Hey folks!
First off, holiday (whatever they were) salutations! It's been awhile since I've put anything of substance up here, but such is the joy of working retail during the holidays.
So I'm not promising anything, just letting ya'll know that I have no more excuses!
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Whew
Started, for my own edification, listing all the plays in the Getty. Essentially I am making a list: Weapon, Remedy Masters, Remedy Master's plays. I'm doing this because I know that I memorize things better when I list them out, which is why I am a compulsive list writer (just ask my wife!).
No doubt about it though, it is a lot of work. Up to 5th Master of dagger and my word document is 4 pages long. Whew
No doubt about it though, it is a lot of work. Up to 5th Master of dagger and my word document is 4 pages long. Whew
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Understanding the role of the manuscripts
Medieval combat manuscripts present an interesting dilemma for their modern students in that they are not “How To” manuals in the modern sense. If you were to pick up a modern book on Western Martial Arts (or any martial art) the first physical lessons taught are usually stance, footwork, and how to grip the weapon (if there is one). Of these three basic elements, the manuscripts attributed to Fiore de’ Liberi only expressly teach one.
That one thing is footwork. Fiore describes three types of footwork; the volta stabile, the mezza volta, and the tutta volta. In the Getty MS it appears “A volta stabile lets you play forward or backward (from one side only), without moving your feet. A mezza volta is when you pass forward or backward, letting you play on the opposite side forward or backward respectively. A tutta volta is when you use one foot to describe a circle around the other foot; in other words, one foot stays in place, the other circles around it” (Leoni 46). There are no images of the footwork patterns. Furthermore, Fiore states that “there are four more concepts in this art: pass forward, pass backward, extension of the front foot (step forward) and withdrawal of the front foot (step backward)” (Leoni 46). So, in total we are presented with four separate pieces of footwork; the volta stabile, mezza volta, tutta volta, and the step, which we are to combine in countless variations to execute the techniques. The most common footwork directive Fiore gives is to “Extend your front foot off the center-line and pass at an angle with the back foot” (Leoni 49), in essence a step followed by a mezza volta.
Stances are taught, but not like they are in modern books. In a modern martial arts book the stance will be described in detail; where the feet are in relation to the body, how much weight is placed on each foot, whether the knees are straight or bent, the alignment of the feet, the alignment of the spine, etc. The “basic stance” (which most Fioreists assign to Porta di Ferro from the abrazare section) is never described in detail, but details, such as foot placement, have been discerned by looking at the images. Each guard is represented by an image and text that is descriptive only of that guard’s capabilities and what to do from that guard, not how to achieve each it.
There is absolutely no discussion of how to grip the various weapons in any of the Fiore manuscripts. Instead, we the interpreters must look very carefully at the images: Do the figures have both hands facing the same, or opposite directions on the weapon? Where are they gripping the weapon? These questions must be asked of every image and correlated between all known Fiore manuscripts (and Vadi – See Below).
So why are these seemingly simple and “basic” elements mostly missing from medieval combat manuscripts? Because these elements were assumed to be “common knowledge”. Remember that these manuscripts were created not as “How To” manuals but as memory aids. Fiore states that Galeazzo da Mantova, a student of his, convinced him to write his knowledge down because “there is so much to this art that even the man with the keenest memory in the world will be unable to learn more than a fourth if it without books. And a fourth of this art is not enough to make someone a Master” (Leoni 8). There is the Old Man himself telling us, his modern students, that this manuscript is not intended to teach us the art, but to help us remember it. That is the true purpose of the Fiore manuscripts, indeed of the majority of medieval combat manuscripts: To be portable memory devices. Much like any modern student does not write down the lecture verbatim in their class notes, much of the information in the manuscripts seems to be lacking, because it was “common knowledge”. What exactly is the Player attempting to accomplish prior to the play of the First Master of Abrazare? Is he coming into grips or is the technique supposed to happen from an already established grip? We don’t know. I can take my wrestling background and extrapolate what I think is going on (as others have done and continue to do) but until we have Fiore’s words as to what the Player is trying to achieve we will never know. For us, that is not common knowledge. These manuscripts were written for men who had been fighting and training for the majority of their lives; they did not need to write down the basics – they knew the basics. The challenge is for us as interpreters to re-discover those basics. Here is the beauty of this art – all of our answers will be different. While there is a base, common denominator in how the human body is designed to move, every individual will bring a different “common knowledge base” with them to training.
The problem with this approach is the introduction of “Frog-DNA”. In the movie Jurassic Park, the scientists are attempting to clone dinosaurs from incomplete bits of DNA material, so they use frog DNA to fill in the gaps. The problem is what they cloned were not dinosaurs in the purest sense; they were a dinosaur/frog mix. This is the challenge facing those of us working with these manuscripts; every piece in our “common knowledge base” is Frog-DNA because we do not live in the mid-14th century and for many of us, this is not our first introduction to martial arts. The majority of our “common knowledge base” is cultural influence; to my grandfather fighting meant boxing, pure and simple. To me, growing up during the tail end of the heyday of B martial arts movies, such as Enter the Ninja, fighting meant lots of jumping around and screaming. Now, if you witness two young Americans fighting, they will more than likely try to emulate various mixed martial arts moves they’ve seen.
