Two Question: shietelhau & unterhau

[KevinHalleran]

Honored students of the arts:

I've been working on a series of two man drills which will allow us to train cuts and thrusts and the appropriate master stroke responses.

As we worked thru them I came up with a couple of problems I hope the forum can clear up for me.

1. It seems if the attacker thrusting from auber is committed to his attack the thrust will hit even if the defender's shietelhau hits. Sure we have a double kill, but that's too japanese for my taste. I've played around with stepping off to the side (make the foot shooting back shoot to the inside instead). But this seem too difficult to pull off at speed.

2. I've been trying to figure out the best respone to an unterhau. It seems zornhau can break any strike, but using it against an unterhau seems a more risky proposition than the other implementatiojns of the master strokes.

I look forward to your response.

Kevin Halleran

[Jonathan Newhall]

I've found the shietelhau to be the master strike most effective against unterhaus, and would recommend training with that rather than the zwerch for that purpose. So that'd probably fix problem number two.

For the first one, that would probably be because a schietelhau works best against unterhaus and mittelhaus, not against thrusts. To counter a thrust you would probably use something that would bind the thrust, then wind your way to victory. I'm a bit out of practice so I can't provide the most specific information unfortunately.

[Sal Bertucci]

1. I would need to practice it more myself before giving a confident answer, but from what I have worked with the problem seems to be your application against the thrust, not the MS itself. Have you tried various angles of traversing?

2. I believe at least Ringeck taught that you are supposed to use an oberhow vs. an unterhow based on the concept of "overrunning".

[CalebChow]

1. I would need to practice it more myself before giving a confident answer, but from what I have worked with the problem seems to be your application against the thrust, not the MS itself. Have you tried various angles of traversing?

2. I believe at least Ringeck taught that you are supposed to use an oberhow vs. an unterhow based on the concept of "overrunning".

Indeed, when fighting people a foot taller than myself I find that the only time schietelhaus are of any good effect is when I really, really go off line to the opponent's side with a large triangle step.

Even then, due to the range of my opponent's arms I find a krump or zorn much more viable most of the time

As for an unterhau counter, I noticed that charging in and stifling the blade works pretty well. Just be sure to follow up immediately with a palm strike to the face or a cut to the shoulder like here at 4:51, or do a counter-unterhau like at 5:30 in this video:

http://www.thearma.org/Videos/swordshow121.htm

[Jaron Bernstein]

Honored students of the arts:

I've been working on a series of two man drills which will allow us to train cuts and thrusts and the appropriate master stroke responses.

As we worked thru them I came up with a couple of problems I hope the forum can clear up for me.

1. It seems if the attacker thrusting from auber is committed to his attack the thrust will hit even if the defender's shietelhau hits. Sure we have a double kill, but that's too japanese for my taste. I've played around with stepping off to the side (make the foot shooting back shoot to the inside instead). But this seem too difficult to pull off at speed.

2. I've been trying to figure out the best respone to an unterhau. It seems zornhau can break any strike, but using it against an unterhau seems a more risky proposition than the other implementatiojns of the master strokes.

I look forward to your response.

Kevin Halleran

Here is a drill you can do that our local study group uses: Put on fencing masks. Have your partner cut and thrust at you "around the clock" (i.e. from all possible angles in a circle). Your task is to countercut or thrust (thrust when he thrusts) aiming at him (not his sword) in such a way that you both intercept his sword and hit him as well (versetzen) or set his attack aside and menace him with the point in the same movement (absetzen). The key to this is to NOT cut at his blade. If you do that he can just change though (durchwechel) and thrust you. Cut at him and with the same movement close the line of attack that his blade threatens. This dynamic is what makes a meisterhau work. You are both wearing the masks so that you actually aim to make controlled contact with your cuts and throw them with some life and intent.

[Jaron Bernstein]

1. I would need to practice it more myself before giving a confident answer, but from what I have worked with the problem seems to be your application against the thrust, not the MS itself. Have you tried various angles of traversing?

2. I believe at least Ringeck taught that you are supposed to use an oberhow vs. an unterhow based on the concept of "overrunning".

Sheitelhau is supposed to break the ward of Alber. The manuals clearly say that. The question I have is how. I am not convinced by those examples I have seen of it. The other meisterhau interpretations (zorn vs zorn, zwerch vs. vom tag, shiel vs. pflug, krump vs. ochs) I have seen do work for me, but that particular one is either flawed, or I am doing it incorrectly.

[KevinHalleran]

Jason:

The dril you suggest is sort of what I was going for, but basically a way to work attack and ...response techniques.

Thank you for the suggestion on how to abstract the masterstrokes, I'll work on that.

As far as auber/Sheitelhau I was hoping someone on the list had a suggestion on how the technique should work.

CalebChow:
I find when I use footwork to take me off line for the Sheitelhau it both robs power from the technique, is slower than the thrust, and often (51% about) does not take me far enough off-line fast enough.

Jonathan:
My understandin was the same as what Jason put out, that Sheitelhau was to break auber, I took that to mean the big thrust from that ward.

All:
Thank you for your reponses.

Kevin

[Stacy Clifford]

Just a note, that's not a misspelling, his name really is Jaron, not Jason.

[Jonathan Newhall]

Jonathan:
My understandin was the same as what Jason put out, that Sheitelhau was to break auber, I took that to mean the big thrust from that ward.

Sorry I was half asleep when I wrote that post.

From what I can conclude from the functioning of the thrust out of Alber vs. the Schietelhau, you would have to take advantage of the geometry of a high strike outranging a lower strike because the thrust begins from a low guard.

If you react too slowly (or are too short compared to your opponent) I can see how there would be a real difficulty using it as the thrust straightens out and gets closer in range to the overhead strike of a Schietelhau. So, in the event the geometry doesn't favor you (i.e. you're shorter than your opponent) I would probably say that difficulties are inevitable.