Author Archive

Discussing Tactics: Distributing experienced fighters   22 comments

The Warfare has had a lot of discussion recently on fighting individually, but precious little discussion on melee. I would like to start a weekly discussion where a scenario is given and we discuss the optimal ways to fight in that scenario. The Scenario: You are commanding a 5 man melee team. You have 2 experienced […]

Posted July 23, 2015 by Tassin in Melee

Fabris: Sword and dagger, the Wedge of Doom   2 comments

During the winter, spring, and early summer Letia and I were focused on learning about fighting with the sword alone. Since the end of Pennsic we have begun to focus more on the combination of sword and dagger. According to Fabris everything that he taught with regards to the sword alone is still valid. Tempo […]

Posted November 23, 2012 by Tassin in Italian Rapier

Fabris: Finding the Sword Part 1   Leave a comment

When thinking about a fight there are three major concepts to consider. Am I in measure? Have I found their sword? Is my opponent taking a tempo? These concepts of measure, line, and tempo are all related and one cannot be examined without the others playing some role. However, for the time being Letia and […]

Posted May 23, 2012 by Tassin in Italian Rapier

Fabris 1/16/12 and beyond   3 comments

Fabris Practice Concepts and things to practice: Lunging Moving Don’t fear the sword Angled attacks off line Passing attack, passing through the opponent Changing intent mid plan Cavazione with forward movement Identify openings Voids Lunging through the tip Working angles Forte going where the tip started “Lead with the forte” Drills and what they work: […]

Posted January 15, 2012 by Tassin in Musings

Fabris 12/1/11   27 comments

11/28/11 Neither Letia nor I had fought for a while so our warmups ran a bit longer than usual, until it started raining to be precise. At that point we went inside and began to look at Wounds 1 and 2 from Fabris’ first book. Each wound has a picture showing the end result and […]

Posted December 2, 2011 by Tassin in Italian Rapier

Fabris 11/16/11   Leave a comment

Much like last week we fought warm up passes, fought some Fabris passes and then drilled.   The drills were very similar to last week although we experimented some. We found that the attack where you drop the tip worked well enough coming in at roughly the center of mass because voiding requires a fairly […]

Posted November 18, 2011 by Tassin in Italian Rapier

Fabris 11/9/11   Leave a comment

Warm ups consisted of me (Tassin) and Letia fighting a number of passes with sword and dagger in our normal SCA style of fighting. This continued until we were both warmed up. Drills: Today’s drills focused on finding the blade and attacking. First drill, finding the blade: Agente and patiente start out of measure. The […]

Posted November 9, 2011 by Tassin in Italian Rapier