Abrazare e Daga - Of Grappling and Dagger May 30, 2002

The following are a number of video segments depicting the abrazare and some daga techniques that form part of the recruit level of training out of the longsword primer entitled The Art of Longsword Combat - Book #1 (now archived). The video content is by no means a complete coverage of the training manual and is not professionally created, and only demonstrates some of the techniques as this is our first attempt to construct some training videos for fellow practitioners to reference.

Video segments accompanied with a brief description of the context of that video segment are provided below for reference. These video segments include only students of the Academy (no professional actors). The video file sizes range from 1.2MB - 3.2MB. The files will require QuickTime and are compatible with most Windows and Mac systems.

No.	Segment	Reference/Link	Abrazare: Master#1	Video
1			Boar's Tooth: The agent (on the left) grasps the patient agent's (on the right) shoulder with left hand, and attempts to grab the patient agent's left hip. The patient agent thrusts his left hand forward to grip the elbow/upper arm of the agent, and counters with a boar's tooth on the outside of the agent's elbow and continues to a possible takedown.	(3.2MB)
2			Boar's Tooth => Long Guard: The agent (on the left) grasps the patient agent's (on the right) shoulder with left hand, and attempts to grab the patient agent's left hip as before. The patient agent thrusts his left hand forward to grip the elbow/upper arm of the agent, and counters with a boar's tooth. However, the agent recognizes a potentially bad situation, and pulls his left arm back causing the boar's tooth failure on the part of the patient agent. But, the patient agent immediately changes tactics and deploys a long guard for a take down. Depending upon the success of the long guard, one may not need to also lift the agent's leg to facilitate a takedown as seen in the video.	(1.3MB)
3			Face Push => Iron Gate: The agent grasps the patient agent's shoulder with his left hand, and successfully grabs the patient agent's left hip. The patient agent suppresses the agent's right arm with left, deploys boar's tooth (dente di zenchiar) over the agent's left arm, positions the patient agent's right leg between agent's and does a face push with the right hand on the agent by twisting to the right, following through with a long guard (posta longa) and takedown to iron gate (porta di ferro).	(1.1MB)
No.	Segment	Reference/Link	Abrazare: Master#2	Video
4			Face Push => Elbow Push The agent grabs the face, chin or nose of the master - patient agent (wearing the leg band) with left hand and right hand grabs the patient agent's left hip. The patient agent simply grabs the elbow with right hand and pushes up and over to escape.	(1.7MB)
No.	Segment	Reference/Link	Daga:	Video
5			Dagger Ward Inside The agent (holding the dagger) attacks the patient agent using a sopramano grip (ice pick). This exercise is designed to train the student in the evading of the attack by stepping off-line to the inside of the agent, while assuming a posta frontale to re-direct the dagger attack. Once the patient agent has stepped off-line from the attack, and has successfully re-directed the dagger attack, the patient agent has a number of options available, such as striking the agent in the abdomen, face, throat, etc., or simply pushing the agent backwards, or even running away.	(2.1MB)
6			Dagger Ward Outside The agent on the right (holding the dagger) attacks the patient agent using a sopramano grip. This exercise, similar to the previous one, trains the student in evading the the attack but stepping off-line to the outside of the agent. Again, the opportunity presents itself to the patient agent in the form of pushing the agent forward, or striking the agent in the ribs, head or kidneys from behind.	(1.7MB)
7			Dagger Ward Outside => Takedown Taking the previous exercise further, the agent attacks the patient agent with a dagger using the sopramano grip. The patient agent, essentially evading to the agent's outside rather than re-directing the attack, will grasp the agent's attacking forearm in the wrist area and with the patient agent's left hand, apply force to the back of the elbow of the agent's arm for a take-down and potentially a disarm.	(1.7MB)
8			Dagger Ward Inside => Disarm The agent on the right (holding the dagger) attacks the patient agent using a sopramano grip. The patient agent deploys a posta frontale and reaches out and strikes the agent's attacking arm while stepping into the agent's inside. Then, while gripping the agent's wrist with the left hand, and gripping the shoulder area with the right hand, extends the agent's arm and wrenches the dagger from the agent's grip.	(2.1MB)