The slide

I've pretty much avoided any specifics for florentine fighting so far because trying to unravel any one specific maneuver in my head is kind of like trying to unload a constellations of possibilities into a very tiny space.  That having been said I'm now about to try and do that to the best degree I am able to.  To start I'm going to constrain some variables to cut down on how long sentences get.  So, I'll start with the following assumptions.  The aggressor is a florentine fighter, dominant right handed.  The person on defense is a sword and board fighter, dominant right handed.  From there let's go into a technique or interaction that for lack of better nomenclature I'm just going to call the slide.

Hands and feet

I'm going to assume that if the florentine fighter is the aggressor then their main hand and foot are back, while their off hand and foot are forward.  The defender has their dominant hand forward.  I don't actually care about their feet.  I'll briefly say that it's safer to execute the slide if they have their sword hand back rather then forward as it means it takes them longer to swing.

The step

When facing your opponent at an engagement range take your front foot and relative to their center line step towards them and to their outside at a 45 degree angle.  Relative to their center line you should now be offset to (from your perspective as the aggressor) the left side.  This step does two things.  The first thing it accomplishes is that it gets you close enough so that you force them to fight you.  If you started at engagement range, even if your opponent attempts to respond by stepping away both of you will still have a few chances to swing, which is how this all shakes out.  The second thing this does is that it breaks their center line.  (More on the box, line, and lanes here).  Your left hand lane is now on the outside of their right hand lane, meaning that your left hand can now be hit and your left hand can now hit their arm if they don't move to correct so that their right hand lane matches your left hand lane.  Once you've completed this step drag your back foot forward so as to regain balance rather then staying stretched out.

Breaking the line

Now that you've broken their defense one of two things happens.  Either they swing first, or you swing first.  If they swing first at your left arm, then you can parry with your left arm and immediately respond by using your right arm to take out their right arm.  This is usually as simple as moving your pommel back so that it's matching their right hand land.  If they do not immediately respond to your step then you can swing your left hand into their right hand.  A bad opponent will simply get hit by this outright and now you can blender them until they fall over dead.  A good opponent however will get that first block (not to worry).  After that first block, which in order to get they have to move their hand out to block, you can now snap hit their right arm with your right arm.  If they come back to counterblow immediately after their block you can block with your left hand.  As an alternative to this you can block with your right hand and then simply swing again to the outside lane using your right arm to guard your left arms inside lane.  (I should make diagrams for these things... maybe later).  Once they're out their sword arm, and you're within engagement range that battle should pretty much be over.

How you fuck this up

Assuming you've done all of these things as instructed you've won that particular game of chess.  By bypass their shield as a thing to protect them you've force them to rely on their sword.  By aggressing to that side you force them into a catch 22, get hit by your left hand for not blocking or block and get hit by your right hand.  That having been said there's a number of things that can go wrong that prevent you from getting into this particular setup.

The first being that when you move forward they immediately throw a stab.  Since you've got forward momentum it's going to be hard to block that stab especially if they've thrown it so that it's coming from the outside with an angle.  Best case scenario in response is to use both weapons to try and trap/guard the weapon away as this isn't a stab that you can simply deflect.  If the stab is coming straight at you, because they haven't mastered that one, then you can deflect with one hand and hit their arm with the other.  Which arm you deflect with depends on the angle of the stab but generally speaking figure out where the shot is angled and then just overextend that angle so it goes past you rather then into you.  The other thing to note is that it's WAY easier to deflect a stab that's far away from you rather then one that's really close, so if you can catch the stab early so you don't have to deflect it quite as far.  The other way that you can mess this up is if you don't break their line enough.

If you simply step to them instead of to their outside lane, or you step only sideways and not forward you won't be in position to hit them.  If your angles aren't extreme enough then your opponent will be able to easily block your swing without actually giving you an opening.  In this case, since you've broken lines you've given them the opportunity to hit you.  If you can't land your shots you're in a fairly precarious situation.

