[Jen]

Good question, Daniel. In this guard you are protecting your head, and your defense is much stronger with the tip pointing slightly up to encourage your opponent’s sword to fall into your forte. The debole, and even the mezza spada in finestra is too weak to protect you if it’s pointing even slightly down. Try this with a friend:
– hold your sword in finestra with the blade parallel to the ground and have your friend push on the debole.
– now lock your wrists together and rear weight, which will bring the tip of the sword higher. When your friend pushes on the debole it will be much easier to resist.

Which is not to say there aren’t times you’re going to allow your sword to be pushed down (allowing you to yield), but if your goal is to deflect or collect, you’ll want that iconic finestra that you see in Fiore.

[Jen]

Well done. I like how relaxed and sure your movements are — like you could do this in your sleep. Now that you’ve mastered the movements of the form you can improve on it by focussing on the flow of force. eg think about connecting from the front hand in posta longa all the way down to the heel of the back foot and into the ground. This sort of focus will increase the energy and martiality, without losing the ease and flow.

One thing to watch is your tutte volte. To make a 180 degree turn you need to cross your back foot behind you. At the moment you’re doing a mezza volta back followed by a volta stabile — which is a useful turn, but not technically a complete — ie, tutta — volta.

[Jen]

I didn’t read Vitor’s notes before making my own. I could have saved some typing. But ditto 😁

[Jen]

Nice job overall. I like the strength and intention in your cuts and footwork. A few notes
– When cutting fendenti from posta di donna try to avoid lifting your hands. Instead think of curling the handle towards your chest to send the point straight out and then follow through. If you lift the hands you’re getting into colpo di villano territory, which leaves you exposed for longer than necessary.
– with the thrusts make sure you extend the sword fully before stepping. Your order is generally good with the cuts but with a couple of thrusts I felt you could have got that sword out in front farther before moving the feet.

[Jen]

You’ve got all the poste and footwork in the correct order. I love the
energy and martiality of your movement. As Greg mentioned, you can relax
your hands considerably more. For example, posta Longa is either a
defense with the back of the hand, or a heel strike to the face — either
way, you want to keep your fingers relaxed and together so they don’t
get caught (and perhaps jammed/broken). Posta frontale can be used as
an eye gouge, but even still this would be done with the thumbs. Your
stance is powerful and wide, but do be careful you don’t overextend and
roll or drag your back foot which could lead to knee injuries. Also, try to keep the front toe and knee pointed in the direction of your imaginary opponet (also to protect the knee). Nice
work!

[Jen]

Hi Quintin, I approved this but as soon as I did it disappeared from the queue, so I couldn’t add comments. Two things I noticed:
– when doing the full cut with the false edge roverso mezzano you could turn your blade over a bit sooner so that you are fully palm up for the complete path of the cut.
– at times your half cuts were a bit skimpy in preparation (eg going from mandritto to roverso fendente) so that it looked more like a disengage over rather than a prep and a half cut.

Overall very fluid with good order and mechanics.