In cut 2 ([Fig. 29]), lunge out and cut at your opponent’s right cheek, with your arm straight and knuckles up. The natural guard for this is the high upright guard, with the elbow well in to the right side, the arm bent and turned slightly outwards, and wrist and knuckles turned well to the right.
In cut 3 ([Fig. 30]), make free use of the wrist, bringing your blade round in the smallest space possible, and come in on your man’s ribs with your arm straight and knuckles turned downwards.
To stop this cut you may either use a low hanging guard, brought across to the left side, the right hand about on a level with the left shoulder, or a low upright guard, with the hilt just outside the left thigh.
The hanging guard is the safer one of the two, as it is difficult in practice to get low enough with the hilt in the upright guard to stop a low cut of this kind.
In cut 4 ([Fig. 31]), cut at your adversary’s right ribs, and keep your knuckles up, and when he attacks you on this line, stop him with the hanging guard held low on your right side, or with the upright guard, with arm, wrist, and knuckles turned outwards.
Fig. 31.—Cut 4 and guard.
Cuts 5 and 6 are made like cuts 3 and 4 respectively, and must be met in all cases by a low hanging guard. It is well to practise these low hanging guards continually, as a man’s legs are perhaps the most exposed part of his body.
The point when used is given by a simple straightening of the arm on the lunge, the knuckles being kept upwards, and, in ordinary play, the grip on the stick loosened, in order that it may run freely through the hilt, and thus save your opponent from an ugly bruise, a torn jacket, or possibly a broken rib. When the knuckles are kept up in giving point, the sword hand should be opposite the right shoulder. But the point may also be delivered with the knuckles down, in which case the hand should be opposite to the left shoulder.