Shield side step

A nearly identical maneuver based on footwork is the shield side slide.  Starting from the same setup as before you now step with your back foot forward and off to (from your perspective) their right side at about a 45 degree angle.  Doing this should land you squarely in front of their shield.  This does two things.  The first thing that it does is that is puts their shield between you and their sword which means that a stab is pretty much out of the question for them.  The second thing that it does is open them up for a wrap shot.  You, as the aggressor in this instant don't actually have any real target areas to swing at.  Their body is protected by their shield + sword and their legs are protected (hopefully) by their footwork.  However, you can now throw a wrap shot to the middle of their back.  If they don't respond to this throw then you hit them in the back and they die, game over.  This works particularly well against people who are slow or with big shields.  Like Juggy pre-cardio.  If the opponent does react to this step, or the wrap shot you can now take a straight stab with your left hand using the momentum from your step to drive it home (IE, stab the shit out of them).  Periodically this will cost you your arm but most of the time, when executed properly, you're moving fast enough that they don't react fast enough and you either land the back shots or the stab without getting hit.  Assuming that they do manage to get a swing in by way of retaliation, getting your pommel above your hand after the stab tends to get the block.

Flow like water

The slide can be executed in any number of different kinds of steps with any number of chained shots.  The basic gist of it is to break their line to the left or right and then punish them for allowing you to do that while getting so close.  This doesn't really work when you're in a line, because stepping forward at someone is going to get your murdered by polearms, but if you're a florentine fighter on a line something has already probably gone horribly wrong.  That having been said if part of a line is collapsing this is also something you can try to execute on the end of a section of line.  While I'm talking about this tactic for florentine fighters you can also more or less execute the same footwork to much the same effect with a shield.  While that's not necessarily going to yield you kills as often it also tends to be a bit safer to execute.

Here are a FEW variations of this particular maneuver that you can try before I tie things off though.  You can do a sword side slide by first feinting a stab to their sword side, if they bite on it, then as you step in pull your left hand back to guard and throw a (that's what the name of it was!) a mid wrap to their back with your right hand.  This only works if their shield comes over to guard.  When executing this step you'll also want to modify you footwork.  First instead of stepping all the way in with your left foot only take a half step in.  Then, take a deep step with your right foot.  If you can get a person to bite on this then you've pretty much feinted the first sword side slide into executing the second board side slide.  Another variation on the board side slide is to step more towards the centerline of your opponent rather then off at an angle.  Use your right arm to throw a wrap shot to your opponents shoulder out at about 2 o'clock on their shield.  If this lands, fantastic, if not you can stab up and into the underside of their shield at 7 o'clock in order to get under their shield.  I tend to use this variation when fighting a round shield rather then a tower.  For one, breaking to a less extreme angle keeps me a bit safer and for two the stab is less of a commitment.  A more crude version of the sword side slide is to step to into their weapon, use one hand to swing at their weapon and bind it (usually your left) and then follow up with a strike over the top of their bound weapon with your other hand (usually your right).  I could go on for days... but let's not.  If you have specific questions about variations of this particular maneuver find me and I'll be happy to walk you through some of them.

Finishing touches

A few final notes to tie things off.  The first thing is that timing on this is REALLY important.  If you throw your second swing before your first swing has even started you will SURELY die every time you attempt this because your first swing sets up your second swing.  If you second swing is too late after your first swing then this will also lead to failure.  In order to get the timing just right you need to feint for your first swing and watch their reaction.  If they overreact to your feint then just punish them for that.  Feint with the right hand for a shield side wrap and then immediately stab them when their shield moves.  Assuming they don't bite immediately then actually throw the swing.  As it's in motion watch to see if they move.  If they respond by swinging then block instead of strike.  If instead they move their shield then the instant you see them start to move that shield you start to stab.  This should mean that your second strike lands a fraction of a second behind your first swing.  So it's NEARLY simultaneous.  Fun fact, due to how our visual system is constructed it's almost impossible to not follow a sudden fast movement.  Part of the reason why this works is that as soon as you start your first swing your opponents eyes will temporarily look away from your second sword to track that first swing.

The second piece that's important is knowing when to commit versus when to back off.  If you step to the outside lanes of your opponent and you don't see any targets to swing at, then immediately back off.  You only want to be throwing shots that you think have a good probability of landing.  If you step to their outside lane, and you aren't deep enough to see that arm shot then DO NOT throw the swing because if you do you'll miss and then they get a chance to retaliate, either by immediately throwing a counterblow or worse yet, by stepping back into you while your feet transition back to a stable place.  This goes for both slides.  If you move to their sword side and don't have a swing, or realize that you're about to step into a stab then abort.  If you're on their shield side and stepping in and they've stepped back to get out of range then don't throw a wrap shot you know won't hit anything.  If you go to throw a wrap shot on their shield side and you realize in advance that not only is it not going to hit but that they also haven't opened up their guard then don't follow it in with the second shot because not only is it not going to hit but it's also going to give them a chance to hit you.

