Mair’s Sickle: First Play
1. A cut from on high from either side with the grain sickle
If you mutually come together with the sickle being duly ruled in the customary manner, you hold the right foot forward, you confine the sickle in your right hand next to the left side of your head, indeed with the left hand open, you extend against the enemy. And from there it follows with the left, you cut toward the right side of his head. But if the adversary wields the same against you, p[lacing the left foot forward, holding the sickle in the right, reclining on the left side of the head, you bring the right hand left. Then, the right hand of the enemy having been grabbed with your left, you wound his head on the right side. On the other hand however, if the enemy similarly approaches on you from above, with the right hand swiftly apprehended, you avert his with a shorter cut in the same rationale. From there however, if you immediately drag yourself to the right, you will try to cut toward the enemy with the left foot forward. Indeed if he tries the same, then with the left you overwhelm the interior of the enemy’s right elbow, and if you draw back to the right from there, with the point of the sickle, you strike his head and concede backward.
