[ Posted by Janka
Wed, 30 Sep 2009 08:40:23 GMT ]
I was asked yesterday by a friend whether I think Jungian psychotherapy makes sense.
There’s unfortunately no polite answer that would not immediately get me a derisive “What exactly do you know about Jungian psychotherapy, anyway?” from someone who actually does, and fair enough. I know next to nothing. So I am not going to answer the question.
Instead, an observation. Based on my granted sort of limited experiences in psychiatry, psychotherapies work, in the sense that a lot of people get help and insights from it they estimate they would not have gotten otherwise. There is very little scientific research on it (though there is some), and of course double-blinding between not getting and getting therapy is impossible, but still, what there is and experience seems to suggest there is a point to psychotherapy both as a treatment of many conditions and as a way to help perfectly sane people to gain understanding of themselves and control of their lives.
The weird thing is this: it seems to matter very little what the so called “theoretical background” or “school” of the therapist is—indeed, whether they are Jungian, or something else. The ways these schools describe the mind, and the development of the mind, are wildly different, and often contradictory. Yet whichever way to conceptualize it you give to people, whatever theory of mind, they find a way to use that as a useful metaphor for their own self, and to gain insight.
I think there is probably something fundamental and profound in that ability to insight that we possess.
Posted in Plain English | Tags mieli, psykiatria, psykoterapia | no comments
[ Posted by Janka
Tue, 29 Sep 2009 12:43:56 GMT ]
Is it just me, or have we started to confuse the concepts of “responsibility” and “fault” at some point, so that you only are expected to feel responsible for fixing something if you are actually the culprit in breaking it?
“I take full responsibility” implies “it is totally my fault”. “Well it’s not my fault!” implies “so you cannot expect me to do something about it”.
I have - seriously - seen this go the extent where people argue that a father is not responsible for paying something his sons broke, because he was not personally there throwing the stones at the windows, and a teacher claim she cannot be held responsible for explaining the basics again and again to a child, because it is not “her fault” the kid has not gotten it yet and she needs to move on with the others. (Maybe the teacher does need to move on. But that has nothing to do with it being or not being her fault that one child is behind.)
Most far you see it go with people (not) taking responsibility for their own happiness. Somehow, there seems to be a subtle pervasive thinking that if you are responsible for fixing it, you must be somehow guilty for it, so that in response to things that might need changing people (yes, including me) tend to err to two completely borked reactions.
I’ll skip the first one, which is the “it’s unfair I have to actually work to overcome my faults, I was born this way, you can’t hold me responsible!”, because that is usually only spoken out by people who will not read this far anyway, because I am already being so unfair here and being mean and making, indeed forcing them to feel guilty for stuff that is totally not their fault.
But the second, infinitely more usual is that people actually decide that they need to take responsibility—and then immediately feel guilty for whatever it is they need to change. This results in them feeling so guilty for being such bad persons as to be unhappy that they then avoid doing anything because the guilt is so uncomfortable to face.
Quite often, when people need to change something in their lives, that “something” is not really “their fault” in the sense that they would be somehow morally bad for having it in their lives in the first place. The people who do the first borked reaction are actually partially correct: it is usually in no way your fault if some things are harder for you than others. If concentrating on things is not easy for you, if you get easily irritated by what others consider small stuff, if you have difficulties controlling your urges for food or drugs, if you are shy in new situations, if you find it terribly hard to be organized—more likely than not, that’s not something to feel bad about. It’s just the way you are. You were very likely born, raised, or both that way and should not feel any sort of personal guilt or shame over it.
But that does not mean you are not responsible for it. It is ok to find concentration difficult - but if you are a student, you still need to find ways to help you study. Others can help, but you need to invest in finding out what helps and what hurts, and then implementing that help. It is not shameful to be one of those people who cannot used alcohol without getting addicted - but you are still responsible from abstaining if you cannot control it. It is ok to be shy in social situations - but that does not mean you cannot figure out how to overcome that fear so that you can still take part in what is important for you, in a way that works for you. It is ok to find organization hard - but sometimes naturally disorganized people need to work harder than others on keeping a routine in order to be able to function in certain jobs.
