More Manciolino. Working from the Leoni translation and introduction, we worked on the first five attacks and responses from Guardia di Testa.
Warm-up: Lunge practice.
Review: Guardia di Testa, di Faccia (both high guards), Porta di Ferro Stretta and Coda Lunga e Alta (both low guards). Parries can be accomplished by transitions between these guards. Cuts in this style tend to be "incomplete" or Colpo Imperfetto rather than Colpo Finito. Reviewed Mandritto, Riverso, Stramazzone.
Discussion: Footwork model working reasonably well. In particular the angles created by steps offline with the back foot make many of the cuts more natural. We are tending to make more passing steps than anticipated. This might be appropriate to the system, but I suspect it's more to do with our inexperience with this style.
One of the attack examples is a fainted stramazzone followed by a mandritto. The response is a mandritto from Guardia di Testa to Porta Ferro Stretta for the stramazzone followed by a Falso for the mandritto and a riverso counter-attack. The transition from Testa to Porta Ferro worked ok as a defence against the stramazzone. The text seems to tell you to do it even though the cut is only fainted (possibly Manciolino's faint is more complete than ours was). The falso worked well (although it was a bit scary) as a defence to mandritto, especially if accompanied by a step under the opponent's blade (again with the back foot). The final position also made the riverso a natural counter-attack.