This month in both the Academie’s rapier class and classical fencing class, we’re looking at defense. This is the art of defense after all. Specifically, we’re focusing mostly on parrying and riposting.
Now in our system, we have five categories of parries.
- Simple parries
- Circular parries
- Half-circular parries
- Yielding parries
- Offhand/Secondary parries.
Simple parries — which tend to move laterally, such as 3rd to 4th, vice versa, or 2nd to 3rd, vice versa — tend to most fencer’s bread and butter for defense. They’re quick, easy to learn, and are pretty instinctual. They’re also predictable. That’s when mixing in other parries can be helpful — such as the circular parry.
Circular parries draw a tight, complete circle around the incoming attack and transferring it to the opposite line. For example, from a fencer’s finding or engagement of 4th on the inside line, a circular parry of 4th would pick up the opponent’s attack on the outside line and transfer the sword back to 4th on the inside line. The start and end position for the defender is the same.
Circular parries work best against attacks that stay close to your blade. If an opponent attacks wide, simple parries often are the better option. A circular parry against a wide attack would be very big.
Even so, being able to mix up the parry types and combinations you do will make it harder for your opponent to predict so feint attacks are less reliable. Good for us, bad for them!
Defensive Combos
Some common combos to practice:
- Simple parry, then circular parry
- Circular, then simple
- Simple, simple, circular
- Circular, circular, simple
- Simple, circular, simple
- Circular, simple, circular
You can see examples of a few of these combos in action in this video. Once you land the final parry, it’s time for the riposte. I won’t get into the various options here, but you can check this other video out for the most common ones.
You can even add in counter-attacks, like girattas, passata sottos, and time-thrusts into the mix. Some examples:
- Simple, time-thrust
- Simple, giratta (or passata sotto)
- Simple, circular, time-thrust
- Circular, simple, giratta (or passata sotto)
You get the picture!
The goal is to work on various combos to build dexterity of the wrist, strength of the arm, and be comfortable flowing from various parries and counter-attacks. Start off slow and easy with these combos and ramp up speed and intensity as you get more comfortable.
Happy swording!
—Justin
Head Coach | Instructor at Arms
Boston Academie d’Armes
(he/him)
