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.

Florentine Manual: Combo Fundamentals

There are an INFINITE number of combos.  There is no possible way for me to cover every conceivable series of shots.  Even if I start with 30 basic swings I think I'll be doing you a disservice.  So instead I'm going to talk about the big meta picture of all the ways you can make combos and then leave you to make your own.  In the process of trying to get there though I'll leave you with more then a few examples so that you've got some building blocks to work with at the very least.  What I often did when training people is that I'd teach them one series of shots, ranging from 2 to 5 swings and then, once they'd learn that I'd ask them to modify that setup by changing their target locations.  If you can get the basics of a combo down, like the timing and footwork of the swings, then changing out the target locations for where you swing is easy enough.  There's 4 basic things you can attempt to accomplish by stringing together a series of shots (a combination).  The first thing that you can attempt to accomplish with a combo is to fire shots off fast enough at target locations that are far away from each other (divide).  (I'll unpack that I swear).  The second strategy is to manipulate your opponents defense in order to get around it (overwhelm).  The third strategy is get your opponent to follow you only to then go in the opposite direction that you set up (outsmart).  The fourth strategy is the bait and switch which I've talked about in the past under the heading of the 3 split in which one shot can easily become 3 other similar swings.

Divide

To unpack that first piece I'm going to have to spend some time setting up terms.  The first one is quadrants.  You can divide a person into 4 target zones that go left to right and then top to bottom in the same way you'd set up a graph.  This provides you with two high quadrants, one left, one right and two low quadrants, one left, one right.  Your goal when trying to exploit the first strategy for combos is to make sure that when you throw shots you don't have any 2 land in the same quadrant.  As a concrete example of this, so I don't lose anyone, there's a shot that's been pretty commonly referred to as the tick-tock.  You start on one side of a person's body with your first throw (let's say quadrant II [top, and right]) then you immediately transfer the momentum from the rebound from that first shot by flipping your wrist to immediately take a shot to the opposite side of their body (per our example you go to quadrant I).  This shot is pretty easy to execute which is probably why it's both so well known and so popular.  But a better version of the same shot would transfer from quadrant II to quadrant III, so that in addition to switching from left to right you also switch from high to low.  This type of combination shot relies on a person either leaving their guard in place so that they don't move their guard to absorb the second shot, OR if you get really lucky, they overblock the first swing, causing your second swing to have an even bigger opening.  While the one shot example I've listed off is a 2 shot series you can basically arbitrarily chain shots together in order to accomplish the same thing.  A 3 shot version of the same idea would be to go quadrant II (high right), quadrant I (high left), quadrant 4 (low right) or shoulder, high cross, hip wrap.  I'm just talking about big ideas for now so rather then see any example as "the best thing ever" just try to absorb the concept.  Generally speaking if your first shot is on the right side your second shot should be on the left (unless we're discussing the second style of combo).  If your first shot is high your second shot should be low, yesterday I was able to repeatedly land a (missed) should shot into a leg sweep.  The person responded to the shoulder pick by raising their shield they left their lower half open making the leg sweep a sure thing. (Bait and Switch)

Overwhelm

The second combo strategy is about forcing your way through a person's defense.  Rather then try to give your opponent bad information by throwing to one side and then the other you're more likely to target the same zone repeatedly with just minor changes to your shots or your shot placement.  With a red weapon a common strategy for this is to go for the shield side shoulder twice in a row.  The first shot is simply thrown to swat the shield down, while the second shot is designed to get the kill.  The beauty of doing this shot with a red is that so long as there is sufficient force on both swings even if you fuck up the combo you can still have broken the shield.  A similar sort of technique with a florentine set is to instead target your opponents sword (something I normally rail against) with one hand, only to immediately follow up with the other hand.  If you can pin their weapon, or knock it down you can then bypass their guard by following up with a shot immediately.  That particular strategy to beat a person's sword arm is almost uniquely a setup that's granted by fighting florentine, as with any other weapon set you don't have get a second swing after you pin their weapon.  A one handed version of this shot is to strike at a person's hand outside their guard in order to get them to pull their guard out.  Once you've thrown that shot a number of times, if your opponent does not fully return to guard, then you'll have an available shot at that arm.  Other versions of this particular tactic can involve deliberately missing a shot in order to mis-portray your range, only to then throw the exact same shot but at your maximum reach.  To execute that shot simply choke up on your weapon for the first swing then pull your hand down towards the pommel for the second swing.  There's a lot more you can do to increase your range.  If you're curious check out the book of rift on page 50 under cheating with range.  I'm not sure I've yet written that out somewhere else... so perhaps another time :-P.  You can also throw a shot to a target location (like their weapon) and then throw the same shot but turn your wrist (turn a slash into a half wrap) to bypass the angle of their guard (turning a shot on their weapon into a half-wrap onto their arm).  This works especially well if a person thinks you don't actually know how to throw that kind of shot.

