FYI: This post is mostly just for fun and shouldn’t be taken seriously 🙂

It’s easy to be a bad fencer. It’s an opportunity that is open to everyone and we all start there. But German- and Italian-style fencers seem to be bad in different ways.

German fencers think about everything in terms of openings and attacks.

They always see an opening (because it is impossible for all lines of attack to simultaneously be closed) and a bad German fencer is always attacking that opening.

• Even when he is being threatened, he attacks the opening.
• Even when he is not constraining his opponent, he attacks the opening.
• Even when attacking the opening means he will surely be hit in the same moment or the instant afterwards, he attacks the opening.

And when two bad German fencers fight each other, they both get hit 90% of the time.

• I attacked you and you counterattacked and we doubled? You were being suicidal – you should have parried.
• You attacked me and I counterattacked and we doubled? Master Liechtenauer says parries are for chumps, so I don’t do them. Maybe if I do my Meisterhau faster or harder next time it will work.

Italian fencers think about everything in terms of guards, tempi, provocations, and constrainment.

They are constantly analysing the guards looking for ways to provoke and constrain their opponent, and a bad Italian fencer is constantly surprised by simple actions defeating their complex plans and honest attacks defeating their feints and deceptions.

• I constrained you, but you just stabbed me anyway? How dare you?!
• I parried, but you just continued your attack without letting me riposte? How dare you?!
• I tried to deceive you, but you attacked me directly and hit me? How dare?!!
• I was running through a play from Marozzo on autopilot and you didn’t react exactly the way Marozzo described and we doubled? How dare?!!1!

When two bad Italian fencers fence each other, they feel
pretty good about themselves until they both finally decide to attack for real and hit each other simultaneously.