason. The question however, like with everything else, is how did they do it? And for what purposes?
Without a careful study of the sources in the light of play and competition the competitions will remain modern and divided from the original art without question. We have evidence that the play was different from the use of the weapons in earnest for the masters of old, yet today the context is often blurry and there is little evidence of any level of understanding about what it is that is actually done. One is playing tag-hit, while his opponent dreams of being in a duel but simulating it with no intent of injuring the opponent. No matter how much you may want to excel and show your skill, the fact is, that there is still work to do. Competitive HEMA, as some call it, can drop the “H” out of it unless there is any attempt to reconstruct the way it was done competitively back then. I know there are studies being made towards this end, but the state of the art is shown by one group concluding that, an original period ruleset was impossible to use and made no sense whatsoever. Either it was not used, or we don’t understand it. Either way, there’s a question for you, which could possibly be further answered by more research. Likewise, why are there no thrusts in Joachim Meyer’s longsword? How could this effect competition, in case that Meyer was speaking of competitive longsword (which, even for him, would actually be “competitive HEMA”)? How does this relate to the recent discussions on largo and stretto? Why are the largo guards, in the Bolognese tradition, most often used with the spada da gioco and not with the spada da filo?
Get fit, train hard, but also read as much as you can, and understand, that to truly be involved in the art of swordsmanship today, it is not simply about waving swords about – as discussed on a forum thread not long ago – the “H” in the art comes from the sources we have, the ones written and illustrated, from the surviving weapons (whose nature is still often sadly misunderstood, and just how far apart are they from nylon), period descriptions of armed encounters and so forth. After that comes, what I called for in the previous post, experience – which we still need more of.
My final point regarding tournaments is, that no matter how historical they are they derive from the use of the sword in earnest. The sword was not devised for play or competition. The play was derived from the need to learn how to wield it, and once again walk in the footsteps of Galen when I say, that the competitive nature of its use was twisted and never necessary for the proper development of ones character or the skill of using the weapon in war.
For the swordsmen of past time, they had to use the weapons in earnest, so they had no necessity to prove their skill in competition nor did they need an artificial venue to express their art. The fact that they still chose to do so and engage in all manner of competition tells us of their society, as there must’ve been a social and cultural call for the behavior, and in some cases, the need to settle something with maybe a bit of bloodshed but no need for anyone to enter the coffin. Again this is something that I don’t know much about, but those interested in the competitive side must look at things in their search for the way in which to run the tournaments. Everything from this to what happened during the 16th century when these chivalric arts descended into reach of the emerging merchant class. Likewise, how was the reformation of the dueling culture to effect competitive swordplay? How long had there been those, who, for a lack of anything better went about challenging others to fight with swords, and was this to be considered competitive swordplay in all its lethal gruesomeness? Was it organized? And when we play with swords in tournaments today are we to represent the chivalric class propping up their social status by means of a display of their courage and valor, or are we to represent those prostituting themselves to satisfy the blood-thirsty common folk for a crust of bread – or are we to engage in a representation of a judicial duel done in all seriousness brought by the institution, even all the way up to damaging one’s honor, save for bodily injure and death?
There is no need to side with me or disagree too strongly – I enjoy every moment and every new development in the community regardless of its direction. But consider with me for a moment: what is my goal? What is my context? Am I placing emphasis where it should be placed? Answer honestly. As it becomes more relevant in the near future (because of my own projects), I will be reflecting back to this – however unlikely it may seem, I actually do have interest in the competitive side as well, but with a strong emphasis on the word historical.
A cinquedea showing the charasteristic forms of a curved crossguard, multiple fullers and sharply tapering blade.
Falling somewhere between a dagger and a sword, with emphasized offensive quality and a resemblance to the Roman gladius, the cinquedea remains the ultimate close-range killing tool. With a wound of palm’s width, no stitching was to save the poor man who had tasted its steel during the late 15th and the 16th century.