So should we just give up, accept the fact that we will never produce a “pure” form of armizare, and just make stuff up when confused? Of course not, not if we openly acknowledge and attempt to keep our Frog-DNA to a minimum. When interpreting a manuscript there is a hierarchy of sources, so to speak: the primary source, other works by that "author", works by other authors in the same lineage, other works in other lineages, finally, other works in similar styles of combat. As an example, my hierarchy runs something like this:
Fiore, Getty MS
Fiore, Pissani-Dossi, Morgan, and Florius MSS
Vadi
The German Tradition
The Bolognese Tradition
Catch & Greco-Roman wrestling
Aikido, Judo & Jiu-jutsu
That is by no means all the sources I use for longsword study, just a highlight.
To sum it all up, the medieval combat manuscripts need to be understood as study guides to aid the student's memory, not "How To" manuals. Much work has to be done in order to extrapolate the very basics of a combat system, examining many images and deciphering pages of text. This process becomes even more fun when dealing with a manuscript like Le Jeu de la Hache, which has no images nor provides any indication of stance, footwork mechanics, or guard positions. Is it a bad thing to use one system as the basis for another, if that other provides no support structure for itself? No, not so long as you (the researcher) are very clear about your sources and reasons for using one system as a basis for another. It is ideal to use as many basics as are provided in your primary manuscript, but if you must use another, do so knowingly and openly. I know that some will agree with me, some will not care, and some will disagree.
Clear as mud?
That one thing is footwork. Fiore describes three types of footwork; the volta stabile, the mezza volta, and the tutta volta. In the Getty MS it appears “A volta stabile lets you play forward or backward (from one side only), without moving your feet. A mezza volta is when you pass forward or backward, letting you play on the opposite side forward or backward respectively. A tutta volta is when you use one foot to describe a circle around the other foot; in other words, one foot stays in place, the other circles around it” (Leoni 46). There are no images of the footwork patterns. Furthermore, Fiore states that “there are four more concepts in this art: pass forward, pass backward, extension of the front foot (step forward) and withdrawal of the front foot (step backward)” (Leoni 46). So, in total we are presented with four separate pieces of footwork; the volta stabile, mezza volta, tutta volta, and the step, which we are to combine in countless variations to execute the techniques. The most common footwork directive Fiore gives is to “Extend your front foot off the center-line and pass at an angle with the back foot” (Leoni 49), in essence a step followed by a mezza volta.
Stances are taught, but not like they are in modern books. In a modern martial arts book the stance will be described in detail; where the feet are in relation to the body, how much weight is placed on each foot, whether the knees are straight or bent, the alignment of the feet, the alignment of the spine, etc. The “basic stance” (which most Fioreists assign to Porta di Ferro from the abrazare section) is never described in detail, but details, such as foot placement, have been discerned by looking at the images. Each guard is represented by an image and text that is descriptive only of that guard’s capabilities and what to do from that guard, not how to achieve each it.
There is absolutely no discussion of how to grip the various weapons in any of the Fiore manuscripts. Instead, we the interpreters must look very carefully at the images: Do the figures have both hands facing the same, or opposite directions on the weapon? Where are they gripping the weapon? These questions must be asked of every image and correlated between all known Fiore manuscripts (and Vadi – See Below).
So why are these seemingly simple and “basic” elements mostly missing from medieval combat manuscripts? Because these elements were assumed to be “common knowledge”. Remember that these manuscripts were created not as “How To” manuals but as memory aids. Fiore states that Galeazzo da Mantova, a student of his, convinced him to write his knowledge down because “there is so much to this art that even the man with the keenest memory in the world will be unable to learn more than a fourth if it without books. And a fourth of this art is not enough to make someone a Master” (Leoni 8). There is the Old Man himself telling us, his modern students, that this manuscript is not intended to teach us the art, but to help us remember it. That is the true purpose of the Fiore manuscripts, indeed of the majority of medieval combat manuscripts: To be portable memory devices. Much like any modern student does not write down the lecture verbatim in their class notes, much of the information in the manuscripts seems to be lacking, because it was “common knowledge”. What exactly is the Player attempting to accomplish prior to the play of the First Master of Abrazare? Is he coming into grips or is the technique supposed to happen from an already established grip? We don’t know. I can take my wrestling background and extrapolate what I think is going on (as others have done and continue to do) but until we have Fiore’s words as to what the Player is trying to achieve we will never know. For us, that is not common knowledge. These manuscripts were written for men who had been fighting and training for the majority of their lives; they did not need to write down the basics – they knew the basics. The challenge is for us as interpreters to re-discover those basics. Here is the beauty of this art – all of our answers will be different. While there is a base, common denominator in how the human body is designed to move, every individual will bring a different “common knowledge base” with them to training.
