Some Basic Italian Drills

For the last several months, Ruairc and myself have been meeting on Tuesday evenings to work through a series of fencing drills that focus on the basics of Italian fencing. We’ve made quite a bit of progress as a result, and our Tuesday evening drilling time has helped us both with figuring out how to teach our newer fencers. I figured I should share these drills before Dante started calling this blog the yearly warfare (as he has already started calling it quarterly).

The primary focus of these drills is to work on the basic actions of Italian fencing. The concepts are shared by Giganti, Capo Ferro, Fabris, and seemingly Agrippa (though I haven’t finished reading through that one yet). They build as a progression through the first 9 plates of Giganti. The use of Giganti here is primarily due to his organizational scheme.

Plate 1: Lunge

Plates 2 & 3: Gaining the Blade

Plates 4 & 5: Attacking in tempo, cavazione

Plates 6 & 7: contracavazione

Plates 8 & 9: Feints

The first few drills should be fairly simple for fencers with a bit of experience in the Italian system, however they are essential starting points for newcomers.

Drill 1: Fencers stand at measure. Agente gains the blade of Patiente. When this can be done cleanly, Agente gains the blade and then lunges, striking Patiente.

Key lesson: If you gain your opponent’s blade and they don’t do anything, stab them

Drill 2: Fencers stand 1 step out of measure, agente gains the blade of patiente and performs an advance into measure. Patiente performs a cavazione in the same tempo and attacks with a lunge

Drill 3: Fencers start 1 step out of measure, agente gains the blade of patiente and performs an advance into measure. Patiente performs a cavazione and attacks with a lunge in the tempo of the advance. Agente turns his blade aside by turning his hand to re-gain the blade and attacks in a second tempo (parry-riposte)

Drill 4: Fencers start 1 step out of measure, agente gains the blade of patiente and performs an advance into measure. Patiente performs a cavazione and attacks with a lunge in the tempo of the advance. Agente performs a contracavazione, regains the blade in the tempo of the cavazione, and strikes Patiente in the tempo of his lunge.

These 4 drills should make it obvious that it is a bad idea for Patiente to lunge immediately following the cavazione. Good thing that Capo Ferro at least things that he should instead feint by cavazione instead.

Drill 5: Fencers start 1 step out of measure. Agente gains the blade of patiente and performs an advance into measure. patiente performs a feint by cavazione (that is, he performs a cavazione while feinting a thrust rather than performing a lunge). Agente responds to the feint using a parry while Patiente performs another cavazione (in the other direction) and strikes Agente with a thrust.

Drill 6: Fencers start 1 step out of measure. Agente gains the blade of patiente and performs an advance into measure. Patiente performs a feint by cavazione in the tempo of the advance. Agente responds to the feint using a contra-cavazione. Patiente performs another cavazione and strikes Agente with a thrust.

I could describe further variations on drills 4, 5, and 6, but Guy Windsor seems to have put out a new video. I found this two weeks ago and it provides a good description of several variations of this play and the appropriate responses here: Rapier Hierarchy of Defense

Now, for some drills that work feints:

Drill 7: Fencers start at measure. Agente gains Patiente’s blade and pushes a feint (thrusts towards patiente using only arm and upper body, not feet) towards patiente. Patiente moves to parry this thrust and agente performs a cavazione and strikes Patiente on a different line.

Drill 8: Fencers start at measure. Agente gains Patiente’s blade and pushes a feint towards patiente. Patiente chooses whether to respond. If Patiente does nothing, Agente should continue the feint and strike Patiente. If Patiente parries, agente should perform a cavazione and strike patiente on a different line.

Working through these drills should take a few months, so don’t rush it. The first two are fairly simple and can be worked through rather quickly, but most fencers need to work drill 3 pretty extensively before moving on from there.