The term cinquedea has its roots in the expression cinque dita which translates as “five-finger”. The five fingers refer to the aforementioned width of the blade at its base, and regardless of the varying length of the weapon the acutely tapering, wide blade was its defining characteristic.
I occasionally run searches of various words more or less relevant to the study of swordsmanship through John Florio’s 1611 New World of Words, and looking up the cinquedea I found him using the more-root form of cinquedita, which is no suprise, but looking at the translation or definition of the word, Florio reveals what might be a sign of his ignorance in knowledge of weaponry. He gives us “Cinquedita, a weapon but five fingers long used in Venice.”
Five fingers, yes, but surely it should be five fingers wide, not long. A typo, or an error in the definition? Hard to say, but gives more weight on the warnings of those who tell us to read Florio with certain reservations. As to the question of whether the cinquedea was more popular in Venice than other Italy or beyond, I can’t really say. I wonder what references was Florio using.
A rare depiction of a moment where the adversary is hit with full strike, in gioco largo. From Angelo Viggiani's Lo Schermo.
Alessandro Citolini was a 16th century man-of-letters, was a proponent of the Italian language keen on defending the lingua volgare, by composing an alphabet and grammatical descriptions for the Italian language, which remained unpublished, and publishing a work on the subject in 1540. His other published work, the La Tipocosmia (‘Type of the world’, published 1561) is an over five-hundred page work describing various subjects in a brief, catalog-like fashion. The reason why we are interested in Citolini’s work is his possible – though at this point completely speculative – connection to Camillo Agrippa through Annibale Caro. And not just that, but also the fact that Citolini’s type of world includes the type of swordplay as well.
One would wish for a more extensive description on the subject, but we have to be happy to see the little that Citolini gives us. To be honest, I wished any modern encyclopedia would go even this deep in describing the subject. Citolini may not have been a swordsman, but his description follows a familiar theme set also by the men better versed in the subject. Citolini tells us, that in the art of fencing you will see
“…the master, a fencer, a sword, bucklers, the edge of the buckler, gloves, the fencing, and here will be the wide play and narrow, play of the sword, and buckler, of sword and target, of sword and cape, of sword and dagger, of sword alone, of dagger alone, of sword in two hands, of the half-sword, of polearms, and then touching false edge with false edge, true edge with true edge, doing an assault, or two, or more, going to grips, disarming the weapon from hand.”
This listing details many of the terms that are commonly used in the works of Manciolino, Marozzo and the anonymous manuscript. almost as if the entire listing was a summary of the chapters of Achille Marozzo’s Opera Nova. There is also the division that in fencing there will be the gioco largo and then the gioco stretto – the wide and narrow play. This division can be found in almost all of the Italian works on swordsmanship starting from Fiore dei Liberi and traversing through Vadi and the Bolognese texts to a few 17th century texts. Regardless of their frequency, their meaning is still the subject of ongoing research and debate.
It is understandable the Citolini doesn’t go into too much detail in describing any of these terms, or words, since the scope of his work seems to be limited to listing expressions that are common among the discussion of a given subject. Looking at the works that are specific to swordplay in nature, we might expect to find more detailed definitions. In the case of the stretto and largo we are unfortunately still without a definite explanation. On the other hand, we have a few places where some attributes of these are clearly defined, and from the examples and pictorial evidence we can interpret a few more conditions that need to apply in each – in fact – we do know what these terms mean, as in the end they are simply words of the Italian language that have their equivalents in English, they are common language and not necessarily technical jargon enclosing the secrets of the art. Largo is wide and stretto is narrow. The distance between the combatants can be narrow or wide, the distance of the swords’ points from the opponent’s person can be wide and narrow. The techniques can be executed wide and they can be executed narrow, and every time one is operating close to the opponent they are obviously stretto. And this is all true, and possible to document from the sources.
