So last night in our private lesson class we worked through Plate 30 of Giganti, which is the “Deceitful Guard that Leaves the Left Side of the Body Open”.

Giganti’s instruction is to leave your left shoulder uncovered so that the opponent may attack you there. He also previously stated that in a deceitful guard we open one line whilst defending the others, in other words we set ourselves in a guard of invitation. When I teach this guard, I start in our primary guard of Terza, and then rotate my forearms / hands anticlockwise so that my sword hand turns into third in second forming the invitation of 3rd, and my dagger hand turns into 3rd in front of my right hip / flank. Be careful you don’t leave the sword point online, as this is not a defensive guard but an invitation guard! With the point in line we’ll never draw the attack to the inside line that we are hoping for, nullifying the purpose of this guard. We must completely close our high outside line. I call this the Right Deceitful Guard for short, or the Invitation in 3rd.

I love the instructions that follow on the actions that follow, as it really forces the students to think about and incorporate all their understanding of the system to get all the nuances out of the instructions. Typically my students get the core concepts from the plate but they miss the subtlety of the timing in some of the actions, so they miss about half the actions we can make from each plate.

Drill 1 – Coming into Measure

Giganti says You can advance on the opponent and, as you arrive in measure (while the opponent is still waiting) you can strike him in whatever opening he has.

Agent in the Right Deceitful Guard, Patient in Guardia Terza starting from out of measure. Agent advances into measure, and as they come into Lunge Measure they lunge extending their weapons forward, gaining the opponent’s sword in their high inside line, hitting to the Patient’s high inside line. Patient retreats back out of measure.

Drill 2 – Single Tempo Parry Riposte

Giganti says if the opponent strikes, you can do several things, such as parrying and striking in a single tempo…

Agent in the Guardia Terza, Patient in Right Deceitful Guard starting from out of measure. Agent advances into measure, and as they come into Lunge Measure they lunge extending their weapons forward, closing the high inside line, attempting to hit to the Patient’s high inside line. Patient extends their weapons into the high inside line to parry, and then leans in with their body to hit with a firm footed lunge. Patient retreats back out of measure.

This first version works best against someone who tries to gain the line as they are lunging, since they haven’t completely closed the line as they initiate their lunge. Against someone who first closes the line the drill becomes Giganti’s initially described version where the single tempo parry is done on the advance of the sword foot.

Agent in the Guardia Terza, Patient in Right Deceitful Guard starting from out of measure. Agent advances into measure, and as they come into Lunge Measure they extend their weapons forward, closing the high inside line, and then lunge attempting to hit to the Patient’s high inside line. Patient extends their weapons into the high inside line to parry, leaning in with their body on the parry, and continue the forward movement to hit with a lunge during the recovery of the Agent. Patient retreats back out of measure.

The second version can also be used as an attack into the preparation, where we launch the single tempo parry riposte on a lunge when we see the Agent moving their hands to close the line.

Drill 3 – Double Tempo Parry Riposte

Giganti says if the opponent strikes, you can do several things, such as parrying and striking in a single tempo, parrying and executing a feint…

This drill teaches the setup for the parry and feint response, which we look at in the next drill, and is the basis for the subsequent drills. The key part is that it teaches the double tempo parry riposte, with the first tempo being the parry, and the second being the riposte. The advantage of the double tempo parry riposte is the extra security we gain from the 2 weapon parry and the slightly extended tempo which can use to keep ourselves safe. The disadvantage however is the extended tempo, which affords the opponent extra time with which they can counter our response.

Agent in the Guardia Terza, Patient in Right Deceitful Guard starting from out of measure. Agent advances into measure, and as they come into Lunge Measure they extend their weapons forward, closing the high inside line, and then lunge attempting to hit to the Patient’s high inside line. Patient extends their weapons into the high inside line to parry, keeping their body withdrawn on the parry. Patient ripostes with their sword to the Agent’s abdomen with a thrust by cavazione, or to the Agent’s face with a thrust by glide. The riposte is either done with the firm footed lunge or the lunge depending on the measure required at the time of the riposte. Patient retreats back out of measure.

Drill 4 – Double Tempo Parry with Riposte by Feint

Continuing from Drill 3, the students will experience a failure rate with the riposte by cavazione, as the Agent will have a tendency to parry this riposte with their dagger. This dagger parry is the one that we defeat with the riposte by feint. One of the key things the stuydents need to understand is that during the riposte by feint, they must maintain the engagement of the Agent’s sword with their dagger to keep themselves safe. This forces their brain to switch to defensive mode, and they solely concentrate on defending themselves with their dagger.

