Learning Fiore De Liberi

This manual is an attempt to merge all the known manuals of Fiore into one place. It's also an attempt to bring together all of the knowledge about Fiore's system into one place. As such, it is difficult to be definitive in some places. In others it is much easier.

If you think about language, the first thing you learn is letters, then simple words, then simple sentences, then you learn how sentences are constructed. This books is put together in the same way. The letters are the footwork, the cuts and the wards. The simple words are the plays, and in the wrestling and dagger sections we develop simple sentences. Finally we give you practice sentences and sentences to take apart on your own, so you can learn how the language of Fiore's system works.

There are quite a few people who will disagree that the plays are simple words and sentences. Some will say that they are the complete system. We're not disagreeing, in English the sentence "See Dick" contains very important concepts of sentence structure. So do the simpler plays. "See Dick run" contains other important concepts as well. Without understanding those concepts, it's much much harder to read this sentence. It's even harder to read the paragraph, or the page, or the book.

If this book takes you to say the end of grade school/freshman year of high school level, then we'll be thrilled. I believe that at that level, self exploration is more important then rote learning. However, in order to get there you have to learn things by rote. You have to learn spelling rule by rote, until you being to get an innate feel for how words get spelled. Same with fighting.

You should also judge the system in it's appropriate context. Yes, the wrestling is in many ways very basic. However, its designed to be used in or out of armor. Armor not only protects the wearer from blows, but also from body movements that can maim or kill. This means that some wrestling moves will not work because they would require you to bend steel. The dagger that is used is the roundel, which is either not edged, or barely edged depending on the type, and so, using some techniques vs a bowie knife aren't good. We aren't claiming that this is a system for modern times. We are claiming that is an excellent system for 1400's Europe.

You should start at the beginning of each section, and work your way through. Every section starts with a brief introduction, and explanation of basic concepts and theories that are used. Then we move to footwork, wards, plays and finally exercises. It's in the exercises that you will begin to actually learn the system, and build muscle memory. However you do need to be familiar with everything that comes before.