The problem with this approach is the introduction of “Frog-DNA”. In the movie Jurassic Park, the scientists are attempting to clone dinosaurs from incomplete bits of DNA material, so they use frog DNA to fill in the gaps. The problem is what they cloned were not dinosaurs in the purest sense; they were a dinosaur/frog mix. This is the challenge facing those of us working with these manuscripts; every piece in our “common knowledge base” is Frog-DNA because we do not live in the mid-14th century and for many of us, this is not our first introduction to martial arts. The majority of our “common knowledge base” is cultural influence; to my grandfather fighting meant boxing, pure and simple. To me, growing up during the tail end of the heyday of B martial arts movies, such as Enter the Ninja, fighting meant lots of jumping around and screaming. Now, if you witness two young Americans fighting, they will more than likely try to emulate various mixed martial arts moves they’ve seen.
So should we just give up, accept the fact that we will never produce a “pure” form of armizare, and just make stuff up when confused? Of course not, not if we openly acknowledge and attempt to keep our Frog-DNA to a minimum. When interpreting a manuscript there is a hierarchy of sources, so to speak: the primary source, other works by that "author", works by other authors in the same lineage, other works in other lineages, finally, other works in similar styles of combat. As an example, my hierarchy runs something like this:
Fiore, Getty MS
Fiore, Pissani-Dossi, Morgan, and Florius MSS
Vadi
The German Tradition
The Bolognese Tradition
Catch & Greco-Roman wrestling
Aikido, Judo & Jiu-jutsu
That is by no means all the sources I use for longsword study, just a highlight.
To sum it all up, the medieval combat manuscripts need to be understood as study guides to aid the student's memory, not "How To" manuals. Much work has to be done in order to extrapolate the very basics of a combat system, examining many images and deciphering pages of text. This process becomes even more fun when dealing with a manuscript like Le Jeu de la Hache, which has no images nor provides any indication of stance, footwork mechanics, or guard positions. Is it a bad thing to use one system as the basis for another, if that other provides no support structure for itself? No, not so long as you (the researcher) are very clear about your sources and reasons for using one system as a basis for another. It is ideal to use as many basics as are provided in your primary manuscript, but if you must use another, do so knowingly and openly. I know that some will agree with me, some will not care, and some will disagree.
Clear as mud?
Friday, November 6, 2009
Wrestling Jackets
This weekend I got to go back to the Northwest Fencing Academy and have a marathon training session - which was nice! The day was spent on abrazare and dagger materials. The most pleasant surprise of the whole day was trying out a few wrestling jackets made by various companies/persons. While I will not go into a detailed review of each jacket, I did just want to say that I now not only have the intellectual understanding of why such a jacket is necessary for abrazare, but a very visceral understanding as well. I am not usually one for claiming that it is impossible to understand medieval combat techniques if one is not wearing medieval clothing - I practice in sweats, a t-shirt, and tennis shoes (I won't get into the shoe issue here, maybe I will have another entry in a few days to discuss it). I honestly don't believe that wearing hose or turnshoes will drastically alter technique; the reason being that the techniques do not depend upon what type of foot-wear or leggings I am wearing. With abrazare, however, the case is different. I have felt (and so has Sean and many others) that it is inadequate to practice abrazare in t-shirts. It can be done (I've done it for almost 6 years now) but the practitioner will be left feeling like something is missing or like some techniques "just don't work". The two big issues with grappling in t-shirts is that:
a) two bare arms, when in contact with one another, will slide and slip around due to a lack of friction and sweat.
b) there are some techniques which require, or are greatly aided by, gripping your opponent's sleeve, jacket, or belt.
Not only are long sleeves, IMO, necessary to medieval wrestling, they also provide a greater understanding of dagger techniques. I have had more than one friend or acquaintance who has commented on the "silliness" or "stupidity" of attempting some of the disarms (Fiore's 1st Remedy Master of Dagger for instance) against a knife. Usually after a discussion of how sharp a rondel dagger really was (see point number 2 today) I also make a point about the type and amount of clothing worn. Sean will sometimes quote Bram Frank, from a seminar years ago, saying that "teaching knife defense in Florida is different than teaching knife defense in Maine." How true! I would be hard pressed to attempt the 1st master disarm against a sharp knife (even a rondel) in a t-shirt, but while wearing a heavy flannel long-sleeve shirt? You betcha! Cloth is amazingly good body armour. So, whether providing a little extra grip or protecting the arm, I think a wrestling jacket a necessity. In fact, I wouldn't mind seeing a decent quality, inexpensive ($150 or less) wrestling jacket as the top half of the Academy uniform.
a) two bare arms, when in contact with one another, will slide and slip around due to a lack of friction and sweat.
b) there are some techniques which require, or are greatly aided by, gripping your opponent's sleeve, jacket, or belt.