Outsmart 

The third strategy for a combo is to feint in one direction and then move in another direction.  It's as though you followed the first strategy without actually throwing the first shot.  This is a higher level skill relative to the other two strategies, but if you can convincingly threaten/feint shots it's also infinitely safer because you aren't worried about being exposed.  One of the perhaps more obvious examples of this was recently taught to some Norcalians by Bhakdar in his tutorials on feinting.  I think he called it the body feint, but even if he didn't... that's what it is.  When you move to engage your opponent you shift your body weight in one direction - you lean that way, you look that way, you move your arms in that direction and then - you throw a shot to the other side.  One example I can think of from a florentine setup is to feint a wrap with your right hand (usually against a right handed sword and board fighter) while sliding to the right.  Once the person reacts to this movement (usually by turning and stepping back the other way) you drop in a stab with your left hand towards their gut.  You can throw this same shot flatfooted but the deviousness of doing it with the method I've just described is that often your opponent will step directly into your stab so that even if you were going to miss, or not have enough force for the stab in the first place, you'll wind up having enough force and good placement simply because of their movement.  If all you do is plant that stab and move to the right your opponent may do the rest of the work for you.

Bait and Switch

Bait and switch is the idea that you set someone up for one swing knowing in advance that you won't necessarily take that swing, because you can also take up to 3 other target locations from that same motion or from that same starting shot.  If you step in towards someone that only really tells them that you are about to swing at them.  It may hint that you're going to go for a wrap, as that's often a good setup for a scorpion wrap (shoulder pick thrown high), a side wrap (wrap thrown wide around the shield/guard) or a booty wrap (wrap thrown under and up around a shield/guard) but without a person knowing which one you're going to throw ahead of time they are at a disadvantage.  For instance if they tilt back to absorb a shoulder wrap but I'm throwing a booty wrap instead they have just made my life much easier.  In that case instead of throwing a wrap I may even be able to just throw a flat wrap to that person's hip instead.

There is no right answer

Any way that you string a combo together is valid if it works.  Hell, even when it doesn't work in one particular instance doesn't make it a bad combo.  Sometimes you just get read when you try to do something tricky, sometimes your opponent just beats you to the punch as you start throwing shots.  Whatever the case may be, don't get discouraged if at first you don't succeed.  Putting together a combo is a matter of getting all the right component pieces that you can gather and then remixing them so that you eventually throw something your opponent hasn't seen before and doesn't know how to block.  While I've talked about the generally strategy for throwing shots, there's more to a combo then just where you strike.  A combo also takes into account your footwork which controls where you stand relative to your opponent so that you can modify the angles you get to swing at, when talking about a divide strategy if you can step right and then left quickly, you can amplify that distance between your swings to make that strategy more effective.  Timing is also a part of a combo as changing the tempo of your swings, or waiting for your opponents reaction to a certain movement can set you up for success.  Blocking, is often also part of a combo as you mix your offense and defense so that after you throw a strike you are also prepared to block, or that somehow your block comes out of your swing.  As one example if you chop a target with your right hand, thereby exposing that arm to be struck, it may be possible to flip your pommel up as the shot starts to come back, thereby turning your return from the shot into a high guard for your arm.  This in turn can become it's own bait to catch out your opponent even if, as a guard, it's not something you'd normally use.  I was watching a video a while back in which the guy teaching the class said something along the lines of "I feel like offense is a result of a person's own creative mix, because you need to be creative with offense, but for defense I can't think of a good reason to be fancy, for defense it's good to keep it simple".  I also totally stole that bit about quadrants from him as it's useful imagery.

In an ideal world you don't rely solely on one of the above strategies in the same way that you don't develop one set style.  The ultimate form of mastery is to know how to do all the things so that you can flow seamlessly between them as you discover what works best against the opponent directly in front of you.  If a person has extremely fast hands doing a divide strategy is going to get you killed while you look for an opening.  But if that opponent is slow it may be a great idea.  Against an opponent that doesn't move much trying to feint them out with a bunch of movement may just waste your energy making an outsmart strategy a poor plan, while using a divide strategy may pay larger dividends.  The reverse of course is also true with a person with fast hands.  If they're able to easily snipe your limbs when you throw at extreme angles it also probably means they'll be more active and more susceptible to feints so trying to outsmart them or get them to flinch may work better.  In the end it's up to you how you want to chain shots together.  As before it's about thinking it through so that you at least have a plan as you attempt to mix your offense up.  Since combos tend to be both relatively complex and can involve many technical shots it's often best to commit a combo to memory before you have to use it in a fight.  This means taking the time to come up with a combo and then taking the time to actually practice that combo so that you can execute on it consistently.  As with most things to become really excellent at fighting you just have to put the time in.  If you want to become a top tier fighting it involves a lot of work.  That may not be for you and it's possible to still become a good fighter without having to devote all your free time to fighting.  My goal in telling you this is not to try to get you to spend all your free time training, it's to make sure you know that you get out of fighting what you put in.  Reading this blog may help, but not if you don't practice and apply what you learn.

Stay vicious my friends.

Mind Games

The easiest way to talk about mind games is to compare them to chess. You have a set of pieces that are in place that have particular rules for how they can move. You can’t move all of them at the same time and executing an efficient strategy is about being able to set up your moves. That means being able to know in advance what you’re trying to accomplish. As you go about setting up your offense you also have to read your opponent and figure out what moves they are trying to set up. You have to respond defensively to their actions but you have to do so also without giving up on your offense. If all you do is play defense and you’re a turn behind your opponent they will eventually win simply because they are forcing you to react to them. Eventually they can control how you move by setting up credible threats. Once they’ve done this it is only a matter of time until you lose because they are able to complete their setup and checkmate the king.

