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In Proportion

December 17, 2012 By Guy Windsor Leave a Comment

I am not known for my sense of proportion when it comes to the Art I serve. OF COURSE everyone should train. OF COURSE it's more important than jobs or other distractions (I make an exception for children. Only for children). But the Art itself is based on proportion. For any action to work, it must be done in the correct time and measure. Both of these are not absolute dimensions, but proportional to the position and actions of the opponent.

In medieval times, up until comparatively recently, the units of measurement (yards, metres, pounds, kilos, etc.) would vary from country to country, even town to town. It was very difficult to establish absolute dimensions for anything. So all building plans and similar representations would be established proportionally, geometrically. Side x is twice the length of side y, etc.

This fits with fencing perfectly: as Vadi wrote:

La Geometria che divide e parte.

Per infiniti numeri e misure.

Che inpi di scientia le sue carte.

 

La spada e sotto posta a le sue cure.

Convien che si mesuri i colpi ei passi.

Acio che la scientia ta secure.

 

Geometry divides and separates

By infinite numbers and measures,

And fills her papers with science.

The sword is placed in her care,

So measure blows and steps together

So Science keeps you safe.

Geometry is the perfect science here because it does not deal in dimensions at all, just in relationships between lines. Measure and time are relative: to your opponent's actions and your own.
I am in the depths of a dip in typing speed thanks to learning to touch type and switching to the Dvorak layout (QWERTY is SO skeuomorphic, that once I took an interest in typing it started to bug the hell out of me, and a friend put me on to “‘,.PYF” instead) so this may be the last post for a while, as I work on technical exercises. Merry Christmas all!

 

 

 

 

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Filed Under: Reflections Tagged With: geometry, learning

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