Intro

Florentine, in it's most broadly accepted form, is simply the wielding of any two weapons with one in each hand.  Originally it meant a very specific thing, as it was a style of fighting rapier from Florence dubbed the 'florentine method' which involved rapier fighting and a dagger so that you had an added bit of defense.  What I'll be talking about here is likely neither of those things.  In my application of the art of two sword I've learned to fight with similarly sized weapons in either hand, regardless of what style of weapon that happens to be.  I don't prefer a long and a short sword, one for blocking and one for striking as was once the original style either.

Florentine to me, in the context of the rest of what I'll write, is the art of fighting with two similarly length weapons wherein both weapons are a source of offense and defense.  The closest corollary I can imagine is that a florentine opponent is closest to fighting 2 single blue fighters then it is to anything else.  Both weapons can swing from either side and both weapons can potentially block for either side.  While each weapon will tend to prefer to stay on it's own side and guard it's own lane, because - for efficiency's sake - that's easiest and safest, anything is permitted with either hand.

The Cliff

It is my opinion that of all the weapons arts that you can pick up florentine is the hardest to learn.  The difference between success and failure at any given moment in combat is usually by the 1 inch rule.  If you were an inch closer, or could reach an inch farther you win, and if you fail to get a block it's because you didn't move that last inch to absorb the swing.  Everything can be broken down into these small degrees of difference.  The issue for florentine fighters both new and old is that mistakes as a florentine fighter within that one inch margin usually get you dead whereas making similar mistakes fighting sword and board, red, or spear wouldn't necessarily kill you.  So fighting florentine is a lot like deciding you want to fly and to start that process you go jump off a cliff.  What you're going to do for most of the time that you're involved in it is simply fail, fall, start over again.  You will die, over and over and over again.  Until, somewhat miraculously you learn to suck slightly less then you did the last time and perhaps something clicks so it takes you 2 seconds to die instead of one.  This is why I think there aren't a ton of florentine fighters out there of any real level of skill.  It takes a certain kind of person to be able to put your ego through the shredder just so you can find that one good fight.

With that one inch rule in mind it should come as no surprise when I tell you that in order to actually become good at florentine you have to master a number of different skills before you even begin to become competent.  There are many people who pick up two weapons, run out onto the field and just sort of flail until they kill someone.  A few even learn how to do suicide dives on important targets, hoping to do some damage before they get taken out.  But neither of these groups are even novice florentine fighters, there's no art to what they do.  The trick of fighting with two weapons is not in being able to kill your opponent, it's being able to kill them while staying alive.  In the same way that you wouldn't necessarily be happy with a shieldsman who simul'd every time they fought a florentine fighter should be held to the same standards.  That means that the gap between a person who picks up two weapons and even a novice florentine fighter is huge.  To become a mediocre fighter you need to have mastered the fundamentals.  To become a good florentine fighter you need to be able to apply the fundamentals consistently while also knowing how to get your weapons around any opponents guard.  To become a master at this art you'll need to be able to do all that, but also do it against multiple opponents at the same time, or in the context of a line or flank.  Fighting florentine well in a dueling scenario is all well and good, but it's rare to be given those opportunities, especially as your skill and reputation develop.

Assuming though, that you don't mind dying and you'd like to also jump off that cliff there's a lot you can learn in the interim that will help ease the journey.  The first thing is using other weapons sets to start teaching yourself the basic set of skills you need to have down to have a chance.  The first piece is footwork.  Being able to comfortably engage your opponent by closing, or disengage your opponent by retreating is a must especially as a florentine fighter because anytime you can hit someone they can hit you and you have almost 0 passive guard to absorb swings, which means you don't want to let someone swing at you unless you're prepared to hit them.  Good footwork is something that fighting sword and board can teach you.  The second piece is knowing how to do weapon blocks because that's all you'll have to block with when you go to florentine henceforth just 'flo' to save myself some time.  The easiest way I know to get this is to fight a bunch of single blue, both with your main hand and your off hand.  You need to have mastered feints.  As a flo fighter not every opponent you fight will have glaring holes in there defenses which means you'll have to learn how to make them first, so that when you do swing you get something for it.  This goes back to the idea of not flailing.  Finally you need a full complement of offensive strikes which include wraps, stabs and some trick shots.

