Janka's log

And now for something completely... similar.

How to use sword and cape.

To get the cape to your left hand do as follows. Let it fall off your right shoulder, on to your left arm, as far as about to the middle of the arm. Then wrap your left hand to the outside of it and envelop the arm in the cape while you take terza, or whatever guard you like.

Basically the cape works more or less like a dagger, except when it doesn't. Main difference is a cape can be cut or stabbed through while obviously a dagger can't.

Against cuts you can defend with a cape in many ways.

For example if you are in terza and he throws a mandritto at your head, step forward with your left foot, and parry against the forte of his sword with your cape and thrust him in the chest.

Also you could parry that mandritto in prima and accompany that parry with the left arm with the cape. If you on the same tempo bring your left foot close to your right, you can then advance with the right and hit him with a mandritto of your own.

Or if he tries to cut you in the leg, mandritto or riverso, you pull back that leg and cut him in his arm (mandritto if he tried a riverso and the other way round.

Whatever, anyway, the point is that with a cape you can and should follow the sword into a parry and then hold the sword with the cape and that'll give you better room to strike.

I'll show next how to gain his sword from the inside with sword and cape.

Once more, with a feeling!

A strike in the chest in quarta between the weapons. This works because the adversary is in a wide guard and lets his enemy arrive to measure.

He is in quarta with his arm withdrawn, and his dagger straight high and wide and the dagger arm extended.

Take an extended terza, crossing your dagger in front of your chest. Then approach his dagger from outside.

If he remains in his guard until you get to measure, once the point of your sword is even with his dagger, suddenly disengage over the dagger and strike him in quarta.

Moral of the story: don't just stand there, you idiot.

Once more, with a feeling!

A strike in the chest in quarta between the weapons. This works because the adversary is in a wide guard and lets his enemy arrive to measure.

He is in quarta with his arm withdrawn, and his dagger straight high and wide and the dagger arm extended.

Take an extended terza, crossing your dagger in front of your chest. Then approach his dagger from outside.

If he remains in his guard until you get to measure, once the point of your sword is even with his dagger, suddenly disengage over the dagger and strike him in quarta.

Moral of the story: don't just stand there, you idiot.

This picture shows a strike in seconda over the adversary's dagger while he passes to strike⁽¹⁾.

He is in quarta with her sword withdrawn and low, and his dagger high and extended wide.

You will take quarta with your sword extended and your dagger high. Yes, I know this sounds stupid, but bear with me, it'll make more sense in just a moment.

You see, he will likely move with a pass to parry your sword from the high line downwards, and to strike you in seconda.

Draw your right leg in and parry his sword downward, towards your right side, under your right arm. You can then disengage your sword over his dagger and strike him in seconda, as shown⁽²⁾.

(1) Sort of same as the previous, only the other side.
(2) This is obviously a two-tempi action - you draw your right leg back to parry, and the picture shows a lunge on the attack. It is less clear to me and from the translation if the disengage over the dagger needs to happen on the parry, or on the beginning of the attack, though. Probably depends on the timing of the adversary, too.

Here we go again.

I see less and less pattern now that I go on with these. It's just "see where he strikes, parry with the dagger, disengage and strike" from various starting positions. I fail to see what is the crucial difference between most of the plates (I assume there is one). Also bored, as having no intent really to put this into actual use in the foreseeable future.

This picture shows a strike in quarta under the adversary's dagger, into the chest, while he is stepping forward to strike in seconda.

He's in low terza, his dagger wherever.

Go into high terza opposite of him and cross your dagger across your forte.

He might now approach with a pass to strike you in seconda over your dagger, attempting to parry across with his dagger^(1).

Parry his blow, draw back your right leg, disengage under his dagger, and lunge well forward to strike in quarta (see picture).

(1) I put "he might now" here, not "when he", because it seems to me he could do some other stuff too. I realize it's the same for every plate, and to be honest it's been bugging me for some time, but only now it started to get so painfully obvious that the "when he does this or that" more or less means "should he do this or that, you can then" that I actually had to switch... Of course, some actions are more likely than others, but none are guaranteed.

Will this stuff will never end?

Here we see a strike in quarta to the throat that requires very little actual movement. It's done to a disengage from the sword and an attempt to parry by the adversary.

