Basic footwork Footwork in Destreza is fairly intuitive. There are: Advancing steps: fight foot goes forwards, left foot follows. Retreating steps: left goes backwards, right foot follows. Traversing steps: if going right, the right foot moves to the right and the left foot follows. If going to the left, either foot can go left and the other foot follows. Compass steps: like traversing steps but you pivot on your right foot a little to face the opponent. Diagonal steps forw

Introduction This is a practical guide to Destreza, the Spanish art of fencing. There are a lot of articles online about the history of Destreza so I won't go into any detail here, other than to say that the La Verdadera Destreza (the true skill) dates back to around 1569 with two primary authors Jerónimo Sánchez de Carranza and his student Luis Pacheco de Narváez. There were several other authors over the next 150-200 years. I am primarily working from the work of Francis

Variations of this question pop up on Reddit all the time: can I learn fencing by myself? Can I learn sabre or rapier from a book? There aren't any clubs near me… etc. Let's pick this question apart as it could have several meanings: Someone wants to learn fencing from scratch, by themselves, with no other people, and no one teaching them other than videos and books. Someone already has a base in fencing (perhaps longsword or sabre) but wants to independently learn a new syst

This is my current approach to using 15th-century German fencing theory. You may have a different interpretation—and indeed, the...

Single sword (Spada Sola), or the sword in one hand, is the foundational weapon in the Bolognese tradition (well, it can be debated that...