Reality Crashes My Brain

So, I had an “ah-ha” moment the other day.  At practice on Sunday, I decided to fight from a low guard in order to learn its strengths and weaknesses.  I based my stance on Joachim Meyer’s Low Guard (Underhut).

Well, the practice was useful in that a number of points were reinforced for me, such as the importance of distance: line up too closely in low guard, and your opponent has a serious advantage.  Indeed, you are a fool.

But, it was this thought that suddenly reminded me a similar guard from Salvatore Fabris, a variation on his Third Guard.

Fabris describes a very deceptive guard, one that can be used to mislead your opponent into a mistake, of which you can take advantage.  It should be noted that one of the basic principles in Meyer’s rapier is deception.  (Verfuehrung, literally “mis-leading”, but modern German translates it as “seduction”!)

I found that I was at times doing something similar from Meyer’s Low Guard.  When my opponent moved into distance, I could raise my blade and lunge or slope pace to gain an advantageous angle against him.

The similarity between these two rather different guards reminded me of that old aphorism: “Who's the more foolish...the fool or the fool who follows him?”

So, I started re-reading Joachim Meyer's The Art of Combat the other day, and as per the suggestion of one of my teachers, I thought I might take a few notes.  I am interested currently in Meyer's description of the longsword and of the rapier.