ElizabethLeBeau

Elizabeth waited. She had arrived early, of course, and her practice blade was sheathed at her hip. Fencing mask tucked under her left arm. The mirror image of the day before as if no time had passed at all.

Mentally she reviewed the material for today's lesson. It was unnecessary; La Verdadera Destreza was a style well suited to her personality and she had internalized it on a deep level. It made order of chaos and imposed rules upon the frantic madness of life or death conflict. In this she was entirely unlike her father for he thrived in chaos.

When Yazhun indicated he was ready she began.

"Yesterday we covered distance. Today we shall cover angles. If you are familiar with modern MMA and boxing you are aware that footwork involves moving off your foes center and attacking from an angle. Typically this takes the form of an angled step-" She demonstrated, stepping to the side. "-and a straight punch." Again she demonstrated, pantomiming a cross at an imaginary opponent.

"In La Verdadera Destreza angles are important but the mechanism by which they are attained is inverted. Footwork is linear, bladework is angular." To demonstrate she stepped straight backwards and then straight forwards again, just as she had done in their brief clash of blades yesterday.

"The slowest movement is the movement of the body. Therefore it is to use the least space, moving only backwards and forwards because the shortest distance between to points (you and your foe) is a straight line."

"Imagine each of your feet are points on a grid and draw an imaginary line through those points. Keep that line pointed at your opponents centerline at all times. This lets you maximize the speed of your advance and retreat. This also eliminates minute preparatory movements that give away your intentions. With good technique your advance and retreat can not be predicted before they happen."

"Angles are created with the wrist, not the feet. Imagine each of your joins in your minds eye. The ball joint in your shoulder creates a cone through which your upper arm can move and your elbow joint creates a hinge upon which your forearm can move and your wrist creates yet another cone."

"In unarmed combat the cone of movement created by the wrist is too short to matter because the knuckles are only a few inches from the wrist. In fencing the blade is typically forty or more inches. Therefore the cone of potential movement is quite long."

"Angles are thus created by movements of the arm and wrist. By directing your hand far off the invisible line connecting you and your opponent and then turning your wrist and elbow to direct the point toward the enemy you create an artificial angle. This is much less complex than it sounds."

"It does, however, reduce reach. This is fundamental-- you can prevent any opponent from gaining an angle on you by keeping them at the very end of your reach and restricting your attacks to their lead arm when they attack; this is the fundamental of counterstriking in swordplay. Whosoever controls the distance controls the fight. If you wish to create an angle you need to close. If you need to prevent your opponent from creating angles on you than you keep the distance long."

Writing confession: Elizabeth's account name was suppose to be Elizabeth_LeBeau but that is one letter too many for the new site.

The Lost LeBeau inclined her head in acknowledgement. "Certainly." She saluted and sheathed her practice blade at her side, removed her mask and tucked it under her left arm. Turning she departed the training room.

On her way back to her suite she abruptly stopped and changed direction, jogging down several flights of stairs and taking a short hallway out into the courtyard, which she inspected with a careful eye.

A few practice lunges and parries on the courtyard ground told her how well her shoes gripped and she measured the position of the sun and mentally calculated where its burning orb would hang at the approximate time their training was to begin upon the morrow.

Her father could leave such elements to chance. She could not, and did not. When she had completed her inspection she returned to her quarters.

@yazhun_sanvun:

The instant she felt the pressure against her blade change she reacted, straightening her front leg and lifting her rear leg so that the driving motion carried her backwards in a sharp pop, an abrupt, short, rearward lunge. By increasing the distance between them she also increased the time she had to observe and respond.

She didn't expect the grab. Grappling was not part of La Verdadera Destreza; it was an art of pure swordplay. Nor did she flow easily from one type of combat into the next-- the grapple caught her wrist as she was moving backwards and spoiled her intercepting thrust, knocking her counter-thrust out of line and missing Yaz'hun by several inches.

