Seeding parries?

[RITFencing]

Yes, I know, but I didn't necessarily think that was any kind of a requirement for a seeding parry. Like you can cede a sixte parry with a sixte parry. There is no going with the flow, as you step back and in a way, force it back in the direction in which it came from.

Yeah, I guess you really don't have to change lines (or more specifically, you can return to the same line at the end of it) but I'm pretty sure you don't have to step back. For instance, if I attack and my opponent steps back with a parry, I can take a ceding counter parry as I press forward.

[seven6ty]

Yes, true, if you're very fast you could step in, right after the moment your opponent has taken the parry. I think that would tend to be the exception rather than the rule though. I'd think that, in general, it would be better to allow your opponent to begin their riposte, and to think that they almost have you, before taking a slight step back so you can slide back down the length of their blade and out of their forte, before riposting. So yeah, I'd almost imagine it as either having to take a small step back, or a large amount of leaning back.

[RITFencing]

Yes, true, if you're very fast you could step in, right after the moment your opponent has taken the parry. I think that would tend to be the exception rather than the rule though. I'd think that, in general, it would be better to allow your opponent to begin their riposte, and to think that they almost have you, before taking a slight step back so you can slide back down the length of their blade and out of their forte, before riposting. So yeah, I'd almost imagine it as either having to take a small step back, or a large amount of leaning back.

It depends on where you want to go with it, I think, as well as how far apart the fencers are and where the fencer taking the yielding parry wants to end up. In my 6 to 1 example, I generally want to get much closer to the opponent.

You are, however, correct in that it is definitely easier when the opponent begins their riposte (or other offensive action, if the engagement on the blades was not a parry.)

[keropie]

I've seen two different terms both get used somewhat differently here: yielding and ceding. Generally, the definition I here is that ceding allows the parry postion to collapse towards the body (and can be done in any line), and yielding is the parry that changes lines (the example of sixth to first is very common). Most yielding parries (using these definitions) are ceding, though not necessarily all, and many parries can be ceding without being yielding.

For what it's worth.

[RITFencing]

This is actually hinting at a bit problem in the fencing world; the lack of a single lexicon. Different words can mean different things, depending on what fencer/coach/ref a person is talking to you.

So now these two can join balestra, time thrust and all those others.

[Shi no Tenshi]

Ha, so that's what it's called when I do that. I never really learned this from our instructor, I just kinda started doing them because it made sense, you know? I especially like them in sabre if somebody is actually trying to beat...the only time I use 6 in sabre, actually. Good to know what I was doing isn't totally crazy.

[Adler]

In the Hungarian system there are three ways of parrying an opposition thrust which are cedeing parry,opposition parry and change parry.
Cedeing parry take the blade out of line usually high to low or low to high. Opposition parries close the line threatened by the thrust and change parries parry the blade on the opposite side from the engagement in a circular manner.

Against a sixte opposition thrust (similar handed) or Quarte opposition thrust (opposite handed) you can parry;

Opposition Sixte
Opposition Tierce
Cedeing Prime
Cedeing Septime
or Change quarte.

Against a Octave/ Seconde opposition thrust (similar handed) or septime oppostion thrust you can parry

Opposition Seconde
Opposition Octave
Cedeing Quarte
Change Septime
Change Prime.

Against a Quarte opposition thrust (similar handed) or Sixte opposition thrust (opposite handed) you can parry.

Oppostion Quarte
Change Tierce
Change Sixte
*

Against a Septime opposition thrust (similar handed) or Octave/seconde opposition thrust (opposite handed) you can parry

Opposition septime
Change Octave
Change seconde
Cedeing low Tierce.

* There is an unconventional cedeing parry for this thrust simmilar to sabre septime or a reverse quinte.

[Goldgar]

I've seen two different terms both get used somewhat differently here: yielding and ceding. Generally, the definition I here is that ceding allows the parry postion to collapse towards the body (and can be done in any line), and yielding is the parry that changes lines (the example of sixth to first is very common). Most yielding parries (using these definitions) are ceding, though not necessarily all, and many parries can be ceding without being yielding.

I've never heard this distinction, and am having a hard time visualizing your "yielding parry". Could you describe contrasting examples?

[Durando]

I've never heard this distinction, and am having a hard time visualizing your "yielding parry". Could you describe contrasting examples?

Y'alls be splitting hairs. All of the above examples are ceding parries. I think the English usage of this must come from the French "parade cedante": "Yielding parry" is a nuance of translation, not of technique. All of the above ceding parries set out by Adler yield to the opponent's force and redirects it somehow.

Those of you who have worked with Russian MdAs have probably even done this without changing the line. It was a huge brainwave when Boris Lukomsky first taught me that. It is subtle as all get out and difficult to develop an instinct for (at least for me.)

[Adler]

Lumping all the parries that defend against opposition thrusts into one group is,in my opinion, misleading each type of parry has significant differences in timing and technique to warrant seperate classifications.

[Allen Evans]

Lumping all the parries that defend against opposition thrusts into one group is,in my opinion, misleading each type of parry has significant differences in timing and technique to warrant seperate classifications.

I think that Durando was speaking to making a distinction between "yeilding" and "ceeding" and not parries in general.

AE

[keropie]

The difference that I have been taught (and it is a difference significant enough to warrant a different name, imo) is that a ceding parry simply continues to withdraw away from the opponent during the process of the parry. Meaning that if I'm making a ceding parry in the line of four, after blade contact is made my hand will continue to progress away from the opponent to establish different/more control over the situation.

A yielding parry, however, changes sides of the blade in some way or another. Imagine, for instance, the opponent is making an opposition thrust in the line of sixth. I could cede the parry and attempt to 'outrace' my opponents point towards me in an attemp to gain sufficient leverage to parry, or I could just hope I'm enough of a brute to deflect their point by a lateral sixth parry, or I could change sides of the blade and parry (most commonly in this example towards first). So, as I feel the pressure of the opposition attack, I yield to that force and roll my hand to the position of first, parrying the attack to the opposite side of my body and then (hopefully) hitting my opponent with the riposte.

Of course, this could be done just as easily by yielding to fourth, but everyone likes first so much that it seems to happen a lot more.

For what it's worth.

Re: the difference of terminology, this is hardly fencing specific. Any sport/art/game in which there has been any significant independant development has this issue. The big sports (basketball, football, etc.) have large enough leagues that the leagues themselves create a very strong defining force for terminology, but I have no doubts that some coaching schools (meaning of thought, not physical schools) refer to things very differently. Afterall, in almost all competitive sports, if you've found a technique that gives you an advantage, you'll either keep it to yourself or teach it to your friends/students, but not to the opposition. Then the opposition has to figure it out, and as they figure it out they're not likely to share it, so then everyone who figures it out comes up with a way to refer to it, and it's unlikely they'll all use the same word