What is the big question then? What do we not know? It is sometimes a bit surprising to see some things defined very carefully in the sources, such as some of the strikes, their angles, some of the guards or some of the footwork is sometimes very specifically detailed, especially in the 16th century works. Basically all of the 16th century works begin by defining the two most important aspects of the weapon, its division into the true edge facing away and the false edge facing towards the wielder. Shouldn’t that be obvious? Does it need to be repeated every time, even if all masters agree on the subject (one of the few such things!). Still, notice that I as well decided to define the terms above as well, even if I expect most of you reading this to be familiar with them.
It is easy to get the feeling that some terms and concepts are left without enough detail when some others are well documented. We begin to expect the same level of detail on every subject and concept presented. This of course will not be the case in any work that goes beyond the level of detail used by Citolini. For every work there is a target audience, an expected level of knowledge (like the ability to read in the first place) and so on.
Especially in the Bolognese tradition the beginning by defining the two edges may also be a tradition, something that if left out would render the work inadequate and unprofessional in nature. The division to the two edges is the beginning mark of an artful and scientifically trained swordsman since without this – an understanding of the attributes of the weapon – there will be no art nor science of its use. Now this is me speaking, but the masters who defined the art may well have felt the same way. Defining terms like close play and wide play might not have carried such burden upon them, they might have been closer to, for example, speaking of a disarm. There is no need to define what a disarm is.
What we face today is that most of us as individuals and definitely the community as a whole lacks experience, the experience our ancestors had and from which their written legacy is derived. We may be able to recognize close play from wide, and we may be able to discuss them and use the concepts when fencing or teaching. The questions arise when we are trying to (at least I often find myself falling into this pit) find a precise moment, or a precise sequence of actions that leads to one or the other, while there are possible infinite ways and it was never intended that the terms would be used in such a specific manner. Speculation, yes, and the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence of such use of the terms, but in the light of the evidence we have, we can summarize that gioco largo precedes gioco stretto, both in terms of time and measure. We can also see that gioco stretto involves the point of the sword being towards the opponent.
This is the order of their presentation in Fiore dei Liberi’s Fior di Battaglia, and the anonymous follows the same order. The anonymous is also clear in describing how the narrow play requires the point of the sword to stay in presence, directed towards the opponent’s hand or person, and this is accomplished by using mezzi colpi, half strikes that do not go past the guardie strette, positions where the swords point is fixed toward the opponent, and that these strikes are used when close to the enemy and not far. In Fiore, we can clearly see that his giochi stretti are done by enterin so near the opponent that the point of his sword is no longer a threat.
On the contrary, the wide play is, according to the anonymous, ‘very graceful and beautiful to watch, it pleases infinite men, and its play is more beautiful and more charming than that of narrow play’. Further, ‘…in two ways are the strikes of the sword given, in wide or in narrow play. Every swordsman needs to make sure to learn both; as much to esteem honor as to one’s life. Although wide strikes are done with praise, nevertheless being narrow to the adversary due to ignorance of their secret properties, one will be forced to retreat backwards. Not only will this turn all the favors to the adversary, not only will a great shame sting the heart…’ and almost in the same vein, Antonio Manciolino concludes about the lack of skills in stretto, that ‘…being forced with shame and danger to retreat backwards often gives the victory to the hand of his enemy or at least showing to the spectators his ignorance of the art.’
This is by no means all that is said about the subject in the source literature, and more detailed analysis can be done and would certainly serve the community. We arrive to these terms in other places as well, the stretto, for example refers to ‘close’, or ‘narrow’ as described above. It is therefore not surprising to find Fiore using the word at times when he is discussing the work done with a dagger or unarmed against a dagger. Likewise the Bolognese have a type of plays they call stretti di mezza spada, which Jherek Swanger aptly translates as the “straits of the half-sword”. In these plays the swordsmen and their swords are defined to be similar, or equal, with the blades ‘kissing each other’ and waiting for one of the players to begin to act first.
