Thomas de Groot wrote:
> "Vincent Le Chevalier" <gal### [at] libertyALLsurfSPAMfr> schreef in 
> bericht news:45991601$1@news.povray.org...
>> No it's indeed a left-handed rapier. Well, that's the convention actually, 
>> you could certainly hold it in your right hand as well...
>>
> 
>  As I have no experience at all with rapiers, mine was a wild guess just 
> based on trying to hold the thing  :-)
> 
> So... what makes this particlularly left-handed, is there clue? Just down to 
> earth curiosity really...
> 

Swords being another of my hobbies I will happily try to satisfy your 
curiosity :-)

However it's a bit difficult to explain in text... Some terminology 
necessary to understand what I'm saying can be found here: 
http://www.myarmoury.com/feature_anatomy.php#rapier

The conventional way of holding the rapier is as follow: you pass your 
index finger around the fore quillon, inside one of the finger rings. 
The rest of the fingers hold the grip, and are protected by the knuckle 
guard. In this position, the back of your hand is protected by the side 
ring and loop-guard (the spiraling bar in the specific example modelled 
by Steve is a style of loop-guard). The thumb is on the other side, and 
is protected by the counter guards.

To sum up and speak POV-ish :-) , on a right-hander, you have the blade 
on +z, the knuckle guard on the +x side, and the side ring raising along 
+y. The assumption being that the hilt was designed (or rather evolved) 
to be most protective when held in this way.

But this does not prevent a left-hander from fighting with a 
right-handed rapier, nor the opposite. I tend to think this is by design 
also, in case of injury on your dominant hand you wouldn't like to be 
unable to use your weapon in the other hand as well ;-)

There are also some other way to hold the thing, that were less spread 
as far as I know. You can pass your index and middle finger through the 
same finger ring to increase tip control. You can pass them through both 
of the finger rings, one in each of them, to have the blade more 
parallel to your fore-arm. I even read about a grip which looks like the 
opposite of the usual way, with fingers protected by the counter guard, 
the index passed in the other finger ring, that provides advantages when 
using the quillons to control the opponent's blade...

I'll have to model and pose a hand inside Steve's guard to explain more 
visually, I guess :-D

Regards

-- 
Vincent

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