He's in high terza with his dagger crossed at the beginning of the forte of his sword.

Stingere in terza on the outside and hold your dagger high.

When he disengages under your sword, attempting to parry your sword with his dagger, you attack. Bring your dagger from high to low towards your left side to parry his sword, and disengage your sword under his dagger, and strike him. These all actions from you need to happen on the same tempo.

The picture shows an attack in quarta to the face, but really, just strike him wherever seems convenient, it's not like it matters much here.

Will this stuff will never end?

Here we see a strike in quarta to the throat that requires very little actual movement. It's done to a disengage from the sword and an attempt to parry by the adversary.

He's in high terza with his dagger crossed at the beginning of the forte of his sword.

Stingere in terza on the outside and hold your dagger high.

When he disengages under your sword, attempting to parry your sword with his dagger, you attack. Bring your dagger from high to low towards your left side to parry his sword, and disengage your sword under his dagger, and strike him. These all actions from you need to happen on the same tempo.

The picture shows an attack in quarta to the face, but really, just strike him wherever seems convenient, it's not like it matters much here.

In this picture we see a strike to the chest with a pass, in falso from down to up, between the weapons. You need to press the weapons together well for this to work.

The opponent is in terza with both weapons extended on an oblique line, so that the point of his sword is aimed at your right shoulder, and the point of his dagger to your left shoulder.

Also take a terza, with the point of your sword low, but your dagger on a high line, bending your body to the left.

When he approaches (it does not matter much why he does this, it'll work in any case), on the tempo of his advance pass with your left foot toward his right side, doing one of the following:

1) parry with the dagger over your right arm, and thrust him from down to up between his weapons, or

2) disengage over his sword, and press his sword with both weapons (shown), and strike him in terza. Note that this strike should land on the same tempo with your pass.

Since it is obvious to anyone who isn't both blind and stupid that the best thing I can do for my swordsmanship is to acquire some fitness, I have been working towards that.

I am happy to declare that I can do one honest-to-god all-the-way-down-and-all-the-way-up "narrow" push-up keeping my elbows at my side, and a bunch of more in a wider position and/or fudging a little (but no more than anybody else) here and there. I can also do other stuff that I could not three months ago, but I'll list that one because it is the one I am most proud of. (People who do fifty before breakfast can STFU. Progress is what matters, no?)

There's a downside, though: I am constantly hungry. Not hungry as in "mmm, I think I'll have some chocolate" or "could eat something if something magically appeared but not hungry enough to bother making something", nor hungry as in craving some particular thing, or hungry as in vaguely feeling like eating, as if something is missing from the diet. No, hungry as in hungry. And constantly as in "I had a large pizza an hour ago, so yes, a steak and salad sounds like a really good idea".

It's probably good for me, but for gods' sake, I do wish there was a food source on campus other than the Unicafes and the student associations' stacks of instant noodles and microwave pizza.

A picture of a strike in seconda over the dagger from a feint, and a parry with the dagger from above to below the right arm.

You are in terza or quarta, with your swordarm withdrawn and your dagger at your wrist.

He is in quarta with his swordarm withdrawn and his dagger extended on a high line.

Feint under his dagger and raise your own dagger. He will seek to parry your feint with a downwards motion towards his left side.

On that same tempo, you will disengage over his dagger and parry his sword. This parry goes under your right arm, pushing his sword further inside (see picture).

Your strike from the disengage will be in seconda, over his dagger (shown).

It bugs me that I cannot see a pattern to the dagger plates. They seem to me just all separate pieces of he does this, she does that, without any sort of continuum between them.

It does not bug me enough that I could be arsed to actually look at either them or what other people have to say about it, though. So I'll just whine about it in my blog instead.

A picture of a strike over the dagger, in seconda, to the left shoulder. This is done against the adversary trying to gain the sword on the outside.

You are in an extended terza, with your dagger over the forte of your sword, close to the hilt.

He is in the same guard and seeks to stringere on the outside.

Disengage to beat his sword with yours (in quarta). You will be able to immediately parry his sword with your dagger, because it was already being pressed to the side.

This leaves you all the time in the world to strike him over his dagger in his left shoulder.