Book Two, Rule Six, The Plates!

 Okay, let's dive right in. Last time we looked at the text describing rule six for the sword alone. This time we're going to look at the example plates. Like I mentioned previously, there are six plates total - two sequences of three plates each - so I'm stringing some together with the magic of MS Paint and here we go!

Here we can see how an approach would look if we entered on the inside. Looking from plate 151 to 152, we can see how our arm will pull back to our body and our torso rotate so the left side is presented as we step forward, causing our blade to remain stationary in space. Interestingly, in our first plate we already begin with our left shoulder about even with our right. Fabris states that it allows us to fortify our sword and keep ourselves safe to the inside and only a little open on the outside. (This has come up a couple times previously, and I really want to play around with this in the future. I don't think it's a universal concept but rather something which is true in specific circumstances, such as when you're constantly advancing towards your opponent. I don't think practicing on the fencing dummy will really let me figure this out, but that's also worth a shot.)

Stepping into plate 152, we've completed a pass with our left foot. Our arm is about as far back as it could reasonably get, and our left side is fully forward. From here, all that's really going to happen is that we'll pass forward ahead with our right foot and then wound our opponent, which we see in plate 153.

Fabris really doesn't add much from here; he notes that our opponent really won't be able to turn themselves into fourth to cover themselves to the inside because with the angle our arm is at as well as the measure we're in mean that we're going to be in a much more mechanically strong position. At that measure, they certainly won't be able to perform a cavazione successfully, either. Fabris notes that if they tried it back in plate 151, we could contracavazione as we proceeded forward and things would still work out the same. 

What's worth noting is that Fabris calls out the "union of body and sword and the motion of the feet" being what keeps us safe, and we can especially see that in the conclusion of this play. The step we take is longer than the smaller steps we've taken previously, but not unduly so. Our arm doesn't straighten, but it returns more or less to the angle we see in the beginning of the play. What does happen is our right shoulder turning forward with the right hip shifting forward on the passing step. This maintains the unity of forces through our body and is going to be much harder to resist than the extending of an arm would be, as well as covering a surprising amount of distance and keeping our body safe as we clear our opponent's blade.

The second play occurs with our opponent on the outside. Interestingly, we're in fourth against their third. We choose this guard for two reasons according to Fabris: it's stronger to the outside (because, remember, it points to the outside) and it keeps us safe in the opening that the angle of the guard creates. Notice that we're fairly squared off with respect to our opponent, preparing for the next step, seen in plate 155.

Frankly, Fabris doesn't have much to say about this middle step; the situation is much the same as earlier, as well as at the same point if we were on the inside. Our body positioning, measure, progress forward, and left hand all ensure our safety to the inside and our blade keeps us safe to the outside.  

Finally, we see the wound in fourth. At that distance, with those body mechanics, there's really no reason to take the time to shift to second. There's still a rolling along the spine to shift the right shoulder forward, along with the hip, and the body is lowered as well. Fabris reminds us to push in with our body and not to extend our arm, which would open us up to a girata or possibly a parry. We need to drive forward and not lean ourselves to one side or the other, which would create an opening and cost us our union of forces.

Fabris spends a little bit of ink describing that he didn't go into how to use this technique on first, second, or fourth guards, or generally go into approaching withdrawn guards, because he feels that if you master these techniques, you'll understand how to properly apply them to these other circumstances. Once again, he's trying to describe theory and demonstrate the application of it in some ways and leaves it to the reader's understanding to work out how to apply them in a more general sense.

As an aside, it occurred to me while I was standing in my hallway working through the steps from rule six that there's another reason to set up in fourth even if we're opposing on the outside. If we are in fourth, and if our opponent attempts to cavazione as we approach, we can move ourselves into third and more readily interrupt our opponent's cavazione while keeping them to the outside. From our perspective, our opponent's sword would be moving clockwise while we move our hand counterclockwise into them, and keep them safely to our outside, which is what our body is set up to deal with in that case. If we were in second we would need to contracavazione, which we lack the time to do, or turn our hand into fourth but be unable to cover ourselves with our hand before we would be struck. I'm going to have to play around with this in other situations and see how it bears itself out.

That's it! That's all of the sword alone for book two! We'll be going into the sword and dagger portion of book two soon enough, but maybe I'll do another Marozzo and Fiore dagger defense comparison first. Who knows! It'll be a surprise.