An historical martial arts school in Croydon, Folkestone, and South London
1. Dave performs a winding against Matt’s sword.
1. Dave strikes a ‘Parter’. Matt blocks ‘Kron’.
2. Dave is not trying to hump Matt’s leg…
3. …he is in fact, running in to throw Matt over his leg. Note the sword still covers.
…
1. Dave cuts Parter. Matt displaces to his own high right.
2. Dave drops his point and cuts under the hands.
…
Now this Gentle Folk, is a castle.
This is going through the roses (with a castle) and a hill fort.
A Fiore technique courtsey of Matt Easton, Schola Gladiatoria.You can find more of these pictures on his web site.
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1. Dave cuts up with the false edge from Nebenhut and, feeling Matt is about to wind…
2. …steps off cutting with outstreached arms.
…
1. Again from Nebenhut,
2. Dave, feeling Matt’s pressure is high and outward…
3. thinks ’sod it’ and changes through, cutting Matt under the hand. From here he’ll stab Matt in the chest. This is similar to bandying through, but isn’t.
…
1. Dave, using the BIG sword winds against Matt’s not-so-mighty-weapon and thrusts to the face.
2. Matt performing a change-through strikey deflection thingy
3. But he’ll probably say that an Italian invented it.
4. And he says this isn’t a zwerchau…ha!
5. Well this B****Y well is.
…
When cameramen get in the way…
Please note that these techniques are only some of the possible interpretations.
Dave stands in vom tag, Chris in posta di donna.
Chris strikes zornhau, Dave counters with the same.
Dave slides up to the weak…
…and thrusts
Dave thrusts to Chris’s face
Chris displaces with hands high
Dave winds and thrusts to the lower opening
One question which remains unresolved, despite regular, sometimes heated debates and re-arisings of its ugly head is ‘what do we block with?’ Is it the flat of the blade, allowing the flexibility of the blade to dissipate the shock of the blow? Or is it the edge, allowing the strength of the blade and the alignment of the hands to absorb the blow?*
I feel personally we may have missed the point!
First, let me explain one principle set forward by S Ringeck. Our first intention when dealing with an opponent is DO NOT BLOCK. As Mr R says, ‘fence strongly, do not wait for what he may use against you’. This could be seen in several ways, we interprate it as:
Now it may seem strange that the first thing I say in relation to blocking is STRIKE, but therein lies the crux of the matter.
This means if you can strike him with your defense, do so. If you can’t, again use it to force him to move or displace. Then you can react accordingly.
This intent to strike with all displacements and at all times can effect blocking quite a lot. The importance, as I see it, is not what you use to block, but rather what you use to attack, which is the edge.**
To illustrate my point I would like to use a couple of examples:
So what can we surmise from this? If, as above, it is a ‘he attacks/ you counter’ situation there will already be scope for a lot of variation in blade on blade positioning. If we can safely assume you are both moving, that as you try to counter, he will also try to counter that counter and so on. The possible permutations of blade on blade become ludicrous.
I would suggest in closing, that the argument of flat or edge is not a valid one, and that we’d all do better learning to cut with intent.
*I do understand that this is very much a simplification of the different views expressed by many notables on the subject, but we don’t want to be here all night do we?
**Yes, I realise there is also a point, pommel, and cross guard to attack with.
Here we list our interpretations of Hanko Doebringer’s swordfighting guards. All these guards are described for a right hander on their right. To perform them on the left, reverse the foot position and do them on the left, simple as that. In his fencing text, Sigmund Ringeck says that you shall only fight from four guards as well, however he (and later authors) changes alber and pflug around.
Stand with your left foot forward, raise the tip of the sword to point at the face or throat of your opponent, the pommel should be above your right knee (not in the centre of your body, this is important). Maintain the threat.*
Stand with your right foot forward, extend your arms forward and let the point, point towards the ground. Roughly speaking, there should be an almost straight line from your shoulder, down through your arms and sword, to the ground.
This is the only major ward that is performed with the same foot forward as your leading hand(the one closest to the cross guard). The rest will be performed with the left foot forward.
Again with your left foot forward, keep the point aimed at the face/throat of your opponent, raise your hands to the right side of your head. Maintain the threat.*
Again with your left foot forward, either hold the sword by your right shoulder with the point toward the ceiling (sky if you are outside, pedant). Or hold the sword above your head, again with the point directed skywards. Maintain the threat.*
*Note maintaining the threat.*
When traveling through the wards, it is important that you should maintain a threat towards your opponent. In between the guards plough and ox this is done with the point, and the point should stay towards the opponent the whole time you are moving from one to the other. In the guard vom tag, the threat is maintained by keeping the true edge toward the opponent. In alber, the threat comes from the false edge.
Master R also refers to other guards, these are more reactionary positions than those previously mentioned. They are as follows:
This position will tend to come out of a false edge(to the left) krump.It is easiest understood if you picture that you have struck from right to left with a false edge crooked strike, striking over your opponents blade and taking your point almost to the floor, cross your wrists so the left hand is under but higher than the right the right making sure the false edge is under and facing in towards you.
The position is as follows, the right foot should be forward, the blade in its lowest position should be slightly to the left and forward of your left foot, at its highest position in the left plough.
*Note on my definitions*
There is a reason I give this variance in position, and that is nebenhut techniques are performed with a strike from below, to your opponent or his blade, with the false edge traveling from your left to right. If you can perform the techniques as described from said position, they then contain the requisites of nebenhut and are therefore deserving of the name.
We interpret this as being similar to Posta Frontale in Fiore’s style, with the point forward and high and the cross guard arms pointing left and right (as opposed to back and forwards). in order to catch a vertical strike.
Johannes Liechtenauer seems to have lived in Germany in the middle and perhaps latter part of the 14thC and wrote down verses in German relating to knightly combat. These verses became the basis for many subsequent German masters of arms in the Liechtenauer lineage, the earliest source we have being that attributed to Hanko Doebringer (c.1389). Later masters in this lineage who we have surviving treatises from include Ringeck, Von Danzig, Kal and Talhoffer. In some of these German sources there are elements which come from a different origin than Liechtenauer’s verses, such as the wrestling of Otto the Jew. At Boar’s Tooth Fight School we study all the Liechtenauer lineage to some degree, but with especial emphasis on the treatise of Sigmund Ringeck.