Agent in the Guardia Terza, Patient in Right Deceitful Guard starting from out of measure. Agent advances into measure, and as they come into Lunge Measure they extend their weapons forward, closing the high inside line, and then lunge attempting to hit to the Patient’s high inside line. Patient extends their weapons into the high inside line to parry, keeping their body withdrawn on the parry. Patient ripostes with their sword making a feint by cavazione (clockwise) to the Agent’s abdomen, drawing the Agent’s dagger parry of 2nd. The Patient then evades the dagger parry with a cavazione to the high line hitting to the face or chest of the Agent over the top of their dagger arm. Patient retreats back out of measure.

This one also work with a Lefty vs Righty, except the feint is now to the flank, and the riposte is to the sword armpit.

Drill 5 – Double Tempo Parry Riposte on a Pass

Giganti says if the opponent strikes, you can do several things, such as parrying and striking in a single tempo, parrying and executing a feint, a pass…

The use of the pass builds on our double tempo parry riposte action, however this time the riposte is made with the transport to 2nd to set up the thrust to the flank on a pass. The advantage of this riposte is that we are now moving away from the Agent’s dagger, but the tempo of the riposte is longer than the previous drills.

Agent in the Guardia Terza, Patient in Right Deceitful Guard starting from out of measure. Agent advances into measure, and as they come into Lunge Measure they extend their weapons forward, closing the high inside line, and then lunge attempting to hit to the Patient’s high inside line. Patient extends their weapons into the high inside line to parry, keeping their body withdrawn on the parry. Patient performs the transport from 4th to 2nd with their sword, whilst maintaining engagement with their dagger. Patient ripostes with thust by glide to the Agent’s flank, using a left foot passing step, maintaining engagement with both sword and dagger. Patient retreats back out of measure.

Note: Against a Lefty, as you make the riposte by glide extend your dagger at the Agent’s dagger hand! This will keep you safe from the dagger counterattack.

Drill 6 – Feint Disengage to Counter Parry Riposte

Giganti says If the opponent, as you stand in guard, launches a two-tempi attack on you, you can either parry and strike in one tempo or also in two – then immediately recover out of measure.

Agent in the Guardia Terza, Patient in Right Deceitful Guard starting from out of measure. Agent advances into measure, and as they come into Lunge Measure they extend their weapons forward, closing the high inside line, and then feints a thrust to hit to the Patient’s high inside line. Patient extends their weapons into the high inside line to parry, keeping their body withdrawn on the parry, to setup a riposte. Agent performs a cavazione (clockwise) to evade the parry and hits to the Patient’s flank or face on a lunge, covering the Patient’s sword line with the dagger. Agent recovers back out of distance.

Drill 7 – Change of Engagement as Contra-Counter to Feint Disengage

Now we’ll perform the response to the action in Drill 6. The response here is the counterthrust during the tempo of the Agent’s cavazione, a concept which Giganti taught us in Plate 5. The feint diengage attack used by the Agent is the two-tempi attack described by Giganti above.

Agent in the Guardia Terza, Patient in Right Deceitful Guard starting from out of measure. Agent advances into measure, and as they come into Lunge Measure they extend their weapons forward, closing the high inside line, and then feints a thrust to hit to the Patient’s high inside line. Patient extends their weapons into the high inside line to parry, keeping their body withdrawn on the parry, to setup a riposte. Agent performs a cavazione (clockwise) to evade the parry and attempts to hit to the Patient’s flank or face on a lunge, covering the Patient’s sword line with the dagger. Patient turns their forearms back into the Right Deceitful Guard to close the outside line as they continue their lunge started in step 3. This will intercept the Agent’s sword before they can complete their thrust by cavazione, allowing them to be hit in the face. Patient recovers back out of distance.

Conclusion

There are many other drills we can setup from this Right Deceitful Guard, and Giganti tells us as much when he says we can do anything you can do from another guard with which we have experience. It’s a great guard for teaching a whole lot of basic principles, and even some advanced ones.

The key concept students need to learn about this guard, is that by completely closing the outside line, we setup safe actions with our initial movement to close the inside line in response to whatever our opponent desires to hit us with. Oh and notice the final step in all the drills? I’m trying to ram home with my students that you can’t just pose after you hit the opponent, you must recover back out to a safe measure. After all, it has become Rule 3 of my Rules for a Sensible Fencing System – “All poseurs will die!”

Reference

Leoni, Tom, Venetian Rapier, The School or Salle, Nicoletto Giganti’s 1606 Rapier Fencing Curriculum, Freelance Academy Press, 2010 – http://www.freelanceacademypress.com/venetianrapier.aspx