Vom Tag;"on" the shoulder or "over"

[Stuart McDermid]

Hi John,

I make these statements and I stand by them. I can see what you are trying to achieve by holding Vom Tach the way that you do, I just don't agree that holding it in order to make the fastest possible blow in necessary. As I may have said before, the other guy will be attacking you in the time of the hand, body and foot. You can defend in the same (but a slightly shorter) time. If someone cuts at me from above on a pass I can make a short pass/step to counter it.

I am not saying you should move slowly, just that any move the attacker makes will be slowed by the time of his foot. I am saying this but I am not alone. Silver says it too. People who don't even study Silver uses his times, grounds and governors in their "fencing speak" which I would take to mean that Silver knew what he was talking about.

Although the attacker may be able to swing at you quickly, he can't because he has to wait until his feet bring him into distance. If you swing as fast as you can then your sword will have completed it's arc long before you are in distance for it to take effect. So given that you can't swing as fast as your arms will let you anyway then you might as well lie in the position in which as little of your body is exposed as possible.
Having the elbows up as you do in the photo's above serves no purpose other than to increase your vulnerability for no gain. In the pictures from Danzig above, the fighter in Vom Tach is in a nice relaxed posture where he is expending little energy and not exposing his arms at all. I am at a loss to explain how you can justify having your elbows up based on both my evidence above and the fact that in no manual is this position you have chosen shown.

I am disappointed to learn that you make use of Kenjutsu in your method. Perhaps you should advertise what you teach as your own personal method (nothing wrong with that btw, just ask Guy Windsor) rather than as an eclectic form of Historical European Swordsmanship as you do now.

What you do may actually be more use in sparring than what most other "One manual at a time no kenjutsu" clubs are doing but I think we all need to bear in mind that ARMA's goals are not the same as many other clubs. I doubt many people are aware of your Kenjutsu influence at all. I hope you make it clear when you sign new students up.

I look forward to what will hopefully be a nice scientific debate of my comments above.

Just wanted to also congratulate Claus on some great scholarly posting. His knowledge and recall of the manuals is excellent. Keep it up Claus.
Cheers,
Stu.

[Brian Hunt]

Hi Stuart,

forgive me for butting in, but I am confused. <img src="/forum/images/icons/confused.gif" alt="" />

I do not believe I saw John state anywhere that he uses kenjutsu in his teachings. I saw Jay Vail do a comparative of Von Tag to the similar pose in the japanese sword arts, I then saw Shane Smith say that he felt it was comparing apples and oranges, then I saw Jay Vail defend his statement, but I only read John speaking of the european manuals. . . . I can say that in all the time I have spoken to John about the longsword, he has never used Kenjutsu as a justification for what he teaches. He has only spoken of what is written in the European manuals.

please refresh my memory if I am wrong on this.

Brian Hunt
GFS

[Stuart McDermid]

Hey No probs Brian.

You are right that John didn't say he was using Kenjutsu specifically but he chose not to reveal the specific source he used for his version of Vom Tach. The combination of Jay's post and the fact that I have only ever seen this particular mode of high guard in Kenjutsu leads me to believe that this guard can only have come from there.
Cheers,
Stu.

[TimSheetz]

Hi Stuart,

There are some things about which I must voice my opinion.

Some of the comments you made made reference to vulnerabilities of positioning above the shoulder (due to the location of the elbows) are absolutely incorrect.

You wrote: "Having the elbows up as you do in the photo's above serves no purpose other than to increase your vulnerability for no gain."

I write: This is incorrect. Actually, having your elbows like that keeps your arms OUT of the normal arc of a blow when you are out long range. Not to mention the fact that the force of the blow is significantly increased as are the options for targeting you opponent.

