Hey Szabolcs
Yet I'd say it's one thing to fill the gaps of Fiore's book with what we learned from german swordsmanship, but it's another to read Hanko and to read Fiore after. The two have 20 years in between, not much in fact, but have in my reading a lot of things in common, and a lot that are not.
To a large degree i would agree with this, I think some of it come's from the fact that Italian and German culture had diffrence's so there fighting mind set and way of thinking was diffrent.
The second being, german masters teach not so much close fights, do they? They of course are writing about groundfights and wrestling with the sword (not to mention without), but Fiore's Gioco Streto has more desfribed technics than any other.
I think there is alot of close in recomeded in the "German system", it is a very aggresive type of fighting, even when defending you have to be aggressive because if you get close and bring your point into play you win, Doebringer tell's us "And as soon as the opponent bind's your sword then your point should not be more than half an ell{30-40cm} from the opponent's breast or face." indicating to me a pretty close fight.
As for me, it seems like Fiore has a system that can be better learned and be used by lesser skilled fencers, while th german system with all the master cuts is more for the skilled and brave fencers. Using mastercuts in a real fight would take in my eyes lots of courage, it would need very good timing and measurement.
The "German system" does require big cajone's, there is alot of am schwert in the german which require's you to be right in the Krieg/handerbiet range and that is a scary place to be because thing's move and change so quickly, i think it is better though than being out in the area of the tip at arm's length, for the simple fact that the hand's are no where near as fast as the point of a sword and if i have contact i know where your sword is.
Fiore parts his longsword section in Gioco Largo and Gioco Stretto, wide and close play, and there are a lot of double time in his wide play, or Riposte, and little single time (or half time), what would be very important in german scools (indes). I can be wrong of course, so comments are welcome, but that is one difference in my eyes.
I have a slight problem here with the whole time/tempo distance thing maybe i'm insane(noone has accused me of being sane), I think Gioco largo and Gioco stretto are more in fact distance betweem the two bodies, as such it is like zufecten and krieg in the German, the whole tempo is just in my mind an indication of movement because when you move it is done at a certain speed(tempo) whether you attack, defend, settle in to a gaurd, move out of a gaurd, whatever movement you do is in a tempo. When you go to cut at me i can 1) void out with the same tempo and counter cut 2)close and bind with the same tempo 3)or i could use one of the five hidden strike's at a faster tempo(double time), I am going off on some of my own weird way's of thinking and derailing this thread so i'll stop here.
one last thought, I don't think there is much diffrence in the way they fought in Germany or Italy or England, i think mainly it come's down to how they thought about fighting and subtle diffrence's in teaching, that make it seem diffrent, I think the culutral context has to be considered.
Jeff