Not only are long sleeves, IMO, necessary to medieval wrestling, they also provide a greater understanding of dagger techniques. I have had more than one friend or acquaintance who has commented on the "silliness" or "stupidity" of attempting some of the disarms (Fiore's 1st Remedy Master of Dagger for instance) against a knife. Usually after a discussion of how sharp a rondel dagger really was (see point number 2 today) I also make a point about the type and amount of clothing worn. Sean will sometimes quote Bram Frank, from a seminar years ago, saying that "teaching knife defense in Florida is different than teaching knife defense in Maine." How true! I would be hard pressed to attempt the 1st master disarm against a sharp knife (even a rondel) in a t-shirt, but while wearing a heavy flannel long-sleeve shirt? You betcha! Cloth is amazingly good body armour. So, whether providing a little extra grip or protecting the arm, I think a wrestling jacket a necessity. In fact, I wouldn't mind seeing a decent quality, inexpensive ($150 or less) wrestling jacket as the top half of the Academy uniform.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Fiore dei Liberi's pollaxe material
Fiore’s Axe Material
Plenty of real and digital ink has been spilled over the effectiveness of the poleaxe techniques shown in Fiore dei Liberi’s four manuscripts (well, three, the Morgan has no axe section) because at first glance they do not look anything like the techniques described/shown in German manuals or in Le Jeu de la Hache, the only known manuscript that places the poleaxe as the primary weapon. The two main complaints are the paucity of techniques shown and the apparent lack of “signature” axe moves, such as displacements and thrusting with the butt of the weapon, or hooking actions with the head. I will address these concerns and give evidence for why they are misguided.
Armizare
First a little background information on Fiore’s system. The four known manuscripts detail the art of Armizare, a 15th century Italian martial art. Armizare is a martial art in both the original meaning of the term, as an art of war (martial arts = the Arts of Mars) and in the modern sense, as a complete system of self-defense that encompasses empty hand and weapons techniques. The manuscripts are divided into sections; wrestling, knife defense, sword in one hand, sword in two hands, spear, sword in armour, poleaxe, and equestrian techniques (which encompass’ spear, sword and wrestling) and are dated to circa 1409. The primary weapon in the manuscripts is the long sword, a weapon with a ~37” blade and a handle long enough to be gripped by both hands. The art is based upon simple principles and is highly self-referential; once you’ve learned a particular technique, i.e. the Middle Bind (introduced in the wrestling & dagger sections), Fiore does not then later feel the need to detail how to do it. He simply says something like “Now do the Middle Bind, which you already know.”
Figure 1. Middle Bind, 1st Master of Dagger, Getty Museum.
Figure 2. Entry into Middle Bind in Sword in two hands section, Getty Museum. The text reads: “
This is still sound pedagogy; when teaching someone how to swim, after they have learned how to do the Front Crawl Stroke you can simply say “Do Front Crawl for 100 meters” not “For the next 100 meters I want you to lie prone in the water, arms extended, alternate pulling one hand down to the waist and back, while kicking, etc.” It simply is not necessary.
Martial Arts
Fiore’s system is based, like every other martial art on the planet, on two things:
1. The human body. No matter how hard you try you will never invent a new way for the human body to move. Thus, all martial arts systems have the same foundation; the ability for movement in the human body. I am not saying that because I know armizare, I know Hung Gar or karate or Taekwondo. That’s silly. What I’m saying is that at their most basic level, all martial systems are the same. In fact it’s easy (and fun!) to look at armizare and other martial arts and see all the techniques that similar enough to be called the same thing. An arm-bar is an arm-bar is an arm-bar, no matter how you get there or what you call it.
2. The stick. After empty hands techniques, any weapon in any martial art can be viewed as a variation on the stick. These are my five common categories of stick:
• Small Stick – dagger, knife, kubaton
• Medium Stick – arming sword, escrima stick, bolo machete, axe
• Large Stick – long sword, katana, broom handle, axe
• Extra Large Stick – spear, poleaxe, naginata
• Moving Stick – arrow, javelin, anything that is thrown.
After size, the only differences in technique occur because of adaptation/specialization of the stick. If I have a plain ole stick, I can hit and I can bluntly poke. But adapt that stick by sharpening one end, and suddenly I can stab too. Even better, make the stick out of steel with a point and two sharp edges. Now I can hit, cut, slice, stab, etc.
But what does any of this have to do with answering the complaints about Fiore’s axe play? Everything.
