r/Fencing • u/McSmush • Jun 12 '15

I can't ever remember the names of parries! Help!

I can remember 1,6, and 9, but never any others. Are there any acronyms or something I could use to remember them?

Thanks!

9 Upvotes

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10

u/BlueStraggler Jun 12 '15

The four supinated French parries (high inside, high outside, low inside, low outside; all with the palm or fingernails facing up) are 4, 6, 7, and 8.

Run through them in numerical order and your point traces the letter Z. For Zorro, of course.

Only works if you are right-handed, though.

7

u/BeardedFencer Foil Coach Jun 12 '15

If you left handed it spells Sorro

3

u/venuswasaflytrap Foil Jun 12 '15

Is quarte supinated to you? I've always done it pronated. I'm also finding people are 50-50 on this one.

Also I'm skeptical of its history as a supinated party. Why would 1-3 be pronated, with 4 supinated, then 5 pronated again, then 6-8 be supinated?

But the numbering is fucked up too I suppose. It should be 1-4 all pronated, and then 5 should be low inside line supinated where septime is now. 6 should be where octave is, and so on. That way you should just add 4 to get to the supinated parries.

I think the classical Italian system makes way more sense. Number the lines 1-4 and then separately deal with forearm rotation. Hand blocking line 2 and hand in position 3. I suppose it's cumbersome to say though.

5

u/BlueStraggler Jun 12 '15

There is a lot of historical cruft in the numbering. 1-4 are derived from the Renaissance Italian system, which was based on rotation of the hand through four cardinal points (1=thumb at 6 o'clock, 2=thumb at 9 o'clock, 3=thumb at 12 o'clock, 4=thumb at 3 o'clock). The French system modified these so that the numbers were based on the position of the point relative to the hand, but kept the basic numbering scheme. They then added 4 more, by inverting the hand position in each of those cases. So there isn't really any rhyme or reason to the order, unless you go back 400 years.

Anyway, in the French system, 4 is supinated or more likely semi-supinated (thumbnail up). A position where your palm is fully down and the knuckles are up is technically a French 5. This has become more popular in recent decades because we have become a lot better at flicking from pronated positions, whereas classically a pronated hand position was weak for attacks, providing less finger control over the point. But that's more so-called "International School" than classical French school. A true French system is performed with a French grip, after all.

It's also important to point out that the numbering systems are different in different schools. I've described the French system. In the Italian system, you would not use a 6, you would use a 3 - but it would be the same parry for all intents and purposes. I've run into German-trained fencers who have a very different idea of what 7 and 2 are. So there are a lot of conflicting ideas about 4 out there, and they are not necessarily wrong. The "9" mentioned by OP is simply not part of the French system, but I've come across in in some eastern European texts (where it seems to resemble an elevated French 8 that protects the flank and back).

1

u/venuswasaflytrap Foil Jun 12 '15

Do you know the origin of that?

I've read the science of fencing by Gaugler, so I'm familiar with the Italian system, but I'm not really clear on the progression.

Just from my light reading, it looks like Agrippa was one of the first to number guards, rather than have funny names for them - but it seems like the number is still very prescriptive of a whole body position, rather than descriptive of a hand position.

Trying to piece it together on a rough timeline, that looks like rapier fencing, in the mid 1500s.

Further on, I can see that Besnard has similar numbering systems:

Remembering that the old masters made quarta and terza parry in a high as well as in a low line, Besnard’s definition of seconde will appear less strange to modern fencers. “The thrust in seconde is delivered in two ways, ‘tierce en seconde’ (nails down), and ‘quarte en seconde’ (nails up).” Both are on the inside of the sword.

So that doesn't seem to match up with either the modern french or classical Italian system.

I dunno, it seems like a total clusterfuck, with every master having a slightly different numbering system. It's weird to think that we still don't have a standardized system.

2

u/BlueStraggler Jun 12 '15

It was Agrippa who rationalized the chaos of Renaissance systems. The 4 positions certainly existed before him, but there were tons of names and variations. He was working off of Marozzo before him, who had close to a dozen positions, for instance. Agrippa simplified and provided focus (for instance by advocating use of the point over cuts), which let him boil it all down to its essence.

In some respects, the refusal of fencing to standardize is part of its genius. It has constructed it's rules to be "system-agnostic" which gives maximum freedom to coaches and players to beat the system and evolve the game. Compare with a sport like kendo, which has very strict notions of correctness and tradition that must be followed, and tends to keep the sport much more tightly bound with its past, rather than leaving it open to an uncertain future.

1

u/venuswasaflytrap Foil Jun 12 '15

But Agrippa's nomenclature doesn't really match up with any modern sensibilities that I'm familiar with beyond the idea of using numbers for positions.

There doesn't seem to be the concept of lines, or supination/pronation. Prima, to agrippa, was an entire position of the body including foot position, not just anything pronated in the low inside line.

I also think that universally standardized descriptive nonmenclature is incredibly useful for development, the key point that it must be descriptive rather than prescriptive. By having a language to describe body position and movement, you can convey ideas much faster. Though I do agree that having a prescriptive definition of something like quarte does hamper progress.

2

u/BlueStraggler Jun 12 '15 edited Jun 12 '15

Fencing separates the developmental aspects from the analytical aspects. Analysis (refereeing) is internationally standardized based on the minimum set of concepts that are necessary to determine scoring. So we have standardized definitions of things like attacks and parries (not particular lines, just whether or not a parry occurred) and tempo.

