A discussion about hand position while thrusting came up in my group
recently while we were teaching some people who have no fencing or
martial arts background at all. We were working with rapier, but
the question is bigger than that. I have more fencing background
than any of them, and my understanding is that your hand position is
based primarily on where your hand is: above your head you should
be in 1, on your right in 2, low line in 3, your left in 4 (plus the
inbetweens). Some mitigating factors exist as well, such as keeping
an edge against your oponents blade, or at least in line to protect
you if they bring their sword back on line, where the opening is,
etc. There may be some flat out exceptions also, but none come to
mind at the moment. Those in the group with little to no training
in fencing, but with more experience in martial arts put less weight
on this concept, claiming they feel pretty comfortable thrusting to
the opponents left shoulder with hand in 3, for example. I am
tempted to say thats because they and their opponent have sloppy
form, but they are pretty accomplished martial artists, so I don't
say it very often ;-)
Please comment and/or correct me about my understanding of hand
position for thrusts. Am I sticking to basics too strongly? Do
mitigating factors play a bigger role than I think? I have always
conidered hand position to be one of those things that you try to be
very consistent about.
A specific example that came up in our discussion involves what to
do from Swetnam's true guard -- hand starts in 3, tip is just over
head height, not pointing at opponent. (Rapier might be a bit early
for this group, so feel free to substitute a different weapon or
move if you respond.) Lets assume you are being attacked while in
true guard, you parry with the dagger and attack with your rapier to
your opponents right shoulder. Swetnam has a fair amount motions
that cut in to land the tip on the opponent, but transition into a
thrust. So I would either leave the hand in 3 for the "cutting"
action then rotate into 2 or 4 for the thrust, depending on whether
I felt the sword or the dagger to be the greater threat or to have
the greatest chance of counter-parrying my attack. In many cases,
right or wrong, I know that I start rotating my hand at the
beginning of the move. The martial artists tend to just keep their
hand in 3 all the way, unless they need to rotate their hand for
safety reasons, such as the fencers closing faster and further than
expected.
Comments?
Thanks,
Eric
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