Welcome back to measure (misura) month. We’re spending the entire month looking at the basics of this measure, your attack & defense options, and some sample play/actions from each measure.
So far, we’ve looked at being Out of Measure and the quasi-modern development of Misura Larghissima. Today, we’re looking at the basics of Misra Larga — which is where we see most of the plays/plates develop in the Italian treatises.
The Basics of Larga
Misura Larga (Wide Measure) is defined as the distance in which we can strike our opponent’s head or torso with a step-lunge or strike their sword-arm with a leaning-lunge.
How big of a step-lunge, however, varies a bit from master to master. For example: lunges in Fabris tend to be relatively moderate compared to, say, Alfieri in larga.
In Alfieri, larga is a very wide/long lunge, which he says is dangerous because it’s easy to be off-balance and have difficulty in recovering. For a more moderate lunge, he would recommend being in misura perfetta (perfect measure) which is a term pretty unique to his system.
I recommend aiming for a more moderate lunge whenever possible. If you can go deeper, that’s fine as long as you’re able to properly & easily recover from the position. Defense of your person should always be paramount, so leaving yourself in a highly vulnerable position should be avoided.
From a visual standpoint, we’re in larga when our blade is crossed with our opponent’s blade somewhere between a palmo (hand-span) from the point to the mezza spada (middle of the sword). This is a super down & dirty starting point; there are a few variables to how true this is at any given time including:
- Your lunge depth
- Your sword length
- Your opponent’s sword length
- Your arm length
- Your opponent’s arm length
So don’t take that visual as gospel, but a rough starting point.
Continue reading Approaching Misura Larga
The Tavern Knight's Barracks 