how to parry with classical italian grip

Can anyone answer definitively who has taken a lesson whilst using this
grip how to do the cardinal parries?

Specifically parry 4. How does it differ from using the french or an
ortho...does the wrist turn over as you parry or does it just hinge
over the way the wrist naturally bends? Can anyone point to a website
with pics as to how to grip and use?

Thanks,

El Magno

In rec.sport.fencing on 8 Dec 2004 09:03:13 -0800
magni <michael_lichtstrom@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Can anyone answer definitively who has taken a lesson whilst using this
> grip how to do the cardinal parries?
>
> Specifically parry 4. How does it differ from using the french or an
> ortho...does the wrist turn over as you parry or does it just hinge
> over the way the wrist naturally bends? Can anyone point to a website
> with pics as to how to grip and use?

In the Italian style, parries should be done with the true edge of the
blade.

So the quillons are always horizontal. IN fourth, which is the inside
high line, you roll the forearm so the hand is in fourth position -
nails up, palm up.

When parrying third, you roll it the other way so the nails are down,
that's the same position you use for the parry of 2nd.

Of course many people are sloppy and just flap with the flat, but if you
want a strong parry that a gorilla with a pistol grip isn't going to
blow through, then the edge parry uses your thumb and the strongest
angle of the hand to oppose. It probably isn't as obvious in foil as
it is with the duelling swords the Italian style was designed for. Try
it - hold your sword with quillons vertical and get someone to push it
out of the way horizontally. Try again with quillons horizontal and get
them to push against the true edge. You'll notice the difference.

Dunno about pics,
http://www.uncg.edu/student.groups/f...s/42_2_22.html
has a description in words.

Zebee

Cool... now is there anyone out there that has these grips? I dont have
the cash to buy them... its like $35 USd per grip/weapon including
pommel and such.

If anyone has some old Santelli product that they arent using anymore
please let me know and make me a reasonable offer. Id like to try it
with bankrupting myself.

I've butchered so many grips in an attempt to cure the various hand
ailments I have. Plus my coach doesnt want me to flick anymore....
wants a more linear point driven style of foil. The flicking accounts
for over 50% of my points now ugg... what a habit to break.... it was
easaier to quit smoking!!! :-p)

El Magno..

PS:Please help with the grips anyone.....I dont have lots of cash but
enough perhaps to incentivize someone to part with them if they are
merely collecting dust.

On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 20:47:23 +0000, Zebee Johnstone wrote:

> In rec.sport.fencing on 8 Dec 2004 09:03:13 -0800
> magni <michael_lichtstrom@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Can anyone answer definitively who has taken a lesson whilst using this
>> grip how to do the cardinal parries?

I'm not a fencing master but i _did_ learn fencing with an italian grip -
as a matter of fact we all had to ;-) My main instructor was Master
("Meister") Joseph Losert from the Losert fencing school in Wien-Neustadt.
It would be debatable whether his stile represents the "true" italian
style (but then, what _is_ the true italian stile?), but he fought and
taught with the italian grip (even his children, both very successful
worldclass fencers learned with the italian grip).

>> Specifically parry 4. How does it differ from using the french or an
>> ortho...does the wrist turn over as you parry or does it just hinge
>> over the way the wrist naturally bends? Can anyone point to a website
>> with pics as to how to grip and use?
>
> In the Italian style, parries should be done with the true edge of the
> blade.

True :-) at least most of the time. We never worked on terza (or, "Terz",
in my master's wonderful austrianized terminology) and almost always used
"Sixt" where one parry with the false edge of the blade.

> So the quillons are always horizontal. IN fourth, which is the inside
> high line, you roll the forearm so the hand is in fourth position -
> nails up, palm up.

Hmm, that's certainly _not_ how i learned it. We parried in forth with
a wrist slightly rotated inwards (almost 3 in 4) exactly to really use
the edge of the blade. IIRC this position was one of the things my master
would take great care of getting right (correcting us every once in a
while during a lesson). The same goes for "Second" and "Terz", both were
taught with the hand in 1 in 2. I do consider this an essential part of
the style - my french fencing master (who always refers to my style of
fencing as "historique") also refers to this slight rotation as "italian
oposition".

> When parrying third, you roll it the other way so the nails are down,
> that's the same position you use for the parry of 2nd.
>
> Of course many people are sloppy and just flap with the flat, but if you
> want a strong parry that a gorilla with a pistol grip isn't going to
> blow through, then the edge parry uses your thumb and the strongest
> angle of the hand to oppose. It probably isn't as obvious in foil as
> it is with the duelling swords the Italian style was designed for. Try
> it - hold your sword with quillons vertical and get someone to push it
> out of the way horizontally. Try again with quillons horizontal and get
> them to push against the true edge. You'll notice the difference.

