Drill of the Week - Cooperative Drill: Keeping the Sword Free (08-July-06)

Description
This drill starts with the fencers barely out of measure, and standing naturally and he swords at parity, either to the inside or the outside. For the first motion, the Defender attempts to engage or parry the Attacker's sword. At this point, the Attacker will make a step forward and prevent the Defender from touching his sword with a cavazione, while at the same time advancing one step. In response, the Defender will again attempt to engage the Attacker's sword on the new line, while simultaneously stepping back to maintain the same distance between the fencers. Continue for as many steps as desired, then switch. You can add an interesting twist by switching back and forth every few steps (four steps each works well) while counting out loud. The steps are passes, and they should be made at a moderate walking pace (don't rush, the footwork is only there to force you to perform more than one aspect of fencing at a time, not to give you practice overrunning your opponent).

Prerequisites
The cavazione must be mastered before performing this drill.

Goal
This is a simple drill, but it should help the Attacker learn to recognize and avoid a parry or attempted engagement more quickly. This drill is a good precursor to working on Rule One from the sword-alone section of Book Two of Fabris' rapier manual.

Notes
You can make this into an antagonistic drill by allowing the defender a selection of blade actions: he could perform a contracavazione and parry (essentially a classical counter-parry) instead of just a simple parry or he could perform his parry as a beat (I'm sure you can think of more variations).

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