Not contentious at all - actually it's a very good question, with a very long answer, so please bear with me 😊 First of all - yes, completely agree that slicing off to change is perfectly legitimate. The 1568 describes the slicing off in sequence with several follow up actions in which the movement down the the left low guard or Change is part of the follow up, using the movement to change as a kind of expulsion of their blade before entering the follow up action. My own view is that the slice as the initial section described in Meyer's 1570, with the follow up expulsion being optional and context dependent. One of the motivations for this are the descriptions of suppressing and going through in the 1568 - in this text his separation of techniques isn't as developed as the 1570, but he describes the suppressing as "much like the slicing off, almost as in the Iron gate", he also describes Going Through as being a a slicing off/out his thrust from left to right which can be done either with the expulsion downward through right low guard, or into the Iron Gate position suppressing. In the 1570 we no longer see the specification of the Change being used explicitly in the slicing off description, however for me the real support comes from 2.91v.2 "How you shall slice off and counterattack from this guard [low guard on the right]" In this section we explicitly see the following descriptions: "cut against his incoming blade diagonally from your right, strongly through; and in this cutting you shall send your hilt somewhat before the blade as it goes down, and lower your upper body well forward and down by stepping broadly. Thus send his blade with this cut with extended arm down from you in the manner of a slice. Then quickly thrust up at his face before he brings his blade out from under yours, so that when the thrust hits, you stand up in Longpoint." No mention of going through to change - instead we see a specific movement and follow up (which is actually on that shows up in the video in one form or another). The "thus send his blade with this cut..." is essential here, as in "this thing I just told you is the slicing, and that's how you send his blade down" The final item is in the longsword section with the advice to "not slice too wide from his body, so he does not go through against you". From earlier in the section we know the triggers for changing through are: 1) Holding the hands close to the body in cuts (for example in the Change) 2) If he fights broadly and long with the long edge , but more to the sword than the body (as we would be doing if we always used change, which doesn't threaten the body) 3) If someone changes through, fall into the long slice, which is longpoint - suggesting a longpoint like position is a slicing position) This is borne out by experience - if you always use the slicing off all the way to change, then the opponent very often changes through and attacks with the point on the other side, leaving you out of place to defend easily. Don't even get me started on "slicing off" in Dusack - that adds nothing useful to our understanding. 😁 So, conclusions: a) I think slicing off through to Change is definitely a legitimate interpretation, as evidenced in the 1568 and in one instance in the 1570, and is really useful in fencing against another quite "broad" or aggressive fencer. b) My own feeling is that the slicing off part needn't go all the way down to Change/Low Guard, and that the critical element is the initial slicing, with the expulsion downward being an optional extra, as evidenced by the contextual evidence from the 1570. This has actually been a really good deep-dive though, and this might be worth a video all of its own! Thank you!

​@@DanielPopeScholarVictoriaExcellent comment and critical for my continuing sidesword study. Thanks!

Thanks - I keep trying to refine the visualisations to make things clear, but there's still work to be done :)

You're right - that dropping of the body-weight to such a low position requires a certain commitment to the defence - when it works well it feels amazing.

It really is close to the Bolognese sources in a lot of ways; you can clearly see the influence on Meyer's system of system.

I'm glad it's finally out too - the video clips for this one have been sitting on my phone since October 😬

Thanks! Hopefully people get something out of them :)

Thank you!

It's been too long! Being out with injuries is really frustrating!

Sidesword is always under appreciated!

@@DanielPopeScholarVictoria Meyer sidesword is always so beautiful, keep the videos coming!

Thanks, and Happy New Year! :D

Hopefully it'll be in a few weeks.

​@@DanielPopeScholarVictoriaBefore or after the Gold Coast Classic?​

Aww shucks :)

That's always a tricky one - typically I'd suggest trying a modern olympic fencing "intro" course, or even kendo, to give you a feel for ideas of line and distance. There's also matter of discovering the system you're most interested in - longsword, rapier, sidesword, sabre, and so on - KZfaq is excellent these days, with lots of content creators for all major weapons systems. At that point it's a matter of finding both written sources, and online resources, then working from there - you can make a lot of progress on your own, but of course if you have a friend to help, the progress is much faster. After a while, a lot of people form small study groups in their community - in fact it's how a lot of people got started in Historical Fencing back in the day, and even now!