Checkmate

Fighting, when taken to a high level has almost all of the same components. The “pieces” that you have to work with are your body, your limbs and your gear. There are rules that apply to your limbs that limit how far they can reach and at what angle they can swing that are built in by your physiology. How much air you have (how long you can fight), how fast you can move and your height are all set variables that you are unlikely to be able to change once a fight starts. Your weapons also have certain limitations about what they can and can’t do based on things like whether or not you can stab with them, how heavy they are and how much reach they grant you. More reach (usually) means a heavier weapon, and therefore a slower swing and return. Less reach means a faster strike but forces you to have to close before you can use it. A shorter reach also means that you can effectively fight much closer together then if you have a weapon with a lot of reach. This basic dynamic is most of what learning to fight reds effectively is about.

When you set up to fight someone you need to be able to know where all of your pieces are so that you can be realistic about what you can and can’t do effectively in the fight. You also need to be able to observe your opponent so that you can observe all of their pieces to know what they can and can’t do in the fight. After that it unravels in much the same way that chess does. You each move your body around, repositioning a weapon to more clearly prefer some shots over others, and watching them change their guard in order to adapt to the possible shots that you can take. As you do this you respond to their weapons as they position for swings. Periodically someone will swing and depending on how well a person has played chess beforehand, they’ll either swing at an opening or swing into a block. But chess doesn’t stop there. The thing that makes chess interesting is being able to think several moves ahead of your opponent. If I throw a shot at you as a florentine fighter that goes directly into a block of yours, much of the time that’s deliberate. In some cases I’m trying to tell you that you should swing at the arm I just exposed because I’m trying to get your arm out from behind your shield. In other cases I’m throwing a shot or a feint I want you to block with your shield because if you do so it creates an opening for me elsewhere.

Grandmaster

Being a good chess player (which is what I will no refer to when talking about outwitting your opponent) is always a good skill to have developed as a foam sword fighter regardless of what weapon set you’re using. But when it comes to florentine it is CRUCIAL. You absolutely cannot fight florentine without being able to bypass your opponents guard and you can’t bypass their guard if they remain in a perfect static defense a set distance away from you. You need to be able to out-footwork them to get close enough to wrap around a board or close with a red. You need to be able to outwit their sword arm so you don’t get killed by it, and you need to take aggressive offensive actions without them killing you. All non sword and board or florentine fighters have reach on their opponent which gives them a degree of safety that’s not afforded to those two classes of fighters. Sure, if a polearm isn’t careful they’ll get rushed, but one swing is very rarely going to result in them dying before that swing even finishes. A S&B fighter can also throw swings with their weapon while behind their shield, which means that they can throw swings that don’t immediately leave any openings, though in much the same way as a red fighter you can still punish them for getting out of place. A florentine fighter as absolutely NOTHING that stops someone from killing them every time they swing. Not dying is the result of your active effort to make sure that when someone throws a shot for either the arm you just threw with, or for the side of your body that you were guarding, you have to be ready to block. If you aren’t ready to block, you either die or become half dead. If you are ready to block, but guess the wrong quadrant of your body then you also die. If you guessed correctly for left vs right side, but didn’t correctly guess if the incoming shot was a shoulder pick instead of a hip wrap, you die. In short if you the person responding to the other fighters aggression, chances are good, you will be the dead one.

There's no Kill Like Overkill

What having 2 weapons does for you is it makes it much easier to make sure that you AREN’T the one who is forced to respond to your opponent, but are instead are the one setting the tempo. If you can throw the first shot, and keep throwing shots in order to make them continue to respond to your aggression, they will eventually make a mistake that you can exploit. If you’re fighting a sword and board fighter and they swing at you and miss you can often get their arm for it. If they got for a stab and miss then you are often able to guide their weapon past you, opening them up for a shoulder pick. The trick then is about being aggressive and oppressive in your application of force without also becoming reckless. This the difference between a noob just swinging wildly and a florentine fighter who engages with purpose. You should not expect every swing you throw to hit, but you should know why you threw that shot and expect to get something from it. That something doesn’t have to be a limb or a kill. That something can be the subtle manipulation of your opponent by convincing them to move a certain way which sets you up for the next shot, or that can just be a bit of information if you’ve thrown a shot safely and want to see how they react to that particular bit of aggression. Every person you fight will fight in subtly different ways, the trick is figuring out how to beat them at chess before they figure out how to beat you at chess. This is the main reason why older fighters are still so frighteningly effective. They aren’t faster than the average person on the field nor are they inherently better. Their main advantage is that because they’ve been playing chess for so many years, they are REALLY really good at it. This means that as soon as their opponent throws the first shot they instantly know where to swing in response. It means that they also rarely misread their opponent and get caught out.  As a now not-new fighter, let me also add this.  There is no hubris quite like assuming that you've hit someone, or assuming that they are dead.  Always, ALWAYS, keep swinging until you are absolutely certain that they are deceased, or until you hear them call dead.  There's nothing quite like turning your back on what you had assumed is a corpse only to then be killed by them.

Think About It

So. For the rest of your read of this blog's entries on florentine fighting think about chess. Think about swinging deliberately, about how to hit them with them hitting you, about what you have to do to bypass any particular individual’s gear. If you’re having a tough time with a fighter right now, picture them in your head. Learn how they move. Figure out all their chess pieces and think through how you would beat them. What openings to they leave in their guard? When they swing, do they overextend themselves or do they tend to go for short safe chops? If they go for shots that extend their arms past their garb, go for their arms. If they tend to go for short, safe chops, get up in their face and be the one going for wrap shots. If you are shorter than your opponent, check to see if you can get shots in around their hips or waist, especially the ass wrap. If you are much taller than your opponent look for shoulder shots and high wrap shots. Figure out how that person kills you, think about what it would take for the shots they throw not to hit you. Figure out what shots you throw on them right now that aren’t working think about what openings they have and what shots you’d need to know in order to be able to get to those openings.

