A new perspective on Cut Vs Thrust

[s_taillebois]

Well perhaps the decorative or status aspect had more to do with its popularity. The hilts on some rapiers would have showing off, basically the equivalent of an ivory handled revolver.

And the length of rapiers was an issue, apparently Elizabeth 1st had a royal decree to shorten them as they were becoming a nuisance in the common.

Weapons do tend to take on cultural affectations even when these have little to do with practicality. Little reliquaries in wheel pommels in the western tradition, or the Genji tsubas in the Japanese tradition come to mind.

Thrusts being quicker is quite true, but combination of both seems also to work. For example going from tail guard or crown and stopping the arc to move into a linear thrust seems to throw some of the people I've sparred with...they seem to expect that the implied arc has to happen.

[seneca savoie]

Stacy, excellent analysis, with one additional thought.

A straight line is also the easiest to void, and the hardest vector to redirect(that is, to acquire a new target in mid-motion). A thrust is best delivered nontelegraphically in combination with a slash, with one coming a half-beat after the other in either order.

[Stacy Clifford]

Stacy, excellent analysis, with one additional thought.

A straight line is also the easiest to void, and the hardest vector to redirect(that is, to acquire a new target in mid-motion). A thrust is best delivered nontelegraphically in combination with a slash, with one coming a half-beat after the other in either order.

It's a little bit more difficult to redirect a thrust, yes, but not so bad if you have a weapon balanced properly for the purpose and know the proper way to handle it. My Di Grassi class at IG09 next month (shameless plug) will help illuminate that a bit I hope.

[Randall Pleasant]

My Di Grassi class at IG09 next month (shameless plug) will help illuminate that a bit I hope.

Totally shameless!

And I really looking forward to your class!

[Sal Bertucci]

Actually I was reading DiGrassi today, and he specifically said that the preferred blow is the one that is the fastest. (paraphrased) So the thrust is typically preferred b/c it is the shortest length to travel, however, noting Stacy's example above, if the thrust is missed then it might be much faster to follow up with a cut than to redouble the thrust.

[Stacy Clifford]

That's true, Di Grassi does advise if your thrust is turned aside to follow up with a cut, and he turns a cut off of a parry several times, but in attacking he would prefer you never to initiate with a cut or even use them at all on offense if you can avoid it.

[Greg Coffman]

Stacy,
After having some time to try it out, how do you feel the new NSA cut & thrust is suited to Di Grassi?

[Stacy Clifford]

The new NSA cut & thrust is excellent for Di Grassi. We started out using our old Hollow Earth C&T wasters and while you can make the techniques work with them, something just didn't feel right. When we got the NSAs we realized what it was. Di Grassi recommends against cutting because it's significantly slower, but with the short HE wasters it was plenty quick enough that you could get away with it and you were easily tempted into cutting more often. The longer NSAs turn around a lot slower for wrist and elbow cuts and really force you to place more emphasis on the thrust, and the deflections Di Grassi teaches for defense feel stronger and more natural and effective with them. I still recommend the Hollow Earth C&T, it's an excellent waster for a more cut-oriented fight, but for Di Grassi and probably other similar late Renaissance masters I highly recommend the new NSAs, they do make a difference.

[Tomm Skotner]

The primary argument almost all the masters use for why the thrust is superior is very, very simple. Cuts move in a circular path, while thrusts move in a straight line. Since the shortest path between two points is a straight line, speeds and weapons being equal the thrust will arrive at its target first. The logic is pretty impossible to argue with, and remember this is the time when science and math gained new heights in popularity, so matching fighting styles to geometry had enormous (not to mention practical) appeal.

This logic is hard to argue with, you say. Well, I will have a go at it.

Although the inference here is a valid one, it is drawn from a false set of premises. Specifically, it is the premise that the point of the sword moves at the speed in a cut as it does in a thrust which is untrue.

It is not the distance the point of your sword has got to travel in order to reach the target which determines how long it takes you to complete your attack, neither with a thrust or a cut. Rather, it is the time it takes you to throw your hand forward and fully stretch out your arm. In both the cut and the thrust, holding your hand at your shoulder, chest, hip or in some other way close to your body and holding it before you with your arm fully outstretched mark the start and finish of the attack. In other words, your hand travels the same distance whether you cut or thrust; it goes from your shoulder, chest or hip to at arm's length. And it moves at the same speed in both cases, viz. as fast as you can throw it forward. And although your sword point swings forward along a semi-circular path around your hand on its way to the target when you cut, and it therefore travels a longer distance than it would have if you had thrust, your hand does not move any differently when you cut from how it moves when you thrust. Nor does it move any slower when you cut than it does when you thrust. It moves just as far and just as fast in both cases.

It follows, then, that it takes just as long to thrust as it does to cut.

