Heuristics and the Poste of Fiore dei Liberi Simplifying complexity to gain or retain the initiative Dr. Brian R. Price 3/5/19 SSG Core Curriculum 1 Schola Saint George Heuristics and the Poste of Fiore dei Liberi Simplifying complexity to gain or retain the initiative Brian R. Price “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” 1 --Anonymous M any of you know I’ve been teaching swordsmanship since the early 1980s. First, in an SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) context, where I strove to discover what the best combatants had in common, and then, during the 1990s, why the tournament worked (the short answer is the “renown mechanism”). There was a mountain of different data to comb through, from interviews to weighty historical texts. This was a quest trying to identify core principles that would illuminate the keys to what was happening, based on experience and the data. Next, starting in 1999, I began to look at the historical fighting treatises, and my attention was quickly drawn to the surviving works of Fiore dei Liberi, who taught likely in the latter 14th and earliest decades of the 15th centuries. Within his text I found principles of swordsmanship—some articulated nicely in the text, while others lurked more stubbornly between textual lines and suggested in the oxblood inked images, and the order of the plays. But the “Eureka!” moment came one night in 2001, when everyone was trying to figure out the core elements of Fiore and also of the German material by Johannes Liechtenauer. All at once, I realized that Fiore’s poste—the fighting positions—were a distilled heuristic, not quite a model but rather a representation, simplifying to enable one to rapidly act (subito, as Fiore so often urged). Over time, I began to realize that Fiore’s l’arte d’armizare was called an arte for a reason, rather than being termed a scienza. The l’arte d’armizare is articulated and illustrated through a series of principles, expressed through concrete zoghi or plays, organized in a mostly coherent manner. As Aristotle famously argued, the essence of an art informs understanding of the core principles, enabling new solutions through the agency of human creativity. In other words, Fiore sought to enable effective combat decision-making through what we now call a heuristic, a simplifying representation. 1 Dale C. Elkmeier, “Simplicity: A Tool for Working with Complexity and Chaos,” Joint Force Quarterly 92 (Q1, 2019), 30. https://www.academia.edu/38492539/Simplicity_A_Tool_For_Working_With_Complexity.pdf?email_work_card=v iew-paper. 2 In past years, several of us have focused on decision-making during the fight as a crucial element. We know from kinesthetic research that the decision-time to strike a baseball, for example, exceeds the physical time needed to swing the bat, and that’s for a relatively less complex framework, compared to a fight with shock weapons, such as swords. This research sought to tap the science of motor control and learning, which we’ve followed through the “expert performance” developments and into military theory, such as Col. John Boyd’s “OODA” loop (observe, orient, decide, act). 2 Recently, in preparing to teach a modern warfare course at Air University, I came across a new article by Dr. Dale C. Eikmeier, an Assistant Professor at the Department of Joint, Interagency and Multinational Operations at the U.S. Army Command & General Staff College. His most recent piece, “Simplicity: A Tool for Working with Complexity and Chaos,” addresses these same points I’ve discovered in Fiore, but he uses a more modern framework. Here I’ll highlight a few of his points, connecting them back to combat in general to swordsmanship/shock combat and, finally, to Fiore’s poste. Heuristics, according to Eikmeier, “enable reasonably good decisionmaking without the time-consuming and occasionally paralyzing need to understand all the complexities and nuances of a situation.” 3 The key, Eikmeier wrote, drawing from other academic writing, is that “a good heuristic simplifies complexity by providing a manageable set of choices” for taking action. They “counter ‘paralysis through analysis’ (too much Lynx! [cervino], if one uses Fiore’s segno has a heuristic), “enabling leaders to think and decide more quickly, thus getting ahead of a competitor’s decision cycle” (tigro, or speed, in Fiore’s segno). 4 Acting first, forcing the opponent to respond to our action, limits the opponent’s suite of choices and complicates their attempts to “observe, orient, decide, and act.” Seizing the initiative interrupts their thought process, forcing a re-evaluation, which delays their own ability to act effectively. In a fight, this is initiative, what might be encapsulated in the German concept of indes, which Fiore hints at when he urges his students to act “immediately,” or subito. Combat is a highly complex activity. Even at the individual level, the number of possible positions, environmental factors, thought and emotional processes, knowledge and perception of each combatant can affect the outcome. Many combatants find this dizzying array of sensory input overwhelming, just as combatant commanders can find the complexity of their operational environment daunting. 