Free-play can be an important part of training for swordsmanship. However, it should involve more than just suiting up and swinging away at your opponent. As an aid to development, you must put careful thought into what you are doing and why you are doing it. Treating every bout as a matter of life-or-death will not be as productive in the long run as setting a variety of rules and goals based on your skill and desired end. There is also a strong aspect of safety and etiquette that should be incorporated.
- Ensure that what you engage in free-play, you always do so with enough control that you do not endanger yourself, your partner, or any bystanders.
This rule is paramount; even the full complement of protective gear will not confer complete proof against serious injury or death. As such, it is your responsibility, both to your partner and to the WMA community, to exercise control to ensure that no one is injured. Flexible sword blades will sometimes break, and if this happens, you must have enough control to keep from impaling your opponent with a sharp end; safety equipment is not a substitute for control. I also included bystanders into the safety considerations, because you must be sure that you do not, through an act of carelessness or inattention, injure any spectators or bystanders; even one such injury has the potential severely damaging the reputation of our art.
While it is important that you temper the use of your weapon with control, there is one other consideration that has potential safety issues. When watching bouts with predominantly thrusting weapons, I often notice a “contempt of the opponent’s point” in one or both of the combatants. That is, a fencer will commit to an action so completely and aggressively that he completely disregards his opponent’s weapon—he will literally throw himself onto the point of his opponent’s sword as he attempts to make an attack. Combined with the fact that most fencers who do this are usually inexperienced and have had less time to learn control, this is a dangerous occurrence. Besides that, it is just bad way to train (unless you think this would be a good tactic in a duel).
If you are in a bout with someone who you feel is overly aggressive or dangerous, stop (even if you are not—for some strange reason—concerned for your safety, imagine what could happen to you if your partner is seriously injured).
- Always strictly maintain a level of civility and adhere to the rules of etiquette and sportsmanship.
You are not fending off an assassination attempt or fighting for your life in a battle, nor are you in a situation where you need to “merely survive.” Instead, you are engaging in a test of skill. This does not mean that your free-play cannot include grappling or any other aspect to which both fencers agree, but at all times, you and your opponent must conduct yourselves in the manner required by the etiquette and social customs of our art1.
First, do your opponent the courtesy of some sort of formal recognition before crossing blades. This should be clearly indicated with body language—often some sort of salute. You are about to engage in a potentially dangerous activity and a small show of formal civility helps enforce the standards of etiquette, care and control that the situation demands. This will also alert bystanders to stand clear of the space which you are about to use for free-play.
Second, consider carefully any temptation to offer advice to your opponent if he has not asked for it. I am not telling you not to ever offer any advice, as sometimes such advice is extremely helpful. However, carefully temper it and consider whether you are doing so to help your opponent, or merely to indulge your ego. Even if your opponent seems to fall for the same trick over and over (at which point, you might want to stop doing it—see rule IV, below) consider waiting until your bout is done before discussing it. On more than one occasion, I have received advice—unasked for and even incorrect—when I was trying to utilize new techniques against a particular action of my opponent. I knew what he was doing and I was taking the opportunity to try to expand my repertoire of counters to that technique rather than falling back to the tried and true—I did not need advice, I just needed practice. Finally, and I cannot state this strongly enough, if you are a man and your opponent is a woman, carefully consider why you are giving advice to her—and then DON’T. There are exceptions to this, but unless you are certain the advice is merited and desired, it is better if you do not give any.
When the bout is finished, formally recognize your opponent as you did at the start. You started civilly and must end likewise. While sometimes the competitive nature of this art makes us aggressive, in such situations it is vital that we recover our composure.
It almost goes without saying that taunting has no place in free-play, but I’ll say it anyway. Taunting has no place in free-play. Also, don’t make any extreme outbursts of anger, whether physical or verbal, even to vent your anger or frustration with yourself. Throwing equipment, swearing or screaming will only distinguish you as (at best) an ill-mannered boor. I personally won’t fence with anyone who displays this lack of control, as it makes me wonder where else they lack self-control.
Finally, a word to spectators: avoid the temptation to kibitz—that is, ongoing advice and commentary to either or both of the fencers as they are engaged in the bout. Unless you are specifically asked to provide a verbal commentary, and it is okay with both fencers, don’t do it. There will be plenty of time after the bout to discuss your observation with either of the fencers, should either of them be interested.
- Do not engage in free-play until you can consistently reproduce all of the fundamental actions of your art upon demand in drills with a partner.
