Fitness
For our warm-ups, we are using exercises from Guy Windsor’s
The Duellist’s Companion: A training manual for 17th century Italian rapier.
Sword and Buckler
For Sword and Buckler, we looked at a selection of plays from Manciolino’s first book, chapters 3 and 4.
In this book, all of the attacks from a given guard are in one chapter and the counters are in the next chapter. In order to make it easier to match attacks and counters, the translator will often number the techniques.
The arm strapped shield is known as a Rotella. Many of the techniques for Sword and Buckler can be modified for the Rotella. The most significant limitation is the inability to use a Tramazzone in Manciolino’s fashion, as it would require moving the sword to the left side of the shield.