With responsible, I do not mean “you are a bad person if you do not fix it”. That is confusing guilt with responsibility again. You are not guilty of anything if you have things in your life that do not work for you. Even if you could have done something about them a year ago, not having done it yet is usually not “your fault” in the sense that repentance or asking someone’s forgiveness or hiding away in shame would be necessary. It is just how things are, it is how you have lately been. No need for guilt. But if you want stuff changed now or in any point in the future, more often than not, the only person that you can expect to change it is yourself. Even if the stuff is actually the fault of someone else, it is still often your responsibility to initiate the change. Even if they are a circumstance you cannot make away with, it is your job to try and find help living with them.
I know, it is often not fair. But “fair” enters the equation about as much as “guilty” does.
People react in two ways to hearing that a particular child as ADHD. One group of people says: “Oh! That explains why he is like that, guess we just need to tolerate it.” The other group says: “Oh! That explains why he is like that. I guess we need to work really hard to maintain order, so that he is not constantly disturbed.” The second group is actually trying to help the child. The first one is avoiding responsibility.
Any more than a child, you cannot simply decide to be different: to be more organized / restrained / social / industrious / whatever. You are what you are and for most of these things, you will be that way for the rest of your life, at least to some extent. But that’s ok. What is important is what you want to do about it. Any time you spend feeling guilty over stuff that is not in your control is time not spent in figuring out how to live with it.
Note that there is an important “if” there hidden in the above: “if you want to change this or that”, “what is important is what you want to do about it”. Feeling guilty about something in your life that you do not even think you want to change is the most borked option of all. You can perfectly well choose not to do anything at all about something that is suboptimal, and there is no need to feel guilty about it, regardless of what some other people think. Deciding what you will change and what you will let be is also part of the responsibility that is yours.
(How to make changes happen once you have accepted that you need to is much harder. I am with the Zen Habits school of thought there: slowly, and one thing at a time.)
Posted in Plain English | Tags unsolicited advice | 2 comments
[ Posted by Janka
Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:23:55 GMT ]
A lot of people have told me lately that they like this series. A lot of these people do not practice swordsmanship; a whole lot of them do not practice any martial arts whatsoever. So far, I have had no person with actual CF experience tell me anything one way or the other.
Make of that what what you will.
These body posture chapters are funny. If you do not have your body proportions just so there’s no way you can achieve all of the instructions together, and he gives no indication directly what is the most important. He does give an idea on what the postures are for, though, so I suppose the answer is “whatever gets you there”.
74) In guard and when seeking measure, the right arm must be a little bent. The upper arm should be extended in an oblique line so that that the elbow is on the level of the middle of your body, and above the right knee. The forearm is withdrawn a bit, so that it forms a straight line with the sword.
75) In guard and when seeking measure, the left arm like everything on the left side serves as a counterweight to the right side of the body. The upper arm should be extended away from the body so that the elbow is above the left knee(1) and about on the level of the middle of the body. Forearm should be tucked towards your body, so that its motion can help to propel yourself forward to strike, which it won’t do if you just let it hang there.
76) In striking, the right arm needs to be extended in a straight line, turning the hand and forearm upward(2), in our out depending on the side.
77) In striking, the left arm must be extended so that it forms a straight line with the right arm. Turn the left arm also in or out depending on the line of the strike. Every iota that you are on an oblique line, or leave your left arm forwards, loses you distance and time.(3)
78) The sword should be thought of as part of the limb. It has to form a straight line with the forearm.
The forearm must be aligned with the middle of the trunk, both in height and and in width when looked from the adversary’s point of view, so that the distance to wherever the adversary decides to attack is equally short.(4)
This follows from the distance from the top of the head to the middle point of the trunk being equal to the distance from the middle point to the knee.(5)
We don’t have to worry about the calf. It’s far away from measure that if someone’s stupid enough to attack it directly, they will have to push their body forward and will be in very serious risk to be stabbed.
