See Part 1 where I introduce the attacks and guards.
Firstly, a bit of guidance on parrying:
There are two ways to parry with the sidesword: with the true edge, or with the false edge.
False edge parries are done by cutting a Falso Dritto, or a Falso Manco into (or behind) the opponent's cut. You can then riposte a cut after a Falso Dritto, or a cut or a thrust in Imbroccata after a Falso Manco.
True edge parries are typically done by making Half Cuts that end in a guard, and can be followed up with a cut or a thrust as a riposte.
GD says that we should make two parries with one motion: a parry with our sword, and another with our legs, by stepping our back leg off to the side, away from the direction of the cut. In this way, we turn our body away from the strike.
True edge parries are made with the Forte of the blade, and false edge parries are made with the weak of the blade.
The defensive plays, summarised
GD provides a bunch of descriptions of what defenses and ripostes to make if you are in guard X and you are attacked with cut Y. However, there is a lot of repetition and, from memory, the defenses were largely the same regardless of what guard you are in. Of course, depending on what guard you are in, some parries will be easier to perform than others, and some may be impossible. I will not bother spelling out which guard you should be in for these parries, you will need to figure this out for yourself, however I suggest you start with Narrow Long Tail and Narrow Iron Door.
I have summarised all the defensive plays into a single table organised based on where your opponent is cutting to. It contains the attack being made at you, the parries you can use, and the ripostes you can make.
In the table, the cuts are true edge cuts unless I specify otherwise. I have not specified whether the cuts are half cuts or full cuts, but generally parries are half cuts that end in a point forward guard, usually Long Tail, Iron Door, or Entry Guard.
Table 1: All of dall'Agocchi's defensive plays summarised
Opponent is attacking to /with: | You parry using: | You riposte with: |
Upper left from above (includes a cut 7, 1 or 5) | Head guard (GDT) | Cut 1 , 2, or Imbroccata |
Cut 1 | Cut 1, 2, 6, or Punta Rivsera | |
Face guard (GDF) - counter-thrust | ||
Punta Riversa - counter-thrust | ||
Falso Manco | Cut 1 , 2 | |
Cut 4 (Ridoppio) | Imbroccata | |
Upper right from above (includes a cut 7, 2 or 6) | Head guard (GDT) | Cut 1, 2, or Imbroccata |
True edge cut 2 | Imbroccata | |
False edge cut 2 | Cut 2, 6 | |
Entry guard (GDE) - counter-thrust | ||
Falso Dritto | Cut 1 | |
Left leg from above | Falso Dritto | Cut 2 |
True edge block (i.e. a Ridoppio ending with blade pointing down next to left leg) | Cut 2 | |
Void leg | Anything | |
Right leg from above | True edge block (i.e. a Ridoppio that end with blade pointing down to the right of the right leg) | Stoccata |
Void | Anything | |
Left, from below | Cut 1 | Cut 2, 6, Punta Riversa |
Right, from below | Cut 2, or 6 | Anything |
Imbroccata | False edge 1 | Cut 2 |
True edge cut 1 | Punta Riversa, 1 | |
Cut 2, with a step left | Imbroccata | |
Cut 4 (Ridoppio) | Cut 1 o 2 | |
Stoccata | Cut 1 | Punta Riversa, or cut 2 |
Punta Riversa (counter-thrust) | ||
Falso Manco | Cut 1 | |
Cut 4 (Ridoppio) | Imbroccata | |
Hand break (i.e. parry with hand) | Stoccata |
Exercise: To practice these, start in a guard and get your partner to slowly attack you in all these different ways, parrying these with the suggested parries. Change to a different guard and repeat.
Videos
Schildwache Potsdam have some great content on YouTube on Bolognese fencing, and cover many of the above parries and ripostes in several videos:
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