[Tutorial] Blade Sorcery, Ep. 2: Parry & Riposte

It’s finally here... Read the description for extra thoughts, as always! Twitter: --------- ADDITIONAL LINKS: Hangen, Winden, Versetzen: --------- ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS: ’Hangen’ and ’Versetzen’ (parrying/displacing) is one of those terms that differs between Cod. 3227a (Nuremberg/Pseudo-Dobringer) and the rest of the Liechtenauer corpus. I specifically chose the 3227a definition, and Maciej Talaga’s interpretation as the basis for this video’s given its direct applicability to Blade and Sorcery. I originally wanted to talk more about how Over-Parrying was bad, in response to people who seem to think that “BUT YOU MUST PARRY BY PUSHING OR REDIRECTING THE WEAPON!“ This isn’t true at all. In fact, that should always be the last resort. The Survival Onion for fencing is always: 1. Attack first 2. If you can’t, defend with as minimal effort as possible 3. If that fails, redirect The main reason why you shouldn’t want to Over-Parry is because most fencing and martial arts systems have ’disengages’ which allow the attacker to maintain initiative and just move their sword away from yours (like a matador’s cape to a bull), and then hit you before you can even recover from the Over-Parry. The other thing I wanted to address was ’edge’ vs ’flat’ parrying. Parry with the edge. This ensures that if the parry wasn’t good enough, the enemy blade will either ’bite’ (stick to your edge), or it will slide down onto the crossguard. If you parry with the flat, not only does this increase the chance of your opponent blowing through your guard (they are pressing against more surface area), but they have a very high chance of sliding down the blade and hitting your hands. Can edge parries damage your sword? Absolutely. But not the whole sword; so you can still attack back. An enemy sword isn’t going to chop through yours, even if it damages it. Swords are replaceable, your life or limbs are not. Flat parrying is more of a luxury afforded to katanas, with their circle guards and differential hardening. Katana edges are slightly more fragile, and so its a little more risky to edge parry with one.