Think. Florentine is not swinging mindlessly, it’s swinging deliberately, and until you get that part right no trick I can teach you will help.

Two Hands as One

I cannot possibly overstate the point that florentine is about fighting with two weapons. It seems like that should go without saying… but too many people fight using their off hand simply like a shield and never strike with it. This is not the same thing as fighting florentine, this is fighting single blue with an off hand to block with. Other people with simply flail with both swords, opting to just go full offense instead. This is also not fighting florentine. Fighting florentine means using both weapons, but doing so in harmony. It means doing everything you’d do when fighting sword and board or fighting single blue, but doing so twice. This means you can block and strike, it means you can throw a feint and a kill shot, it means you can throw things at extreme angles to pull a guard one way will then landing a shot in the other direction.

You Need Never Be Exposed

The first thing to say is that you should always be able to block. If you swing with one hand then you need to block with the other. So if you throw with your left hand then your right hand moves left in order to be able to block for that arm as you swing. Most of the time this is safe to do because your body isn’t in danger due to being out of range relative to the threat range generated by your arms. It’s important not to cross your body completely however as your right hand is the next closest target to their threat range. The goal with that block is to cut off the angle of a possible counter strike by closing out the left lane with your right hand. As with all blocks it’s best to avoid overblocking or cross too far. It’s also important to note that once your left hand returns to guard you want to move your right hand back to its neutral guard position on your right side. I have in the past seen people who simply start crossed with their guard and stay crossed. That’s a bad idea because it means that instead of having both lanes closed off you’re only protected along the left side. Similarly if you throw a shot with your right hand (like a wrap) then you shift your left hand guard to center so you can cover a counterstrike to that hand. This is mostly true against a person who can easily strike that side. If I’m fighting a sword and board fighter I may opt to leave my left hand where it started, prepared to strike at my opponent if they so much as flinch because of my first throw.

You don’t have to cover yourself only by blocking off shots or by getting a guard into place. You can also bait with an opening so long as you are aware that it’s there. There is nothing wrong with throwing a block in response to a shot that’s thrown rather than pre-emptively closing off the angle that would allow for such a shot. I’ve found that if people can’t see the block you throw they’re more likely to bite on the same block repeatedly. In some ways it’s more dangerous to block reflexively, in other ways it’s actually safer. By blocking reflexively you’re less likely to fall for feints, you’re less likely to over block and you’re going to be harder to read when it comes to another person trying to play you. On the other hand if guess wrong then you’re toast. If you block pre-emptively by cutting off the angles a person can swing into you’ve got a higher rate of success at getting the block… assuming they throw it into the area that you’ve cut off. By moving your other hands passive guard you expose that arm to being hit. But it also means that you’re telegraphing what you anticipate your opponent to do, which in turns means you’re easier to play because you’ve become predictable.

There is also such a thing as throwing a shot that’s just safe in the first place. If you’ve done enough block strike or you just have a good understanding of lanes you should be able to throw swings that don’t leave you super open. By throwing safe strikes with one hand you can negate the need to cover that hand with your other hand. If you do this effectively it means that you can throw a strike with each hand instead of just throwing a strike with one hand and then having to block with the other hand. This is generally done by 1) throwing a shot that isn’t overextended and 2) tweaking your wrist to cut off the angle that you left open when you bypassed one of your opponent’s lanes.

Don't Get Stabbed

Part of the defensive game is also not falling prey to stabs as a florentine fighter. Since you don’t have an entire plank of foam/wood between you and your opponent's weapons learning how to make your body small so that it’s less of a target, and learning how to block stabs correctly is hugely important. A good standard defense involves keeping one arm in front of your body to hand match their primary point of offense, this becomes your primary point of defense. The next piece is to keep your torso tilted so that the area that’s closest to their point of offense is matched with your primary defensive line. This then lets you keep the rest of your torso pulled back and away from their primary offensive line. When a person goes to stab for your torso the front hand should give you plenty of time to deflect the stab off its target, either to the outside of your defensive line or past your body if they’ve managed to break your defensive line. If the front hand fails to get the block then you’ve got the second hand to be able to also catch the block. In most cases you’ll only have enough time to cut off the gap between your left and right defensive lanes. Many times this will wind up becoming a punch block put you could also still theoretically guide the stab past your body. Whenever possible getting your opponent to miss by sliding a stab past your body is preferable. The further out you can draw an opponent's weapon out the more time you’ll have to hit them and the longer it will take them to return to guard. In many cases having a person fail to stab you is one of the best setups you can get.

