In the club I first started training at, our coach was very old and he was very fond of ceding parries - and admittedly, he was quite good at them. Still, most of the more experienced people at the club thought of the use of ceding parries as something obsolete and archaic (the coach himself was originally a foil fencer and allegedly quite good in his day and age, although the latter is disputable).
Still, my Instagram feed has sometimes fed me some shorts in which ceding parries are demonstrated (see below). And I once stumbled upon a discussion in here in which ceding parries were described as a primarily defensive tool being useful against bind- and bladework-heavy fencers, though I couldn’t find it again (it also included a video of a ceding parry being used at a somewhat high level).
What do you guys think about this type of parry? Is there room for it int the modern game, perhaps as a defensive tool, or is this something completely obsolete?
For reference, here are the videos:
Distinguishing between opposition, beat and ceding parries from a sixte, ...
... and just between opposition and ceding parries, ...
... an example from the prime, ...
... a quarte example, ...
... the octave, ...
... another example.
Also, random ceding parry video from Youtube.
