While attending the TaurHEMAchia 2017 event in Italy, I enjoyed some minimal gear sparring with Federico Malagutti. We both see the value in being able to fence with “minimal gear”, “some gear”, and “all the gear”, since each of these approaches require a slightly different set of skills in order to conduct it effectively and safely. It is useful to have a holistic practice of martial arts involving a variety of different exercises.

This was our second such sparring of the event, and I was trying to do two things: I was deliberately targeting Federico’s legs more often than I would normally, to help him work on defending his legs more successfully than the day before, and I was also trying to use approaches and techniques from the gemeinfechten (common fencing) source material.