79) The position of the sword in striking should be the same as that of the arm. You turn the false edge around, in or out, the same way as you turn your hand.(6)
80) Be very careful that the point of your sword is always pointed at the “target parts” of your opponent, namely the right flank and right thigh. If someone tries to trick you to hit their left side, don’t take it, because they are more likely than not to quickly pull it back out of measure. They cannot do this to the right side(7).
81) It’s not good to rest in guard with the arm pulled back, because you cannot cover yourself well enough in case of an attack. It’s also not good to do that when seeking measure, because you cannot strike fast enough, and you cannot keep the adversary away from you either.
It is not true that the extension of the arm is what should make the sword travel the distance needed to strike. What does it is stepping and propelling your body forward, and pushing all your weight from the left leg to the right.
82) On the other hand, you do not want to have your arm fully extended in guard and when seeking measure, either, because it makes defending yourself more difficult, and you attack with less vigor.
Any other locations and movements of the arm do not belong to the play of striking in the straight line.
(1) This is something I don’t think you practically ever see at the salle; most people seem to hold their left arm very close to the body.
(2) Yes. YES! Brilliant. He does have his moments. (“Turning” being the key here.)
(3) I render the “diminish the measure and quickness of the tempo” here as simply “lose distance and time”, as I do not think being a bit off actually loses you “a tempo” in the third sense of the previous chapter, but instead loses quickness, time, in the second sense. It does not lose you a “beat” in the rhythm, but it makes your rhythm slower, so to speak.
(4) This sort of probabilistic argument assumes that the adversary is equally likely to attack anywhere. While a reasonable assumption in the case of an experienced fighter, similar argument could be used to adjust the guard towards the most likely direction of attack when fighting someone predictable, especially if it can be assumed that they are slower on an unusual line. Sorry about that; my actual profession compels me to point this out.
(5) In any case it does if you are the Vitruvian man. If you are not, adjust so that you are in the middle between knee and the top of the head, regardless of the exact location of your navel.
(6) This seems to be a complicated way to say “do not adjust your grip of the sword when moving your arm”. But it did give me an idea on what he might have meant about the “false edge becoming manifest” in seconda and quarta, earlier; namely, that maybe he is talking about which edge should be visible to the adversary.
(7) Well, not without getting out of measure themselves, anyway.
Posted in Plain English | Tags paraphrasing Capo Ferro | 5 comments
[ Posted by Janka
Mon, 28 Sep 2009 11:27:38 GMT ]
Note: “the body” here means roughly “the trunk”. Sometimes what is translated as “the body”, apparently instead means “the center”, though, in the Vitruvian man sense. So meh. I’ll pick the interpretation that makes the text make sense to me, you can do whatever. No, I still cannot read 17th C Italian and verify if he actually makes a distinction or not.
67) In guard and when seeking measure, you want to lean a bit backwards. The center of your body should be almost on the line with your right thigh, and a line from it to your left hip should form an obtuse angle with the left thigh. Then, the left shoulder is above the left foot, and the right shoulder is above the middle point of the line from one foot to another.
68) In striking the body is propelled forward. The right thigh now forms an obtuse angle with the body, and the right shoulder is over the right foot, and the left shoulder now above the middle point of the line connecting the feet.
69) The body needs to be pushed forward on a straight line. Even though you must make a little room for the fact that you strike from inside or outside, this deviation must be very slight.
70) The idea, and it is an important idea, is that when you are defensive, you should move the juiciest target parts of yourself away from the opponent. The further the target is, the more work they need to do to hit it. On the other hand, you will be able to strike longer, faster, and more vigorously. Attacking from further away is safer.
71) You also need to consider what sort of profile of your body you show to the opponent.
72) Ideally, no more is shown than the middle of the breast, both in seeking measure and when striking. That way, you can step and lunge on a straight line, which gains you measure and tempo.
73) A lot of people have a lot of fancy stuff in their systems that require moving their bodies in all sorts of curious ways. Those are the exceptions made into rules I mentioned before. That’s just crap and I’ll leave it to those other authors to explain them.
Posted in Plain English | Tags paraphrasing Capo Ferro | no comments
[ Posted by Janka
Sun, 27 Sep 2009 10:00:27 GMT ]
Back towards civilized people again.