Opening Them Up

Assuming that your defensive game is on point you also need to have some kind of offensive game. In most cases your opponent will not have any immediate openings in their defense (or at the very least you should not rely on them being there). That means that in order to hit them you’ll have to find a way to circumvent the guard that they presently have up. Depending on the gear that they’re using there’s a number of different openings that are often present or at least target zones that are easier to hit. When fighting against a larger, heavier board like a door shield that you’d see on a line your go to shots will be trying to beat their arm or getting wrap shots around their board. Typically you’ll be looking for either a side wrap or a high wrap. These kinds of boards are usually not vulnerable to stabs as they’re typically held in front of the person. Instead, use the closing 45 degree angle step 2 in order to engage their shield side which will give you a good wrap. Alternately if they’re aggressive, simply wait for them to move their shield off their body and use a side wrap to bypass their guard. This is also effective if that person tries to run you over. In order to beat their hand (assuming a right handed fighter vs a right handed fighter where you are in neutral stance) use your left hand to break the line of their sword arm either by moving your hand out or by taking a stutter step (short half step) to get your body out of line. If they throw for your arm in response, block with your left hand and then counterblow immediately with your right. If they don’t respond then throw a shot with your left hand. Assuming they go to counterblow without blocking then block with your right hand as your left hand follows through. Assuming that they first pull their guard out to block then throw with your right hand for that target zone while immediately bringing your left hand back into a guard. I’ll get more into chess matches of that type later.

If a person is using a round shield your best target zones are going to be wrap shots coming in at 45 degree angles rather then at vertical angles. So instead of swinging 1 to 5 you’d instead swing 2 to 8. (Take a look at the nearest clock to set those angles in your head). Wraps thrown at these angles are more likely to bypass their guard. Round shields are additionally vulnerable to left handed stabs (low and high) as well as a right handed hip-wrap. In most cases deliberately trying to beat their main hand is going to end poorly because they’re 1) less likely to actually have it leave guard and 2) trying to get a shot that’s not there is more likely to get you killed instead. These are often strap shields but aren’t required to be… the shots still work regardless. Hunt the shoulders and hips.

Punch shields tend to be more vulnerable to manipulation in ways that a giant board or a strap shield are not. The easiest way to bypass this defense is to use your weapons for offensive shield manipulation. Simple stab at a section of the shield that would be marked by a compass (N, S, E, W). A properly placed stab at any of these locations will open the target up to a follow up shot. An stab to the East side of the shield will pop it open, leaving the torso region exposed, this stab is done with the right hand. A stab to the West side will close the shield on your opponent making it harder for them to swing since the board is in their way. This also move is away from covering their side making a follow up half wrap possible. A stab to the South section of a shield will tip it forward, allowing a person to follow up with a shoulder wrap on that side. This can be completed with either hand though keep whatever hand is more useful for throwing that followup wrap shot should be saved for the wrap. A stab to the north side of the board (which is more dangerous, make sure not to just ramp off their shield and stab them in the face) can be used to open up the bottom of their shield, letting you get a hip wrap. The shot is safer to throw with your right hand, and then followed with a left handed hip scoop under their guard. You can throw the reverse, but unless your positioning is on point that’s an excellent way to get yourself railed in the side. Fighters who use punch shield also tend to move them around a lot, so look for those moments to exploit a weakness when they move. Fighters who use punch shields are also, often, more willing to put their arms out to strike, so look for opportunities to hit their arm when they are throwing or returning from a shot.

When fighting a polearm the main difficulty is simply getting close enough to hit them. Once you’re in range just make sure you keep the striking part of their weapon away from you as you throw for torso shots. In generally I’ve found that you’re better off striking at opposite sides / heights in rapid succession in order to prevent them from blocking as you close. So throw right side high then left side hip. Avoid throwing right side high then left side high as it’s easy for a polearm to simply shift their weapon back and forth with that defense.

When fighting another florentine fighter look for the common errors to see if you can exploit them. If they lean over when they fight, go for a shot to the back. If they over aggress and don’t bother to watch their footwork, wait for them to commit then outmaneuver them and get in a counterblow. If they swing with both hands wildly then play defense and snipe out their arms. If they have a wide guard then go for a stab, most florentine fighters are terrible at blocking stabs to the chest. In particular if you can get some angle on it, so instead of coming straight in, it comes in off angle you’re more likely to get it to stick.

Plenty more to do...

There's plenty more to go over from a fundamental set of shots to have decent shot selection, to combos, feints and mind games.  But this is already a long enough read.  I'll put together some more of it later and have updates next week.  I may also try to inject images into this later.  Failing that you can always check back with the work in progress this is coming from (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JiWh4fvJK-3p-GQTWFiwSS098yJ2ZN0cvZIo_A9siGc/edit?usp=sharing).  See you all next week.

4 Steps, Part 2, 45 degree Angle Steps

If you aren’t familiar with the idea of a line/lane or a box, go ahead and take 5 minutes to look up what that means in the context of fighting. (I've also written about it here)  The extremely simplified version is that a box is the area bounded by your shoulders and your hips (the 1-shot kill zone) and a line is the plane on which your static guard protects.  The basic gist of winning a fight is a matter of breaking another person’s line to either kill the hand that guards them or to get that line off center so that it no longer protects a person’s box, which in turn gives you a kill shot.  You’ll find that this idea is super important in the amtgard (been spelling that wrong for years…) and is starting to become more of a thing in other versions of the sport.  Peter the quick has lots of good tutorials on working and controlling those lines if that’s something you want to learn more about.  

Step Diagrams

In addition to the 4 steps that were taught in the first training manual there’s an additional 4 steps that I’ll go into here.  The previous steps were all versions of moving or responding to combat in 90 degree increments.  Having a good sense of those is important but none of those maneuvers will help you break your opponent's line, or deal with an opponent breaking your lines.  To do that you need to know the 45 degree angle steps.  

