The Rapier Part One: Beginners: The Rapier Workbooks, #1

By Guy Windsor

Take a beginners' course with world-renowned swordsmanship instructor Dr. Guy Windsor, through this innovative workbook format.

With this 70+ page workbook you can learn the basics of rapier fencing. The book is illustrated with extracts from historical sources, and supported by over twenty video clips, linked to in the text. All you need is a training partner, a smartphone, tablet, or computer, and a couple of practice rapiers and fencing masks.

The book is organised in four sessions or classes, which covers all this and more:

•      footwork

•      sword handling

•      stringering

•      attack by disengage

•      parry riposte in one tempo

•      feints

•      parry riposte in two tempi

•      thrusts

•      cuts

•      beat attack

All video clips show the techniques done right-handed and left-handed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Spada Press
• Release date: Jun 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9789527157770

Guy Windsor

Dr. Guy Windsor is a world-renowned instructor and a pioneering researcher of medieval and renaissance martial arts. He has been teaching the Art of Arms full-time since founding The School of European Swordsmanship in Helsinki, Finland, in 2001. His day job is finding and analysing historical swordsmanship treatises, figuring out the systems they represent, creating a syllabus from the treatises for his students to train with, and teaching the system to his students all over the world. Guy is the author of numerous classic books about the art of swordsmanship and has consulted on swordfighting game design and stage combat. He developed the card game, Audatia, based on Fiore dei Liberi's Art of Arms, his primary field of study. In 2018 Edinburgh University awarded him a PhD by Research Publications for his work recreating historical combat systems. When not studying medieval and renaissance swordsmanship or writing books Guy can be found in his shed woodworking or spending time with his family.

Book preview

RAPIER-SHIELD.ai

THE RAPIER

Part I: Beginners

— Workbook —

Guy Windsor

SnakeSword_logo_HIGH-gry.jpg

Published by Spada Press

© Guy Windsor and Spada Press 2018

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any other means without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for insertion in a magazine, newspaper or broadcast

ISBN 978-952-7157-77-0 The Rapier, Part One: Beginners Workbook, epub

ISBN 978-952-7157-78-7 The Rapier, Part One: Beginners Workbook, kindle

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

INTRODUCTION

A Note to Instructors

A Note to Left-handers

Equipment

Using this Workbook

Safety

THE FIRST CLASS: STARTING AT THE BEGINNING

The Guard Position

The Lunge

Stepping, Forwards and Backwards

Controlling Measure

Footwork Summary

Grounding

Holding the Sword

Parts of the Sword

The Four Guards

The Sword: Forte and Debole

Hunt the Debole

Plate 7: Step by Step

THE SECOND CLASS: TO STRIKE AND NOT BE STRUCK

Warm-up

Footwork Revision

The Cavazione

Introducing Choice

Beginning Plate 16

THE THIRD CLASS: INTRODUCING THE FEINT

The Parry Riposte in Two Tempi

Plate 7, Complete

THE FOURTH CLASS: CUTS AND COUNTERDISENGAGES

Plate 16, Complete

Cuts

Plate 15: Contracavazione

Plate 13: The Scannatura

CONCLUSION

QUICK QUIZ

GLOSSARY

THANKS

FURTHER READING

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

INTRODUCTION

One of the hardest questions to answer in any martial art is where do you start? Every beginner is different, and every beginners’ course has to take into account the physical and mental experience and aptitudes of the individuals on the course. This book is based on my experience of running dozens of beginners’ courses for hundreds of different students. The point of this course is to give beginners a thorough basic grounding in one specific historical style of rapier fencing. The point of this workbook is to give beginners a really clear path through the first few steps, and for less experienced instructors a template to follow or to adapt for creating their own courses.

Rather than static images, I’ve chosen to illustrate this book with video clips. These come from my various online resources, such as the Essential Rapier Course, the Breathing Course, and my Syllabus Wiki. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then surely a video is worth a thousand pictures (which, of course, videos are made up of). As every exercise is introduced, I provide an easy-to-type redirect link to the video file, and a QR code for the same link, which currently point to my youtube channel. You may want to download a QR reader onto your phone if you don’t have one already. If you want to download the videos to store them locally (ideal for training in places with no internet coverage), you will find links to them on this page of my