Getting to third and fourth intention

Mar 05, 2026

Today I want to talk a little about how to work on getting past first and even second intention. I was going to write this release for paid subscribers, but I realized this last weekend that I’ve not put any content out due to my crazy travel and scheduling, so I figure I owe you all something to really chew on.

First intention

For those who need a refresher, a first intention attack is an attack where you expect to get the touch/hit on that first attack or action. The underlying assumption is that the action will hit without the opponent being able to effectively stop it.

First intention actions are straightforward, like a simple thrust or an immediate counterattack, rather than a complex sequence of actions designed to lure an opponent to move and create a new opening. Some are simple (one action) attacks while others are compound, such as a beat-attack. So with a first intention attack, your primary or even ONLY goal is to land the first attack.

Second intention

A second intention attack is when you’ve made an action meant to coerce the opponent to move and create a new opening. These attacks are employed to make the opponent react in a relatively expected way, creating a vulnerable opening that you can then exploit. A second intention attack not only assumes an intervening reaction from the opponent, it actually requires one in order to set up the second offensive action that will (hopefully) land.

A common example of second intention is a feint (a sham attack) that forces the opponent to parry or move in some way, creating an opening that you were ready to target. So, maybe you threaten a convincing attack to the outside shoulder, forcing the opponent to raise their sword, and in that tempo when they are raising the sword you are already dropping your tip and thrusting for the ribs. Your first threat is meant to move the opponent and coerce them to create an opening that either wasn’t there, or was partially protected.

Second intention actions add a layer of strategic thinking, with fencers trying to set up their opponents, or at a minimum start overloading their opponent’s cognitive abilities. It’s here that you’re starting to control the bout through guile rather than just speed or power.

Third Intention

So the first intention is a simple attack or thrust. The second intention is when the attacker seeks to deceive their opponent before the actual ending thrust. Or, sometimes, the attacker was surprised during the first intention, but still managed to pull off a second attempt in the same exchange.

Third intention goes further with two or more actions intended to deceive or place the defender in a position favorable to the attacker. Aldo Nadi stated in his book “On Fencing” that “The great fencer uses the latter (2nd intention) predominantly, exploiting their value and comparative safety to the utmost. But this is not all. Against intelligent adversaries, he frequently uses the third and even the fourth intention”

What is an intention?

So with this you may start to see that by intention I am referring to what you’re trying to convince the opponent of. A second intention attack means you made what the opponent THOUGHT was an intended attack, only to do something else that WAS the actual attack and end game.

It’s been a hot minute since I’ve read it, but I seem to remember Scaramouche, in the novel of the same name, designed a pattern that was a seven-intention attack sequence, meant to tie his opponent into cognitive knots before launching the final attack.

Personally, I’ve never seen or accomplished that many intentions (at least, not by design!), and in today’s HEMA and SCA tournaments I rarely even see a third intention sequence. So here I want to talk about how to create drills to start setting up third and fourth intention attacks.

The process

First intention

So we start with drilling first intention from wide measure - both for some warm up, and to build the decision matrix incrementally.

Basically here you’re just launching an attack at your partner from wide measure. They can stand still at first and get hit.

You can also, as I mentioned, throw in a beat to make sure the line is open. But do read up on how to do a beat well and not over-do it and wind up getting hit.

Eventually the opponent can start parrying, but you (the attacker) keep with the single intention. This is starting, then, to demonstrate the weakness of relying on one attack from wide measure.1

Note also that when you’ve gained the opponent’s sword, you do have the advantage. But even with a good gain, at wide measure if the opponent puts enough into a parry or counter action and you keep coming on the same attack, you’ll be parried.

Second intention

Here, the opponent is reacting to your threat. So now you’ve created the threat and seem to be attacking, and the opponent is effectively obliged to do something about it. As well, the opponent needs to be convinced that no retreat, or at most a short retreat, is needed before employing the parry to unleash the riposte - in other words, you have to sell it.

This is the bread and butter of most of Capoferro’s and Giganti’s plays:

You close into measure gaining their sword.
They don’t like that, so they cavatione to the other side.
You then regain as you’re finishing the attack with the second intention.

That gain as you step into measure may be enough of a threat to make them react. If so then that may be considered the first intention. Honestly I’m on the fence about whether a simple gain from wide measure is a first intention, myself, but if they react to the threat of the open line and your control of their blade, then I’m cool with calling it the first intention.

If that’s not enough of a threat to get them moving, though, then usually transitioning from terza to the appropriate offensive guard will be. Again, you have to sell it - they have to think you’re increasing the gain and will immediately keep moving into a lunge.

Once they react (and it may be something other than a cavatione, remember - know your opponent!), then you shift to the second intention/attack.

So maybe:

You gain their blade at wide measure on the outside…
…then shift into seconda, gaining more of their blade.2
They panic and do a hard upward parry.
You expected they’d do that and so you perform a smooth cavatione around their panicked parry and hit them.

The first key principle of second intention is them staying put and not retreating:

You fix the opponent in place by creating conditions that seem to make staying in range for a fast riposte overwhelmingly attractive
In other words, it’s difficult to do second and third intention on someone who’s backing up. So you need to sell it, but only such that they are sure they can parry it (if they’re prone to backing up - admittedly some aren’t)

The second key is the opponent’s action:

Your first action has to create a response that opens up a line for your second action - or at least that occupies the offending weapon such that you won’t get stuck.
- The cavatione, for instance, opens the line.
- Drawing the hard parry occupies their sword so it’s not coming at you.