The basic 4 steps look something like this:

And you can look them up in the training manual.  Now we’ll talk about the next 4 steps which look something like this:

45 degree angle steps

In an effort to make my life easier I’ve labelled the steps 1 through 4 so I’ll rotate through them in that order.  All of these scenarios assume a right handed fighter fighting another right handed fighter, typically as a florentine fighter against sword and board.  If you find that you are a lefty fighting a righty or vice versa, simply switch your feet and hands so that your offhand matches their sword arm while your dominant hand matches your back foot.

Offense

The first step is designed to bypass the line created by their sword arm.  Generally speaking this is a risky engage because you put your entire body close to harm in order to get into this position.  Against a sword and board fighter however this often puts you at a significant advantage.  If they don’t move you can easily bypass their sword’s guard with your left hand while defending your swinging arm with your right hand.  If they see the opening that you’ve created by breaking this line you can instead block with your left hand and then throw a counterblow to their arm with your right hand.  The step mechanics are pretty straightforward.  From neutral footwork take your front (left) foot and step it 45 degrees out and forward in front of you.  This will briefly put you into an awkward position as your feet are overextended.  This first step is the stagger step, typically it’s done as a half step because a full step would set you completely off balance.  Then, simply allow your back foot to slide back into a neutral stance.

The second step is the one that I generally prefer when fighting sword and board fighters as it takes me closer to the outside of their swing arc, thereby reducing the effectiveness of their swings, while simultaneously using their own shield to guard me from some of the shots they might otherwise have access to.  This step is typically done with the intention of throwing a wrap shot with your back (right) hand.  In this case your back foot takes a straight step along the 45 degree angle it’s already lined up with.  Once your foot has landed you’ll want to allow it to turn so that it faces the same direction as your opponent while allowing your back foot to rotate so that it is now pointed at a 45 degree angle to the left instead of straight at your opponent.  This one step should be sufficient to keep you lined up without throwing you off balance.

Defense

The third and fourth steps are defensive steps designed to react to an opponent who is closing on you, often by doing either the first or second step.  The third step counters the second step by unbreaking the lane from your left arm.  As a counter move for a person moving in towards you it’s often done with a wrap shot for your right arm at the same time you throw a block with your left arm.  The wrap shot will shift your shoulders (per the arm exercise earlier) which will get your front hand back so that it’s in a better position to absorb an incoming wrap shot.  The step is done mechanically so that you take your front foot and pull it back and out at a 45 degree angle.  Once you’ve taken a full step back you allow your front foot to rotate so that it is now facing your opponent.

The fourth step counters the first step and similarly involves throwing a right handed wrap against a sword and board fighter.  This step is also a stagger step in which you take a half step backwards at a 45 degree angle.  You can generate the speed for the step by pushing off with your front foot.  Once you’ve repositioned your back foot you’ll want to allow your front foot to be pulled back into a neutral stance closer to your body.  Typically when a person engages with the first step they’re trying to break the line on your left arm.  By stepping back into line with the opponent (or close to it) you close that lane back off.  Your opponent meanwhile has stepped their body closer to you which leaves them susceptible to wrap shots.  If they were the one to engage then they probably also intending to swing at you meaning that once you see the shot coming and can block it you have the freedom to swing as well without having to worry about losing your arm in the process.

Range Control

Range control is your ability to effectively control the distance between you and your opponent.  This starts concretely with where your feet are vs where your opponents feet are and then begins to take into account details from the waist up.  Range control comes down to being able to measure/control your own threat range relative to that of your opponents.  Your threat range is the area in which you can quickly swing.  For most people this is the length of their weapon when swung to full extension plus a single step.  There are ways to improve your reach that I’ll get into later but for now get that picture in your head.  The range that you threaten also includes the full range of the arc of every swing that you can take, so it’s not JUST the maximum distance you can swing but also the left and right of the peak of your arc.  For most blue weapons this is just a normal strike, but for reds this often involves “casting”, IE, throwing one handed swings that lose speed/force and gain a significant increase in reach.  Knowing a person’s threat range is supremely important when fighting florentine because literally every support weapon will out range you.  Knowing by how much is the difference between skating safely outside of their threat range and being skewered.

Swing Arc

Range control is done primarily with a person’s feet but also takes into account where a person is vertically (as controlled by how much they crouch/stand tall) as well as the position of their arms.  Your maximum reach for any weapon will always be directly out in front of you.  Additionally the most force you can generate will always be in the center or the apex of the arc.  The more you go to either side of the center the more of the maximum force you can deliver is being given up.  This becomes important later but just table that in your mind for now.

So your range for a shot at arm level is going to be greater than your range for a shot above or below your arm level.  If you want to get more reach vertically you can do so by either standing up more straight or by crouching lower.  As previously mentioned a red user can throw a one handed shot to extend these arcs, making it so that by giving up more of their power they gain reach instead.  This actually becomes an excellent opportunity to block, but more on that later.