If you can get all that down, then you're ready to START learning flo.  If you start without that stuff then you'll mostly just die.  You can figure all that stuff out while fighting flo but because of the amount of time you'll spend dead it'll be slow going.  I definitely recommend learning that stuff first and THEN picking up a florentine set, rather then simply starting there.

Bliss

So, I've talked about all the hardships about learning flo, let's talk about some of the benefits to learning how to do it.  For any particular 1v1 matchup I would rather be fighting florentine then any other weapon set.  When utilized properly flo will win those matchups in a way that other weapons won't.  The most common scenario is being pitted against a shield.  This SHOULD be an easy win if you know what you're doing because you only have to block one weapon while they have to block two.  Any attempts they make to aggress on you ca be countered by immediately taking the arm that swings and if they attempt to stay on defense then a good flo fighter will be able to pick them apart with feints and wrap shots.  In a fight against a red weapon a skilled flo fighter can arbitrarily absorb weapon swings, and because they've got less weight then a person carrying a shield they can close and chase faster.  So those are the easy fights.  In a fight against a spear, it's going to be much harder.  However, most spears will go for the kill shot right away, since most flo fighters aren't good at blocking stabs.  If you can get that first stab block, you can push the spear to the side, and once you've closed past the pointy end of the weapon it's all over for them, even if they have a secondary.  The only bad fight is potentially an archer given their ability to hit you at range.  However, this fight can be made much easier with use of a buckler, a back shield or a helmet.  So long as you can run at the archer there's not much they can do to stop you, shy of a kill shot or a leg shot and once that arrow is loosed, they aren't too likely to get another shot.

Flo fighters also make excellent flankers in part because they aren't usually carrying much gear so they can run faster, in part because with their overwhelming offense they can quickly kill most opponents and in part because if they've reached any level of skill they likely are fleet of food as a result of all the footwork required to fight flo effectively.  Additionally, once a flo fighter gets behind an enemy line they can lay down shots faster then any other weapon set, meaning that letting a flo fighter into your back line is twice as bad as letting a sword and board fighter back there because people will disappear at twice the rate, in part because of how fast the flo fighter can swing and in part because of how fast they can run.

Finally... it's fun.  Living or dying by an inch every time you swing, or everytime you block is exhilarating so as long as you don't mind failing it can give you a kind of hard earned bliss you won't necessarily find with other weapon sets.  When my flo game is on point I nearly feel like I'm flying as I weave through the battlefield.

What's in here

I've got 13 years of fighting florentine to unload into one manual of arms so it's going to be time consuming.  Part of the problem is that I won't be teaching just one weapon style, I'm actually going to be teaching several.  Just teaching the differences between offensive vs defensive styles at short, medium and long range generates a set of 6 different styles of fighting each with their own particular sweet spot of how and when to do certain things.  A seventh style approximates seamlessly switching between each of the different styles which means taking design decisions from each of the different styles and modifying it slightly so it's a bit less extreme.  An 8th style is one I developed to fight with two weapons while surrounded.  A 9th style was developed in order to avoid being stabbed in the chest which is independent of all the other concerns and a final 10th style I've been working on lately to counteract red fighters using one stick as a downstick.  There's an 11th style that I'm still working on that flips the axis of the weapons sideways as well that I have to decide whether or not I'm including.  In the last year I've also developed two things I wouldn't even called sword styles mostly to be silly based on having both weapons inverted.  With all of that floating through my head... it's a bit overwhelming.

I'm going to start with the basics/fundamentals that I think you need in order to get off the ground.  That's footwork, blocks, and shots that are theoretically generally applicable to ALL of the above aforementioned styles.  After that I'll dig into each style on at a time, starting with the in close style I learned first and then slowly backing my way out to range.  I'll start with the offensive form of each style first and then talk about the defensive style at that range.  When I get clear of all that stuff and have set, at least theoretically, a solid foundation, I'll move on to talk to the modified styles that I've invented for specific scenarios.

As you can see 1) there's a lot in here and 2) I have my work cut out for me.

[and so it begins: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JiWh4fvJK-3p-GQTWFiwSS098yJ2ZN0cvZIo_A9siGc/edit?usp=sharing]