A dime a dozen

Learning new tricks and techniques is fine but part of having that repertoire of moves is knowing the appropriate times to actually use them.  The reason why vets invent shots like the slide or some other significantly crazy shot is to get around common guards.  These trick shots look stylish and cool but no vet in their right mind is going to pass up just hitting a person in the shoulder, picking an arm, or stabbing them in the torso if the shot is open.  Bread and butter maneuvers are the preferred go to, as all those crazy shots or more advanced moves involve significantly higher risk.  It doesn't mean you shouldn't throw them, it just means you have to balance that risk with the reward of the kill.  Make sure you pick the right opponent to throw the trick shot against and do what you can to minimize your risk when going in by trying to feint them out before you engage, or by using a teammate to cover you either by acting as interference for where they can swing, or by getting that teammate to aggress on them so they have to block.

Asking for help

I feel like when dealing with new people they are often overwhelmed at everything going on but for whatever reason they get caught up in not wanting to bother people.  This post is about that stuff.

Step 1: Ask

Regardless of your actual level of skill the people around you may often have things that they can teach you if you take the time to ask.  So the answer is yes.  This becomes doubly so true if you're new to the game.  When in doubt about anything just ask the nearest vet to try to have them clarify for you.  When it comes to teaching/training you should still ask for whatever they can offer you.  Many vets aren't at their prime any more and as a result enjoy teaching new people even more then they used to.  There are some vets who still just want to fight, so if someone tells you they aren't interested in training you make sure you respect their wishes and move on.

Step 2: Learning the approach

Even the most well meaning teacher is going to be vexed if you approach them the wrong way.  So there are certain things to avoid when trying to get a person to teach you new things.  The first thing to do is make sure that they have both the time and the energy to teach you something.  If the person is in the middle of fighting or is otherwise occupied by doing a fighting related thing, that's probably not the best time to ask them to teach you something.  If a person has also just stepped off the field due to fatigue, injury, or just needing to stop and breath for a while that's also not a great time to try to get them immediately back on their feet to teach you something.  That having been said approaching a person who is off to the side of the field to let them know that you're interested in learning something is probably the best chance you'll get so you can do that so long as you don't expect them to train you right at that second.

Step 3: Picking a subject

There's also something to be said for knowing what you want to learn.  I have 13 years of fighting in my head that covers everything from basic footwork to the particular angle and height you hold your weapon in order to best block or strike.  If you just show up and ask me to teach you something I'm going to be at a loss of what to do with you.  Watching me flail at trying to figure out how to teach someone florentine is already sufficiently entertaining because of the amount of knowledge I have of that thing.  Asking me to teach someone either everything or anything just means I stand there looking confused.  Now, you don't have to have all the answers, or know exactly what you want to learn, you just need to give your teacher some place to start.  If you're brand new, that's probably footwork, blocking, and basic swings.  Getting those down right is time consuming.

Step 4: Hey, LISTEN

If you're going to take the time to ask them to teach you then make sure that you're actually going to listen.  As a person who has spent a ton of time training people nothing gets me more aggravated then having someone ask to be taught but then who isn't actually willing to learn.  Getting as good as I am took me years and it's because of the time that I put in to getting better that I've reached the degree of skill that I have attained.  There's no single trick or magic that will allow a person to suddenly get good overnight.  You don't need to spend all day every day training to see improvement that will come from fighting at least once a week but you do need to be willing to practice the skills that you learn.  I've seen this in the form of people who are too busy talking to actually listen, I've seen this in the form of people who don't want to learn fundamentals because they think they're boring, I've seen this in the form of people arguing with me over the things I'm trying to teach.  If you want to wander off and talk to people then by all means do that... but not while you're trying to learn.  Socialize or train but not both.  You may not want to learn fundamentals because you just want to learn that one sweet move, but if you're new, chances are that you aren't yet skilled enough to pull that move off and need to spend time honing your skills before you can execute that shot.  Questions related to a teacher's instructions are fine and welcome but telling a person who you asked to teach you that they're wrong should make you question why you asked to learn from them in the first place.  If you think that what they have to say is invalid then why bother asking them for their opinion in the first place?