You wrote: "I am at a loss to explain how you can justify having your elbows up based on both my evidence above and the fact that in no manual is this position you have chosen shown. "

I write: "I am not saying that these are all "guards" as I am quickly just glancing around, but I see some "over the shoulder activity" going on in these images...."

http://www.thearma.org/talhoffer/t1.htm
http://www.thehaca.com/pdf/sf2.JPG
http://www.thearma.org/Manuals/Mair/37.jpg
http://www.thearma.org/Manuals/Mair/40.jpg


I wrote in my earlier post and I 'll say it again:
"In practical application - sparring - it seemed that the ON-the-shoulder position left your left forearm in a position for easy exploitation to a quick downward cut from an OVER the shoulder or head position. "

This is absolutely true. I have never been in a guard as John depicted -over the shoulder or, more to my personal liking, over my head and been struck by anyone on the elbows. NEVER. I have been hit plenty of times in training due to a combination of skilled opponents, dumb mistakes, and bad luck, but never in that guard. I have sparred multiple opponents many, many times and this guard as John has depicted is TACTICALLY SOUND. There are images showing it.


Looking at the tactical soundness of the on the shoulder.... I have seen people in the on the shoulder guard get their forearms struck as their arms lay in the natural arc of a downward swung sword when at long range. I think that that position may have applications for counters but the dangers of staying in that position seem a bit too high.

Now as I said in my earlier post, when BOTH parties use that guard, it becomes MORE viable. If one does and one doesn't, I'd prefer to be the one who doesn't.

Just my two cents.

Tim

[Stuart McDermid]

Hi Tim,

I disagree with you and understand that there are manuals where the sword is held above the shoulder where the elbows naturally flair as per the pics you just posted.

What I cannot find is evidence of a posture where the sword is held at shoulder level with the elbows flared out.
Cheers,
Stu.

[TimSheetz]

HI Stuart,

Well, I would not call the elbows flared. I mean we have many body types, I think the call the fact that you can see the elbow joint outside the plane of the sword and hilt is a bit nit-picky.
I would bet money that you can't hold a sword over your shoulder and pull your elbow in so it is UNDER the sword without looking a little crippled.

The bottom line is the elbow is not "exposed."

If it were, it would be hit more as many people have tried to hit John in mock combat. The historical technique has to stand the scrutiny of the forge of (mock) combat to be validated. I know that posture in the photos is VALID.

What we do not know, but it is worthy to continue to explore, is that holding the sword on your shoulder is valid. For me it is not, and won't be until I can see it executed in a way that leads to success against an uncooperative opponent and with realistically weighted weapons.

The idea of that position is intriguing. I enjoyed experiencing it this past summer sa Ochs and BArt demonstrated and I am looking forward to meeting more WMA folks when I leave Korea and get to Europe.

I want to put all of that to a thorough testing. IT will be glorious!

I like swords!

Tim

[Jay Vail]

I've talked about this kenjutsu/Euro thing at length with JC. He's never trained in any Japanese system and I am convinced he is uninfluenced by them. His interpretations arise only from his reading of the Euro manuals.

[Stuart McDermid]

Hi Jay,

Ok, cool. I'm glad we cleared that up.

Tim, I agree with much of what you are saying, especially in regards to properly pressure testing material to the best of our ability.

I do think that manuals should be taken at their face value until you can prove that the method absolutely doesn't work.

My assertion is definitely a little nitpicky. If you are not nitpicky with 500 year old sources then it is surely easy to make mistakes.
I'd rather be as meticulous and exacting as possible viewing each manual is isolation to make sure my interpretations are as pure as possible than increase the chance that I may get something wrong.

As for the 'on the shoulder" thing. I have worked with it quite a bit and find the posture useful as long as your bodyweight is on the back foot and your torso slopes backwards to increase the distance. Both Fiore and Meyer hold their sword in a guard resting almost horizontally on the shoulder (they use a different foot posture though). Hmmm. I'll have to go looking for this in Vadi. He may not have it though as his system is alot more "centreline" and "narrow space" than Fiore.
Cheers,
Stu.

[Webmaster]

I'll back Jay up on this one. I've been studying with John here in Houston for almost four years now (!), and kenjutsu has never been the source for anything that we have done in our classes and is rarely even mentioned in casual conversation.

