Medieval Beat-down. What are firere?

Hand to hand striking in the medieval context.

https://youtu.be/EXzvNpZagtA 

(Here is the attendant video you all love so much, but you will need to read on.)

Fun stuff, but dangerous stuff. I was asked to give my take on this, and so I will.

First, lets start with some of Fiore's words on the topic.

First, there are two kinds of Abrazare, one for sport, and one for defending life. If you are defending your life, you will employ anger, cruelty, and every trick and device you have at hand.

If you are not in harness (aka armor), you should strike to places most painful and dangerous, such as the eyes, nose and temples, under the chin and into the flanks. Be ready for what grapples and binds this gives rise to.

So, right out of the gate, before a single picture is drawn, he tells us these things. So I follow these instructions. Now, many of my newer students have asked, "How do we do that, Boss?" I am forced to respond "The old man did not tell us." I smile when I say that though, as this is a half truth.

Fiore left us a strong tactical doctrine, and the link of this section to it is very strong. His list of targets only includes targets near to us, and no center line body targets. Every target he lists can be hit from an acressere step off line and to the left, however.

So even here, Fiore is asking us to stay out of the inside unless we own it. So, step one, follow the over all tactical doctrine we Fiore-folk already know. The only difference is that at very close range, moving left will not bring you to the inside every time.We don't really want to be on the inside anyways, as the inside is where the bigger player wins. So don't have a punching match from a position where you have to absorb return fire.

Moving off line is also vital be cause it forces our opponent to play catch up. a moving target is harder to hit. Since the old man says to hit only after we've tried to shut down the opponent by gaining an advantageous prese (Grip) and trying to break him, we have to assume that we are striking because the opponent is free to move. So move in return, before he smashes your head.

Now, What kind of punches do we use?

I like the hammer fist for in-close work. It's easy to form, easy to employ if you hands are high, hits hard, and has low risk to your own hand. It's flaws are low range, and short target list.

I also like the open hand jab and cross strikes. These open of range, still have knock-down power, and give you a chance to gain that advantageous prese that we want so very badly. Not a lot of flaws there either, as they shut down the return lines to your neck and head, and have low risk of hand breakage.
Really, the only flaw is that you fingers can get grabbed and broken (Does not hurt as bad as you'd think, but I've been there and do not recommend allowing it to happen to you.)

There are lots of other strikes, and if you want an exhaustive list, well, pound sand. that would take a long time.

Lets focus on what strikes DO. They hurt the enemy.  What are the elements of hurting some one?

Target. Hit'em where it hurts. Fracture their jaw, knock'em out, stun their liver, and break bone. Hit bony areas, and make sure you transfer energy well. The temple, side of the jaw, front of the neck, collar bone, floating ribs and kidneys are all great for this. Fiore leaves off the classic solar plexus and the German heart punch, but to land those, you need to be fully inside the enemy's arms. Bad Plan.

Power. Hit'em hard. If you are serious about striking, you should work on you mechanics until you love your punch. Other people should dislike holding pads for you, and you should be able to throw 6-10 hits in a row with that same consistent level of power. This does not mean plow in at 100% output, but rather make you 70% output a threat. follow through. This is overlooked a lot. Remember, you are trying to punch the other persons organs, not their skin.

Follow-up. After contact, either hit'em again, or attach and switch to a break, bind, or throw. As a famous grappler once said, "Hit him 2-3 times, submission is more easy". If you do not gain attachment, kept the pain faucet running, and hit the opponent 3-4 more times. if they block you in some way, they have either handed you and arm to break, or are now open some where else. Hit them in that new open spot. Keep them from recovering initiative.


I'll follow this with a second blog of the body mechanics, but I hope this helps, gang. Again, please leave me comments, so I can address your feedback.

Pruning the Decision Tree Part 2 – The strategic mind set in Armizare before the clash of steel.

Hello Gang, Jesse here.

My student and Friend Phil "Boston" Canzano of the Lone Star Swordplay Guild had some pointed thoughts to share after my last blog. I will share them here, in hopes that you find them as interesting as I did. Also, if you are in Texas, near Austin, look him up.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/837046509663213/ right there on face book.

So, with no further delay, I present to you guest writer Phil.

Red Wolf recently wrote a wonderful blog on tactics in range. He purposely did not address the out of measure pre-fight study. To quote the blog:“Some others would say planning begins when you meet your opponent before the match …

What I am really talking about is the strategy we employ once the fight is joined. I.E, we have turned off the targeting computer and are listening to the force”.The intention of this blog is to read Greedo and fire the first shot. Or as Fiore says about the lynx “No creature sees better than me, the Lynx. And I always set things in order with compass and measure”.

Under the assumption that a fight / match has not started let’s look at the first part of this statement “No creature sees better than me”. What does this mean to me pre-fight. Literally I’m using my eyes. I want personally look at the following things.

First, gear. What part is the most chewed up part of the gambeson? Is it the left shoulder? Let’s say it is. What does that tell me about the opponent? Either the washing machine has chewed it all to hell or, more likely, my opponent gets hit there a lot, therefor it may be a weakness I can exploit. What part of the sword is chewed up. The punta might inform me they favor a thrust. A highly dinged Forte tells me this person probably likes to close and close hard. What shape is the hand protection in? If it is in bad shape, then I can theorize the hands are also a good target as it would appear they are not great at protecting them.

Secondly, size does matter. Folks I’m 5’10” 160 lbs soaking wet so this is important to me. If I look across the floor and see a 6’5’ 280 lb beast with a chewed up Fort I can assume 2 things about them. 1) They close distance to grapple or plays of Stretto. 2) Grappling is not my best option, measure is probably my best friend here.