Yes, the postition _does_ make a lot of a difference. I still recall that
during my fencing summer camps in Switzerland my oponents (mainly using
french grips) had major problems with the strength of my parries.
Besides this extra strength one very important reason for the rotation
is described is the extra stability it gives to the riposte. The slight
rotation back into the straight thrust seems to "pull in" the tip of
the weapon.

> Dunno about pics,
> http://www.uncg.edu/student.groups/f...s/42_2_22.html
> has a description in words.
>

As for weapons: i still own a handful of italian foils - a few i use for
teaching [1] and a pair of electrical foils for fencing. The problem
isn't so much getting the grips (i was in Verona recently and visited
Negrini, the still sell italian grips) -- it's impossible to get decent
blades! It seems impossible to get new italian style blades (with Ricasso)
in a decent quality. I've so far been unable to locate a source for FIE
certified italian blades. Negini does sell italian electric blades but
these are just blades for french grips and force you to use a "falso
ricasso", something i wouldn't recomend at all.

HTH Ralf Mattes

[1] i stil think that beginning students should use traditional grips -
the explanation of hand positions seems so much more logic ...
> Zebee

On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 20:47:23 +0000, Zebee Johnstone wrote:

> [...]
> Dunno about pics,
> http://www.uncg.edu/student.groups/f...s/42_2_22.html
> has a description in words.

Interesting text - thank's for the link. But be aware that the older texts
he quotes talk about sabre fencing -- quite different from foil. And, more
interesting, when he talks about the modern use of clock positions he
states that the parry of forth uses hand position third in forth (that's
how i learned it). BTW, i don't agree with him here, i find it rather
unwise to expose todays students to the old terminology: first, it seems
to confuse them that parries and hand psitions use the same terminology
but don't correlate (i.e. parry of sixt doesn't use sixth hand position
etc.). Second: with a modern "pistol" grip the hand isn't in the same
position as with an italian grip- the basic gaurd is _not_ in full
suppination, nails down, thumb out. The whole mechanic of hand/wrist work
changed.

Ralf Mattes


> Zebee

at the
request of Richard Goodwin and Robert Kennedy. After a general
discussion of Cuban matters, JFK asked him, "What would you think
if I ordered Castro to be assassinated?" Szulc said he didn't
think it would help foster change in Cuba, and he didn't think
Americans should be associated with such matters. Kennedy
replied, "I agree with you completely." Szulc testified that:
He went on for a few minutes to make the point how strongly
he and his brothers felt that the United States should never
be in a situation of having recourse to assassination.

Szulc's notes of the meeting state:
JFK then said he was testing me, that he felt the same way -
he added "I'm glad you feel the same way" - because indeed
the U. S. morally must not be part (sic) to assassinations.

The Church Committee also heard testimony from Smathers who
stated that once when it was brought up in his presence
(presumably by the CIA friendly Smathers), Kennedy got so mad he
smashed a dinner plate and told him he did want to hear of such
things again (Alleged Assassination Plots p. 124). Smathers
furthered this portrait later when he stated that:
President Kennedy seemed "horrified" at the idea of
political assassination. "I remember him saying. . .that the
CIA frequently did things he didn't know about, and he was
unhappy about it. He complained that the CIA was almost
autonomous. He told me he believed the CIA had arranged to
have Diem and Trujillo bumped off. He was pretty well
shocked about that. He thought it was a stupid thing to do,
and he wanted to get control of what the CIA was doing."

(The Assassinations: Dallas and Beyond pp. 379

Namely, why did Exner not
tell Demaris these startling details back in 1977? Why did she
wait eleven years to bare her soul? Exner says she was afraid and
needed to protect herself. Unfortunately, this rings a bit hollow
since 1) Giancana and Roselli were both dead when she wrote her
book, 2) the Church Committee spilled all the beans on the plots
to kill Castro in 1975, which 3) leaves only the Kennedys to
fear, and its clear she doesn't give a damn about them.

But for those still skeptical, she adds the other (clinching)
reason for breaking the silence: her doctor told her she had
terminal cancer and she had only 36 months to live. The article
ends in a crescendo that would move even the world weary Claude
Rains:
Now that I know I'm dying and nothing more can happen to me,
I want to be completely honest. I don't think I should have
to die with the secret of what I did for Jack Kennedy, or
what he did with the power of his presidency. I feel that I
am finally free of the past.