Complaint #1 – Lack of Techniques
At face value, this complaint has some merit. After all, in the Getty MS there are 12 guards and 44 total plays illustrated with the sword in two hands. The axe section has 6 guards and 10 plays, two of which can be considered “tricks” requiring specialized axes. But this is the problem with only looking at the pictures, if you include textual advice given in the descriptions of the axe guards, the total number of plays jumps to: 14. Still pretty underwhelming, especially considering that Le Jeu features 68 paragraphs full of techniques, counters and counter-counters. But remember that the axe is the only weapon described in Le Jeu.
Remember what I said earlier about the system being self-referential? Also remember that I said the long sword is the primary weapon? Remember the talk about sticks? Good, because here is where those three ideas come together to form the core of weapon techniques in Fiore’s armizare. In order to understand how to use the poleaxe in Fiore’s system you must look at the axe section AND the spear section AND the sword in armour section AND the sword in two hands section. The sword in two hands section is, as previously mentioned, the foundation for weapon techniques in armizare. The other three, poleaxe, spear and sword in armour, are specialized techniques to augment those learned with the sword in two hands. Let me repeat that, the other weapons augment the lesson and principles learned in the two handed sword section. The best description of this comes from Greg Mele of the Chicago Swordplay Guild. The three sections (axe, spear, sword in armour) represent a specialized sub-group of techniques from the basic two handed sword, because being in armour changes what you can do (it alters your movement abilities.) The spear represents a sub-group of techniques for when your weapons are crossed at a middle height, the sword in armour for when they are crossed higher and the axe for when they are crossed lower (because of the mass of the heads, axe crossing tend to go to the ground). They are all interchangeable techniques of armoured combat. Adding the spear and sword in armour plays to that of the axe we now have, in the Getty MS, 22 total plays for the poleaxe. If we continue and add those from the sword in two hands section as well (because it is the basis of weapon combat in the system) we have 66 total plays. Now, because of differences in mass, etc. not all of the plays may be the most reliable, but they are all possible.
The two clearest pieces of evidence of this combining of sections both occur in the text accompanying the illustrations of guard positions with the axe. The first appears in the text for the guard position Vera Crose, where Fiore states “Trà pur ché ben t'aspetto ché zò che fa lo scolar primo dello magistro remedio della spada in arme cum lo modo e cum lo passar, tale punta cum la azza mia ti posso far” “With my axe, I can perform the same thrust with a pass as the first student of the Remedy Master of the sword in armor.” (English translation courtesy of Tom Leoni). Here Fiore is directly telling us that one play from this guard position is that of the 1st scholar of the Remedy Master of the sword in armour.
Figure 3. Posta Vera Crose with the poleaxe. Getty Museum.
Figure 4. Posta Vera Crose with the sword. Getty Museum.
Figure 5. Play of the 1st Scholar of the sword in armour. Getty Museum.
The second example is in the description of Posta Porta di Ferro Mezana or Posta Dente de Zengiaro (it is the former in the Getty and the latter in the Pissani-Dossi. I will henceforth refer to it as Dente de Zengiaro). In the text Fiore calls attention to the fact that Posta di Donna and Dente de Zengiaro have “faced each other numerous times” and that you should know what to do from here, i.e. a deflection upwards with a pass offline. This same advice is given in the two handed sword and sword in one hand sections as a good defense against any straight line or same side attack.
Figure 6. Posta di Donna vs. Dente de Zengiaro poleaxe. Getty Museum.
Figure 7. Dente de Zengiaro, sword in two hands, vs cut, thrust, or thrown weapon. Getty Museum.
Figure 8. Dente de Zengiaro di un man, vs cut, thrust, or thrown weapon. Getty Museum.
Complaint #2 – Lack of “Standard” axe plays
The other common complaint about Fiore’s axe material is that it lacks some of the “standard” axe plays found in other manuals. The “standard” plays referred to are displacements, thrusts, and/or deflections with the butt of the weapon and hooking actions done with the head. The simplest and very first defense featured in Le Jeu is a queue (butt) parry, yet Fiore does not show this technique anywhere. Why? One answer is that while he does not show it, but he expects his student to know it. Refer again to Figures 6, 7, and 8 above where Fiore advocates, repeatedly, that if your weapon is on the same side as the attack, you deflect it with a step offline. From Dente de Zengiaro with the axe, where the head (the heavy end) is off to your left, you must deflect with the head. If, instead, you were in Breve la Serpentina with your right hand leading, then the head would be on your right, with the haft crossing your body, and your opponent throws their blow, you will be unable to deflect it your head. Instead, you can still follow his directions by passing forward and parrying with the butt of your axe.
Figure 9. Posta Breve la Serpentina. Getty Museum.
Here is the text from Le Jeu de la Hache describing the first queue parry from that system:
When one would give you a swinging blow, right-hander to right-hander and you have the croix [head] forward, you can step forward with your left [rear] foot, receiving their blow on the queue of your axe…from there you can thrust at him with the queue…or strike a blow to his head.
