I find with most beginners that ochs is the hardest guard for them to get consistently correct, particularly on the right, though there's nothing fancy to it. Although it's tiring to hold for a long time, there shouldn't be anything uncomfortable about it. Take another look at the images on this pa...
Hi Eric, great job for putting yourself out there to get critiqued. That is always a difficult thing to do. First off, your energy and intent seems to be pretty good, so keep that up. Footwork: Often it seems you cut a lot of cuts, without ever moving your feet in time with the cut. When your weapo...
Stacy, Thanks for the use-all-parts-of-the-sword lesson. Well taken. Greg, You're example of the zorn on zorn combat was extremely helpful. I'm wholly unknowledgable about winding techniques, so binding is a complete mystery to me. I'll have to put some specific emphasis on winding in my studies. Th...
There are three genres of cuts, over hand cuts (oberhaus), under hand cuts (unterhaus), and horizontal cuts (mittlehaus). Zornhau is a particular cut and an oberhau. A bind is anytime the two swords come together and usually means when they stay together because of how force is being applied. There...
No, they are not a more advanced technique. Generally, when you counter cut you should want to make a cut at a 90 degree angle to your opponents cut. If they strike at a diagonal, you strike at a diagonal. If they strike straight down, you strike horizontal. If they strike horizontal, you strike st...
I might suggest that you are favoring horizontal strikes a bit too much. These are hard to get proper momentum behind as they rely on a torsional motion (e.g. only your torso and arms can really get behind it, the legs only really go front-back very well). More diagonal or vertical slices are easie...
A few quick things: 1. THRUST! Swords have points for a reason. Throw a few thrusts in. 2. You're using what I would call "slicey" handwork. You keep your arms bent and pull the sword across. Lots of sword arts use that technique, and it works, but in my experience European Masters use mo...
Feedback is essential to martial growth. So, in that vein I would appreciate any possible comments on the vid below. Also, in an attempt to execute some counter-cutting techniques, I tossed in what I believe to be a zornhau from Vom Tag; it starts at 22 seconds. I'd really appreciate commentary on t...
Try a similar strike diagonally from boar's tooth as well, that one can be quite powerful. And yes, false edge and short edge are synonyms. I was following you until you mentioned "boar's tooth." I'm familiar with the four wards described by Ringeck and the majority of the wards described...
One point to note, there are no meisterhau originating from guards below the waist, so you're either going to strike them straight away or parry and then strike in two times from below, but there's not really a good way to strike and defend simultaneously from there in most cases just due to the an...
Is it possible to counter-cut an oberhau from any ward? I'm specifically questioning how one would counter-cut an oberhau from the Alber ward. It seems as if one would have to first transition to Vom Tag and then execute a zornhau to counter the oberhau. In solo practice I'm struggling to figure thi...
Hey, just wondering, but where in NJ are you guys? I live there myself as does my present sparring partner (though I live near central Jersey and he's down south a bit). Maybe some collaborative stuff could happen eventually (our knowledge isn't much farther along than yours :p) Peter and I live in...
I've spent the weekend going over ARMA's free translation of Sigmund Ringeck. The http://www.thearma.org/Manuals/Ringeck.htm It's only a portion, as stated outright in the explanatory notes at the beginning. Is the rest in the members section? Particularly, I'm looking for the sections on the "...
Hi Eric&Peter, You've had plenty of sword advice already, and more qualified than I would offer :) I just wanted to point out to you that leaving e-mail addresses in clear text on a forum is perhaps not the best idea; I'm sure that there are spam-bots crawling popular places such as this one fo...
