A number of authors of the later years of the classical period refer to the use of the straight arm guard as a standard guard in epee. Although the straight arm guard, the arm and weapon extended directly forward from the shoulder (essentially as a point in line) to threaten an immediate attack or counterattack has obvious applications for offense and counteroffense, can you or how do you defend from this position? And what are you defending?
Three books provide the answer to these three questions: Maestro di Scherma Luigi Barbasetti's The Art of the Sabre and the Epee (1936), Maestro de Armas Julio Martinez Castello's The Theory and Practice of Fencing (1937), and R. A. Lidstone's Fencing: A Practical Treatise on Foil, Epee, Sabre (1952).
As noted, the straight arm guard is a threat of offensive or counteroffensive action. If the opponent wishes to either attack or to hamper the attack or counterattack (and that pretty much covers the entirety of the purpose of fencing), removing the threat the straight arm presents becomes important. The opponent can either wait until the fencer tires and pulls the guard back to a medium guard or either force a withdrawal or score on the arm with an attack. In turn, to answer an attack on his or her arm, the fencer can either counterattack or parry and riposte. In this post we will focus on the parry.
There are two parrying options. The first is a parry with the bell. All three of the sources consulted address the bell parry. Bell parries are simultaneously simple in concept and difficult in execution. Although the epee bell is significantly larger than that of the foil, it has three limitations. The first is that it is round, and round surfaces offer little to catch and hold an opposing blade. An alert attacker with a fast hand can conceivably roll off a bell and hit if the parry and riposte are anything but instantaneous.
The second problem is that the bell covers significantly less volume of space than the blade does. The blade in defence can sweep a larger volume of space and gather and control the attacking blade. Although the bell is stronger than the foible or even the forte of the incoming blade, it must be used with a high degree of precision in the right envelope of space and with the right direction of movement to ensure a deflection. This requires practice, an extensive amount of practice to be assured of the result.
Finally, the bell, especially the bell with a centered blade as opposed to the more modern offset blade, is not just defending the arm - it is also defending the hand. An exposed portion of the glove or, for larger hands, even a finger converts the bell from defense into a target exposure for the attack.
The mechanics of the bell parry are relatively simple. The fencer moves the fist laterally, vertically, or diagonally to displace the incoming point with the edge of the bell. Because the arm is extended, the amount of movement needed to protect the hand and arm is relatively small, as even a small movement closes off the angles available to the attack. The point is retained in the line of attack, if at all possible, to either facilitate an immediate riposte or to allow the opponent to run onto it in his or her attack.
For Castello and Lidstone, those are the essentials of the bell parry. Barbasetti adds an interesting element. He prefers a displacement of the attack into the inside line. He does not address why, but the resulting geometry opens up the opponent's inside line (if both fencers are using the same hand) with the better chance of a body hit in the event the arm is missed.
The second parrying option is a blade parry. Castello suggests that over reliance on bell parries increases the probability of angulated attacks and provides a short description of the use of the blade parry as an alternative. The arm remains extended in the guard, and the point is raised or lowered as needed to form the parries to defend the four quadrants of the arm. He notes that, because the point in the straight arm guard tends to be below the level of the hand, parries in 7th (low inside) and 8th (low outside) are to be preferred.
Castello expands the choices to include the circular parries executed with only the fingers and wrist. Although Barbasetti does not specifically address this family of parries he does supplement the pure bell parries with a fairly large circular parry to gather the outside line attack into the bell on the inside line. Like the bell parry, the blade parries from the straight arm guard require practice to avoid overly large movement and deviation from the line of attack.
Copyright 2019 by Walter G. Green III
Parries from the Straight Arm Guard at the End of the Classical Period by Walter G. Green III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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