Capo Ferro, Plate Seven

Since I've been wanting to work through Capo Ferro in a marginally more structured manner, I'm going to be moving through plate by plate. While the plate I'm starting with is pretty basic, and we've been going through Guy Windsor's hierarchy drill regularly (so we've been indirectly working on some of the basic plates already), I want to really pay attention to each one individually.

Plates 1-4 illustrate the guards. 5 is the lunge, and 6 is how to gain the blade on the inside. (Maybe I'll go back and touch on those specifically? That seems reasonable.) Plate 7 is the first action that we see, so here we go.

Plate 7 - This Illustration and the Following Show Various Ways to Strike to the Outside, After You Have Gained the Opponent's Blade to the Inside and He Performs a Thrusting Attack by Cavazione

To start, Fencer A gains the blade of Fencer B on the inside. Fencer B performs a cavazione to the outside to thrust to A's chest, and A rolls his hand into seconda while thrusting B "in the left eye" with either just an extension or a lunge as needed, all in a single tempo.

If B was "a prudent opponent," the play goes differently. A gains B's blade on the inside, and this time, B feints the attack by cavazione, keeping his body withdrawn (but A does bring his blade to the outside, and extend somewhat if necessary). A rolls his hand into seconda and begins to push the attack. This time though, B parries to the outside with either the false or true edge, and responds with a mandritto to the head (if parrying with the false edge) or an imbrocatta to the chest (if parrying with the false edge). B then recovers in low quarta.

Comments: This is one of the most fundamental sets of actions in Capo Ferro's rapier. The first part of the plate is a straightforward contratempo action - B takes an action, and A responds in the same tempo, reclaiming the line and striking. It's also the fastest way to reclaim the line - there's no contra-cavazione, it's just turning the hand over into seconda. As the first and most basic action to learn from this manual, I think that says something.
Capo Ferro doesn't explicitly say to move to seconda as part of the counter - he simply says to strike. It's very clear in the picture that A has moved his hand into seconda, and A must do this to get his true edge into play, but it's worth noting.
As an aside, A would do well to remember the last comment given by Capo Ferro immediately preceding this play, and not put his point directly into his opponent's forte. That'd be bad.

The second part of the play has B performing a feint by the cavazione instead. Capo Ferro notes that B should keep his body "somewhat back" and immediately move to parry A's counter. Capo Ferro doesn't explicitly say that it's a two tempi action, but I think it's pretty clear that it has to be. The use of the word "parry" carries this implication to me (though I admit this could be flawed, or also a result of the translation), and the fact that Capo Ferro points out that B must parry and then counter lends weight to this. Also, the mechanics that have to happen to counter and then riposte - either with a cut or rolling the hand into something resembling prima for an imbrocatta really pull it into two tempii, albeit two that flow quickly from the first into the second. (And hey, both Guy Windsor and Tom Leoni agree with me here, so we can all be right!)
Capo Ferro's note about keeping the body back is important to me; you don't commit the body forward until you're sure that you're safe, and you haven't closed that line with the feint. It also says to me that B has begun his movement already planning for it to be a feint, and that he's not falling back to it. I imagine that if A doesn't take the bait, B could far more quickly move from a feint by cavazione to an actual cavazione and push the attack home rather than bailing from an actual attack into a feint or an abortive parry?

Going through this plate live at practice tonight should be pretty good, if we can pay attention to a lot of the little details and not draw too many unsupported conclusions.

Today's random fencing style realization

I love the pedagogy of Fabris. He's clear, he breaks up the manual in a way that makes sense to me. I can follow what he's saying and doing.

On the other hand, I find myself actually fighting like Capo Ferro or Giganti, especially the more I learn about them. (The response to any motion is to kill you!) Not just because of the stances, but other things, too.

I'm not sure where that puts me, but it's interesting.

Capo Ferro's Hierarchy of Defense

Recently I was pointed at Guy Winsdsor's video describing Capo Ferro's hierarchy of defense. It's one of those things that summarized a lot of dispersed information in his manual in a really concise and excellent way, and helped me get a much better understanding of Capo Ferro.

(Go watch it here.)

The comments on the video summarize the procedure, but not in a way that I could use as a way to introduce this drill to people - let alone really integrate it into my own brain - so I'm re-writing it up here in a way that will be useful to me, and hopefully other people.

In short (and hopefully correctly), through Capo Ferro's manual, a consistent set of responses and counter-responses can be found. The most common attack in rapier is, once your blade has been gained, to disengage out of stringere. Guy uses that term, I'm used to cavazione, so let's roll with that for consistency.

Capo Ferro flowcharts out four possible defenses for this attack. They are:

• Two tempo parry-riposte
• Counterattack in opposition (aka "single tempo parry-riposte" because Capo Ferro uses parry and riposte kind of interchangeably at times. This is performed simply by turning your hand over into the opponent's blade, not with a countercavazione.)
• Void and counterattack (aka "counterattack with avoidance")
• Countercavazione

Each of these defenses, naturally, has a counter. So when your opponent gains your blade, you feint with a disengage to flush out one of those defenses and then you counter it. (This is the core of the way the Capo Ferro plates are set up: Action, Defense and then Action, Defense, Counter.) The counters are:

• Two tempo parry-riposte: disengage back, avoiding the parry
• Counterattack: two tempo parry-riposte
• Void: two tempo parry-riposte (note: scannatura is a two-tempo parry riposte, just saying)
• Counterdisengage: any of the initial defenses, though for this drill just recavazione for simplicity's sake

From my quick glance now, it looks like a drill could be set up to chain one into another into another, but practicalities of range, hitting the other person, and working an action out of a void would probably cause it to break down a little over time. Still though, it's a thought.

The basic drill is, in effect, to recreate the plates from Capo Ferro, running through everything in sequence. So it goes like this:

1. You start off having gained your opponent's blade. Your opponent performs an attack by disengage. You perform one of the initial defenses and strike your opponent. Repeat until you have performed all four defenses against your opponent's attack.
2. You again start off having gained your opponent's blade. Your opponent feints a disengage, and you respond with one of the initial defenses. Your opponent performs the correct counter for the defense and strikes you. Repeat until you have performed each defense and your opponent has countered them.
3. Switch sides. Do it again. When you begin to run it through for the second time on a side, remember to change your starting inside/outside blade positions, so you work both lines.

Guy does bring up a very good point near the end of the video, that is well worth keeping in mind: Four possible actions can come out of you performing a feint. You need to be able to predict (or better, force) your opponent's reaction. How do you do that? Discuss!