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This week we investigated Fiore’s Iron Door. What appears a simple and pretty straight forward instruction opens up a whole lot of options and opportunities, only some of which I mention in the video. Like a lot of good instruction it appears we have a specific instruction which actually represents much wider principles and ideas. We found the concept and the technique something we already use (a good sign), and the options it opens up will already be known to many but maybe not thought about in quite this way. The wording is bellow, have a read, play with it and try to think around the instruction by testing it in different scenarios. In the video I did forget to add that if the strike is to your right side , you can combine the basic technique and some form of a step to the right (the specifics of which will be dictated by the context you find yourself in) and this too is a way to use the basic idea and somewhat mitigate the slightly increased danger from moving the attack across your body. Anyway as always, play with it, feedback any observations and ideas, and of course, all you Fiore experts out there, correct my translation and interpretation. More importantly, Have Fun. Fiore says: Here begin the guards of the sword in two hands. There are 12 guards. The first is the whole iron gate, that stands in great strength. And she is good to await every manual weapon, long and short, and for which it has a good sword, that is not too long. And she passes with a cover and goes to the close. She exchanges the thrust and places her own. She also beats the thrusts to the ground and always goes with a pass to the close and against all blows she makes a cover. And standing in this guard, one may easily make defense against anyone who bothers him.
