Pallas Armata Road Test

[Mike Cartier]

Thats an interesting take on the prime guard.
I have not had any problem using the prime with the right foot forward.
perhaps i have been in error with my interpretation of the prime.

PA says:


The Prime is when thou holdest thy Rapier in such a manner that the outside side of thy hand doth look towards thy left side out, and the inside of thy hand look towards thy right side out. This is subdivided into a straight Prime, when thy point looketh straight forwards, and into a hanging Prime, when thy point doth look towards the ground.

I took that to be putting the knuckles to the sky and the hand to the front of the left breast. It is admitidly weak guard, but then it does say this in the use of the prime guard.
The Prima is only to be thrusted at the outside of thine adversarys Rapier over his right arm, and is never to be used within, and is the weakest of all the guards

This is precisly the only valuable way I have found to use this guard.
Are you taking the prime to be more similar to the secunde in that it rest to the right side of the body? That is the only other way i can think of to the outside side of thy hand doth look towards thy left side out, and the inside of thy hand look towards thy right side out.

I have not had an opportunity to try stringereing yet, from your experience with it i would guess its as good as it sounds.

[Shawn Cathcart]

You're right in that it is an odd grip and as far as holding firmly in it, is the weakest of the guards, but it makes very good sense to use it with the right leg forward. An important part of Prime is making sure you hold it up, but also out to the side as well. Like you quoted there Mike it says that it is to come over his right arm from the outside. The advantage of Prime is that it is extremely hard to move or displace. The angle of it being so high, that it remains a constant threat. All I have to do is deflect your incoming point and straighten my arm, and basically with very little movement it hits home. It makes more sense if you notice that several Rapier deflections shown in the manuals were done across the chest. So if you're in Prime, you push the incoming thrust with your left hand, under your right arm, then you step in with your left leg, thrust from prime. Now you're in closer, you're past his point, you can easily control his arm or Rapier, and being in Prime, you can still bring your tip to bear. I think the reason Prime is shown with right leg, is that it is used to simultaneously deflect a thrust with hand/dagger/buckler, while stepping forward with the left leg and thrusting down and over from Prime. Very effective if you can make it work, and time it well.

[Mike Cartier]

Another part of the prime i like is the deceptiveness of the range, prime naturally sits back a bit and your opponenent must guess your range, its deceptively fast and i can feel the strength of it when i thrust over the outside like you describe Shawn.

[Shawn Cathcart]

That's a good point as well. Because the distance is deceptive I find people really end up driving themselves into a thrust from Prime. It's also good as with most things to shift between your guards. I find that shifting into Prime and then thrusting quickly from it can really throw someone off.

[DavidEvans]

I thought I understood the outside of the hand to mean the back of the hand ie the knuckles, and the inside of the hand to mean the palm. Which makes Prime quite uncomfortable. IAs far as I know, out has not changed it's meaning from the 16th Century. Could it be possible that this is a transitial guard rolling over the blade of your foe into the thrust? Possibly from stringing the blade?

[Stuart McDermid]

Hi Guys,

I am a BIG Pallas Armata rapier fan. It and Swetnam are the only long rapier manuals I have ever played with that I consider to be any good at all. There is a good quality copy of the manual on our website www.stoccata.org.

I am puzzled at the way some of you are interpreting the prima guard. This guard is the same in every Italian rapier manual I have ever seen.

The prima guard unarmed is as follows. Right arm extended straight forwards from the shoulder with the palm facing outwards. The pinkie finger is facing the sky and the thumb is pointing downwards. Now put a weapon in the hand pointing at the opponents face and we have a prima guard.

To get to secunde, rotate the wrist so that the palm faces the ground and the (empty handed) pinkie finger is on the right of the hand.
To get to terza, rotate the palm so that it is facing to your left and the pinkie finger is pointing at the ground. To get to quarte, rotate the palm so that it faces upwards and the pinkie finger is on the left.
In practice, the arm is often moved in addition to the hand to better close lines but these are the essential hand positions that you must understand to understand rapier play.
Cheers,
Stu

[Stuart McDermid]

Hi Sean,

I actually find stringering as per P.A. to be very easy compared to the classical method of void and counterthrust.

This is my take on how P.A. rapier fighting should go down and is of course only my opinion.

The important points to remember here is that one should not try to keep the point on line when stringering. Stringering is not done via an arm movement. The arm is kept "in reserve" to parry.

If the opponent is in terza and therefore open without for example P.A. instructs to stringer them in quarte. You do this by moving the back foot to the left and into line with the right. You rapier will be pointing over the other guy's right shoulder. If he does nothing or reacts slowly you should take advantage of your close distance and control of the inside line and simply thrust in quarte. If he makes a cavere (circular disengagement under the blade) then thrust in terza over his foible in the high line. Because you are making the thrust with your forte on his foible, he will be unable to parry your attack.

I have two questions for you Sean. Firstly, why did you seek the opponent's blade in seconde with a thrust in defence?. You should not IMHO move your blade forwards at all in defence as this presents your foible for the other guy to control. Defence as far as I can see in P.A. is done via false edge simple parries and circular parries.

Counterthrusting is not a big part of the system as far as I can see. It is for this reason that I favour P.A. Personally I hate single time defences with any weapon with a passion.

I find it interesting that you still found off hand parries to be all that useful when fencing in the P.A. style. Since you should be looking to engage aggressively at every opportunity in P.A. I fail to see how off hand parries have much of an effect. Any time the other guy refuses your engagement, you should be on the attack to either hit them or force them to engage.

My favourite technique is the one described above where you engage the other guy in quarte as he lies in terza and then as he makes his cavere, thrust over the foible of his blade.

I look forward to your reply Sean.
Cheers,
Stu.
P.S. Until you read and practice some of the sword section, you won't understandhow cutting works with a rapier in P.A. There are alot of opportunities to cut to the face are and the forearm.

[DavidEvans]

Hah ! I thought that was what was being described for prime. Thanks for that. I'm used to 17th Century drill manuals, which can be awkward.

[Jay Vail]

Sean, for those of us who are ignorant about all things rapier, what is Pallas Armata?

[Stuart McDermid]

Hi All,

Sean, I am afraid I have nothing more to offer on the origins of P.A..except that the more I do, the more I wish I had just concentrated on it for fighting Italian stylists and Swetnam for the "poke and pray" crown from the beginning.
Cheers,
Stu.

[Stuart McDermid]

Hi Sean,

Always happy to talk about English Manuals <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />.

You are right that the text advises you to strike fire out of the other chaps weapon but AFAIK it doesn't advise you to close the distance without a stringering engagement unless that other chap is deliberately refusing to engage.

As far as the use of the off hand, I find that it disappeared from my repetoire as soon as I began to stringer at every available opportunity. A further side affect to this is that we don't seem to get the eternal rapier fencers problem of the double kill any more since adopting P.A.

When I say Long rapier, I mean "Not a sidesword". Rapiers were still quite long in 1639 AFAIK. My instructor Paul Wagner over on SFI has compiled some interesting stats on rapiers that are quite enlightening. They are heavier and longer than most folks think. Most museums lump sideswords in with long rapiers which skews the stats dramatically.

I dunno about the continental foundations of P.A., I really don't I have never encountered an Italian rpaier manual that teaches one to parry with the poin off line. A similar method of parrying at smallsword is found in Zach Wyld's manual of 1711 which perhaps points to an indigenous English system of thrusting play. Who knows? Two manuals certainly aren't enough to prove such a method but I would be over the moon if P.A. and Wyld were uniquely English.
Cheers,
Stu.