Third, the opponent’s gate. Yes I watch this like a judge at a Westminster kennel club dog show. I have noticed over the years that people who step short in their normal everyday walk do not pass as far as someone with a larger natural step. This allows you to gage what their measure is. To build on this (and going back to what Jesse was talking about in his blog) after the first pass, did they acress, circle, pass I.E. is there a pattern of movement they are using and can I disrupt that pattern to my advantage.

Four, miscellaneous cues. This would include things like are they a lefty or righty. What does the first guard tell me about them? Forward or back weighted to start? Is there structure in alignment?

Fifth, putting it together. While seeing these cues and putting them together in an instant may appear to be a Sherlockian task (to quote the man "I deduced there were 13 possible  outcomes"), the brain will only be able to process this information quickly through practice. For our purposes, the most practical way is through free play, solo cutting drills and sparing. Why solo cutting drills? Simple answer is, if you don't know what can be done out of a guard, you can't limit the opponents options.

Time for the anecdote, I left Chicago and moved to Texas (Yes it is the heart of Mordor) with no one to practice with. Necessity being the mother of all invention, I quickly realized that if I broke down each guard, I was not only perfecting my attack but also breaking down my opponent's attack, in this case it was a tree with an x carved into it.

All of these items lead up to the second part of Fiore's statement “I always set things in order with compass and measure”. By processing this information quickly, I can set myself up for success by pruning even more branches off of the decision tree by assessing and processing the information before combat begins.

So get out the compass and tape measure, make an eye exam and remember they are watching you too.

One other thing I want to mention, painted masks. This can make all of this a little tricky as you may not be able to see the opponent's eyes. No biggie, go back to my first point, what part of the paint job is all scratched up. These masks should never intimidate, they should inform.

Hope this was helpful. All the best and happy sparing!

- Boston


Thanks for reading. Please Leave comments! we care about your feed back, and as always, I take topic requests.

Pruning the decision tree - strategic mind set in Armizare.

Oh Decision tree, with thine barren
 and thorny branches, bleak are your
heights, for in you is a forest of 
blows, too many choices, and you
 are home the balorous squirrel,
 Hesitation.

Decision trees.
What are they? What do they have to do with sword fighting?

My instructor recently reminded me that if I am not acting with a plan, I am just cutting pretty patterns in the air. He is not wrong, we need a plan of action in order to close in and land a hit on the other person.

Some say that your plan should keep you two or three moves ahead of your enemy, kinda like a good chess player. My only beef with this "chess" analogy is that chess is not played in real time, the players take turns, so initiative is fixed. Not so in a sword fight; initiative is dynamic and can change hands frequently.

Also, I cannot wait for a few moves to occur before I see how the fighting is shaping up.  A fight develops much faster than chess does. I need to know what the enemy is going to do, and I need to know it before I get hit.

Some others would say planning begins when you meet you opponent before your match. While its all well and good to suss out those details (lords know I have), what I am really talking about is the strategy we employ once the fight is joined. IE, we have turned OFF the targeting computer, and are listening to the force. Yeah, yeah, I know we're not Magic Space Wizards.

My A.D.D. mind has assembled a slightly different analogy, which can be applied to not only sparring, but to various most of my training models.

Let's call this analogy pruning the decision tree.

We begin with the problem: I am trying to solve is that I want to hit my enemy without being struck myself in return.

In my fight, I am not exactly planning ahead. We don't know what the person in front of us will do (not magic future reading space wizards), so we have a large number of potential decisions we may need to make. Too many, in fact, as our foes can do lots of stuff and strike from many angles.

Or can they? Position and range heavily limit what your foe can bring against you at any given moment. The wider the range, the more potential options the foe has, and one of those options is decreasing the range to the next tier. Mind you, though, range can be so great as to make your enemy momentarily irrelevant. If the foe cannot make a threat that means anything, ignore it.

The cone shrinks as we close, reducing the number of meaningful things that can happen, but also robbing you of reaction time, so be careful not to take this visual out of context. If range gets to 0, and you have not won, you are likely dead. 

Position is the other variable control. We cannot know the future, but we can know the current position and range. This is where the pruning begins. Since we can know the targets current position (guard and foot alignment), we can know their options that flow from that position.

If we adjust our position to potentially counteract the things the enemy's position can do, already our decision tree has lost 3/4 of its branches, since those options are divisible into the quadrants through which the first movers sword will pass.


By knowing the enemy's options, and adjusting our own position accordingly we have gone from "every thing can happen" (within the confines of weapon, and range) to "these things can happen", this being 3-5 things that any given position can manage.

Now, by choosing our next action (it does not matter really if you are first or second mover at this level of the discussion) to cover the enemy's shortened list of options, we limit that enemy to 1-2 meaningful actions. (we have to remember that some of the things that can happen, such as getting hit and dying, the enemy abruptly leaving measure, or killing your foe don't matter to the next layer of the process, because the process is halted.)

Instead of trying to remember hundreds of if-then statements that our training has driven into our lizard brains, you have neatly boxed the target's choices, and you only need to have one if-then line in your cued up code. We can handle that, right?






In Summary,
1. If you are not paying attention, anything can happen.

2. By maintaining an effective counter guard, or going on a planned offensive, you can reduce the number of potential out comes.

3. after the first action begins, there will only remain one.  or two valid outcomes, and with training, you can use that foreknowledge against your foe.

4. I deliberately did not talk about initiative. This is because if you are planning well, and reacting in real time to your opponents position, you can choose who has it. One can move first,  or by choosing to move second, assuming you can control your measure, you keep the initiative after a fashion. Also, the model work on both side of the coin, in terms of initiative.

- every move you make is building a coffin, lets just hope the right person goes winds up in it.

Jesse out.