Fighting with two swords?

[Jean Culassec]

OK, now I am even more confused. So the cuts delivered from a Kendo guard and a kenjitsu guard (which are essentially the same guard) are not cuts, because kendo is a sport? I think we are getting mired in semantics.

[LafayetteCCurtis]

Well, I have been learning kendo for some time myself. Even though the basic guards of kendo may look similar to the ones in the kenjutsu schools, the cuts (or rather, blows) executed from them are very different. The cuts emphasized in kendo bouts are light and somewhat whippy--they're designed to execute fast scoring hits that make a loud noise to make it easier for the jury to judge the validity of the hit. They don't really require the kendoka to continue the cut into the enemy's body, and in fact the cut is usually supposed to bounce back smoothly from the hit.

The kenjutsu cuts, on the other hand, are what we would be familiar with--a variety of cuts from straight-armed, full-strength cut that could chop off heads or limbs to relatively light cuts to the wrist and the head. Kendo generally has only the later category--even the do-uchi thrown to the torso is quite light and whippy.

It's difficult to describe it in words. To understand the difference you'll have to watch a video of a kendo shiai and another of a kenjutsu demonstration--that is, except if you have the time and resources to actually learn both.

(As a matter of fact, we're not supposed to discuss this on this board anyway, since the ARMA forum is a discussion forum for European sword arts, not Japanese ones.)

[Allen Johnson]

First of all, you can very much cut from prime, seconde, tierce and quarte. I'm no expert, but I have friends who practice Agrippa, and they do so all the time, as their master shows in his book. Especially from prime, you can cut very powerfull blows, as any sabreur can show you.
Jean

If you really look at what your arm does when you cut with intent you will see what I mean. Even with wrist and elbow cuts. When you have your tip extended you have to pull your tip back or to the side or down or something, in order to generate the power needed for the cut. In essense some thing other than prime. If you are in seconda your tip is pointed at the opponents body or face. If you were to adopt a seconda guard with your elbow cocked to a 45 degree angle and the tip up in the air, you would be corrected as that position is not seconda. This is yet another one of those things that is easier shown than described. But if you physically try it with a rapier, you will see that a blow of any noteable force (enough to do damage), the tip and elbow/arm/body must be pulled back or cocked in a position that is not one of the 4 basic true rapier guards.

[LafayetteCCurtis]

Perhaps the disagreement comes from different ways in defining the ideas of cutting from a guard. Allen seems to define them in the sense that the cuts have to start for the perfect position of the guard, considering the hand position as well as the direction of the tip, while some others seem to work by the definition that cutting from a guard simply means that the cut should start with the hand in one specific guard--but in the process the tip of the blade can move in as large a circle as it needs to as long as it does not have to transition through another specifically-named guard.

And of course, Capo Ferro's four guards are not identical to the similarly-named guards in saber fencing.

[Allen Johnson]

And of course, Capo Ferro's four guards are not identical to the similarly-named guards in saber fencing.

Well the saber is a dramatically different weapon than a rapier. The sabre is mainly a cutting weapon, so it obviously would be held and used differently.

I dont think that the hand positions and their relation to the tip of the sword and angle of the blade are arbitrary. They are arranged in the matter shown for a practical reason.

[LafayetteCCurtis]

Yes. And that's precisely why the debate is beginning to look a little funny to me--because Capo Ferro's guards differ from those of modern saber and the actions that can be executed from them are also quite different.

[Allen Johnson]

Yes. And that's precisely why the debate is beginning to look a little funny to me--because Capo Ferro's guards differ from those of modern saber and the actions that can be executed from them are also quite different.

by modern saber I assume you mean the sport fencing saber?
If that is the case then there is no debate because the sport tool that is called 'saber' in no way resembles an actual weapon in its design or in it's use. You can make "cuts" with a sport saber with almost no arm movement because its a feather light weapon with a rediculous amount of flex to it. I've given and recieved hits in sport saber where the cut is blocked and the blade is so flimsy that it continues to bend around the blocking blade and land for the touch. This, obviously, has no bearance in world of real weapons and combat.

[LafayetteCCurtis]

Ah. I should have said "classical saber," since what I meant was the classical fencing saber--the weapon that could still have been deadly in the context of a duel. Even with that weapon the initial guards and stances involved are far from being identical Capo Ferro's--not even to those of Marozzo's more cut-oriented system.

What I'm really saying is that the "prima, seconda, terza, quarta" in the Italian rapier tradition only referred to the alignment at the hand, and included dexter and sinister positions as well as the prone and supine ones seen in classical and modern fencing. In contrast, classical saber fencing has eight guards that are defined very differently from the four Italian positions because they include prone/supine, inside/outside, and up/down parameters but their definition does not include whether there is a "point in line" or not like the Italian guards do.

[Jean Culassec]

OK, now I have to disagree, because we seem to be running very far with concepts that are not quite accurate.

