Random rapier ruminations

On the turn of the trailing foot in a rapier lunge: it certainly does add a few centimetres to one's lunge, but surely that wasn't its entire function. Something Thomas Stoeppler wrote on SFI made me think about this - doesn't it cause the hips to open as well? That being the case, it should aid in the recovery from the lunge, because it allows recruitment of the hip adductors, which means less reliance on push-off from the lunging foot. This would be a much more stable action mechanically. In addition it would mean a flatter trajectory for the c.g. during the recovery phase, with less of a tendency to push the body upwards, as well as being less prone to slipping.

Training the lunge:: I remain convinced that the proper way to train the lunge is with equal focus on the recovery. I don't want to lunge in a way that I can't recover fully from, meaning that the recovery is as fast as the lunge itself. If that means forgoing a few centimetres of range, so be it. I believe the reach will come naturally with training, because attaining max lunge is a matter of proper form. As long as the form is correct, the range will come. But if the form is off, and recovery is sacrificed for distance, then it will remain tactically unsound practice.

What striking arts have to teach us about the lunge: power generation is about speed and structure. You can't really increase the mass of your striking body, so energy is determined by velocity. In other words, the speed of your strike is essentially how hard you'll hit (assuming efficient energy transfer, more on that below). A fast strike is also, obviously, harder to defend against.

Hence I don't like the idea of 'falling' into a lunge. In visualisation, I break it up into two components - a strong push using the power of the legs and core to propel myself forward, and a 'drop-step'. I prefer this to the idea of 'falling' because to my mind that implies a parabolic, ballistic trajectory that becomes more vertical than horizontal as the lunge lands. I think the c.g. should move in a straight line, with the motion remaining largely horizontal at its endpoint. The vertical movement I think of more as a level change rather than a fall.

In boxing, a straight lead hits while the lead foot is in the air, just before it touches the ground; perhaps the same should be happening with the rapier. Then nothing takes away from the speed of the strike, since otherwise there's the braking effect of contact with the ground. There's a moment of absolute structural stability at impact, to ensure there's no leakage of energy through weak points in the system (a core principle in striking arts, and I believe in rapier as well). This causes an inelastic collision which ensures maximal energy transfer to the target.

There's still more to it though. In striking, the return to chamber is as important as the strike itself, because the withdrawal is what makes for power. Remember that power is energy/time. Assuming efficient energy transfer, the less time you spend in contact with the target, the more power you're generating and hence the greater the effect on the target. This is what differentiates a strike from a push - same energy, different period.

With a rapier, we're obviously not as concerned about energy transfer, because the point concentrates all that force anyway and as long as you have a proper structure behind it that's going to penetrate whatever it hits on an unarmoured target. However, the recovery is just as important. What I'm thinking about is what happens as the lunging foot lands. Ideally it shouldn't plant heavily; instead it should bounce lightly. This is why I think the strike should land fractionally before impact, so that the maximum stability is achieved while the foot is off the ground. Then as the foot lands you're free to relax and use the rebound energy to power the recovery. Too often we think of the lunge as an end point, but it's really just the midpoint, and we should keep going until we're back in guard.

Which brings me to a point Guy made during the Syllabus Day seminar. In Aristotelian terms, a body that reverses direction must experience a tempo of rest as the direction changes (in modern physics, when V = dS/dt = 0, a turning point in the velocity-time graph). We can 'cheat' this by introducing a small curve at the apex of the motion so that instead of decelerating to zero and accelerating again from there, we retain the velocity in an angular motion and just apply a centrifugal force to it. It works, and not just for blade actions.

So, if we think of adding that little curve to our footwork as well, we can achieve this same effect in our body structure. Once we're free of the need for stability (having already achieved the hit) the body can relax into the landing and make best use of the energy return from the ground to get back into guard. So instead of slamming the foot into the ground, we're bouncing lightly back into position.

To borrow from Taiji terminology, the excess of yang creates yin. Immediately we achieve maximum structural stability we go to full relaxation. A circular movement is the best way to achieve maximum linear velocity. Does this all sound very esoteric? It's just something to think about during training, a way of visualising what happens in the body during a motion that takes a second to complete.

Ultimately, one doesn't really need to think about all this stuff to fence rapier well. There are many people who become good fencers without spending a moment on these ideas. They just get on with their training. It's not necessary at all, but for me, it's fun, and that's why I train. The mental workout, and the aesthetic pleasure I experience from making these mental connections, is a large part of why I enjoy training. Without it training would just be a lot of work.