[Webmaster]

Funny, but this is starting to sound like we're talking about the Bible or the U.S. Constitution. Do we go by the letter of the law or the spirit of the law? I would have to say ARMA falls more in the "spirit" camp (the goals of the masters - produce effective fighting men), whereas other groups choose more to follow the letter (the specific techniques of the masters - try to fight exactly as they did). Both can learn from each other, and frankly I think both approaches are necessary to arrive at anything close to the truth. The best we can hope for is convergent evolution between what we do and what they did, and that takes time and environmental pressure, in this case the environment of combat, mock or otherwise. Our philosophy is pretty much as Tim states it. Whatever you believe, test it, test it, test it against people who want to make it fail (a.k.a. the scientific method), and if you can still make it work, then you're probably on the right track. If you have to do something you wouldn't normally do to make it work, you should probably consider your interpretation flawed. If you get hit every time, start over.

By the way, I agree with Tim. I never get hit on the elbows from that position either.

[Joachim Nilsson]

Stu - I'm a little confused on how you think the "on the shoulder" variant should look. Would you be so kind as to post pictures of yourself in this guard so we can all see?

[Stuart McDermid]

Stacy,

That was a truly excellent post Stacy. I agree that both approaches are required completely just not that you have to make a choice.

I tend to start and finish with as close to what the masters say as possible. If you don't experiment with variations though then it is difficult to understand the "whys" behind the instructions.

Joachim,

I could do this if you want but my German posture would look alot like the one in the picture from Danzig that John posted a couple of pages back. I'll see what I can do about a camera in the next few days. <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />
Cheers,
Stu.

[TimSheetz]

Hi Stuart,

I wouldn't say "nit-picky" when referring to the study of manuals. I would use "Attention to Detail" as the proper words. We can't be nit-picky until we are sure something is right or wrong.

I was saying your view of the stance is nitpicky because you cannot stand with the over the shoulder position without your elbows being bent. Try holding the sword over the shoulder and not have your elbow out at all. Try it. It is unnatural. Imagine standing in armor. How close in are the elbows then? Should I tuck my elbows in tighly against my body as an art image may show, only to put myself in a tactically unsound and physically unstable position from which I can only launch weaker and few attacks? I don't think they are trying to suggest we do that.

I hope to see more of the on the shoulder technique and see it 'at work'.

You said you'd rather be meticulous as possible viewing each manual in isolation. Well, that's is great, as long as the technique is tried against many adversaries and stands up. Not saying it hasn't been done, just saying I haven't seen it. But I want to see it.

Now that I have read al the posts I am going to add, that I agree with Stuart. Stacy had a great point inthe study od specific manuals and comparing it to the more wholistic approach. Only by the exploration and questioning and testing will we make great new discoveries.


Peace,

Tim

[Matthew_Anderson]

Great post Stacy! I think you summed up the way I feel about interpretation and reconstruction of these techniques very nicely, thanks.

[Webmaster]

Thanks Stu, but I wasn't really saying you had to make a choice. I think it's just human nature that we separate ourselves out that way based on our own personalities, kind of like the lumpers and the splitters. We have a good mix of both in ARMA, we just are in general agreement to allow for a wider latitude of interpretation of the texts, experiment as much as possible and see what falls out. There have been a number of times where we discovered techniques covered in the manuals that we had already been doing as a natural result of our other actions, which tells us that you can discover valid techniques independent of the manuals, and of course motivates us to keep trying. After all, somebody invented these techniques from scratch once upon a time. That said, we're still all amateurs relying on the advice of long-dead "pros" to guide us in the right direction.

The other thing I want to point out about interpretation is that here we are, intelligent people sitting at our computers with a firm grasp of the English language and photographic technology, doing our best to describe what we're doing to each other, and we're still struggling to convey what we're doing in words and pictures. Take that back 500-600 years to a professional fighting man who, though educated, was probably not a professional scholar using a less developed version of our language, or a different language that has to be translated, who has to rely on his own grammatical skill and teaching ability and an artist who may or may not know the subject he's drawing and models who may have to pose for hours, and I think you multiply our difficulties by 100. The fact that many of the masters did such a good job and that we have learned as much as we have from them is remarkable, but I think we have to realize that just like ourselves, they didn't always know the best way to say what they meant. Who really knows if "at the shoulder" meant on the shoulder or over it six centuries ago? We don't even use words in the correct context half the time now. That's my argument in a nutshell for leniency in judging someone's interpretation, but at the same time remember that in academia all ideas are refined and proven by constant assault. Point is, question everything, including the source, and realize that it's not personal.