You can see that the actions described in both of these manuscripts are very similar, if not identical. Additionally, in the spear section, Fiore shows the counter to his spear plays as driving forward with the butt of the spear, either striking or thrusting. Fiore does not discuss initial attacks with the butt of the axe because if you are holding the axe with the butt forward and thrusting then you are executing a spear or half-sword play, which are covered in their respective sections.
Hooking actions with the head are a little harder to track down in Fiore’s system, mainly because many of the hooking actions in other manuscripts occur at the knees and Fiore is very reticent about low attacks. In the two-handed sword section, Fiore specifically advises against low attacks with the sword. Fiore does, however, understand the tactical advantage of taking out your opponent’s knee as this technique appears in both the wrestling and dagger sections of the manuscript, and is even hinted at in the axe section where Fiore show the Scholar gripping the visor of, and throwing to the ground, the Player, who is attempting a low grab, possibly something akin to a single or double leg take-down (Figure 10).
Figure 10. Wrestling in the axe section. Getty Museum.
However, it is quite a jump, even for such a self-referential system, to go from a supplementary wrestling maneuver to a straight out attack. Does this mean that Fiore did not know how to use the head of your axe to hook your opponent? No, other hooks, usually of the opponent’s neck, are mentioned in the sword in armour section and can, as shown above, be extrapolated into the axe section. I would argue that he knew, he just did not find the low hook the most martially sound technique, so he did not include it. Fiore himself admits, in the introduction to the Getty, that his book does not contain every technique, just those he deems most worthy of knowing.
A further issue I have with this complaint is the use of the term “standard axe plays”. Medieval martial arts, indeed all martial arts, are deeply personal. Remember, above all else, when you read a manuscript, or a modern translation, or even this blog, that you are reading one person’s opinions. There is no “Italian Swordsmanship”, nor “German Swordsmanship”. There is the sword art of Fiore, that of Liechtenauer, etc. Every work on swordsmanship differs from the others. Even if the author uses an earlier author as the basis for his work, there will be differences. Filipo Vadi, whose manuscript has some illustrations that are almost direct Xeroxes of Fiore’s material, still advocates a unique method and style of swordsmanship. This applies even more to those of us now recreating these arts. It is impossible for us to practice “Fiore’s art”; we practice our interpretation of Fiore’s art. But the differences in interpretation are usually subtle things; one can usually tell a practitioner of an Italian system from that of a German system. I can even tell the difference between students of the Chicago Swordplay Guild, the School of European Swordsmanship and the Northwest Fencing Academy, all of which teach Fiore’s art, but with some subtle differences in execution. I do not teach or practice the art the exact same way my instructor does; but anyone who watches me can tell I am a student of Sean Hayes. When people ask, I claim that I teach armizare, the art of Fiore dei Liberi, as interpreted by myself, and influenced by Sean Hayes, Greg Mele, Guy Windsor, and others.
Conclusion
To make the claim that Fiore dei Liberi’s poleaxe material is incomplete, or somehow lacking, is to misunderstand Fiore's art. I hope that this can help clear up some of these misunderstandings.
Plenty of real and digital ink has been spilled over the effectiveness of the poleaxe techniques shown in Fiore dei Liberi’s four manuscripts (well, three, the Morgan has no axe section) because at first glance they do not look anything like the techniques described/shown in German manuals or in Le Jeu de la Hache, the only known manuscript that places the poleaxe as the primary weapon. The two main complaints are the paucity of techniques shown and the apparent lack of “signature” axe moves, such as displacements and thrusting with the butt of the weapon, or hooking actions with the head. I will address these concerns and give evidence for why they are misguided.
Armizare
First a little background information on Fiore’s system. The four known manuscripts detail the art of Armizare, a 15th century Italian martial art. Armizare is a martial art in both the original meaning of the term, as an art of war (martial arts = the Arts of Mars) and in the modern sense, as a complete system of self-defense that encompasses empty hand and weapons techniques. The manuscripts are divided into sections; wrestling, knife defense, sword in one hand, sword in two hands, spear, sword in armour, poleaxe, and equestrian techniques (which encompass’ spear, sword and wrestling) and are dated to circa 1409. The primary weapon in the manuscripts is the long sword, a weapon with a ~37” blade and a handle long enough to be gripped by both hands. The art is based upon simple principles and is highly self-referential; once you’ve learned a particular technique, i.e. the Middle Bind (introduced in the wrestling & dagger sections), Fiore does not then later feel the need to detail how to do it. He simply says something like “Now do the Middle Bind, which you already know.”
Figure 1. Middle Bind, 1st Master of Dagger, Getty Museum.
Figure 2. Entry into Middle Bind in Sword in two hands section, Getty Museum. The text reads: “
This is still sound pedagogy; when teaching someone how to swim, after they have learned how to do the Front Crawl Stroke you can simply say “Do Front Crawl for 100 meters” not “For the next 100 meters I want you to lie prone in the water, arms extended, alternate pulling one hand down to the waist and back, while kicking, etc.” It simply is not necessary.
