A lot of this varies in different periods and regions with each one opening up new avenues of fightaturgy.

Anthropologically, a duel is essentially a high-stakes athletic contest, often with very specific rules.

The adherence to the rules is well established in Hamlet, R&J and in Hampton's Les Liaisons Dangereuses.

Hamlet enters the duel with no expectation that it turn lethal. Mercutio & Tybalt might have stopped at a disarm without Romeo's intervention (there is a lot of room for interpretation in that scene), and in Hampton's play, there is an attempt to call it off by Valmont if I remember it correctly.

There are some interesting near-fighting passages in Shakespeare where no one gets hurt. The near duel in Twelfth Night where the seconds pass messages back and forth, as well as in the woods near the end of Midsummer where Puck impersonates one of the male lovers and says "I'll whip thee with a rod: he is defiled
That draws a sword on thee" (Act III, Scene 2). Both of these make it really clear that there are codes of socialized violence being observed on some level.

There are several dueling codes preserved from different times and places, some of which call for hostilities to end at first blood. There were also many reported incidences of people agreeing to both shoot into the air in a pistol duel, which would "restore honor" and leave everyone alive. Choice of weapons in different times and places matter a lot as well, a fight with single sticks is not as likely to lead to death by infection as one with smallswords, and both are far more likely to lead to permanent injury than a wrestling match.

Vincento Saviolo's manual is in two parts, one of which is technique, the other of which is etiquette around dueling.

Wrestling is generally designed to be non-lethal and there is plenty of source material there. Any sport fencing manuals are also by definition concerned with non-lethal violence. It's interesting because these fall into the general category of social violence (as opposed to asocial/predatory violence) so there are always sets of rules, even when the stakes are life and death. Some of the manuals deal with violence on a battleground as opposed to a dueling ground, which is a whole other set of rules (though there are still rules).


As far as NOT hurting someone in a high-stakes social violence situation, it comes up in some of the writings, but it generally requires far more skill. Especially if that someone is trying very hard to hurt you. There are writings on this in law enforcement use-of-force manuals and such. (I suppose a warning shot would qualify as such.)

Of course for stage and screen purposes everything depends on what serves the production. This is in part why I'm thinking about how to present all of this background information. Fightaturgy can be pretty involved, and I'd love to see more interactions between fight directors and dramaturgs about this sort of thing.