Swetnam and footwork.

If any of you have tried your own interpretations, you will recognise that some bits are bloody useless, some bits terribly vague and some bits are downright contradictory. This, combined with a lack of editing can cause it to be a nightmare. You will get things wrong and you will have to revisit and revise ideas.

For the sake of clarity and honesty, I am only working on a small portion of Swetnam- I may go on to work with other aspects later, but I am picking up the bits that are of interest to me. In fact, for all I know, he may have extensively written on footwork elsewhere in his book.  However, he does not mention it in the bit I'm reading.

OK, he says something about a passing step here and there. However he doesn't say if it's passing offline or passing straight. And so it is a matter of trial and error- does a straight passing step bring you within range of his offhand weapon. He even throws in useful asides about void of the foot.

I've figured out (mostly) what the arms should be doing and it seems to lead the legs.  It seems to be closing at an angle, driving you offline and keeping your opponent at two movements to your one. This thought means that I'm going to have to revisit my concepts of "passage". After all his insistence on thrusting straight, it was hard to imagine passage being diagonal. However, adjusting that thought a little means one or two odd instructions sound a bit easier. I digress- There's just this pattern of movement that feels natural, your feet follow your body, a little twist here and there moves you out of danger and gives you greater reach.

This also adds another layer (although, one Swetnam approves of, he frequently says something along the lines of "if it doesn't feel right, don't bet your life on it")-  am I doing this footwork because it is correct, or does it just 'feel' right. I consider myself an adequate fighter, take that to mean what you will, there is a lot of room for improvement and I am prone to foolish mistakes especially pausing in transitions. Part of the learning process is to admit and be comfortable with your weaknesses- which I would happily list if there wasn't a competition coming up soon- especially when looking at new sources or attempting your own interpretations. We all have preferred actions and it can be tricky telling the difference between preferred and correct, especially when something is counter intuitive (for example stepping into a blow).

There isn't much to work from (I'm covering the rapier and dagger), but that is not a bad thing. In fact, a lot of the confusing bits start to make sense when you realise that instead of a "true" guard that protects from all harm, he uses his "true guard" as a beginner's position, one that allows your flinch reactions to protect you and gain a feel for the subtleties of distance, timing, reading your opponent, having two hands to block with, and so-on. Most of his true guard waffle is loose guidelines for fighting with sword and dagger and things that you will learn by practising from that position. By the time you get to the end of it, you're given guards and that's it- only a few common errors are mentioned.

People tend to confuse simple with lazy. True simplicity comes from reducing all the needless movement and faff from something. You need simplicity in a fight, the more you need to think, the more delay you have between thought and action. You don't want to have to refer to a flowchart if someone is poking you in the face with a sword.

I think, once understood, Swetnam is a very simple system that allows quite complex outcomes.