Body mechanics for greater strength and control in rapier

Here I discuss some common body mechanic mistakes made in rapier. Fixing these mistakes can mitigate disparities in strength experienced by youth, women and gender minorities, and people with disabilities or injuries.

This video shows how to use your body correctly to hold the sword and trust with a rapier. 

Stance:

1. Imagine a rod going through your core that connects the floor and the top of your head. Step into guard keeping that rod perpendicular to the floor (torso is relatively upright and pelvis engaged).

2. Don't hold the sword too tightly. It should balance between finger grip and the pommel resting in hand. You should be able to open your first 2 fingers at rest. 

3. When you lift the sword, lift through your core. You should be engaging muscles on the top of shoulder and under the armpit (lats). Keep the shoulder rolled back. You shouldn't feel strain in the forearms or elbows. You should feel the entire arm and torso sharing the work. 

4. Your weight should be balanced on the balls of your feet; avoid sinking onto your heels. Avoid putting most of your weight over any foot, particularly the leading foot.

5. Use the proper order of movements in your lunge: arm, body, then leg.

6. A good lunge will engage core and pelvis and have a good front foot-knee-hip relationship (the particulars depends on body, but nothing should be strained or twisted by the action). Do not over-extend, over-step, or roll the back foot/knee. The front toe will point at the opponent, preferably in line with your hip and shoulder. Test by lunging and holding it; you should be able to stay in position without wobbling. Check your stance. Have a friend push gently against your blade and shoulder. If you can be pushed or easily moved off-line, make adjustments to your structure, recover and try again.

Blade movement:

1. Engage your elbow and shoulder to strengthen your extension (but avoid locking). Align your shoulders and hips behind your blade. This is harder to push offline.

2. Do not ‘fling’ the blade, or snap the arm forward. This lacks targeting control and is easy to deflect (and will cause long term damage).

3. We should rethink how we soften blows on contact. When you ‘break’ at the wrist, you lose all of your mechanical advantage, including the gain. Use your body and shoulder to absorb additional pressure. See the video of SCA thrust calibration by Jeff Jacobson (Master Lot Ramirez of Caid): 

4. Know and use the strongest parts of your blade: quillons, forte, true edge. Add blade extensions and quillon locks to strengthen your parries, gains, and attacks.

5. Practice footwork, lunges, and other actions using all guards, with and without transitions. Highly varied drills help you be adaptive and not automatic. Restricted training can cause you to abandon the gain or line during your attack.

Being strong in the line (i.e. the contested space, or space fighters move through in an attack):

1. Start any attack with gaining the blade or creating an opportunity to get the gain.

2. Be careful about leaving the line (ex. changing lines or moving away from their blade). Have a plan and a free tempo if you do.

3. Attack into the line, not along it (ex. parry them out with your attack, make your attacks straight into their body rather than sliding down along the blade).

4. Use strategic targeting (ex. target into the armpit of their blade hand). This is harder to parry and will still hit their body if they get a partial parry.

5. Know where their motion has to come from (the pivot point) and attack/defend into it to restrict their action (ex. thrust into the elbow when they are throwing a cut).

6. It’s not your job to be nice; it’s your job to keep yourself and your opponent safe. Sometimes the best way to do that is to maintain your counter when they try to run you over. Perform stop thrusts safely by breaking your shot from the shoulder when you feel impact and avoiding their head. Try not to step into it, and void away from their blade if possible. This makes the impact solely due to their momentum. Retreat if possible, but keep your defense up.