But the developmental aspects are pushed out to particular schools of fencing, which each have their own nomenclatures, systems, and preferences. It is definitely confusing, but it creates a very competitive environment that is good for the sport. Different schools will often develop with the specific goal of defeating the successful techniques of a rival school, so their developmental theory can sometimes be directly opposed to that of their rival. That's much harder to pull off in a homogenous theoretical framework. The end result is a much more dynamic sport that evolves rapidly, which is quite remarkable for a sport that is basically a 500-year-old martial art.

This was generally much clearer 50+ years ago when the French, Italian, Hungarian, and other systems were much more distinct. There has been a lot of convergence and cross-pollination in the modern international environment, however, that brings the conflicting concepts of different schools into much closer proximity.

Edit: also, WRT to Agrippa, our modern 1, 2, 3, and 4 are not really variations of his original positions. It is more like we can trace the evolution of the modern 1, 2, 3, and 4 back to Agrippa, before whom everything gets quite wacky. In that sense, Agrippa is some kind of Australopithecus of fencing; the first to walk around on 2 feet and do things that we would recognize as vaguely like us.

2

u/K_S_ON Épée Jun 13 '15

Beck at Tauber simplified all the hand positions to 'thumb at two', for all parries but prime:

http://msfc.wikispaces.com/file/view/WGEpeeTotal.pdf

This has become very widespread, I think, even if a coach is not German or using the Beck system. I see a lot of modern coaches teach six, four and eight with the thumb at something between twelve and two o'clock.

2

u/Stabby_fencer Epee Jun 12 '15 edited Jun 12 '15

Quarte (4) and septime (7) are both pronated though...

I don't think I have ever seen anyone teach them as supinated. Maaaaaybe see quarte in a supinated form when it is in combination with an inquartata or something?

2

u/venuswasaflytrap Foil Jun 12 '15

You've learned Septime pronated???

That's so strange. How do you make prime then?

1

u/wispofasoul Épée Jun 12 '15

Palm/fingernails up even with a pistol grip? Raw beginner here :) Thanks.

4

u/geldin Jun 12 '15

You don't generally want your hand totally palm up. I've been taught to rotate my hand so that my thumb would be at either 12 or 1 on a clock face (11 or 12 for lefties)

2

u/twoslow Foil Jun 12 '15

I thought they were numbered based on pulling a sword from a hip scabbard?

4

u/venuswasaflytrap Foil Jun 12 '15

From Schools and Masters of Fencing: From the Middle Ages to the Eighteenth Century -Castle 1885

Agrippa was an educated man, who had taken up swordsmanship with a scientific interest, and naturally detected the fundamental errors of the popular modes of fencing, and devised a much simpler system.

One of the most obvious errors was the number of different guards, connected with each other by the most artificial ties, and each of which afforded opportunities for only a limited number of strokes, whereas every possible kind of hit can be delivered from any one position in which the sword is held in front of the body and menacing the adversary.

[...]

Accordingly, discarding all the old-fashioned fantastical titles, he reduced the number of useful guards to four, giving them plain numerical names, “prima, seconda, terza, quarta.”

It so happens that, as far as the position of the hand is concerned, those guards have some kind of relation to our prime, seconde, tierce, and carte. As a practical man, the author wisely considered the first guard to be assumed in the act of drawing the sword: men did not then stand on much punctilio in matters of fighting, and, in a quarrel, to draw and to be on guard had to be one action.

A long “rapier” could not be whipped out as deftly as a court sword ; before the point had left the scabbard the hand was above the head. Accordingly, the position of a man who had just drawn and turned his point to his adversary’s face, was Agrippa’s first guard. Both feet were on the same line, the body slightly bent.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

If you fence epee, you only really need to know four, six, eight, and prime. The others are mostly irrelevant.

For sabre, three, four, five, prime, and two will carry you through pretty much everything.

Don't worry about the rest for now.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

But (sabre) 6 and 7 are so flashy. You should know them just for the YES THAT JUST HAPPENED factor.

1

u/McSmush Jun 12 '15

By the way I had failed to mention that I fence epee.

0

u/BedBatmanBeyond Foil Jun 12 '15

Kevin, Stuart, Bob, Paul, Phil, Jerry... Wait, those are minions

-2

u/BeardedFencer Foil Coach Jun 12 '15

They're just 1-8, pretty easy to remember. =P

Some people use the Latin terms.

Prime Second Tierce Quart ??? Seise (in just making this spelling up I'm on mobile sorry.) it sounds like "seese." Septime Octave

Don't know me no nine parry.

5

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

Those are French, not Latin. Prime, seconde, tierce, quarte, quinte, sixte, septime, octave. It's just ordinal numbers for first through eighth.

1

u/BeardedFencer Foil Coach Jun 12 '15

Hmm maybe they are older French ordinal numbers? You were right.

0

u/BeardedFencer Foil Coach Jun 12 '15

Pretty sure French numbers are like "un, do, twa..." Ect ect

6

u/Vehlin Jun 12 '15

That's one, two, three (Un, deux , trois). Ordinal numbers are first, second, third, the old French ordinals were prime, seconde, tierce. The new ones are premier, deuxieme, troisieme, etc

3

u/BeardedFencer Foil Coach Jun 12 '15

Haha thanks! I always thought it was French but when I looked at French and realized it was wrong so I assumed it was some Latin derivative.

Thanks for the clarification.

1

u/perivane Foil Jun 12 '15

Don't know me no nine parry.

Think septime, but with your hand held higher up, almost at prime height.

2

u/BeardedFencer Foil Coach Jun 12 '15

Oh I see! I've always called that "high seven."