Rapier Fencers.

S

Stuart McDermid

Joined
Jan 14, 2002
Messages
135
Hi,
Are there any Rapier fencers here? Which manuals are you working with? Do you fence with blunts:)? or substitues:(?
Which off hand weapons do you play with? Are you part of a group?

I am a member of the Stoccata School of Defence here in Sydney and I fence rapier primarily in the style of Vincentio Saviolo but have dabbled in Joseph Swetnam in order to deal with poke and prayers and have just started looking at Pallas Armata. I fence with the most accurate blunt weapon I could find as I believe this is the only way to develop historically accurate technique
The only off hand weapon I have really played with is a parrying dagger. I am keen however to try using a cloak as I think it would be fun.
Cheers
Stu.
 
Hi Stu!

I'm a Rapier Duelist myself!
(I avoid the term "Fencer" as the modern term carries too many connotations I don't care for.)

I'm a member of a small local group and the current club champion but that will change in a few months, the competition is fierce and I'm not getting nearly as much practice as I should.:eek:

We fight "blunts" of varied shapes and sizes. Anything from Darkwood and Deltin to MRL pieces.

The off hand weapon can range widely within the group.
Bucklers, daggers, cloaks, sticks, even the rapier's scabbard from time to time. (Usually when someone has just replaced a "broken" one.)

I myself use a Hanwei Pappenheimer rapier. It's held up for going on three years now, but it's days are numbered, the blade is getting thin from filing out all the nicks and gouges.

My off hand weapon of choice is a Deltin Swordbreaker Main Gauche. Contrary to popular opinion, the Swordbreaker is actually an excellent disarming tool. I've literally disarmed an opponent with such force that it sent his sword flying almost 20 feet to my rear!
(Not desired, there are always spectators about!)

I've read di Grassi's stuff, and Silvers, and I read Clement's book on Renaissance Swordsmanship. (He makes a few glaring errors.)

Generally though, it's largely a matter of experimentation and finding out what works and what doesn't. As most Modern Fencers learn in short order, there are things you can do with a foil or epee that can't be done with a full weight rapier!

One note on the cloak though.
I have a fighting cloak that my wife made for me. It is made of heavy material, it has a wool lining, and there are curtain weights sewn into the hem of it for added power. This thing will stop even a Cut and Thrust sword dead in it's tracks, but it's <b>very</b> tiring to use. It's best employed for the opening gambit of the duel, if you haven't won the duel in the first minute or two, then it's best discarded so that you can transition to a dagger and fight on without wearing yourself out prematurely.

It's great to have another Rapier Duelist aboard!
WELCOME!
:D
 
Hi Ken,
Thanks for the warm welcome.
I use a custom built Manning Imperial fencing blunt which is worth every cent of the 950AUD I payed for it.

In less than 24 hours time I shall be playing a scholar's prize at single rapier which should be fun.

I can understand your not using fencer, the "car aerial wielding double kill brigade" have hijacked this term which is why I say I am an historical fencer and then explain myself.

By the time swordbreaking daggers were in use, the rapier was getting much lighter and developing into the smallsword. Using one of these is well outside my time period.

Interesting source choices. Silver hated rapiers, I would trust Clements about as far as I could throw him and Di Grassi is a sidesword manual not a rapier manual.

You should get a look if you can at Saviolo and Swetnam. Saviolo is an interesting mix of Spanish and Italian technique that works very well against classical Italian stuff and Swetnam is great against the "poke and pray" brigade. The stuff I have got from historical manuals is much much better than anything I could have made up by myself.
Cheers
Stu.
 
To be honest, by the time I got around to reading Clement's book, I was pretty far beyond the level it was written for. However, there were still a couple of interesting tidbits to be found in there.

As to Silver, old George covered a lot of ground in there, there are nuggets to be gleaned from all over his work. Same with di Grassi. There's a lot that transfers over in one way or another.
I haven't gotten to Saviolo yet, but fully intend to.

