Longsword - Footwork II - Passing Remarks on Steps
In my last post , I discussed footwork, and started to develop a reference pool from which to draw. As a quick refresher, there are basically only three ways to move the feet: turning, passing, and advancing. Fiore's terminology is voltare (related to the English word "revolution"), passare (related to... now prepare for this leap of linguistics... "pass"), and accressere (related to the English word "increase"). He adds tornare - a retreating passing step - and decressere - same, but for an advance. Let's discuss an example. For my money, the best series of plays demonstrating footwork in Fiore is on Getty leaf 20r (the beginning of sword in one hand) and 20v. 20r shows three ruffians - the Italian description is "cowards" - attacking the master; the following page shows four potential responses by the "scholars," or the master's students. With one notable exception, they all use the same footwork, so for brev