The Weekly Warfare   Musings martial from across the SCA

At the end of Giganti’s first book, he mentions that, God willing, he will one day produce a second book where he would explore more fully the use of the dagger, buckler, targa, rotella, and cloak.  At the end of my first pass through his first book, I planned to make at least one post where I’d explore what that might look like, applying the lessons he’d already covered to the weapons he mentioned.  I failed to follow through.  Luckily for us all, he didn’t.  However, in that second book he mentions two more books he will produce, God willing.  Unless somebody stumbles across a manuscript that says “Libro Terza” sitting mis-labeled in some collection somewhere, though, it looks like those books won’t show up anywhere any time soon.  What might they look like, though, if he had written them?

The first he describes is “A book dedicated to the dagger alone against a variety of weapons.”  The second “a book… entirely with the left foot forward”.

 

The Dagger Alone Against a Variety of Weapons

Well, actually, there aren’t any he hasn’t covered.  Remember that buckler, targa, and rotella are just like dagger, and he already covered sword and dagger.  Cloak is mostly like dagger, and the way it’s not (the passive screening of the entire left side) doesn’t matter because your dagger won’t reach to their cloak anyway.

He’s already covered polearm, using the example of the short spear.  The polearm is not all that different (in length or striking) from a longsword or from any other hafted weapon, and the same tactic of feigning weakness, falling back, offering an invitation, and parrying strongly when your opponent takes it, would work against these weapons, too.  The two-handed weapons can’t be overpowered by just a dagger if they’re being held ready in guard, but they can during a blow (muscles already committed to the strike can’t resist the parry).  The sword, though, can be pushed aside even when held in guard, which constitutes the decision point against all weapons: “Can I move it aside right now?” If yes, do, and kill them.  If not, solicit an attack, and when you can move it aside, do, and kill them.

In fact, the only armament he didn’t already cover, by analogous weapons, is the unarmed man vs. the dagger.  And missile weapons.  But there’s not a lot to say about missile weapons and Thibault said it.  The unarmed vs. dagger is fun, and his instruction would probably look similar to Marozzo’s or Fabris’s (though, simplified, because Giganti).  Marozzo’s can be broken down to “Is your opponent attacking overhand or underhand? Is his right foot forward or left foot forward? Is your right foot forward or left foot forward?” It works out to eight combinations.  Marozzo gets over 20 out of it.  There might also be a decision point of whether or not they’re attacking strongly (and therefore you have their momentum to assist your throw), but that still would only make sixteen.  Extrapolating from Marozzo’s pressa (what I remember of them – I should revisit those.  NEXT PROJECT!), my guess at Giganti’s eight:

Attack Over or Under	Opponent’s Lead Foot	Your Lead Foot	Your response
Overhand	Right	Right	Block upward with right hand, pass to his outside with your left foot (seizing wrist), place left hand on their face or throat, and throw them backward
Overhand	Right	Left	Deflect to your left with left hand, pass in with right foot, seize throat with right hand, and throw to your right
Overhand	Left	Right	Block upward with left hand, pass forward with left foot, seize throat with right, throw backward and to your left
Overhand	Left	Left	Block upward with left hand, pass forward with right foot (behind their left on the inside), wrap arm around their waist and hip-toss them to your left
Underhand	Right	Right	Block with left hand, pass left foot forward (outside and behind his right foot), grab throat with right hand, throw to your left
Underhand	Right	Left	Block to the the left with left hand, pass right foot forward, seize throat with right, throw to the left
Underhand	Left	Right	Block (or seize) with the right hand from the outside, pass left foot forward, seize throat with left hand, throw to left
Underhand	Left	Left	Block with left to the left, pass right foot forward, seize throat with right hand, throw to left

 

Put it in pedestrian Italian, add plates, and there’s his other book.

 

As for instruction in how the dagger-wielder can be certain to best the unarmed man (it does seem obvious that the guy with the knife shouldn’t need to be told what to do, but Giganti’s first book does assume both fighters know what they’re doing) I can’t begin to form a guess. Fiore’s the only master I’m aware of who covered that and I’m not familiar enough with his counters to the counters, and I didn’t stay with Aikido long enough, to make an educated guess as to what Giganti’s would look like, or even what his decision points would be.

 

With the Left Foot Forward

He doesn’t say “With the left hand”, just “With the left foot forward”, so I’m starting with the assumption that he’s not just talking about fencing left handed.  To quote what Giganti says about the left foot forward:

“Anything you can achieve with your right foot forward, you can accomplish with your left foot forward, be it a lunge, pass, or cut.  Furthermore the thrust is just as long, whether the right or left foot is forward on the lunge.  Any differences depend on practice.”

My first inclination, based on long experience, is to call bullshit.  All that he says is not in keeping with my experience, and the left foot forward seems to limit your actions to two-tempo grab-and-go’s and the passing lunges he spent two pages teaching against in this same book.  However, since Giganti’s been pretty spot on up to now, over the course of two books and a couple hundred pages, he earns consideration of his premise.

He makes an obvious, and easily tested claim: The lunge covers the same distance, whether the right foot is forward or left.  So I just picked up the yardstick/substitute sword I keep in my office for just such situations (they really do come up far more often than the average person might think), set up with my right foot forward, and lunged so that the stick just touched the wall.  Then I marked my rear foot’s big toe on the ground.  I set up with left foot forward, then, and my right foot’s toe on the mark (with about a 120 degree angle in my feet and hips), and lunged: extending the arm, rotating my body to bring my right shoulder forward, leaning in behind it, and lifting my left foot.  And the yardstick touched the target.  The son of a bitch was right.  It takes more rotation of the upper body, which may make it slower, but not by much.  In practice, and with perfection of both, the difference between the two might be as much as one or two inches of range and a quarter second of time.

Since Giganti doesn’t have prescribed guard positions, your guard only has to meet his criteria (remember those from the first book?).  However, these criteria rule out almost all left foot forward fighting styles seen in the SCA, since they hold the sword withdrawn, relying on the off hand for defense, rather than where it can parry and strike in a single tempo.  You still need to lead with your sword in order to be able to close lines.  This requires rotation at the hips to bring the body more or less square, and keeping the sword extended.  Counter-guards are formed just as readily (the blade rests above the opponent’s the same, either way) though it’s more difficult to get your body behind your sword, since you’re squared up and your sword cannot extend as far forward as it can right foot forward, so your opponent’s extension won’t necessarily go to your guard without additional action on your part.  While closing the line to the outside is simple (and almost doesn’t apply – If your opponent engages your blade from the outside, his sword will already be offline if yours is online), closing the line to the inside requires extending the sword in quarta with more lateral movement to your left.

With dagger, his basic suite of invitation guards work the same, though the left shoulder is the more favorable target to provide for an invitation.  The liberally-borrowed Fabris “wedge of doom” style guards (which echo Giganti’s example of a single-sword guard to the outside with the right foot forward) also work with either foot forward.

And, since your body doesn’t have to shift much, if at all, from the waist up to maintain a counter-guard, this means you can pass forward to form left- or right-foot forward guards, and lunge from whichever finds you at measure.  However, as Master Ximon illustrated for me rather clearly, the greater extension of the hand in quarta for the inside line must be done before passing into the left-foot forward stance.  Otherwise you deserve the stop thrust to the left shoulder that your opponent will give you.

 

So ends our discussion of Giganti’s colorfully named Second Book.  There may be cause to revisit it sooner or later. Until then…