#swash

This is a side-sword made by Kvetun Armoury in 2018. It was my first sword and the only one I used for quite a while, including in tournaments, so it's really beat up - but still a beauty.

It's about 106cm long with a rather wide fullered blade and weighs 1300g, which is quite heavy - but most of it is centred around the wrist in the fabulous (and honestly wonderfully protective) complex hilt.

Here's how you hold it for maximum fine movement control and to avoid killing your wrist - one finger above the crossguard, aka fingering the guard. Trust, all the jokes have already been made.

Essentially, during a lot of the movements I typically do with the sword, most of its weight comes to rest on my index finger. You can also see my gloves are worn down from this in a few specific spots, and the grip itself has completely lost its red colouring in places.

You can see what this sword looked like when it was new in this post.

This is the side-sword I got to take the place of the retired one up there: the Malleus Martialis model called Errant - The Flowing Dancer (gotta have a good, fancy name) from 2023. 104cm long, 1200g in weight - heavy, still with that complex hilt, but more sleek and streamlined now.

And... the same fingering.

Finally, a different kind of sword, though related - a rapier (and a pain to photograph).

This one is a Pappenheimer rapier, made by Bellatore in 2022. The model is called Vieira because of the clam theming, and it comes with a matching dagger for the off-hand. Just to demonstrate, this is a shot I took right after I got it in which you can see the really neat "clam" look:

The sword is 112cm long and weighs about 1100g. But because of the length, point of balance, and the amount of time you spend with your arm extended while using it, it feels much, much heavier than the other two. This is part of the reason why you would finger the guard with two fingers.

All of these swords can be used for both cutting and thrusting - but the rapier is much more thrust-oriented than the other two, and its blade is much more bendy. Obviously, though, the balance of this and techniques in general vary wildly depending on which source you draw from.

All of these swords are right-handed models, which is relevant, because all but the rapier are asymmetrical. They also have rounded/spatulated/rolled tips, for extra safety.

To conclude, I climbed on a chair to take a totally aerial shot of all of them (I am very short).

The only other two swords I own (for now) are significantly smaller - as in, a couple cm each. Both are the strongest blades in the world, however so fragile as to shatter when handled by any force other than the delicate touch of a lesbian.