2. The Sliding Cut, common throughout the East. In this movement the elbow and wrist are held stiff and the blow is given from the strong muscles of the back and shoulder, nearly ten times larger than the muscles of the arm, while the whole force and weight of the body are thrown in. Hence the people of India use small hilts with mere crutch-guards, which confine the hand and prevent the play of the wrist; the larger grip required for the Chopping Cut only lessens the cutting force. The terrible effect of these cuts is well known.
3. The Thrust Cut, with the curved (“Damascus”) blade; a combination of point and edge, the latter being obliquely thrust forward and along the body aimed at. This movement is a favourite on horseback, when speed supplies the necessary force, which can hardly be applied on foot. It must be parried like a Point.
4. The Whip Cut; in which the arm and elbow are kept almost motionless, and the blow is delivered from the wrist. This is the principal Cut allowed in my system; it is capable of sufficient effect upon the opponent whilst it does not uncover the swordsman who uses it.
5. The Drawing or Reverse Cut, which will be explained in the following pages; it is the reverse of the “Thrust Cut.”
[12] This fact is well known to the Manuel, which says, “Des deux engagements celui de droite par la position de la main a le plus d’application.” It therefore makes all the Cuts and Parries begin from Tierce. This elementary rule is not recognized by the ‘Infantry Sword Exercise’ (p. 32); “your defence is always more effective in the left (Carte) than in the right (Tierce).” Such I assert is the case with the foil and rapier, certainly not with the sabre or broadsword. On horseback the left is of course the weak side.
[13] Used in this sense the “small-sword” is the triangular weapon, the rapier is the flat, or rather the bi-convex blade.
[14] In p. 29 of the ‘Infantry Sword Exercise’ we read of “a circular motion of the blade, termed the Parry;” but the latter word must not be limited to this sense.
[15] The only allusion to it is the “shifting of the leg,” in p. 30.
[16] See the ‘Infantry Sword Exercise,’ p. 31.
[17] In France the false edge is hardly known; such blades are called à deux tranchants; it is the Italian schiena or chine, mezzo-filo, or falso opposed to vero taglio, and the German, rückschneide or kurzeschneide, thus distinguished from the lange-schneide.