Coiling  

Range control can also be done with the positioning of a person’s body.  By starting with your body coiled, IE, all joints slightly bent, you will get slightly more range then you would if you started with your body at full extension.  For those who don’t believe me there’s a simple way of testing this.  Set yourself sword distance away from an opponent and set your stance so that one hand is forward and one hand is back.  Without moving your feet, or rotating your back into the opponent's range, place your sword as though you were going to swing it with your forward hand.  Now repeat with your back hand.  What you’ll find is that the back hand has 2 to 3 inches on the front hand in terms of range that it can safely deliver.  The reason for this is that because your front hand is already at extension it’s range is only the range of your weapon plus the range of your arm.  Your back hand meanwhile is coiled so it’s range is the range of your weapon, plus the range of your arm, plus the range of your shoulder joint, plus the range you get from pulling one shoulder back to put the other shoulder forward, plus any range you can get from your back knee.  With your front hand engaging your shoulder joint means breaking your line and giving your opponent a shot at your back.  Engaging your back knee while swinging with your front hand doesn’t do anything, and if you engage your front knee for reach then you’re bending over which again exposes your back to being struck.  That’s a practical example.  Here’s an easier one - sit down, take on hand, put it into a fist and reach out as far as is comfortable.  Next, using the other hand in a fist simply punch into the air.  You’ll notice that one fist is now further in front then the other fist.  If you do this backwards you’ll notice that it still works.  Both of your arms have the same reach but when you punch you pull the forward hand back slightly so as to give your new forward hand more distance.  This is just body mechanics but it’s important for understanding your own reach as well as your opponents.  This is also an example of transferring momentum - by taking energy from your extended right side (for example) and shifting it to your left hand (for example) your left hand is able to move faster and go farther than it would have been able to if lock up the right side of your body and prevent it from moving at all.

Putting it all together

Range control then is broken down into three basic pieces that you control - the placement of your feet, the positioning of your body (crouched, standing tall, leaning forward, leaning backwards) and the placement of your arms (forward vs backwards) - as well as a few things you don’t control - the length of your arms and legs, the distance you can make in one step, and the length of the weapon you are currently holding.  There are things that you can do that will increase the distance that you can make in one step through training, but at any given moment that will be a static attribute.  You can also of course change the gear that you’re using but moment to moment that is also a static attribute.  The only exception to the last bit about gear is that how you hold a weapon can increase/decrease its range.  By choking up on a weapon you’ll lose reach but gain power and speed for your swings and blocks.  When in close and grinding on an opponent this is a great thing to do.  By pulling your grip down towards the pommel you’ll lose some power and speed but get additional range.  One of the easier feints is to miss a shot while choked up on a weapon to show an opponent that they are out of range, only to then hold a weapon down by the pommel and strike them easily.

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]

About damn time...

Whelp.  I think I put it off long enough.  I find that trying to avoid caring about things makes creative works easier to get off the ground.  It stops you from obsessing over how imperfect they are and without that you don't get started.  So here goes.  Doing it badly rather then well so that I've moved at all.  The introduction to the florentine manual I'm going to start writing.  Been a long enough time coming.

Intro

I chose to specialize into being a florentine fighter over any other particular weapon set because it was what I enjoyed the most.  I'm not here to make any kind of argument about it's superiority over other weapon sets.  Everything, contextually, has it's own sweet spot, where a particular weapon set or style is just the thing that's needed.  What I'll be talking about is my own experience with that thing and the ways in which I, and other fighters that I have observed, have used it.  I'm going to start by assuming that anyone who is reading this already has a basic grasp of the fundamentals like footwork, shot placement, techniques for generating speed and torque, feints, blocks, offensive parries, combos, tempo, momentum, etc.  For the most part I'll be talking about florentine fighter on a higher more theoretical level, though I'll try to generate concrete examples whenever I'm able to, hell I may even sprinkle some basics in as I go through things.  Having never written about a particular style in any real detail I'm not as practiced giving this particular set of advice, and I'm not yet sure how it's going to be organized.  That will all just have to come with time.  I'll also mention that I'm going to talk about many different kinds of florentine fighting, which design decisions each one takes (where you place your hands, feet, torso and weapons) and how those design decisions grant strength and weakness in each style.  In the end it's going to be up to each person to learn how to develop the style that makes the most sense for them rather then the particular style that is "best".

Rock, Paper, Scissors and Aggression

There's 3 basic engage ranges that you'll find yourself fighting in, regardless of the weapon set you're using.  Short range (grinding range), mid range (weapon range) and long range (picking / sniping range).  At short range you're close enough to touch your opponent and are prepared to throw swings that become almost impossible to block.  Mid range is where most people fight at, which is nominally close enough to hit your opponent with your weapon consistently while staying far enough away that they can't close with you.  Long range is out of weapon reach, in which you use your body mechanics and footwork to slide briefly into your own maximum reach, take a shot, and then slide back out of reach.  Most of the design decisions for a style start here in deciding which range you are most comfortable at.  If you find that you don't want to get close to someone then it's best to learn how to keep your distance, and how to extend your body in order to land those long distance shots.  If you decide you'd rather be up in someone's face then you need to learn how to get close without getting killed, and you'll need a set of weapons to match that style that won't get crossed or catch on your opponents gear when you do close.  If you decide that you want to focus on mid range then you need to get really good at judging distances and having impeccable footwork as your success or failure will then depend on your ability to keep your opponent at the right distance from you.