[Stacy Clifford]

I don't have time to go into detail right now, but what you say holds true mainly if you are starting in a guard with the point held back like vom tag, so that both the cut and the thrust have to turn forward to address the target. Almost all thrusting attacks in the manuals start in a guard with the point forward aimed directly at the target, which greatly simplifies the required muscular action in the arm to drive it forward, while a cut from the same guard has to pull the point away first to generate power for the stroke. I've tried it the way they described it and I can say it works as advertised.

[Sal Bertucci]

And although your sword point swings forward along a semi-circular path around your hand on its way to the target when you cut, and it therefore travels a longer distance than it would have if you had thrust, your hand does not move any differently when you cut from how it moves when you thrust. Nor does it move any slower when you cut than it does when you thrust. It moves just as far and just as fast in both cases.

While your hand and the sword are moving at the same speed, the tip of the weapon (Which is the part that does the killing) travels a longer distance with a cut than a thrust. So if (as you say) the hand and blade are indeed moving at the same speed, then according to the laws of physics the cut must take more time to cover a greater distance at the same speed.

[Vincent Le Chevalier]

I don't have time to go into detail right now, but what you say holds true mainly if you are starting in a guard with the point held back like vom tag, so that both the cut and the thrust have to turn forward to address the target. Almost all thrusting attacks in the manuals start in a guard with the point forward aimed directly at the target, which greatly simplifies the required muscular action in the arm to drive it forward, while a cut from the same guard has to pull the point away first to generate power for the stroke. I've tried it the way they described it and I can say it works as advertised.

The interesting case, I believe, happens when the thruster starts point forward and the cutter point backwards. I still think the thruster arrives marginally earlier for the following reasons:

One has to look at the timing of the stop of the hand and the blade. During many cuts, the hand(s) stop their motion forward a bit before the strike actually lands. For a thrust there is no such time intervall. In this case the thrust is quicker.

Even if you manage to cut so that the blow lands right when your hand get to its maximum extension, as the sword is both rotating and going forward, it means you have put more energy into it than if it was just going forward as in a thrust. So if we assume a limited supply of power, the cut just can't be as quick. Or rather, it can be but it is more demanding. In this case the difference is that the hand does not move as quickly in the cut as in a thrust, even though it covers the same distance.

It's not as simple as written in the manuals, because it's not purely a question of the length of the trajectory, but they arrive at a valid conclusion from a flawed reasoning, in my opinion

[Vincent Le Chevalier]

While your hand and the sword are moving at the same speed, the tip of the weapon (Which is the part that does the killing) travels a longer distance with a cut than a thrust. So if (as you say) the hand and blade are indeed moving at the same speed, then according to the laws of physics the cut must take more time to cover a greater distance at the same speed.

I think Tomm meant that the blade of a sword moves faster in a cut than in a thrust, which is true in my experience.

[Jonathan Newhall]

While geometry dictates that the closest distance between two points is a straight line, it does not necessarily dictate that the fastest means of travel is a straight line.

Say, for instance, that your hand is moving at 5 feet per second in a thrust. The tip, then, also moves at 5 feet per second along this straight line. This may be a bit on the slow side, but bear with me for example's purpose.

However, despite, perhaps, the arc of a swing being larger, you also have to realize that due to the nature of the motion, the tip of the weapon will be moving much faster compared to your hand in a circular motion.

For instance, say your hand is moving in an arc one foot from your body, while the weapon's tip is in an arc five feet from your body. This would make 90 degree arcs (let's say this is the angle you cover while attacking with for simplicity's sake) roughly 1.57 feet long and 7.85 feet long respectively.

In the time it takes your hand to travel the 1.57 foot arc your hand goes through (.314 seconds roughly) the tip traverses a much larger area of 7.85 feet in the same .314 seconds! This would put your tip at a full 25 feet per second, five times faster than your hand and the tip of the sword's movement while thrusting!

What this means, math aside for a moment, is that a cut will reach the target while traversing five times the distance (in this example of very rough numbers) at the same time as a thrust. Therefore, your sword's point may start as far as five feet away from your opponent (in this example) for every foot away your point begins distant in a thrust.


Therefore, generally speaking, neither cut nor thrust is appreciably faster than the other when arriving at the target on their own terms, but it instead is determined heavily by the positioning of the weapon.

HOWEVER, this positioning is also easily noticed. A rapier held in front of you (three foot blade, one foot handle, plus one foot of hand let's say to keep it the same size as a cutting sword) is going to reach the target before the cutting sword in this aforementioned scenario, because the sword's tip is held a full 7 feet from the target!

THIS is the geometric advantage a thrust has over a cut. It is not inherently a faster travelling motion, but it is positioned such that by taking advantage of its tip position, it doesn't NEED to have the fastest moving tip to reach the target first. However, as I have stated, it is very important to realize that it depends VERY HEAVILY UPON THE NATURE OF THE CUT when determining if a thrust is faster than a cut! A thrust is going to be a thrust no matter what, but cuts have WIDELY variant starting positions, arcs, and thus tip speeds in relation to hand speed. Your mileage may vary!


Hopefully that cleared up some of the geometry behind cut vs thrust for at least one person