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Showing posts from March, 2016

A few thoughts around timing

"The second cause is, the lack of the knowledge in due observance of the four actions, the which we shall call bent, spent, lying spent, and drawing back. These actions every man fights upon, whether they are skillful or unskillful, he that observes them is safe, he that observes them not, is in continual danger of every thrust that shall be strongly made against him." - George Silver, Paradoxes of Defense This is a follow on from  this  post concerning timing, in which towards the end I highlight some thoughts on the "safe" times to attack your opponent from various manuals. After studying a range manuals I've come to a broad conclusion that is that this is essentially to do with Active versus Passive movement. With most manuals advocating observing when "passive" movement is taking place and attacking your opponent then. This can be summarized as "any movement your opponent makes which is not offending you is a time to attack" or as Gig