Longsword - The Post Office II - Longa and Breve as Attitudes

One of the senior students at shinkage said something a few weeks ago that stuck with me - that styles that focused on duels tended to have closer, tighter stances than shinkage, which almost elevates distance from the body to the point of principle.  That, combined with a video from Marky Berryman of the Exiles, and Fiore's remarks on what each position can do, got me expanding on my thoughts from the last Post Office post.

Let's revisit what Fiore has to say about position equivalence, so we have some textual grounding.  Keep in mind that I strongly prefer the term "position" to "guard" - a position is a decision point, from whence you can do things; a "guard" is a position where you are proof against someone else doing something to you.  This may be semantic, but I feel it represents a substantial mindset difference.  In any case, Fiore is here describing two different applications of posta di donna that look radically different, but are mechanically the same.

We are two guards that are similar to each other, and yet each one is a counter to the other. And for all other guards in this art, guards that are similar are counters to each other, with the exception of the guards that stand ready to thrust—the Long Guard, the Short Guard and the Middle Iron Gate. For when it is thrust against thrust the weapon with the longer reach will strike first. And whatever one of these guards can do so can the other.

That last sentence is the critical one.  What defines a position is what you can do from it.  Thus, if you watch the video linked above, because the "baseball bat carry" is weighted over the right shoulder but the arms are relaxed, you can do everything that posta di donna on the right can do.  It is worth noting that Fiore doesn't illustrate either posta longa or posta breve directly.  There may be numerological reasons - he is trying to round his guards to seven or twelve or whatever the number of the day is, in keeping with Christian thinking of the early 1400s - but I suspect the reason is that longa and breve are not themselves positions, but rather attitudes expressed on one of the other positions.

Why does the argument of "position" versus "attitude" matter?

Fiore is the first author in Europe of whom we have evidence of trying to systematize the chaos of combat, with illustrations.  He is trying to systematize not only the individual actions of combat and apply a rational process to combat decision-making, but also a training regime, which is why he starts with grappling, then moves to dagger and baton, and then sword in one hand, then sword in two hands, then techniques which combine sword and grappling, then armored, then mounted, combat.  Each layer is iterative.  Each layer is also filled with decision points - Fiore doesn't illustrate the only solution to a series of tactical problems, but a potential solution to a tactical problem.  Windsor's From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice has an entire decision tree of Fiore's sword in one hand plays to illustrate this concept.  Thus, recognizing that you are in the given tactical problem is step one of solving the problem.

Step two is the appropriate application of the solution.  There are lots of solutions to choose from, and many of them are probably viable outcomes.  Keep in mind that Fiore isn't trying to teach us to win plays, he's trying to teach us to apply the plays correctly to win fights.  For instance, you don't want to win a bind; a bind is just a wrestling match, and unless the name of the game is wrestling, that doesn't actually win you anything.  You want to win the fight.

This is where attitude comes in.  To use the example of the Exiles videos, Berryman is typically smaller than his sparring partners.  The "box" in front of him that he has to control is smaller, and he worries much less about what is going on outside that box and forces his opponents to work in that box.  Thus, he typically assumes what could be thought of as a breve attitude to begin - close to the center of the body and tightly controlled, with excellent opportunity to close lines and launch his own attack.  In Clausewitzian parlance, he is operating on interior lines, shortening how long it takes to redeploy his forces.  He only moves into longa to attack - extended and away from his body, minimizing danger to himself by keeping the fight distant - and he typically collects in behind his sword (remember: move in the shadow of your sword) almost immediately, usually by stepping in.  For him, longa is purely transitory, and breve is the default attitude; for shinkage, longa is the default attitude and breve is purely transitory.

This is a second point where attitude matters.  Keep in mind that all of Fiore's zogho largo plays assume that you have advanced into range, and have made contact with your opponent's sword.  Part of the decision-making process at this point is leverage: who has the greater leverage on the blade, and how much do you want to contest it? One of the first places which you can gain leverage, and can gain control of that decision, is by the attitude of longa or breve.  It is easier to put body weight into the bind at breve, but you sacrifice distance and the blade options that come with it.  For a smaller fighter who wishes to control the bind, this may be a hard and fast requirement, but for a larger fighter, or someone who wishes not to close, longa might be the better decision.

Let's look at this in application, using Fiore's first master of the sword in two hands - the crossing at tips.

The Getty text (courtesy of Wiktenauer), Hatcher's translation, which is on my desk at home:

This Master who is crossed at the point of his sword with this player says: “When I am crossed at the points, I quickly switch my sword to the other side, and strike him from that side with a downward blow to his head or his arms. Alternately, I can place a thrust into his face, as the next picture will show.

So what are we looking at?

My interpretation is that the master, left with crown, has chosen to be at longa for this, and has decided not to contest the bind, but to step offline, slip blade contact, and thrust with his sword between him and the student's blade to close attack lines.  Meanwhile, the one on the right thinks he has enough force in the bind to do something with it, and has chosen to be at breve.  This plays into the master's decision to slip under the contact and strike or thrust.  Thus, the master has chosen the attitude of longa, including its implications for range control and strength in the bind, and the pupil has attempted to engage in a bind with minimal blade control, using nothing but body weight.  This is, of course, only one interpretation; it is equally possible that the master will transit to breve behind the blade as he comes in, but it works in practice and it requires the least calories to achieve - in other words, it ends the fight fastest, and makes a long fight easier by spending less energy.

In all cases, though, what one can do from longa, one can do from breve, or if you prefer, to express them as "wide" and "close" attitudes to satisfy the fact that Fiore refers to long and short guards (though perfect textual consistency is neither my, nor Fiore's, objective!).  What defines the positions is what you can do from them; thus, a close boar's tooth, with the pommel hand basically on the hip, is still boar's tooth (dente di zenghiaro, since I refer to posta di donna).  A close donna, with blade held baseball-bat-carry style resting against the shoulder, is still donna.  A close fenestre, with the blade resting across the bicep, is still fenestre.  What you can do from one form of the position, you can do from another - always.  The choices available to you at that decision point, not width, is what define the positions.

Keep in mind, these decisions are instinctive products of feel, they're not conscious decisions.  This is why I chose the word "attitude" to describe them.  They are as much a product of the fighter as the fight, and will wind up being at least half made up of intangibles.  This becomes critically important in the decision to shift between zogho largo and zogho stretto, if one accepts (and I do) Windsor's argument that stretto means constrained rather than close, and that it's meant to convey the range of options available rather than the choice of measur