Harvard University is putting online a lecture series on “Justice”. Out of interest, I wanted to do the political compass before I watch it all, so that I can see if there is any change.
Posted in Plain English | Tags moraali, poliittinen kompassi, politiikka | no comments
[ Posted by Janka
Sat, 26 Sep 2009 08:33:12 GMT ]
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to clarity land. The weather is lovely. Now let’s discuss your head.
61) You really need to have a head to do swordsmanship, and it needs to be screwed on right. You also need to place it so that you can see the relevant stuff.
62) The head should be in line with the sword, because when you can see directly along the line of the sword, it is the easiest to observe movements of the sword and the body of the adversary relative to it, and so to recognize where you can offend and need to defend.(1)
63) In guard and seeking measure, you head should be above your left shoulder; when striking, above the right.(2)
64) When you seek measure, or are in guard, you want to keep your head away from the adversary. When you strike, you want to propel it forward as much as you can.
65) In striking, you should take care that your head is covered by the hilt and the sword arm by placing it a bit towards the side you are attacking on (inside or outside line).
66) Any other placements and movements of the head that some people advocate are crap. I think you want to be on the straight line, that is, on the line that goes through both you and the adversary.
(1) And then we discuss the “rays of sight that the eyes cast”, which is still a passable metaphore, but for him actually was how he thought it works.
(2) I don’t think he wants us to strain our necks to achieve this, but rather lean the body a bit. It’s really not a very big movement you need to do for it, though; a lot of people exaggerate it. (Including me.)
Posted in Plain English | Tags paraphrasing Capo Ferro | no comments
[ Posted by Janka
Fri, 25 Sep 2009 08:32:59 GMT ]
There wasn’t a CF entry yesterday, because instead I was taking a glorious hour-long private class. Unlike the people in Wednesday class might assume (I honestly do not operate on that level normally, it is just we had discussed something related about the timing of an attack to cavazzione not two months ago, and what he said seemed to confirm my hunch about how it should go), we did not talk about advanced theory but instead did very very basic stuff in very careful an exact detail – such as just having one set exercise for a half an hour, rinse and repeat.
“I suppose if you ran classes so that they perfectly suited me, first talking about the differences in theories in the exact angle of the arm in seconda, and then doing one basic exercise for the whole class, everyone else would be bored inside 20 minutes and never come back.”
“No… Ilkka would be there, and Topi maybe.”
“Oh! That would be a fun class, if a bit out of my league.”
“Yes. But my children would starve.”
Anyway! Did I mention I hate this tempo chapter? I really do hate it. Starting from the fact that he says that “tempo” means three different things, and then seems to list two, one of which is divided into three, making four total. What the…? Having read roughly dozen times in a row, I now think he actually lists three, but does not explicitly mention where he changes from the second to the third, and since they are related it gets messy.
Core problem, I think, is the use of the word “tempo”, which means all of time, and rhythm, and pacing, and the fact that he lives in a time where exact measurements of short periods of time were pretty much impossible and probably not even conceivable even to an educated man like him. That said, I am sure 17th Century Italian would have had words he could have used as technical terms instead of picking one that means all sorts of other things too, but no, that would be too simple.
Also, the confusion of “wide narrow distance” is here again, big time. I really need to learn 17th C Italian one day so that I can see whether it is in the original or with the translators (otherwise it’ll never stop bugging me).
I think the three tempos he mentions are:
1. Time, as in “any amount of time it takes to accomplish something”.
2. A unit of time, as in, a minute, or second, or, as he defines it, not having those concepts in his everyday vocabulary, “the time it takes to strike with a fixed foot”.
3. A “timing”, moment in a fencing sequence where either participant does a movement (while the other is doing their thing), opening an opportunity for a strike (for either, or both). I think what he is getting at is that you can only define such moments by looking at both participants, not by saying that “this guy took one motion so there was one beat of the rhythm/timing/tempo”; e.g. if I strike with a “one-tempo motion” but my adversary manages to get two sensible actions in there, there’s been two tempi for both of us. Also, he seems to say that each tempo is an opportunity to do something, possibly because it is a moment where the adversary’s position and intent is known. You can “lose a tempo” by failing to strike when you had a moment to do so.
