[Ansteorra-rapier] Pros and Cons of change

[Puck Curtis]

The story goes that the 35" foil length was a compromise between the 30"
French trainers and the 40" Italian ones.  If you have the choice, choose a
longer one to match your weapon.  You can find old Italians or get custom
ones from Reputable and Righteous dudes like Scott at Darkwood now.

Personally?  The need to dynamically judge distance is important to the
student.  (What do you hold in your hand and how does it define your
defensive and offensive space?)  Change training weapons regularly lest
they become too comfortable.

The larger question is one of mass and how that change affects the fencing
time.  A human being has a reaction time of X which is defined as an upper
limit.  A weapon with lighter mass will move/accelerate more quickly while
the reaction time X remains unchanged.  You can train at the upper boundary
to push time, reaction time, and the perception of time.

When you return to the rapier your perception of time
(or situational awareness if you like) enjoys the benefit of working in
faster time and a deeper theoretical tree.  Your execution with the heavier
weapon will "see" faster but act slower.  The tree will be easier to
navigate in the slower time.

For example, it doesn't typically make sense to execute triple feints with
a rapier because that many false tempi should be defeated by an adversary
who refuses obedience.  From a theory perspective training triple feints is
very difficult but rarely practical martially.  It has utility however
because requiring the student to execute difficult techniques at high speed
improves their fencing ability as a natural corollary.

The student's actual practice lags the training so train harder than you
would ever need to fence and don't sacrifice heavy-blade execution for
light-blade sporting shortcuts.  The key to success is to understand that
the final goal is ability with the heavier weapon that is elevated by the
pedagogical tool: the foil or epee.

~P.

On Mon, Oct 15, 2012 at 1:34 PM, Andrew Heinrich
<andrew.heinrich at gmail.com>wrote:

>
>>
> Greetings,
>
> So, as  follow up question - how does the somewhat radically different
> blade length affect exercises that utilize tempo and measure, etc?
>
> - Mateo
>
>
> --
> it is good to know, it is better to do, it is best to be.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ansteorra-rapier mailing list
> Ansteorra-rapier at lists.ansteorra.org
> http://lists.ansteorra.org/listinfo.cgi/ansteorra-rapier-ansteorra.org
>
>


-- 
“Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so.”
Galileo Galilei

Spanish Swordplay
http://www.destreza.us/

Italian Swordplay
http://www.viahup.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ansteorra.org/pipermail/ansteorra-rapier-ansteorra.org/attachments/20121015/4b2133c6/attachment-0002.htm>