Again it is not the definition that causes debate, it is not a challenge to place the combatants in the same position so that their swords are touching each other. Even the actions themselves are not always difficult, rather they are simple with a few exceptions that are harder to figure out (the reason for this being the mentioned lack of experience). The question is about in what circumstances would one get into this situation, what leads to a position of crossed swords with similar position between both players?
If you read my translation of Citolini carefully, you will have noticed that the half-sword was mentioned in his list. This is indeed the very same mezza spada that he mentions. Clearly it is important, and clearly it is related to the division of the two different plays as we shall see.
Fiore divides majority of his work on the longsword into gioco largo and gioco stretto. No surprise there, but this is not the only division he makes. He divides the largo into to different crossings of the swords, one done to the points of the swords and the other to the middle (mezza spada, about the translation of the word mezza, besides checking out your dictionary, see for example this pdf). As stated elsewhere in the Pisani-Dossi version of Fior di Battaglia, Fiore divides the sword blade into punta, mezza and tutta, respectively the point (first third from the point towards cross-guard), the middle and the whole. It is only the crossing at mezza spada that can lead into the stretto, with plays flowing from this crossing in both sections.
The difference between the two is, that as the Bolognese emphasize that the stretti di mezza spada begin from a position of equality, either with the true or the false edges of the swords touching, likewise Fiore shows both combatants in the crossing with their right feet forward, and while it can be argued that one of them is with an advantage there is no textual evidence of this in the description. However, the text clearly states that from that instant either one of the combatants can perform the plays that follow. And this is probably the most important thing in the whole debate.
From the onset, before an engagement of blades, there is basically always one who acts first and the other who responds to this action. From here is derived the division primarily into attack and defense, and further into the Italian concept of tempi, Liechtenauer’s vor, indes and nach, to the three functions of a strike given by Joachim Meyer, to invitations, provocations, feints, parries, counterattacks and beats on blades. Analyzed further, we find that an attack needs to be directed towards the person of the adversary, a parry towards the incoming sword, a feint is an action with the potential of an attack to draw a parry, an invitation is a more passive positioning to encourage an attack, a provocation is a more active positioning or an attack done towards the arm or out of measure to draw an attack and so on. Then there are what the Liechtenauer tradition nowadays call master-strikes or secret strikes, actions that blend together a parry and an attack. The Italian equivalent, would be a counterattack or an attack with opposition.
In all this, there is little evidence of what some suggest as the lead-up to an equal crossing or an equal binding of the swords – a mutual attack done at the same time, to the same target of both attackers. Manciolino may be referring to a situation where this might, with luck, work if you are equally skilled with your opponent and don’t know what to do – probably in the case where you can’t expect your plans to work as the opponent is too likely to know what you are doing. Besides that, I can’t really see much of this going on. How do we then end up into a position of equality?
The thing about equality is that it is not good. It is not good to be equal with your opponent, not equally alive, not equally dead, not equally injured and so on. It doesn’t make sense – what kind of a fencing master would teach his students to look for equality? Sure, in formulating a duel equality may be sought, but in reality it is only sought by the institution. From the moment the cartello is issued both parties were quick to start exercising in order to increase their inequality in skill and strength. Likewise, in the defendant’s choice of arms it was not equality that was sought for.
From a position of disadvantage getting into an equal position makes more sense, and while not stated this way in any source that I know of, what is said fits to this model of thinking. In Fiore’s case, the crossing in the largo is done with the left foot in front and it is the following strike that is done with a following pass of the right foot. In stretto, this pass is executed (as the text says), but the swords remain crossed. Why has the defender not struck his adversary already?
