Swetnam Fencing 5: Sword and Dagger Inside Parry

The defense gets a little tricky when your opponent throws a thrust to your body. The parry isn't exactly intuitive. You'll be tempted to turn your dagger point down and push the attack to the outside, but that turns out to be too slow; as often as not you'll just guide the attack into your belly.

Instead, you should bring your dagger hilt down and to the inside while keeping the point high. This will push the attack away to your right.


At the same time, raise your sword hilt until it's over your head, with your knuckles turned upward, and thrust down at your opponent's head, body, or sword arm.


Swetnam calls this thrust a mountanto, and it's just about his favorite attack. You'll need to practice it quite a bit, though, as it's not really a natural motion, and you can easily tangle yourself up if you haven't got the hang of it. When you get it right, though, it does work very well.

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