Martial Arts
Fiore’s system is based, like every other martial art on the planet, on two things:
1. The human body. No matter how hard you try you will never invent a new way for the human body to move. Thus, all martial arts systems have the same foundation; the ability for movement in the human body. I am not saying that because I know armizare, I know Hung Gar or karate or Taekwondo. That’s silly. What I’m saying is that at their most basic level, all martial systems are the same. In fact it’s easy (and fun!) to look at armizare and other martial arts and see all the techniques that similar enough to be called the same thing. An arm-bar is an arm-bar is an arm-bar, no matter how you get there or what you call it.
2. The stick. After empty hands techniques, any weapon in any martial art can be viewed as a variation on the stick. These are my five common categories of stick:
• Small Stick – dagger, knife, kubaton
• Medium Stick – arming sword, escrima stick, bolo machete, axe
• Large Stick – long sword, katana, broom handle, axe
• Extra Large Stick – spear, poleaxe, naginata
• Moving Stick – arrow, javelin, anything that is thrown.
After size, the only differences in technique occur because of adaptation/specialization of the stick. If I have a plain ole stick, I can hit and I can bluntly poke. But adapt that stick by sharpening one end, and suddenly I can stab too. Even better, make the stick out of steel with a point and two sharp edges. Now I can hit, cut, slice, stab, etc.
But what does any of this have to do with answering the complaints about Fiore’s axe play? Everything.
Complaint #1 – Lack of Techniques
At face value, this complaint has some merit. After all, in the Getty MS there are 12 guards and 44 total plays illustrated with the sword in two hands. The axe section has 6 guards and 10 plays, two of which can be considered “tricks” requiring specialized axes. But this is the problem with only looking at the pictures, if you include textual advice given in the descriptions of the axe guards, the total number of plays jumps to: 14. Still pretty underwhelming, especially considering that Le Jeu features 68 paragraphs full of techniques, counters and counter-counters. But remember that the axe is the only weapon described in Le Jeu.
Remember what I said earlier about the system being self-referential? Also remember that I said the long sword is the primary weapon? Remember the talk about sticks? Good, because here is where those three ideas come together to form the core of weapon techniques in Fiore’s armizare. In order to understand how to use the poleaxe in Fiore’s system you must look at the axe section AND the spear section AND the sword in armour section AND the sword in two hands section. The sword in two hands section is, as previously mentioned, the foundation for weapon techniques in armizare. The other three, poleaxe, spear and sword in armour, are specialized techniques to augment those learned with the sword in two hands. Let me repeat that, the other weapons augment the lesson and principles learned in the two handed sword section. The best description of this comes from Greg Mele of the Chicago Swordplay Guild. The three sections (axe, spear, sword in armour) represent a specialized sub-group of techniques from the basic two handed sword, because being in armour changes what you can do (it alters your movement abilities.) The spear represents a sub-group of techniques for when your weapons are crossed at a middle height, the sword in armour for when they are crossed higher and the axe for when they are crossed lower (because of the mass of the heads, axe crossing tend to go to the ground). They are all interchangeable techniques of armoured combat. Adding the spear and sword in armour plays to that of the axe we now have, in the Getty MS, 22 total plays for the poleaxe. If we continue and add those from the sword in two hands section as well (because it is the basis of weapon combat in the system) we have 66 total plays. Now, because of differences in mass, etc. not all of the plays may be the most reliable, but they are all possible.
The two clearest pieces of evidence of this combining of sections both occur in the text accompanying the illustrations of guard positions with the axe. The first appears in the text for the guard position Vera Crose, where Fiore states “Trà pur ché ben t'aspetto ché zò che fa lo scolar primo dello magistro remedio della spada in arme cum lo modo e cum lo passar, tale punta cum la azza mia ti posso far” “With my axe, I can perform the same thrust with a pass as the first student of the Remedy Master of the sword in armor.” (English translation courtesy of Tom Leoni). Here Fiore is directly telling us that one play from this guard position is that of the 1st scholar of the Remedy Master of the sword in armour.
Figure 3. Posta Vera Crose with the poleaxe. Getty Museum.
Figure 4. Posta Vera Crose with the sword. Getty Museum.
Figure 5. Play of the 1st Scholar of the sword in armour. Getty Museum.
The second example is in the description of Posta Porta di Ferro Mezana or Posta Dente de Zengiaro (it is the former in the Getty and the latter in the Pissani-Dossi. I will henceforth refer to it as Dente de Zengiaro). In the text Fiore calls attention to the fact that Posta di Donna and Dente de Zengiaro have “faced each other numerous times” and that you should know what to do from here, i.e. a deflection upwards with a pass offline. This same advice is given in the two handed sword and sword in one hand sections as a good defense against any straight line or same side attack.
Figure 6. Posta di Donna vs. Dente de Zengiaro poleaxe. Getty Museum.