Finally you have to decide if you're (generally speaking) the aggressor, or generally speaking the defender.  As the aggressor you get to choose the tempo of the fight by forcing the enemy to respond to your attacks, providing you with ample opportunities to read your opponent, to fake them out, and to generally mess with their mind.  If you choose to be on the defensive, as a florentine fighter, this means that anytime a person leaves the smallest opening your lightning quick reflexes immediately take that shot.  Choosing to fight as an aggressive fighter exposes you to danger because every time you swing you leave yourself at least a little bit open, and an opponent may take those opportunities when you aggress to take limbs or your torso.  The advantage being that since you are on the offense your opponent will have potentially many more chances to make a mistake and miss a block then you will.    If you choose to play defensively it means that you give up setting the tempo of the fight and you have to respond to whatever your opponent does.  This means being patient and blocking until they make a mistake, but this also means you may have to block repeatedly before you're ever given an opening, and if you miss one of those blocks, you'll be dead before you've even swung in retaliation.  Both sides have their merits and it's more about what suites you best.

I personally have fallen into being an aggressive fighter.  When I first started fighting I was a brawler, an in close, up in the grind fighter.  I used short swords that allowed me to stab and slash VERY efficiently at close range.  They were weighted to be heavy on purpose because they were built out of red cores.  The end result was that I could one hand block, or sometimes even swat away enemy polearms and when faced with a sword and board fighter could often either slap their weapon away before coming down on their arm, or just crush through their blocks outright.  I had much faster feet back then.  At this point in my fighting career I've transitioned to a midrange fighter who uses two bats and works angles in order to light a person up from midrange.  I use the skills I developed as a point blank range fighter in order to counter aggress when someone happens to get to close to me and I can't sustain the range I want to.  I am currently learning how to fight at long range but this tends to require a patience that's not really consistent with my own nature :-P.

The best style is...

None.  While learning to do one thing well is the first task of anyone choosing to go down this particular path, the endgame of learning any form of florentine is learning how to blend short, medium and long range combat with thoughtful aggression or defense.  Being able to get in close and grind on an opponent is a very useful skill set, but it's not terribly useful in a line fight.  Being able to fight at mid range and control distance is great when people are on either side of you, but won't protect you if someone winds up trying to bulldoze you.  Learning how to snipe at a person using your reach is an excellent skill set, but it only matters if that person doesn't outrange you.  For any particular skill set you pick up there's going to be pitfalls.  There is no one size fits all style that is "the best".  The best style uses all three ranges, and chooses to play offense or defense as the situation demands.

As an example.  Suppose that you're fighting outnumbered.  Let's say 10 people who are not as skilled as you are, and for the most part not extremely aggressive or well coordinated.  Let's say to start out with a few of them are injured (say at the end of a battle).  A group of 3, immediately rush you, once they discover that you're alone.  In this situation you want to go on the defensive ASAP and throw as many long range shots as you can to try and get rid of some arms or legs as they close.  Let's assume you get an arm on one guy and a leg on the other, but they're still charging (the 2 with legs).  Now you transition to mid range combat as the two start to close on you, picking off the guy who you previously armed first before dealing with the last guy.  The last charging guy is now alone, and perhaps they aren't used to fighting in close, so you counter aggress by moving into them, surprising them with your aggression and causing them to get tangled when you get in close.  In that few span of seconds you've gone from long range to mid range to short range, and you've gone from defense to offense.  Now you have 7 people left, 1 of whom is alone, and let's say 5 who are clustered near some legged teammates and one guy who is now showing up late to the 3v1 fight.  At this moment you go aggressively after the person who was coming to help and attack them at whatever range is convenient, quickly shredding them before they have the opportunity to get back to their teammates or the guy you legged earlier.  Now you can go aggressive on the person who you legged as the rest of their teammates attempt to get close, hauling their legged teammates.  Fight that legged guy at long range but go on the offense.  Once you've won it's down to you against the remaining 5, let's say 2 of those people are legged and 3 of them are still standing.  Let's say one of them is a polearm.  You'll want to rotate around the group quickly, basically trying to keep away from the polearm.  Play defensively but go for any long range shots you can land, alternately killing people who are down an arm or executing a person with two down legs as they're moving.  As soon as the polearm is exposed (not covered on both sides), go aggressive, and try to take them out.  They are now down to 4, or perhaps 3 if you've landed a good shot.  At this point (usually) the people with legs will rush you.  Now you get to play defense at mid range again, moving backwards and letting whoever runs fastest get dead first.  Assuming that the polearm had legs you've now just got 2 legged people left.  Go back to playing offense at long range.  Rotate your enemy and go for leg snipes when they put both legs down.

Viola.  The battle is won, but it has demanded that at times you go on the offensive and choose to take the fight to a person who is alone, because for that split second in the battle it's the best chance you're going to get to fight at good odds.  When that moment happens it's important to aggress and take the advantage that you have because if you don't then the chance passes and you have to fight more people at once.  You've had to play defense, because, since they outnumber you, you've had to avoid fighting them all at the same time.  You've had to work at all ranges.  You get up close and personal to the people who don't know how to respond to your aggression, and when you rushed that polearm.  You fought at long range when your opponents didn't have the legs required to catch you, and you fought at mid range when you had to hold them off and they did have the legs to catch up.  Fighting florentine well is learning how to eventually do all of these things.  That having been said, find the one that feels most natural to you first and learn that.  After you've got one thing down well you can start to fill in the gaps.  Most people will have a personal preference for the kind of fighter that they prefer to be that's just inborn.  Fight the way that makes sense to you because it's what you'll be best at, just don't forget to learn the other stuff, especially the things you're bad at, because sooner or later you'll be forced to use them.