2 Boyd’s “OODA loop” is a famous and influential construct, a heuristic that provides powerful insight in modern military operations, business and even diplomacy; anywhere, really, where action is used in competition or conflict. The four-step look is a very simplified version, though the larger construct he eventually worked out was of much less use to most users, being too complicated. For a full analysis, see especially Frans P.B. Osinga, Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd, New York: Routledge, 2007. 3 Eikmeier, op. cit., 30. 4 Ibid., 31. 3 The combat theory here is that heuristics—simple models like the segno, the zoghi, and the poste—enable more rapid decision-making, offering the potential for an advantage of tempo, time, seizing the intuitive with “good enough” actions that force the opponent to respond. Years ago, SSG Scolaro Maggiore Russell Kinder summed this up, “it’s more important to act first with an action that is good enough than to wait for the perfect answer,” which, in any event, will never come as the environment changes too rapidly. The value of the l’arte d’armizare as a heuristic is that it provides a way of perceiving the situation that, while it strips away detail and nuance, enables the capture and holding of the initiative, driving the action rather than responding to it. To be sure, there are risks in heuristic methods. Too little knowledge risks hasty action that can have negative effects. The heuristic must originate with a deep appreciation and knowledge of the complexities in question, so that it can capture the essence, what Aristotle discussed as the governing principles of a circumstance or of a thing. This is analysis, but it is largely preliminary work. In John Boyd’s parlance, this is “destruction,” analyzing a complexity in order to better understand it through its component parts. It “breaks things down.” Fiore’s poste are a heuristic. There are millions of potential positions we as combatants or our opponents might adopt or pass through en route to somewhere else. But Fiore provides twelve poste for the sword in two hands. Nearly all other useful positions will either be one of the twelve, or on a continuum between one or another. Therefore, a mid-poste position will have more aspects of the posta it’s closer to and some of one it’s more distance from, but this shifts as the combatant moves the sword. This immense complexity is simplified through the poste structure, however; because the combatant learns the strengths, weaknesses and possibilities of each posta, they have a very quick analytical tool to bring rapid understanding of the combat situation. Using that understanding, built upon their knowledge of the poste heuristic, combatants can more rapidly “observe, orient, decide and act.” A swordfight becomes no less complicated because one combatant uses the poste heuristic to more rapidly categorize and understand the potential actions for himself and for his opponent. Subtly remains important, but that complexity is woven into the heuristic—the more background study time is invested, the sharper and more accurate the heuristic understanding becomes (the ellefante). One internalizes the principles, using them as the framework for fighting decisions—and actions follow at a much faster rate. The more depth behind the understanding of the heuristic, the better—but the heuristic clarifies the complexity and enables decisions & action. 4 The Schola’s curriculum is itself a heuristic. It simplifies Fiore’s plays, distilling them to their essence and presenting them in an order that offers a simple framework. Simplicity is key, because complexity is the enemy of rapid decision-making. The Schola’s interpretation of Fiore’s l’arte d’armizare offers the combatant a powerful tool that clarifies combat actions and urges the combatant to make decisions and act (which requires audatia, courage, the lione). While Eikmeier’s astute article appears in the most recent copy of Joint Force Quarterly, the principles he identifies and the value of a heuristic are just as useful to Schola students trying to become better combatants as they are to modern military commanders, responsible for tens of thousands of airmen, soldiers, sailors and marines. 5 Brian R. Price, Ph.D. www.scholasaintgeorge.org 5 Mar. 2019 5 In addition to Dr. Eikmeier, two other military academics are known for their expertise and articulation of these concepts. Air University’s own Dr. Jeffrey M. Reilly (especially Operational Design: Distilling Clarity from Complexity and Decisive Action) and Dr. Milan N. Vega, U.S. Naval War College.