The Good, the Bad and the other one… 2

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Our second character is the opposite of a rookie and he is the veteran. The veteran has a high level of skill, gained through years of experience, but has lost the desire to fight. For the good guys: old Obi-Wan, Athos. For the bad guys… well, none! The bad guys are all dead before they make veteran. (Vader is possibly one of the most 'veteran' bad guys.)


Our final character is the hero or the villain. He has skills and is keen to use them. Examples would include mature D'Artangnan, Luke in 'Jedi', Obi-Wan in episode II/III, Batman, Zorro, Darth Maul, Ricardo Montero (Zorro's nemesis), Cpt Rochefort etc.


So let us see how these characters fit into our play.


Gentleman I is almost always a hero. He should be skilled, can be agent or patient, and ultimately, will win the fight. Occasionally, if gentleman I is patient, he can be a veteran, waiting for the right moment to dispatch his young adversary with the perfectly timed blow.


Gentleman II is more interesting, as he can take on any of the roles and even a mix of several. Which role he is playing will determine how he fills in the gaps between the set techniques and what ultimately leads to his downfall.


The most likely role for gentleman II is the henchman - keen to fight, but not as skilled as gentleman I (hence why he loses). He may well be agent, attacking a lot, falling for every invitation or feint and not really parrying the counter attacks.


To try to put this in to context, I will describe Marozzo's first form for sword and buckler using several different combinations of characters. Hopefully you will see how this changes the fight and how it leads to different forms of training from the same few moves. (Note: in this draft I am assuming some familiarity with the form and so I have abbreviated the names of the techniques.)

Fight 1: Master (hero) vs Student (rookie) (Master showing the student the error in certain techniques and how to cover with the buckler)


GI in g. alta, GII in g. alta, both still and elegant

GI cuts m. sq. to buckler, and slips back to g. alta

GII takes the opportunity to launch a r. sq. to GI's head

GI parries with a r. sq. and immediately follows up with a stoc.

GII, having thrown the r. sq. is lying spent - he may try to withdraw his front foot but does not parry. The stoc. Should be fast enough that he cannot parry and GI controls GII's weapon with his buckler.

GI advances two steps with tram.

AT THE SAME TIME GII retreats and tries to cut r. which GI parries with buckler.

(c) The School of the Sword 2009 : The School of the Sword is a Western Martial Arts school providing lessons in sword fighting and Historical European martial arts in Berkshire/Surrey UK