First of all, not all classical sabre systems are the same. In the Italian, for instance, you only have one guard, the tierce. And the tierce is VERY MUCH similar to the position in Capo Ferro, the only difference being that the arm is kept more withdrawn.

Now, don't anyone tell me that the sabre taught in Mediterranean Europe a hundred and fifty years ago was a sport.

Then, the same guard existed (with variations only minor) in the treatises of Marozzo, Sainct Didier and other teachers from the sixteenth century who used the cut not only occasionally, but plentifully. And they used the cut from that guard much more than from the open ward. So much so that when they taught to play with swords with an edge, they recommended that very guard as well as the equivalent of the quarte as opposed to any other.

So I find it very inaccurate to say that a style that employs the guard of tierce as its main guard is evidence of a mainly thrusting play. We can force this definition (like any other), for instance by arguing that every style that does so is somehow a sport or only intended to produce minor cuts (and we can keep redefining what is a major cut or a minor cut), but fencing history says otherwise.

Besides, with a point in line guard of prime (ochs, if you will), you CAN swing off cuts that can take someone's head off, if you practice enough.

[J. F. McBrayer]

Besides, with a point in line guard of prime (ochs, if you will), you CAN swing off cuts that can take someone's head off, if you practice enough.

I'm going to tentatively agree with this --- in The Swordsman's Companion, where Guy Windsor first introduces cutting on the pass, he teaches it from Finestra. I haven't tried it on a cutting target, but surely he and his students have. Now, cutting from Finestra, you pass through a quite-low and quite-forward Vom Tag-like guard, but I don't think that means you're not cutting from Finestra (especially since Fiore doesn't recognize that transitional position as a guard).

[Jake_Norwood]

I'm not sure anyone is questioning how effective a cut initiated from ochs (or prima, or finestra) is. Technically, of course, such a cut is actually performed from a vom Tag/di donna/zornhut position following a transition to that point from ochs/prima/finestra/whatever, but that's beside the point.

The issue here, like when discussing rapiers and thrusting/cutting, is "what is a saber?" The italian saber from the 18th century on, if I'm not mistaken, is really quite narrow--it's what modern US Army dress swords are based on, and that's not much of a cutter at all. Ultimately what will prove/disprove the cut/thrust argument is not the positions, but the tools.

Jake

[LafayetteCCurtis]

And we must keep in mind that those sabers vary a lot. I've handled two Solingen sabers made in the same year--1788 or something, if I'm not mistaken--and one had a broad, flat cutting blade while the other had a much narrower blade with a very deep fuller in the middle flanked by two high ridges that makes it mostly a thrusting weapon.

Still, I think even the narrow thrusting saber could be used for effective cuts if we don't restrict our definition of "effective" to immediately lethal cuts.

[Jean Culassec]

Italian sabers varied greatly from state to state until the country became unified, and from one branch of the military to the other so there was not "one" pattern. But what was taught in the big schools at the time was taught to all the military (even from different states within the country), including the cavalry, all throughout the 1800's. Also, I have a big saber collection and I own an Italian saber from the 1880's. That thing will take off a hand very easily if you know what you're doing.

But aside from this, the original issue I disagreed with was that a school's initial guard is somehow proof of what kind of sword the style was intended for. Whether from a tierce (or prime/ochs) you have to momentarily transition to whatever guard you want while you deliver a cut is immaterial. What stands is that it is demonstrably false to say that only styles that have Vom Tag or Open Ward or equivalents are intended to be used for cutting swords. Come on! Just open Meyer or Marozzo or Sainct Didier to see how many tens and tens of cuts they perform from essentially a tierce guard. Or just look at Marcelli's section on the huge falchion: is that scimitar-looking monster a thrusting-only sword because the guy stands in tierce?

I don't think it's that hard to understand why this is. Styles to be used mostly or also without armor, and with a sword and no shield favored point in line for obvious reasons, especially for close play. I am not a great swordsman, but I know enough not to be caught with my point in the air while my enemy is in striking distance and I have no other means to defend myself but the sword. I'm sure German executioners of the 1600's did not have to worry about the guy with his head on the chopping block fighting back, so that's probably why they started in vom tag. But for everyone else by that time, after shields became less common, it may have been safer to keep the sword in front of them until it was time to do a cut. Does that mean that cutting swords disappeared? No. It just means that styles adapted to the circumstances.

[Jake_Norwood]

Hi Jean,

I'm not sure we're talking about anything at this point. We're certainly not disagreeing as far as I can see...we're just not using the same words. So to sum up what I think we're roughly on the same page with (and what we can therefore stop beating like a dead horse):

1. You can cut from ochs/tierce
2. Sabers can cut from ochs/tierce
3. Stabbing is good, too
4. Keeping the point in-line, even with a cutting weapon, defends better than not keeping it in line, especially when your sword doubles as your primary defensive tool
5. There are lots of different kinds of sabers

Am I right here?

Jake

[Jean Culassec]

Yes, I copy you, Jake.