That was about what this chapter says, but here’s the paragraph by paragraph anyway:
50) The word “tempo” in fencing means three different things.
In the most general sense, it means just the length of time(1) that it takes to achieve whatever, regardless of how long that time is.
Example: suppose I am seeking measure slowly, but my opponent is not moving(2), so I eventually get there. If the other guy does indeed stay still as long as it takes for me to move, it does not matter how long that is. What matters is the relative, mutual timings of our movements (or lacks there-of).
Incidentally, since the time it takes to get into measure does not matter, it makes sense to do it carefully, with your body placed over the left foot and counterpoised.
51) Secondly, “tempo” can mean a time period of a definite length that it takes to perform a particular action.
In fencing, there are three striking measures. Strikes from those take different amount of time, because the distance is different.
So, when you strike with an advancing foot, the adversary needs to stay put for the period of time that it takes you to hit him, or you will miss. That time is brief, but it is still there.
The fixed foot strike requires a little less time, and the strike with only the arm even less.
Rather than measure these times in seconds(3), it makes sense to measure them in relative movements of the combatants: “this takes as much time as that”.
To give some names for these basic periods of time, we call the shortest one mezzo tempo, or half a tempo, the next, a tempo, and the longest, tempo and a half.
52) In the first example, it did not matter how long a time we took to arrive to measure. Therefore, it makes no sense whatsoever to try and measure it in half or whole tempos in this second sense.
We only use the second sense of “tempo” when discussing strikes.
Incidentally, the posture of body in striking is also completely different from that used in seeking measure, the latter being careful, and the first being bold, hurling oneself forward to strike.
53) Thirdly(4), in the end, tempo is nothing but the measure of the relative movements (or lacks there-of). When my point is still and my adversary’s body moves, the time of the stillness equals the time of the movement.
To make use of this, I must strike when my adversary makes enough time, makes a tempo, for it by being still.(5)
For example: I am on wide measure, and wish to come closer. When I move the point of my sword and myself, I only achieve my goal of narrow measure if my adversary is still, because if he moves too, I will be on some other measure.
If I moved to strike without my adversary fixing himself to the narrow measure that I was aiming at, I would miss, and risk being hit myself.
It can happen that both of us seek some measure, and think that we have found it, and attack, and both will miss, because due to the movement of the other, neither were where they wished to be. The tempo they thought they were using was not really there.
Your movement creates timings for the opponent, and the opponent’s movement creates timings for you.
In practice, it can also happen that you strike “contra-tempo”, at the same timing, and both hit, having come at the same time to a striking distance.(6)
54) Use of time out of measure requires patience; use of time on measure requires quickness in striking and exiting.
55) Tempo is lost on striking distance through shortcoming of nature, or through defect of art and of practice.
56) Through shortcoming of nature, you can miss your timing by being physically too slow, either because you are too skinny and weak, or because you are too fat.(7)
57) Through defect of art, you can miss your timing by being too much forward when seeking measure, because if your weight is not properly on your back leg, you cannot spring forward fast enough when an opportunity presents itself.
58) Through lack of practice, you can lose your timing either simply not yet having practiced enough, or when students acquire some wretched habit, going back to the vanities of feints, and disengages, and counterdisengages, and similar things done as such(8).
59) From this, it should be obvious that the people who say that tempo comes only from the movement of the adversary are plain wrong. br/>
Instead, we need to also take into account my own movement, and not only our movements, but also lack there-of.
60) To conclude this tempo business, I say that ever movement and every stillness of mine and the adversary’s together constitute a tempo.
(1) As in, measurable in some units of time.
(2) Actually, not moving his body, so he might actually be doing something else, like trying to close the line or whatever. Which you actually see happen, so it’s not as stupid an example as it sounds.
(3) Ok, so, he does not mention seconds. This is for the obvious reason that he likely had never in his life measured anything in seconds, nor did it occur to him to do so—while the concept existed, the first clock that could do it was invented in 1577 in Istanbul, the first one in Europe 1670. (Wikipedia) But I am sure he would have said that if he had had the concept. So there.
