Translation
The player held me by the collar, but immediately before he stabbed me with his dagger, I used both of my hands to grab his left hand and put his arm over my right shoulder and then dislocated his arm. This will completely destroy it. I do this more surely in armour than unarmoured.
Explanation
The 5th scholar is an excellent response to a collar grab. Although shown as an arm break here, it is also possible to use different variants of this technique as a throw. As with all the scholars of the 5th master, bear in mind that although people often practice these techniques from a standing start, they work best under movement.
From the starting position of both combatants having their right foot forward, as in the master play, catch your opponents left hand using both of yours. Have your thumbs on top of your opponents wrist. This play will be more effective if you grab the hand out of the air, either opportunistically, or as your opponent reaches out to grab you.
As you take the hand, slide your right foot forward and to the outside. Pivot anticlockwise on the balls of your feet, while lifting your opponents arm over your shoulder. You need the palm of your opponents hand facing up, so as to lock the arm. You should find yourself as drawn.
This makes a first class lever. Your shoulder is the fulcrum. Hold your opponents forearm as you would a sword, and cut down. Exactly what happens depends on exactly how you have placed the arm.
By placing the elbow on your shoulder, you will rip open your opponents elbow.
By pulling your opponents arm all the way to the armpit as drawn, you will dislocate the shoulder.
By pulling the arm all the way to the armpit, stepping back with your left leg, and deeply bending your right leg, you can extend the cutting motion, which will savagely throw your opponent over your shoulder.
By making a mirror image of this play, swapping one side for the other, you can make the same play attacking the right arm from the cover of the 9th master.
Hey! Your website is really helpful, thanks for that.
I have a lot of questions about Fiore’s techniques and how to bring them into a self defense fiel.
How effective is this 5th scholar (5th master of dagger) in a fight unarmed against dagger? Does the opponent can’t just stab with his dagger when the dagger turn his back?
How sure we are if all Fiore’s techniques are (or were) good in a real combat?
I have a lot of questions about Fiore’s techniques and how to bring them into a self defense fiel.
Context determines a lot if you are discussing how effective a particular style is. Any combat style can be viewed through three different fields which they will emphasise to different degrees. These are – fighting, martial arts, and self defence. To better understand this, I would very strongly recommend you listen to Iain Abernathy’s ‘The martial map.’
https://iainabernethy.co.uk/content/martial-map-free-audio-book?fbclid=IwAR0OnkmYf2Urh2wiVGlHEeZgpc4hqxKb19LTtIZGuvsM_zTswWSZ4Ew9ePU
Armizare as described by Fiore is exclusively a fighting style, with little to no emphasis on martial arts or self defence. As practiced in HEMA, it is approached very much as a martial art, with very little emphasis on fighting, and again, none on self defence. It is not an appropriate self defence style. This is not because the techniques are ineffective, but because they do not fit the context of what is happening.
How effective is this 5th scholar (5th master of dagger) in a fight unarmed against dagger? Does the opponent can’t just stab with his dagger when the dagger turn his back?
This particular technique works just fine. I have done it plenty of times under semi controlled conditions. I have never done it under free sparring, due to the obvious potential for serious injury. Although you will need to start practicing from a static position, it really works best under movement. You need to drop your weight back as you grab your opponent’s arm, which will pull them off balance and stretch them out. At the same time, you need to kind of flick the arm around. This spins your opponent, leaving their right shoulder pointing directly away from you. They can’t stab you, because they can’t reach, and they are off balance.
There is only a small window of opportunity to execute the lock. It is difficult to perform, not because it is complicated, but because the timing and movement has to be spot on. For this reason, it is not the kind of technique you would have in your core repertoire, but more the kind of thing you learn to use opportunistically as a nasty surprise.
How sure we are if all Fiore’s techniques are (or were) good in a real combat?
There are three different ways to be sure that Fiore’s techniques are effective.
First of all, you can look at who he was. We know he was training elite fighters of his day, who all quite literally staked their lives, and just as importantly, their reputation, on the techniques he was teaching. If he was bullshitting, he wouldn’t be teaching these people.
Second, you can look to other styles to see if they have comparable techniques. I have written a little about that here. https://fightlikefiore.com/style-and-objectives/ I come from a long history of practicing go ju kai karate, and although the context is different, many of the base moves required to perform Fiore’s techniques are familiar to me from studying karate, including this break.
Last of all, you can learn the techniques, and pressure test them. This is great from the perspective of personal experience, however, it is always important to remember that just because a particular technique doesn’t work for you doesn’t necessarily mean it doesn’t work. It could just mean that you don’t know how to do it properly.