Exner's 1997 Version

I hope Exner sued her doctor, because ten years later she's still
with us. She now turns up in the pages of the January 1997 Vanity
Fair which, unembarrassed, again bills her as "facing her death."

This time she was teamed with another questionable expert on
Kennedy's Cuba policy - Hollywood gossip columnist Liz Smith. And
evidently, the previous fear of death wasn't enough to squeeze
the whole story out of her. She still has a few goodies to add.

The choice of Smith in 1997 is as revealing as Demaris in 1977
and Kelley in 1988. Smith writes for the New York Post, wh

some
kind of military figure or national security issue e.g. The
Atomic Submarine and Admiral Rickover, The Hydrogen Bomb,
Nautilus 90 North, Silent Victory: the U.S. Submarine War Against
Japan. In his book on Rickover, he got close cooperation from the
Atomic Energy Commission and the book was screened by the Navy
Department. In 1969 he wrote a book on the Martin Luther King
murder called The Strange Case of James Earl Ray. Above the
title, the book's cover asks the question "Conspiracy? Yes or
No!" Below this, this the book's subtitle gives the answer,
describing Ray as "The Man who Murdered Martin Luther King." To
be sure there is no ambiguity, on page 146 Blair has Ray shooting
King just as the FBI says he did, no surprise since Blair
acknowledges help from the Bureau and various other law
enforcement agencies in his acknowledgements.

The Ray book is basically an exercise in guilt through character
assassination. This practice has been perfected in the Kennedy
assassination field through Oswald biographers like Edward
Epstein and Priscilla Johnson McMillan. Consider some of Blair's
chapter headings: "A Heritage of Violence," "Too Many Strikes
Against Him," "The Status Seeker." In fact, Blair actually
compares Ray with Oswald (pp. 88-89). In this passage, the author
reveals that he also believes that Oswald is the lone assassin of
Kennedy. He then tries to imply that Ray had the same motive as
his predecessor: a perverse desire for status and recognition.

Later, Blair is as categorical about the JFK case as he is about
the King case:
In the case of John

Uhlmann purchased the old Scaroni forge and put it back into operation a
couple of years ago. They're producing true-ricasso Italian style which
are pretty nicely finished, and greatly superior to the Frances Lames
blades which were the only true-ricasso blades being made for a long
time. You can find them listed on their website
(www.uhlmann-fechtsport.de), electric blades are 28 Euro bare, 39.50
Euro wired. There are no FIE Homologated Italian style blades made--
since nobody at the international level has used the traditional Italian
grip for quite some time, there's no market to justify the cost
designing, testing, and manufacturing one.

-Dave Neevel

R. Mattes wrote:

> As for weapons: i still own a handful of italian foils - a few i use for
>
>teaching [1] and a pair of electrical foils for fencing. The problem
>isn't so much getting the grips (i was in Verona recently and visited
>Negrini, the still sell italian grips) -- it's impossible to get decent
>blades! It seems impossible to get new italian style blades (with Ricasso)
>in a decent quality. I've so far been unable to locate a source for FIE
>certified italian blades. Negini does sell italian electric blades but
>these are just blades for french grips and force you to use a "falso
>ricasso", something i wouldn't recomend at all.
>
> HTH Ralf Mattes
>
>[1] i stil think that beginning students should use traditional grips -
> the explanation of hand positions seems so much more logic ...
>
>
>>Zebee
>>
>>
>
>
>

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 19:11:41 -0600, David Neevel wrote:

> Uhlmann purchased the old Scaroni forge and put it back into operation a
> couple of years ago. They're producing true-ricasso Italian style which
> are pretty nicely finished, and greatly superior to the Frances Lames
> blades which were the only true-ricasso blades being made for a long
> time. You can find them listed on their website
> (www.uhlmann-fechtsport.de), electric blades are 28 Euro bare, 39.50
> Euro wired. There are no FIE Homologated Italian style blades made--
> since nobody at the international level has used the traditional Italian
> grip for quite some time, there's no market to justify the cost
> designing, testing, and manufacturing one.

Hmm, yes - i knew about the Uhlmann blades. Unfortunately they are of
no use. Over here (in Germany) one cannot use not-homologated blades
in any kind of competition (except for kids). In most (if not all) fencing
clubs the use of certified equipment is also mandatory. I still own a
handful of old (~1970) electric blades that are far superior to the stuff
you get today but can't really use them except for private training.

Ralf Mattes

> -Dave Neevel
>