Book Two, Rule Two of the Sword Alone: The Plates

It's been long enough, so here we go! Let's look at the plates for rule two of the sword alone. I think that in general they're a lot more straightforward than those for rule one, which I also think is true of this rule overall. In rule one we had a flowchart which was somewhat complicated, at least until we got it all down on paper. Rule two really just concerns itself as to whether your opponent is on your inside or outside and what you should do in either case. Measure isn't explicitly mentioned, and even implicitly isn't as detailed as how it was covered in the first rule. It isn't as though measure doesn't matter, but it's not the primary principle being used here.

Almost as if each of these rules, while potentially standalone, are also examples of different areas of focus for the principles which will allow you to proceed towards your opponent with resolution. Super weird, right?

So let's get to it!

Like we saw previously, this plate is an example of our initial guard position. It removes the lower torso from measure and presents the head, as it keeps both the guard and forte of the sword as well as the empty hand by the face to protect it. As we can see, easily finding the sword is made difficult by keeping it initially quite high, and the squared-off body ensures that you can really only be attacked to the inside. All of this means that you can set up a fairly predictable set of actions from your opponent, which will in turn ensure a predictable decision tree for yourself.

Plate 118 illustrates the next step in this process. As Fabris has previously described, we've lowered our body while keeping the same position of our arm relative to our torso, which brings our sword down to meet our opponent's. This plate also shows one extremely key component of this position - the relative distances of each fencer's body to their swords, and how that impacts the dynamics of the fight. This is kind of a big deal, so let's take a short trip down this rabbit hole before we get back on track with what Fabris explicitly tells us here. (Which also touches on this as well, so it all works out!)

The relative positions of the blades themselves are pretty standard when you think about it. This is where Fabris wants us to get as a general rule - our hilt down by their debole, which is a great position to be. In the plate though, you can see that our head is about as close to our opponent as our hilt, which is in stark contrast to the relative positions of our opponent's hilt and head, where there's a full arm length of space between them. What does that do for us?

So first off, for what is probably the majority of fencers out there, measure is taken from the opponent's sword. There can be a whole lot of problems with that, but I don't think that I'm particularly off base here. What this means is that yeah, your body is probably a lot closer than a lot of people will expect; certainly, it's a lot closer than the relative blade positions will indicate. The upshot of this is that getting your body past the point of your opponent's sword will be a lot easier, especially with the fact that you're constantly moving forward. By the time they cavazione, your torso will have moved past their point, which dramatically reduces the danger that you're in.

In addition to that, remember that your blade is farther out to the side than usual. What this means is that if you've managed to approach to the outside as Fabris tells you to, you're going to force your opponent to take a larger cavazione to get to your inside line and threaten you, and an even larger one than that if they're going to find your blade as part of that motion. Essentially, you're forcing them into a larger and less efficient action if they want to move inside your blade, and you're for sure going to take advantage of that.

Anyway, back to what Fabris says! He notes that with this arm position, if your opponent performs a cavazione that "your body will be as far forward as your opponent's mid-blade." So that all tracks, and a subsequent plate will show us what happens there. Additionally, he notes that if your opponent tries to find your sword, you'll be situated to pass underneath their blade - which we're about to see!

Here we are at Plate 119, and here we are passing underneath our opponent's sword!

Fabris points out that if our opponent is in a higher guard when we move from the situation in the previous plate, this is more or less where we can end up. Note that we can make out our sword being on top of and controlling that of our opponent's. If they're in a lower guard, Fabris tells us to just lower ourselves to match, which we'll see by the end of this series of plates. Finally, he points out that if our opponent tries to parry and raise their sword, we can turn our hand into second and cavazione underneath their sword and wound them from there, an action which we've seen before.

What if they cavazione to the inside? Here we go! You "lean against the opponent's debole with a fourth." I really like the use of the word "lean" in this description. Look at how our fencer has dropped their hip and turned their body into their opponent's blade to bring it into a fourth. Fabris points out that the right foot is "somewhat out of line" which just adds to the full-body pressure on the sword. He also makes sure to point out that we should "continue all the way to the opponent's body so as to complete the pass" because of course he does. He also notes that if our opponent attempts a girata to save themselves then their defense will actually be weaker for it and they will be able to be wounded in the flank or even the back.

Next up, we show what happens if as we approach to the outside, our opponent's initial action is to raise their hand to parry. Here, we should turn our hand into second before their blade touches ours and lower our body to wound them over their blade and arm as our head and body pass underneath their blade.

As a note, take a look at the orientation of the feet. The hip and body position that this allows is really helpful for getting your body to twist into that position more easily and, let's face it, when it comes to these postures I think we'll all take every bit of help that we can get.

Finally, we're going to look at the last two plates together, because they're essentially a before and after set of shots. Like we've been told before, if our opponent takes on a significantly low guard, we should lower ourselves to match them, and that's exactly what we're seeing here.

We're pulling our right side back - check out that foot and hip orientation again! - and with good weight distribution so we can move forward smoothly.

From there, we end up in the final plate in this rule. Once we get to our opponent's blade, we run up it, here in fourth. If they cavazione, we can pick them up in third on the outside easily. If they raise their blade high, we stay in fourth but end up looking more like Plate 120 as we rise up but remain in fourth.

There we have it! Rule two for the sword alone. Body position, body mechanics, and moving around the point of our opponent's sword are on display here, and they are all really clutch concepts to stay safe as we stroll unceasingly towards our opponent.