Here’s video of my East Kingdom Martial A&S presentation from a couple of week’s back.

Not every tactic works against every type of opponent and the quicker we can analyze your opponent’s Art (skill & techniques) and Nature (personality & tendencies), the more effective we’ll be in combat.

In this presentation, I go over 17th Century Italian fencing master Francesco Alfieri’s ideas on the strengths and weaknesses of an opponent who is taller or shorter and stronger or weaker than you. I also go through his “four temperaments” of fighters as defined by the Hippocratic humors.

We explore how one can approach each of these opponents as well as how to quickly figure out your opponent’s skill and tendencies on the fly. We also take these ideas and put it into context of SCA/HEMA rapier combat for some practical use.