Step 5: Practice makes perfect

Most skills are not taught in one session.  If you really want to get better it helps to have a dedicated teacher.  Once you've got one of those it's then up to you to make sure you follow through.  There are plenty of people who I've taught one thing to one time.  The number of actual students I've had is a much lower number.  All of the things above that are good to do, keep doing.  Find your teacher when they aren't in the midst of fighting or exhausted.  Ask questions about what they're teaching you so that you get to understand it better.  Take the time to listen to what they tell you and practice the skills that they impart to you.  When you see that they have free time remind them that you want to learn more.  As an added bonus try to recall the last thing you learned so that they don't have to.  As the student you only have to remember what you learned, as the teacher they have to remember everything they taught to all of their students.  You have the easier job in this particular exchange :-P.

When All Else Fails... Any Vet Will Do

While having a dedicated teacher is nice because they can help you along the way you don't actually need that to get better.  When in doubt and wanting to learn new things, find someone who has beaten you in a fight and ask to spar them.  At the end of the spar talk to them about it, ask them if they see anything you can work on.  What shots were they throwing that managed to get past your guard?  Ask them to show you those shots.  What part of their defense was giving you trouble so that you couldn't bypass it?  Ask them to show you how they'd deal with that particular strategy.

Arsenal Time

I am now working on putting together my 3rd arsenal to date.  Pro tip kids, don't have your weapons bag stolen.  Now that I'm putting together my 3rd arsenal to date I thought I'd take a minute and explain that process for anyone who was curious about it.

What's an arsenal?

An arsenal, alternately your or a realms armory is the stuff you need in order to fight.  It includes all of your weapons/shields/polearms but also the equipment that you need to fight with.  Your arsenal needs to include any and all safety gear that you need when stepping out onto the field.  In most cases it includes the garb and any armor that you'll want to wear.  I also tend to include things that I'd want to have on hand at an event like sunscreen and a water bottle.  If you're a veteran or running a realm I also recommend having a med kit on hand to take care of the usual scrapes and bruises.  Certain items are more important then others when putting together an arsenal.  So, let's get to it.

First things first

More important than any other piece of gear is the stuff that you need in order to keep yourself safe.  If you get injured fighting the other stuff won't matter much.  For that reason the first thing to get into your arsenal is your safety gear.

Starting with gloves.  The most important feature of a set of gloves is that it protects your knuckles.  You can do this pretty cheaply with a set of heavy bag gloves or MMA gloves.  Those usually run around $30.  This gives your knuckles soft protection and padding.  For slightly better protection you can get something with hard knuckles.  Ideally you'll get something that also covers your second finger joint as this is nearly as prone to injury as your knuckles.  Motorcycle/BMX gloves often provide this additional protection to your hands.  After years of trying different sets of gloves my personal favorite for hand protection thus far is modified lacrosse gloves.  Lacrosse gloves provide a good grip on a weapon while also providing each joint of your hand good protection.  I say modified because normally lacrosse gloves cover your wrists.  A glove which covers your wrist (which is a valid target area) will often cause a person to sluff shots to that target location.  My personal favorite presently is the brine lacrosse gloves.  I got a set off amazon here.  I remove the strap with a pair of scissors and then clip off the outer flaps to expose my wrist.

Next up is knee protection.  While you may not always need knee protection it's often a good idea.  In addition to protecting you when you drop to a knee hard knee pads can increase your mobility when legged.  The basic split for knee pads is between having something that offers a ton of protection but has a lot of bulk or is heavy and between a more minimalist knee pad that offers up less protection but is lighter.  You can also get a hard or a soft knee pad.  Heavier knee pads tend to work better if you're a slower moving fighter.  In addition to providing plenty of protection to move around and rotate on your  legs, if you do have to take a leg suddenly you don't have to worry about the drop to a knee.  If you tend to prefer being fleet of foot then you may want a lighter set of knee pads as heavy knee pads tend to slip when you start sprinting.  For a heavier set of knee pads you can often find a set of workman's knee pads from a place like home depot.  These tend to be soft rather then hard.  For a hard set a set of catcher's knee pads tends to work well.  These are particularly favored by amt fighters.  For minimalist knee pads people commonly pick up either paintball knee pads or volleyball knee pads.

Minimal weapons kit

A basic weapon set is going to be whatever your primary weapon is and a backup.  For most people (and this is also what I'd just personally recommend) start with 2 blues and a shield.  This setup will allow you to fight florentine if you'd like or fight sword and board.  Should one weapon fail you'll still be able to fight sword and board which means that you'll be ready to go to an event so long as you keep your weapons in decent repair.  If you fight exclusively with polearms then have 2 polearms so if your main weapon fails you'll have a backup.  When fighting with a polearm I recommend having a secondary weapon as well so that if someone closes you can still defend yourself.  After you've got this set up then you'll be able to move on to additional weapon sets (a second florentine set) or branch off into other weapons.  If you're primarily an archer then I recommend having at LEAST 6 arrows up and running at all times.  You can probably get by with 3-4 in a quiver but having more on hand will allow you to be more effective.