(4) Like I said, I am simply guessing that this is where he changes the subject. He does not explicitly say so.
(5) We are into Realms of Wild Speculation and Unsupported Interpretations here. You have been warned.
(6) In Capo Ferro’s ideal world, you never attack except by way of a legitimate defense, of course.
(7) Yes, he actually says that out loud. It’s very refreshing in this bodily obsessed time.
(8) I don’t think he as much says that you should not feint or disengage, but rather warns you against doing too fancy stuff before you can actually get the basics.
Posted in Plain English | Tags paraphrasing Capo Ferro | 1 comment
[ Posted by Janka
Wed, 23 Sep 2009 09:41:27 GMT ]
Ok, before I start, let me just say that I hate this chapter. I hate it with a passion that is exceeded only by the next chapter, “On tempo”. I hate these two, and have hated them since I first lay my eyes on them years ago, because the way they have been translated and we usually explain them at the school make me absolutely, completely, unwaveringly certain that we are doing it wrong, and I cannot figure out why.
I suppose part of why I am a scientist is that nothing makes me more frustrated than getting the feeling that there is a solution, but not getting the frigging solution itself.
So, hate. Big time. Also, interpretations here that are not maybe generally accepted. You have been warned.
40) Until now, we have discussed the sword itself. Now, we will move on to the second part of the art of fencing, namely the use of the sword.
41) The use of the sword is divided further into two parts: the preparation for the defense, and the defense itself.
And we can divide the preparation again to two parts. First is getting to a useful distance, and for that we need to discuss measure and tempo.
42) The second, which will follow, is about useful posture and use of your body.
43) By measure, in general, we mean a certain distance between two points.
Example: in fencing, “the measure” is the distance between the point of my sword the body of the opponent, and we say that it is “wide” or “narrow”.
For measuring distances, you have to use a unit that makes sense in the context. In fencing, we use the braccio, or the arm’s length, because that naturally describes many of the things we want to measure.
44) A measure is a distance (from the point of your sword to the body of the opponent) such that you can strike him from that distance.
The length of that distance dictates what actions are appropriate.
45) There are three striking measures(1): two “of the foot”, and one “of the arm”. The striking measures of the foot are those of “the fixed foot” and “the advancing(2) foot”.
46) The first striking measure is the wide measure, or the measure of the advancing foot.
This is the distance from which I can strike the opponent, but only by moving my right(3) foot forward.
47) The fixed foot striking measure is such that I can strike my opponent by pushing my weight forward to the right leg, without moving the foot.
48) The narrowest measure, the striking measure of the arm, happens when the adversary moves towards me, to attack. Then I can strike his arms with just extending my arm, with my left foot back, followed by the right(4).
49) You can think of the widest measure requiring 1.5 units of time, the second measure one unit, and the third half a unit.
Since the distance of each measure is different, they also require a different amount of time for to travel.
That’s enough of measures. Let’s move on to tempo.
(1) If you read “misura stretta” to always mean “narrow distance” you end up in a situation where CF says that the wide measure is narrow. While he is rather borked sometimes, I do not think he is quite that far gone. My (admittedly modern day) dictionary says that “stretto” actually comes from “stringere” (past participle), so my current working theory is that by “misura stretto” he means a measure on which either party has stringered or can do so. Lacking a good word for and understanding of stringere, I use “striking distance”.
(2) It is conventional to use “increasing” for the moving of a foot forward. Personally I think that is silly.
(3) Actually, sword-side foot, so left, if you are left-handed. Swap all lefts and rights the same way, if necessary. They were not big on lefties at the time, I think.
(4) I am not sure what he is describing here. Translator says “appears to describe an arrest with reassemblement”, which says exactly nothing to me. I think CF maybe means that you can keep your weight on the left leg, and even pass back on the right, and still strike (you can, and sometimes you actually need to, because the opponent coming forward actually can place your point behind him, which is good only if it went through him).