Though her mental fluidity left something to be desired her technique and composure did not; she brought the blade back up into a Prime parry, steel ringing as she deflected his strike at the back of her neck. A maneuver that would have been completely impossible had she not initially retreated in order to buy enough space, and thus time, to react to the unexpected improvisation of her foe and the fraction of a second needed to repair her own mistake.

"Good." She said. "Do you see how the defense works? Space is the same as time. Reach is the same as speed. I needed time so I traded space to create it."

@killer_instinct:

@rosso: Ancient warfare, fencing or gibberish?

When I talk about ancient warfare or sword stuff I am often concerned that it comes across as pure gibberish.

@yazhun_sanvun:

Elizabeth maintained her guard, reaching out with a small motion to place her blade in contact with his (unless he moved or evaded in some way.) There she attempted to apply gentle pressure this way and that, letting him feel the way the blades felt in contact with one another and how the force changed as the leverage shifted back and forth.

"In La Verdadera Destreza one relies on ones sense of sight and sense of touch together. Place your blade in contact with your foes so that you will feel changes in the tension in his muscles as he acts and reacts. This saves time; you are warned of his intentions sooner and are less likely to be deceived by a feint. It also saves space; it is his blade you must parry and if you are already in contact with his blade then your defense will have the minimum possible defense to cover-- zero."

"It is primarily a counter fighting style. You maintain your defense until you attain desvio, dislocation or redirection of your foes attack. You will create a window in time during which he cannot threaten you by foiling him in space. Then the space becomes yours and you strike."

"Never strike below the waist; this is geometrically inefficient because it reduces the reach of your blade. In real fighting, as opposed to point fighting, damage will be equal to the penetration of the blade. Your thrust must be decisive and penetrate as many vital organs as possible. If you inflict a wound that will be lethal.. in ten minutes, what good is this to you now? Strike along the line of the hips and shoulders, penetrating in one side and out the other, whenever possible. A good strike can puncture both lungs, the esophagus and the heart."

@yazhun_sanvun: Sorry about the length of this one, I got carried away. Don't let it pressure you into longposting.

The tall woman followed the procession into the dojo. A outsider would have found the scene quite peculiar. But Elizabeth did not for she had been immersed in the strange underworld of mystical orders, secret societies bent upon world domination and cults of assassins from the day of her birth. It was not this world she found strange but the outside world with its monotonous mundanity.

She did not kneel or bow, instead she lifted the blade in a fencing salute-- hilt held at the chin, blade running up the centerline of the face and tip pointed at the sky. In her world it was common for martial masters to blend elements of the many styles they mastered into a cohesive whole; western blades and eastern mysticism but she had always found this difficult and reverted automatically to the cultural traditions of whatever style she was using at the time.

It never even occurred to her that she did so.

The Lady LeBeau wound her hair into a ponytail and then placed her fencing mask over her head.

"Because we are recently acquainted I do not know what you do or do not already know. As such I will start at the beginning; I do not intend this as disrespect toward your skills."

"The sword style I favor is known as La Verdadera Destreza. It originates in Spain and was developed during an arms race of fencing technique during a period in which combative skills determined the fate of the western world."

"La Verdadera Destreza is generally translated as 'the true skill'; so termed because it was based upon empirical and philosophical concepts generated by naturalists, mathematicians and classical geometry. Practitioners are known as 'diestro.'"

She drew the blade and turned her body into a bladed stance so that her hips and shoulders made a straight line pointing at Yaz'Hun's centerline. Her blade lay along the same line.

"The style shuns exaggerated movements or frivolous techniques. These are a waste of energy but worst of all they are a waste of both space and time. The use of time to command space is the fundamental of swordplay. Time is your resource. You trade time for space." She extended her blade as if jabbing. "This takes time. If I have no time then I cannot take space. Likewise, if your opponent denies you time then you are also denied space. Time is equal to the window in which you have to move before your opponent forces you to defend yourself. The more skilled your foe the smaller that window is. Thus, it is essential to be efficient with your time to maximize your space. It is equally important to minimize the space needed to accomplish your objective in order to maximize the use of small windows of time."

"Rise." She said. "Attack me."

@yazhun_sanvun: I'm afraid of getting banned lol.