My "period" is very specifically defined. The year 1634, Right smack in the Thirty Years War. The Swordbreaker was such a commonly used item at that time, that among scholars of that period, the Swordbreaker is almost the unofficial logo of that war.

Truth to be told however, I'm not very hung up on "period." I am concerned with it when I must be, but as far as the swordsmanship itself is concerned, I'm far more interested in finding the best possible means of using the rapier, and also in how that translates to other weapons. (Stick, knife, bare hands, etc...)
I'm more involved in it from a Western Martial Art point of view and view it not as a "static" thing, but something to be honed and refined into an effective system of Martial Arts.
 
Hi Ken,

I know what you mean about Clements. Silver is great as it gives insight into how a backsword armed man can beat a rapier fencer and vice versa. Swetnam is good because it is simple and shows how a rapier fencer can easily beat a backsword fencer.

Yeah, I am totally into the "whatever works" brigade, the trouble is that rapiers changed alot over the period of time that they were in use and techniques from 1594 may not carry to the late 1600s. Check out the stats that a friend of mine posted on the Western Arts List. The weapons are all very different between time periods and nationalities. English rapiers for example were often lighter than their continental counterparts.

What I find really strange about rapiers is that they started off short and heavy, then evolved to become long and heavy, then ultra long and light and finally short and light. I would also be interested in how smallswords managed to "kill them off" in such short order.
Cheers
Stu.
 
There's a short answer to your question.

Fashion.

Not fighting fashion, but the fashion of Nobles at Court. The Rapier had become so long that it was horribly unwieldy. English Law was instituted which forbade swords be longer than a given length. (I dis-remember the precise length at the moment.) This was not driven by any factor of effectiveness, but rather that the length of the sheathed blades made walking about at Court a dangerous affair!

After this, it was all "downhill" for the true swordsman.
"Shorter and lighter" became more popular. Of course there were other factors involved also. The Criminalization of dueling (but not it's elimination!) the ever lessened value of the sword on the field of battle, etc...

Eventually the sword became more a "Badge of Station" (status symbol) than a valued defensive tool. A status symbol need not be an effective fighting implement, and so the blades grew ever shorter, evolving into the Small Sword until we see the final result, which is the Gentleman about Town today who wouldn't think of leaving the house without his penknife! (Okay, I ranted a bit there, sorry.);)
---------------------------------

In my group, there is a large variety of "rapiers" used. Longer ones, shorter ones, wide Germanic blades, thin Italian ones, etc.

I've found that each (obviously) has it's strengths and weaknesses. Each has strengths to be utilized or weaknesses to be exploited.

One example is the more flexible thin blades. The weaker blades have much less power for the block or parry than one more stout. The point of percussion is much farther back in the blade which allows a heavier blade to "power through" the opponent's defense.

On the other hand, that same slender blade has slightly more speed and agility than a heavier one, allowing one to reverse direction to exploit an over-extension much more quickly.

I prefer a fairly stiff medium weight blade with a heavier hilt (like a pappenheimer) and a large "egg" or "barrel shaped pommel.
Oddly, both the Deltin 42" practice blades and a severely blunted Hanwei Pappenheimer suit my style perfectly.
 
Hi Ken,

Obviously, fashion played a part in gentlemen's weapons over time however the royal decree that rapiers over a "yard and a half" only applied in England. On the continent, there was no such rule and most of the changes I am talking about apply to the continent. Interesting that English rapiers are consistently lighter than their continental counterparts.

Cutting with a rapier can sometimes be used to effect but is really only used by the master's we study when ones' point is off line or in combination with a retreat as in Saviolo's head cutting sequence. Like the masters, I don't like taking my point off line to cut very much, it normally invites a stop thrust so I don't cut very much.

The thrust was so much deadlier than the cut anyway as the surgeons of the time had much more trouble with deep incisions than shallow ones that were much longer.

Do you do much hand parrying in your system?. I hate hand parries, although I must say that there are two guys in a school who love them and fencing with them can be frustrating.
It was Fabris who said something like "He who defends with the hand is much easier to kill than he who defends with the sword"

This is fun,
Cheers
Stu.
 
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