Four corners drill
The Four Corners drill is a simple way to check the breadth of your knowledge. Can you attack and/or defend from all four "corners"? The corners are:
- Right shoulder
- Left shoulder
- Right hip
- Left hip.
This text is quoted from Guy's book The Medieval Longsword p184.
The first multiplier is called the “four corners drill”, and is hinted at in the set-up for the base four. First, with the defender remaining in tutta porta di ferro, the attacker changes the guard of origin and therefore usually the line of their attack, from their right shoulder, to their left, then their left hip, then their right hip. Note that these last two are the set-up for the [Breaking the Thrust drill] and the [Exchange of thrust] respectively. The attacker may choose any guards he knows that start from these points (both donna and fenestra are coded for by “shoulder” for instance), and may cut or thrust as he likes. Then the defender starts from each “corner” in turn while the attack remains constant (mandritto fendente from posta di donna). If you expand this to include the centreline guards (mezana porta di ferro, breve, longa), you get a total of 144 combinations! This is bound to throw up problem areas, such as “how do I defend from donna sinestra against a mandritto fendente?”. You might have noticed that you can look on [Second drill] as a variation of [First drill], using the four corners multiplier. It starts with the same attack, but a different starting guard for the defender.
Related Resources
Book: The Medieval Longsword
Workbook: The Armizare Workbook part one: Beginner's Course
Online Course: The Complete Medieval Longsword Course