Second intention is not a specific attack-counterriposte sequence, rather it is an exploitation of distance and movement to create a fixed sequence you will overcome.

It’s probably best to occupy the sword hand and not the offhand, but there may be times to get the offhand out of the way, especially as you get to third and fourth intention. Also if their dagger hand is the biggest threat.

So yes, targeting the hand, or getting the off-hand moving is also an intention.

You can get creative with second intention attacks with input from your partners or students - examples:

Leg shot, getting the sword to drop, redouble to chest/head
Hand shot, getting the hand to pull back, redouble to chest/arm/head
Etc…

Third intention

To get to third intention - you need to examine what you are thinking when you throw those second intention shots.

You need to either automate the first attack, or combine them into a single stream of thought. It takes some drilling either way, leading up to drilling it in a free fight.

This is also getting at what I mean when I talk about the language of fencing. When you collapse enough actions together so that you can think of them as a chunk, or a ‘sentence’, that’s when you can start moving more easily into third and fourth intention attacks.

Ways to practice automating: Look an opponent in the eye and thrust for a hand or thigh. Don’t look at your target. Work on making it almost thoughtless.

Then do that and immediately redouble somewhere that’s open.

Don’t draw the offhand parry unless you really, really mean to - aim for something that will move the sword, instead. So usually that means aim toward the sword side of the body - the ribs, the sword hand, etc.

It’s possible to succeed by getting them to counter attack - modern fencing maestros often consider this necessary to achieve second intention anyway - you just need to be able to parry and riposte well, or stesso-tempo parry/riposte (with sword hand or with off hand).

Automate to single stream: Start learning to program-in combinations, making them a familiar enough ‘sentence’ that you don’t need to consider the ‘words’.

So for instance a combo shot that goes from targeting the leg to the ribs (when they drop the sword to block the leg) that you have programmed in is one ‘sentence’.

Maybe also a thrust to the face, forcing a cavatione, allowing you to thrust in opposition is another practiced chunk.

In both cases, once you get them down to smooth, one-thought actions, you can start adding in a third movement when needed.

So maybe you throw the leg to the ribs shot. They parry down with the sword to block the leg as you hoped, but as you’re thrusting for the ribs you find you’ve been parried with their off hand. OK. So practice it again, building the leg to the ribs shot into a chunked combo. Then you’ve freed your cognitive attention to watch for the hand parry, which you rotate your sword around and land a hit to the neck. Congratulations, that’s your third intention!

If you try to do three single intention shots, you will fail. At least two have to be thoughtless or programmed together.

Your job in these is to compress information so that you have more space to react or apply variables.

The fewer conscious thoughts you have, the further you can proceed. The fewer conscious thoughts you have, the more you are also free to adjust tempo and measure as you act.

The third shot, I find, can be planned, but the further you go into a complex sequence the more likely it is to fail. Remember, you’re not only filling their tactical computer, you’re filling your own. So chunking information into ‘sentences’ and eventually ‘paragraphs’ is IMO vital to consistently make third and fourth intentions happen. But even then, too many chunks still overloads your own abilities.

One combination I’ve done this with is against an opponent who holds their sword refused.

I target for the hand, which they pull back.
The sword is not a threat in the moment they pull it back, so my forward shift changes to a thrust for the ribs. (since their sword hand is held refused, it’s at about the same distance as their ribs, so that takes just a change in targeting, not distance)
But people who do this almost always have a dagger parry programmed. So the thrust for the ribs is either held back as the parry goes sailing by and then finish to the ribs (which is the riskier way to do it), or as I’m thrusting for the ribs I rotate my sword hand around their dropping dagger guard and hit them high in the neck or face.

The reason waiting for the dagger to go by is riskier is because it adds a bit of time, in which they might recover their sword and stick it in my face. If I hit them in the same tempo that they are parrying with their dagger, instead of waiting for it to pass, it’s less likely I’ll need to ALSO be on alert for their sword coming back at me.

Fourth intention

Once you’ve started building these combinations into mental chunks of actions, then you can start building into fourth intention, if/when needed.

I have only rarely had to dig that far into a combination matrix, personally, though I have done it. Generally, with even my most difficult opponents, I will note their (somewhat) automated reactions, program the first and second actions, and leave my brain less full so I can adjust that third time.

But once you’ve started being able to do this with third intention, try it!

Maybe you’ll build a three-one chunk. Or a two-two.

Three-one might be the hand-ribs-neck I mentioned above programmed in, and then you have to add a drop back to the sternum. That would be for the very few blindingly fast fencers who can reverse direction as fast as I can rotate my hand.

A two-two might be:

Gain and feint to the outside, which they panic-parry hard, and you drop your point and cavatione to their face. That’s first and second intention.

Their offhand comes across to parry your sword, so you again drop your point to let the hand pass and go again for the face (third), but then you do a second cavatione back down to hit them in the gut (fourth) because their hand flicked back to protect their face. (People tend to move faster to defend the eyes. Also people really defend the head in general when they have a hangover!)

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Conclusion

So I hope this is easy enough to follow. Really the secret is to learn to program combinations into prepared attacks and actions that you can mix and match. The less you have to think about every movement you make, the more your cognitive brain is free to add actions.

Do re-read the article on the language of fencing and see if that helps you understand what I’m getting at. I think there are other descriptions of this concept online from coaches teaching other sports that you can find, in case they make more sense than I do. Information chunking, is one way it’s discussed.

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