This is one of the most important rules for effective free-play, and yet, it is one of the first to be discarded by novice fencers. Many historical and contemporary masters of various martial arts strongly adhere to this. In his book On Fencing, Aldo Nadi writes of the requirement that student fence for at minimum a year before engaging in any sort of free-play; Masaniello Parise, in his 1884 treatise, states that a fencer must be able to perform all of the techniques exactly and precisely before ever taking part in his first assault2. Even in Kendo, a system with relatively few techniques, a student will not generally be allowed to take part in free-play3 before several months of basic drills and exercises. While, this requirement might seem rather draconian (and perhaps, not very fun), there is a specific reason beyond just aesthetics. If you cannot perform the fundamental actions of a system in a controlled environment, you CANNOT perform them under the pressures and variables of free-play. If fact, most fencers are noticeably less precise when they bout—movements with the blade become more abrupt and less controlled.
I would add another restriction, although it is not always possible to adhere to this: do not fence with opponents who do not maintain proper form in free-play until your form in free-play is unaffected by a wild and overaggressive opponent (i.e. the Uomo Bestiale of Capoferro). If, in the course of fencing with someone, you find yourself regressing more and more into old bad habits, it is better to stop than to allow your technique to become sloppier and acquire bad habits. A reading of many of the old masters advocated that a student begin to bout only with the master until he was deemed skilled enough to maintain his form and composure with less precise and less controlled fencers. Unfortunately, in nearly all of the systems we pursue, this is not a viable option (as no masters exist for them). However, that should not mean that you disregard this practice altogether. Look for opponents who are skilled and controlled because free-play with them will be the most educational and rewarding.
- Understand what your goals are each time you engage in free-play, whether it is an antagonistic drill, restricted free-play, a friendly bout with another martial artist or a formal competition.
There are many different types of situations where you engage in an assault or free-play:
- An antagonistic drill, where you have a very limited set of actions you to perform as your opponent attempts to foil you.
- A very controlled assault, where you concentrate on a subset of your techniques in an effort to learn to use execute with the correct mechanics and at the correct time.
- A friendly bout where you and your opponent freely choose from your palette of techniques but treat each point given or received as a unique problem and learning experience.
- A formal bout where you and your opponent play to a set number of points and keep score.
Each of these types of assaults and free-play (and I’m sure you can think of examples, as well as variations on those I gave above) has a different set of parameters and expectations. Therefore, it is important to understand for this guideline that both fencers must understand and agree upon type of free-play in which they will engage—and then adjust their level of competitiveness accordingly. This will sometimes mean that your opponent will score many points on you as you attempt to use various techniques to expand your repertoire (note that by this, I don’t mean you are attempting to learn new techniques while bouting—rather, you are attempting to learn how to use them against an antagonist). You must not allow this to change your free-play. Force yourself to use your art (i.e. the style of swordsmanship you practice) to solve the tactical problems you encounter in your opponent.
Imagine that you are engaged in a bout of the type detailed above by number 3 with a colleague you know but are rarely able to fence. You have one or two techniques which work very well against him, so those are the first two you try, and both score points. Good—you want to be sure you keep these techniques sharp. So then, you go on to try others that are still rather weak, and your opponent foils each one and hits you in turn. At this point, you are probably frustrated and perhaps a little humiliated, but avoid the temptation to fall back on your two “tried-and-true” techniques. You are not in a competition, so don’t get competitive. Instead, try other techniques that are not always successful—this is far more educational (we learn far more from failure than from easy success). Of course, an exception to this would be if your opponent requests that you keep trying a particular technique in order to learn how to counter it (although I would argue that he will be more effective by drilling specifically against this technique rather than attempting to learn to counter it in a bout). Besides the fact that you are limiting your learning potential, you are doing a disservice to your opponent, who probably wants to practice countering more than one or two techniques.
Notice that none of the types of free-play and bouting I listed above are the equivalent of fighting off an assassination attempt. While in the last type (a formal competition), your total points for and against you will determine the winner, I think it is worth considering that when all is said and done, six months or a year from now, people will better remember the art and form of the second place fencer who had clean and deliberate form than they will the first place fencer who was brutal and extremely aggressive. The point is that all of them are good opportunities to improve your art. If you abandon your art when in a competition, then why take the time to learn it?
Finally, you should remember that in all of the forms of free-play, you will not achieve the correct mindset until you treat the weapon in your opponent’s hands as sharp and deadly. As long as suicidal attacks and disdain for your opponent’s weapon are a part of your bouting style, you are not training to use your art to defend yourself; you are only training to score points.