Posted in Plain English | Tags paraphrasing Capo Ferro | no comments
[ Posted by Janka
Tue, 22 Sep 2009 09:34:54 GMT ]
Nice and impressive name this chapter has! Luckily the text itself is much clearer than it implies. What the topic tries to say, I think, is “The stuff about the theory of fencing that concerns the sword itself, as opposed to its usage”, which, admittedly, is quite as many words. So, here we go:
29) The theory of fencing consists of two parts. First there is the understanding the sword, which then leads to understanding how to use it.
30) A sword is a pointy stick made of steel.
It’s good for defending yourself at the distance where both parties can attack, but not without the risk of being injured themselves. (1)
31) The sword is made of steel. No doubt steel is better than wood. Not that wood’s not ok for everyday smacking aside of people who want to injure you.
32) The sword has a pointy end. If it did not, it would not be useful for threatening to stab people if they don’t stay out of the distance where they can hit you.
33) The purpose of the sword is defense, which means that primarily the idea is to keep people so far away from you that they can’t hurt you.
In Latin (as was already heard said with scholastic certainty!), “to defend” is the same as “to avoid”.(2)
To defend, then, means that you try to stay away from stuff that harms, or take distance to them if you happen too close, and to avoid being hurt.
34) This means that actually offense is defense too.
You attack if the other guy insists on coming on distance to hurt you, in order to not get hurt yourself.
He can blame himself, if he starts it.
35) The length of the sword follows from the distance it should be used at.
36) It should be twice as long as the arm, which is the same as the longest you can reach on one step if you really try, which is the same as from your armpit to the sole of your foot.
37) The sword is divided into two parts.
The forte begins from the hilt and goes to about the middle of the sword.
The debole is the remainder, from the middle to the point.
The forte is for parrying, and the debole is for striking.
38) The blade has two edges.
When you hold the sword in terza(3), the true edge faces downwards, and the false edge faces towards you.
When you are on guard, in terza, the orientation of the true edge is recognized; when you move to attack, the false edge also becomes clearly into play.(4)
39) The division into true and false edges really makes sense only in the debole, since the forte is used only to parry anyway.
The forte might as well be blunt. In fact it is handy in some situations if it is.
(1) Yes, indeed, he did say it again.
(2) Maybe “caveo”, which is to avoid, to beware, to take precautions / defensive action? As it wasn’t already heard, I think, maybe it’s in the missing paragraph 23.
(3) If you don’t know what a terza is yet, just hold it any old way in front of you. Or imagine cutting bread with (maybe a tinier version of) the sword: the true edge is the one you cut with, the false edge is the one towards you.
(4) Frankly, I am unclear with what he means by this, but I do not think it is further instructions on how to recognize which is the true and which is the false edge, as I have heard it explained. I have difficulties putting this into words, but I think it has to do in how in terza, when preparing to defend, the true edge is what matters most, while in seconda/quarta, especially in extending, this distinction sort of “disappears” and the sword “becomes narrower”, the false edge “becomes manifest”, as he says. Sometimes, when attacking, I find it helps to think that instead of with the point, you attack “along the false edge”, to steady the sword.
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[ Posted by Janka
Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:16:13 GMT ]
This is a short one. Translation question of the day: when the translators say “well-ordained”, do they mean “ordained” in the sense of having been dictated from above by some divine power, or in the sense of being in good order? My guess is the latter, but you never know with these 17th Century folks.
24)(1) Fencing is an art of defending oneself well with a sword.(2)
25) It is an art, because it is an assembly of true facts in a clear order, advantageous to civil converse.
26) Some people teach and write books about martial arts based only on having done them a lot. This is no good.
You end up making rules out of exceptions and a big mess of random concepts that don’t fit together.
Instead, you also have to think about it a lot and to have a clear theory.
27) Swordsmanship is awesome, as can be daily seen.
It works on the natural distance where both parties can both attack and defend. This makes it just and honest.(3)
It also causes both parties to prefer defense.
Combatants usually only attack as a last remedy, to save their lives.
28) How fencing is different from other arts is that it uses a sword.(4)
(1) Sic. The translation lacks number 23.
(2) Direct quotes will be italicized (how fitting!) from this on.
(3) The way he goes on about that…
(4) This is less stupid a sentence if you read is as an introduction to the next chapter, which is about the sword itself.
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