Those familiar with Fiore will know that he describes positions or actions that he calls remedies. The definition of a remedy, that he gives in the first remedy shown in his dagger work, is that it is a position in which one is safe from the opponent’s attack and is able to strike him. Following from this, it would seem that after failing to immediately acquire these conditions with the initial parry the defender has had to take his pass in order to establish a position of equality from which to continue – to establish the remedy from a position which may have been enough to keep him safe from the attack, but which did not allow him to return a strike. This is in line with Manciolino, who calls for every defense to be followed by an offence. This is also in line with what was discussed above, that finding yourself narrow with your opponent (his point close to you, the distance between you being close – while not one single definitive thing, I think everybody can formulate an idea of the circumstances), if you don’t know how to play in close you are forced to retreat backwards, and as we saw, that was not advisable (retreating itself is not always inadvisable, as Giovanni dall’Agocchie points out. My personal take on this is that dall’Agocchie is doing his passes back early enough and from a situation of disadvantage, but such that the opponent’s blade is out of presence as well. I will leave this discussion to another time as I do not wish to digress too much, and honestly more detailed look into the retreating needs to be done first.).
What exactly went wrong in the defense is not described in the texts, but the idea of following with something else is referred to in the texts at times. For more closer analysis on the case of failing a parry in Fiore, see the relevant discussion on SFI.
Getting back to the strette di mezza spada described in the Bolognese tradition we are not described how the circumstances are reached. We have a few examples of what actions precede them in some of the assalti (practice/demonstration forms) and the anonymous has five or so plays which end up ‘finding yourself in mezza spada’, some of them leading up to grabbing the blade and a kick to the groin given in response, but in these as well the instruction seems to be vague, suggesting that it does not matter how you got there, but if you got there this is what you do. Not optimal, but it can happen.
Wrapping up I’d like to remind about how dall’Agocchie criticizes those masters who teach the stretto first and leave out the largo, which would seem to be a reference to what we see in the 17th century with the rapier texts, who start by having the point in line and the point is never to depart. There seems to be a difference in emphasis, even Manciolino refers to how with sharp swords you should only use the low guards (which include in this case the ones with the point in presence), and a great deal of the Bolognese swordplay is done with the points close to the opponent. In terms of tempi as moments to harm the opponent, the most valued was however the one where the opponent’s point had traveled past one’s body, following then with a strike. There is no crossing there at all, but the strike is done freely, and if it is without fear of the opponent’s sword it can be done full, if it is followed by a retreat to a safe distance and the fight is never reduced to grips, not even to a crossing of swords (mezza spada), not even speaking of an equal crossing (gioco stretto, or a stretta), that would fall in the anonymous’ definition of a play graceful and beautiful to watch. But how easy is that accomplish? Will your sword remain free and your person in a safe distance at all times? Can you resist the temptation of hitting your opponent’s sword? Are you brave enough not to try to draw him into a committed attack which you could then parry and hit back in return?
This all brings me back to the mentioning of experience, or the lack of it. If we all had twenty years of fencing behind us, and if we had always had teachers with a life-time of experience, and if we were surrounded by villains, professional soldiers, bodyguards, price-fighters and so on I am sure we would be more versed to see when and how the fight is reduced into grips, when we end up in an equal position and why and how the actions from the stretti are to fit into the bigger picture. I am confident that with further study and with the eventual gaining of this experience the mysteries will be solved, at least insofar that we can create our own ideas of largo and stretto, which are correct in their relevant world, do not contradict the old writings (think how the masters referred to ancient sources as prove to their ideas) and that are beautiful and unique to us – not unlike the way each master chose their way of explaining the difference of the true and the false edge.
In the end I’d like to quote a relevant passage from the anonymous:
“This ingenious art of the sword consists in total of a half-turn of the hand or a full one, but this half or full turn of the hand greatly needs to be accompanied by a half-strike or a full one and, this half or a full strike greatly needs to be accompanied by a half-turn of the body, and this half turn of the body greatly needs to be accompanied by a half pass or a full one, and this half or a full pass greatly needs to be accompanied by a half tempo or a full one, and this half or a full tempo greatly needs agility and dexterity, and these greatly need courage, and this courage greatly needs to be accompanied by judgment, and this judgment can not be if not by the way of experience, that is the mother of all things, and the teaching I give.”