Lessons in Sabre, Singlestick, Sabre & Bayonet, and Sword Feats / or, How to use a cut and thrust sword

by J. M. Waite

Rough and heavy hitting should be avoided: it destroys quickness; greater effect is given to a hit by pace than by force.

A hard hitter has to brace himself together before attacking; he thus prepares, and while doing so may easily be hit.

If his attack is guarded, he cannot recover and guard a return so readily as he ought to do.

His returns are not given so quickly as they should be, for after guarding, he is almost certain to draw his hand back in order to make them with greater force.

As he hits, so he will guard; heaviness will pervade all his movements; therefore, if you deceive his guard, he cannot make a second one with sufficient quickness to stop a good attack, as he will throw too much force into the first.

Slowness is the natural result of heaviness, quickness that of lightness; therefore, if you wish to become a bon tireur, cultivate and practise light play.

In trying to play light, you must not get into the habit of making snatching hits by which you would only scratch your adversary. However lightly you deliver them, let them be so given that with a sharp sword they would be effective, and your points fixed so that they would penetrate.

CUT versus THRUST.

Some writers on the sword, acting on the presumption that the sword must be elevated in order to gain force before cutting, have asserted that the point traverses two-thirds less distance when thrusting than when cutting. If this were correct, the less use made of the cut the better, as a good swordsman would most certainly give a time cut on the arm or deliver a thrust on a man while he was thus preparing to cut.

I once saw a sketch drawn to prove this assertion, in which the man thrusting was depicted with his point lowered to a line with his adversary’s breast instead of being level with his eye, while the man who was cutting, and should have had his sword similarly placed, had his point drawn back and raised about two feet above his head, a distance greater than I should draw the point of my sword back were I going to cut the carcase of a sheep in two at one stroke.