Figure 7. Dente de Zengiaro, sword in two hands, vs cut, thrust, or thrown weapon. Getty Museum.
Figure 8. Dente de Zengiaro di un man, vs cut, thrust, or thrown weapon. Getty Museum.
Complaint #2 – Lack of “Standard” axe plays
The other common complaint about Fiore’s axe material is that it lacks some of the “standard” axe plays found in other manuals. The “standard” plays referred to are displacements, thrusts, and/or deflections with the butt of the weapon and hooking actions done with the head. The simplest and very first defense featured in Le Jeu is a queue (butt) parry, yet Fiore does not show this technique anywhere. Why? One answer is that while he does not show it, but he expects his student to know it. Refer again to Figures 6, 7, and 8 above where Fiore advocates, repeatedly, that if your weapon is on the same side as the attack, you deflect it with a step offline. From Dente de Zengiaro with the axe, where the head (the heavy end) is off to your left, you must deflect with the head. If, instead, you were in Breve la Serpentina with your right hand leading, then the head would be on your right, with the haft crossing your body, and your opponent throws their blow, you will be unable to deflect it your head. Instead, you can still follow his directions by passing forward and parrying with the butt of your axe.
Figure 9. Posta Breve la Serpentina. Getty Museum.
Here is the text from Le Jeu de la Hache describing the first queue parry from that system:
When one would give you a swinging blow, right-hander to right-hander and you have the croix [head] forward, you can step forward with your left [rear] foot, receiving their blow on the queue of your axe…from there you can thrust at him with the queue…or strike a blow to his head.
You can see that the actions described in both of these manuscripts are very similar, if not identical. Additionally, in the spear section, Fiore shows the counter to his spear plays as driving forward with the butt of the spear, either striking or thrusting. Fiore does not discuss initial attacks with the butt of the axe because if you are holding the axe with the butt forward and thrusting then you are executing a spear or half-sword play, which are covered in their respective sections.
Hooking actions with the head are a little harder to track down in Fiore’s system, mainly because many of the hooking actions in other manuscripts occur at the knees and Fiore is very reticent about low attacks. In the two-handed sword section, Fiore specifically advises against low attacks with the sword. Fiore does, however, understand the tactical advantage of taking out your opponent’s knee as this technique appears in both the wrestling and dagger sections of the manuscript, and is even hinted at in the axe section where Fiore show the Scholar gripping the visor of, and throwing to the ground, the Player, who is attempting a low grab, possibly something akin to a single or double leg take-down (Figure 10).
Figure 10. Wrestling in the axe section. Getty Museum.
However, it is quite a jump, even for such a self-referential system, to go from a supplementary wrestling maneuver to a straight out attack. Does this mean that Fiore did not know how to use the head of your axe to hook your opponent? No, other hooks, usually of the opponent’s neck, are mentioned in the sword in armour section and can, as shown above, be extrapolated into the axe section. I would argue that he knew, he just did not find the low hook the most martially sound technique, so he did not include it. Fiore himself admits, in the introduction to the Getty, that his book does not contain every technique, just those he deems most worthy of knowing.
A further issue I have with this complaint is the use of the term “standard axe plays”. Medieval martial arts, indeed all martial arts, are deeply personal. Remember, above all else, when you read a manuscript, or a modern translation, or even this blog, that you are reading one person’s opinions. There is no “Italian Swordsmanship”, nor “German Swordsmanship”. There is the sword art of Fiore, that of Liechtenauer, etc. Every work on swordsmanship differs from the others. Even if the author uses an earlier author as the basis for his work, there will be differences. Filipo Vadi, whose manuscript has some illustrations that are almost direct Xeroxes of Fiore’s material, still advocates a unique method and style of swordsmanship. This applies even more to those of us now recreating these arts. It is impossible for us to practice “Fiore’s art”; we practice our interpretation of Fiore’s art. But the differences in interpretation are usually subtle things; one can usually tell a practitioner of an Italian system from that of a German system. I can even tell the difference between students of the Chicago Swordplay Guild, the School of European Swordsmanship and the Northwest Fencing Academy, all of which teach Fiore’s art, but with some subtle differences in execution. I do not teach or practice the art the exact same way my instructor does; but anyone who watches me can tell I am a student of Sean Hayes. When people ask, I claim that I teach armizare, the art of Fiore dei Liberi, as interpreted by myself, and influenced by Sean Hayes, Greg Mele, Guy Windsor, and others.
Conclusion
To make the claim that Fiore dei Liberi’s poleaxe material is incomplete, or somehow lacking, is to misunderstand Fiore's art. I hope that this can help clear up some of these misunderstandings.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Stay Tuned...
Having successfully moved to Portland, stay tuned for the eventually announcement of the opening of the Northwest Fencing Academy - Portland, a satellite school of the Northwest Fencing Academy
As soon as I find a space....
And students....
As soon as I find a space....
And students....
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