Longsword - Cutting Remarks

One of the frequent problems encountered in cross-tradition comparison of similar fighting traditions is that of terminology.  For instance, Figueyredo uses the Portuguese terms talho and revez for blows from the right and left respectively; Fiore would call these mandritti and reversi.  That's a simple example, but it illustrates the difficulty of trying to use one to teach basic familiarity with the longsword (and, by extension, its longer derivatives) and then, once that physical vocabulary is established, trying to teach any of the various traditions.

I mention this because I am currently playing around with at least three longsword traditions, though at least two of them would dispute that characterization.  Oldest, both in terms of my involvement and age of the tradition, is Fiore de'i Liberi, who was a runner-up in my diligence posts, only because we just don't know enough about the man to comment.  The second tradition that developed, and the simultaneously most technically demanding and least immediately rewarding in combat, is Yagyû shinkage-ryû.  Third is, because I have a friend who started playing around with it and needed a mannequin, Figueyredo.  I have other friends who are more conversant in German longsword than I am, but similar problems exist there - it is totally possible to throw a Fiore mandritto fendente and be confused about whether it's a Zornhau or Oberhau, and there's an entire family of Japanese strikes that are simply minute variations on Oberhau (gashi, jun and hyaku, for instance, are determined by where the hands terminate, and the effect therefore on blade position, because they're still forehand falling strikes from the centerline).

So what terminology do they all use?

Well, every single one of them is concerned with where the blade starts, the path it follows, and where it ends.  This seems obvious, but there are degrees of precision that vary considerably, and they can tell us something of the school in the process.  Fiore's description of blows, for instance, cares less about precisely where the blade starts or terminates than the path, though some paths are obviously easier to originate than others from certain starting points.   Funnily enough, the published versions of Yagyû follow this same basic pattern, with the focus on target rather than path.  Figueyredo is even more vague - it's talho from below, or revez from above, and the exact geometry of the strike is left as an exercise for the user.  Of the four traditions mentioned so far, the German school is the most precise in its language of striking, where it enters a fourth component of the system for naming a strike - which edge of the sword strikes.  Meyer, for instance, spends a great deal more time discussing false-edge (that is, the edge of the sword closest to the wrist) strikes than Fiore, who illustrates them but does not differentiate, Yagyû, who neglects them because of metallurgy, or Figueyredo, who probably rightly assumes that the momentum of the montante will dictate a true-edge strike.

As a side note, we learn something of the training emphasized in each - the emphasis on back-edge strikes in Meyer tells us that wrist strength was a key component of that school, because wrist and forearm strength is required to maneuver a sword across the very short, tight arcs that the false edge capitalizes on.  Similarly, the Yagyû school's strikes, in general, are targeted at areas that are not easily armored or are naturally weak - head, throat, armpits, wrists, et cetera, because even after its evolution into a down-armored dueling school, it was developed in a period of armored combat.  Fiore, meanwhile, is attempting to prepare gentlemen for either armored or unarmored dueling, and presents an approach to combat as much as a technical vocabulary, and Figueyredo is basically writing an exercise routine.

A simple diagram of equivalencies is as follows.  First, some caveats - this is obviously not mine but is the Fiore diagram from the Getty manuscript; puzzling my way through Portuguese is iffy; this doesn't come anywhere near a complete list of blows enumerated in German sources; the Japanese names are based off of my very imperfect understanding.  Thus, this is in most ways a learning diagram both for me and anyone who consults it, and is included so that I can use it for reference when having conversations with someone else doing longsword.

 Now, what do we do with it?

Well, if you're learning Fiore, the good news is that you can probably learn Figueyredo, and if you're learning shinkage, you're probably going to recognize some plays from Fiore.  What it can be used for is to develop a shared technical vocabulary, which is the primary use I'm going to put it to - to give some instruction in basics to newcomers, and tell them the shared basics, so that when the time comes for them to branch out on their own, they have a starting point of shared physical vocabulary.

Now, as with all experiments, I just need to remember to revisit it later to see if it worked...