Half serious shitpost about blindeurs.
Quick joke explanation below, grab your baguettes, your berets and an épée for a quick explanation:
So, there is this really good book about the tactical element of épée in sport fencing called “L’esprit de l’épée, une approche tactique et mentale” which is giving you a tactical framework for épée fencing.
Okay, cool, but you are a HEMA shitposter, why should I care?
So, within the book, there is a graph that looks a bit like this:
Fencers lie on two axis:
- défenseur <> attaquant / defender <> attacker
The attaquant being the one initiating the attack with his blade, how surprising is that? While the défenseur is reacting to it with a counter attack, a parry riposte or something along those lines with his blade, is it starting to sound familiar to vor and nach in the Liechtenauerian tradition?
- ouvreur <> fermeur / opener <> closer
The ouvreur is the one deciding from where the exchange will unfold, most of the time by closing the distance between both fencers and entering the distance d’action, does it make sense? It should not.
The distance d’action is one of two options depending on which one is the biggest, either the distance from which a fencer can attack (distance d’attaque) or the distance from which the opponent can attack (distance de danger), the tallest fencer ever with the biggest sword ever’s distance d’action will always be his distance d’attaque while for the smallest fencer with the smallest sword ever’s distance d’action will always be his distance de danger. Basically, the donut of death and bagel of opportunities in HEMA depending on where you stand.
The fermeur is a lazy bastard who is waiting for or inviting his opponent to get to the distance d’action. They will rarely go forward.
If you take those two axis and combine them, you get:
- défenseur - fermeur blindeur the tank/fortress
- défenseur - ouvreur presseur Queen - Under Pressure 2 Electric Boogaloo
- attaquant - fermeur contreur the counter-er
- attaquant - ouvreur conquérant the conqueror
Which looks like:
And you get this game of chess where you know where the opponent lies on that and try to adapt and overcome it or you end up with no fencing at all.
Contreur waiting for the Conquérant to enter his distance d’attaque, colorized, circa 2010.
You - Hold on Peasant™, so you are saying that the blindeur is a passive fencer, right?
Me - Yup.
You - So what happens when two of them fence each other?
Me- The joke I’ve been explaining since the beginning.
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk but I don’t have a good conclusion for that one, the book should get released in English someday so I won’t ruin all the content within it with bad explanations.