Main hand

When it comes to your primary weapon there's a lot of variables to consider for its construction.  The first variable is the weight of the weapon.  A lighter weapon will cause less fatigue when used and will allow you to throw more shots then a heavier weapon.  However, a lighter weapon will do a poor job of blocking incoming shots.  In addition to being easier to blow through if your blocking technique is poor you are more likely to injure yourself.  A heavier weapon will make it harder to swing quickly and after a long period of time it'll certainly cause more more strain then a lighter weapon.  The advantage being that even with poor body mechanics a heavier weapon will absorb the force of another swing much easier then a lighter one.  Additionally so long as you can aim your shots well having a bit more weight behind the weapon means it will deliver more force making it more likely to get through a block and be considered a good swing.  That's sort of the cliff notes version of a discussion over weight, a longer discussion can be found here.

The next important piece when picking weight is to make sure that the weapon fits you.  Never get a weapon that's heavier then you have the ability to wield effectively even if you think it's in your best interest.  The next thing to figure out is the length of your weapon.  A longer weapon gives you more reach but means that the closer you get to a person the less effective you become.  A shorter weapon means you can swing and block faster but have to be very efficient with your footwork in order to actually get anything done.  A longer weapon also tends to be heavier, so as before make sure that you get a weapon you can handle.  A longer discussion of long vs short can be found here.

The final bit of the weapon to determine is its balance point, that is to say whether the weapon is tip vs pommel heavy.  A weapon can also be neutral, which is to say that it's neither tip nor pommel heavy.  People who favor tip heavy weapons tend to throw lots of stabs and slashes.  Having the weapon's weight be towards the tip makes the weapon's initial swing and bounce back go faster.  However having the weight of the weapon towards the tip means that wrap shots are a bit more awkward.  A weapon that is back weighted (balanced towards the pommel) puts the rotational point of the weapon towards the center of it.  This causes the weapon to more adeptly rotate allowing for faster and deeper wrap shots.  However because the weight is towards the back of the weapon the initial weapon swings won't have the same acceleration as a weapon that's tip weighted.

While the above discussion has been about a single blue weapon the general physics and concerns apply to any wielded melee weapon.  Assuming you've gotten all that figured out you can move onto secondary weapons/gear.  For the sake of the above example let's talk shields briefly.

Shield

I favor two particular kinds of shields (though to each their own).  The first kind of shield is a punch shield that's square.  Having a square shield gives you corners that you can work with.  Having those corners allows you to quickly manipulate another person's shield.  I tend to build a square punch of this shape to cover my "box" (the area bounded by my shoulders to my hips).  This allows you to not only protect your own body but it also allows you to open up another person's body.  The other kind of shield that I favor is a round strap shield.  Since a strap shield isn't as maneuverable a a punch shield you want the extra area around the edges to be able to swing around.  Similar to the configuration of a punch shield a round shield should have enough diameter to cover from my shoulder to my hip plus probably an inch or two to absorb wrap shields.

Garb/Armor

For most places you'll go you can get by with pretty minimal garb.  A pair of wrap pants, a tabard and a belt.  You can wear this over pretty much anything else.  So long as you've got a neutral colored t-shirt underneath the tabard and are wearing a pair of shorts you'll be good to go about anywhere.  If you're a new fighter just starting out I absolutely recommend staying away from armor.  Learning to take hits is something that is time consuming in it's own right.  Learning the intricacies of if you were hit, when you were hit, how hard you were hit and by what you were hit is all sufficiently difficult BEFORE you start trying to figure out whether that shot landed on armor or not and if the armor at that hit location was still intact.  Armor is useful, but make sure you get your hit taking on point first.

Etc

In addition to everything above I also keep some generally useful things in my bag.  To keep myself hydrated I keep a water bottle on hand.  I eventually also got a camelbak so that I could keep water with me on the field at events.  That's probably overkill for most people.  If you spend any time fighting outdoors having sunscreen in your bag is often useful as it can prevent you from getting burned.  Keeping some snack food in your bag may also be helpful so that after heavy fighting you can avoid the crash that comes when adrenaline flows back out of your system.

Fin

Assuming you manage to get all of that into a bag you should be in pretty good shape to show up anywhere and fight.