Doebringer and intent from M. Walgren in open research

[JeffGentry]

Hello Gent's

I wonder if we not all have fallen into a Hollywood/stagefighting trap on a much more deeper level than we thought. I have started to think of longsword fighting in the 15th century as a cut and thrust art. The origins of rapierfighting. This is of course just speculation but one I will go to depth with.

I have a similar thought as Martin, Doebringer actualy say's "And as soon as your opponent bind's your sword then your point should not be more than half an ell(30-40cm) from the opponent's breast or face" (pg 24r of Lindholm's Doebringer translation) if we move in and use the 5 hidden strike's with the right length and measure/time this is what they do as well as setting you up for the nachschlag(second strike using the dre wunder) and Lichty say's to "set yourself for advantage" and the 5 hidden strike's also do set you for advantage.

I think the problem is partialy do to the sparring weapon's and the fact most do not like to step into there opponent's cutting arc to set aside the opponent's cut, once you pass the point of the opponent's sword you are much safer, remember the point is sharper and move's faster, once inside you have the advantage and are ready to thrust into his face, remeber the closest and nearest in Doebringer, so he better be ready to wind or grapple when you set him aside and come to with in half an ell.

I have been taking alot of beating's this summer trying to gain the confidence to do this, and it is proving difficult to learn.

any thought's on this?

Jeff

[Randall Pleasant]

Jeff wrote:
...Doebringer actualy say's "And as soon as your opponent bind's your sword then your point should not be more than half an ell(30-40cm) from the opponent's breast or face"...

Jeff

When a proper Zorn to Zorn counter is performed your should end in a position, such as seen in the image below from Goliath. As Doebringer taught, the point is just inches from the adversary's face. Note that this is not an issue of just proper footwork but also the proper use of "Reach". One of the things I ride our newer members a lot about is not reaching out fully during a Zornhau. Sometimes they just pull their pommel down rather than extending their arms and torquing their hilt. This significantly shortens their blow. Another affect of pulling down the hilt is the edge-on-edge hits that we see in other groups, a example of which can be seen in Tobler's book on Ringeck.


<img width="600" height="600" src="http://www.thearma.org/Manuals/Goliath/29.jpg" />

[JeffGentry]

Hey Ran

When a proper Zorn to Zorn counter is performed your should end in a position, such as seen in the image below from Goliath. As Doebringer taught, the point is just inches from the adversary's face

Well i am a firm believer in what Doebringer said about the zornhau an Pg 23R of Lindholm's translation "Do not strike to the sword but alway's to the opening's to the head, to the body if you wish to remain unharmed. If you hit or miss, alway's search for the opening's, in all teaching's turn the point to the opening's."


The text of the image is (the italic's are mine)

"then to this also strike from high on your right (note in margin: in the weak on the sword) wrathfully displacing with him on his sword, if he is then weak on the sword,then aim to shoot ahead with the point and stab to his face, or attack the chest between the arms."

Which if you look the guy on the left he is winding into left hengen prepring to close the distance for a thrust to the head chest, i do not think he was attacking the other sword he was attacking the man.

And Doebringer tell's us to alway's have a finished piece in mind, and that is what the image show's, i think, a zornhau to zornhau that defended and missed killing the attacker and has now become the thrusting attack from the defender.


Jeff

[Randall Pleasant]

Jeff

Yes the goal of almost all strikes is to hit the adversary, not his sword. I did not state this since it is something of a given when discussing these technquies. Thus, the man on the left is in that poistion because his counter blow "missed" his adversary on the right. I think what you see in the image is the actual end of the Zornhau, the winding and the thrust should be in the same movement, not as two separate movements.

[Jake_Norwood]

Hi Jeff.

We drilled this very principle quite a bit three weeks ago at the first mini-gathering.

The primary culprit, other than bad training habits, is the nature of both wasters and sparring swords, and their "bounce." This principle cannot really be effectively trained or demonstrated without steel blunts (which is why the federschwerter are so great). I wish that you had played with them some when you were out here.

Jake

[JeffGentry]

Hey guy's

Jake

We drilled this very principle quite a bit three weeks ago at the first mini-gathering.

Yes i do remember that, and i am sure we were on the same page.

I do wish i could have realy played with the federschwert.




Jeff

[M Wallgren]

Thanks guys for the brilliant response!

This is one of the reasons why I can´t wait until I´ve seen what we can do with the Albion Maestro Line. Peter Johnsson has promised swords that is blunt but will FEEL like real swords.

But back to the main topic. This summer has been an eyeopener for me. Joachim and Michael Lindquist from ARMA Gimo has not been lazy with their iterpretaion of Hanko and J. has given me updates all summer. And every time I´ve gone out with my adepts and tryed Gimos new ideas.

One practise J has showed us is to start sparring with waisters from binden. This force you to apply winden wechseln stuff. In addision it gives you a feel for how to manage in a situation like this without the bouncing effect of wood or padding. J. also told us to explore binding at different parts of the swrd and start from there and my experience from this is:

If both bind in the weak section of the blade you get in a kind of close zufechten where both have time to evaluate the situation and do countermeasures quite comfortable (well!!). It othen leads to a circling around going between the pflugs and the ox on both sides looking for openings. But both fighters want to maintain bladecontact because if one of them let go of the blade both will feel "blind". Both also tries to "climb" the others blade seeking to get to a point where your blade can "grab" the other blade without risk of loosing it by a quick withdrawal of the other.

The second kind of bout is to start in a bind on the strong sections of the blade. Here the situation is much more indes and openings are presented much easier. Winden comes very naturly and halfswording and grappling is very effective here. Watch your heads though..

Please try this and tell us what your experiences where...

Martin

[Joachim Nilsson]

Please note that the practical exercises based on the principles of Döbringer Mikael and I have been working on are not yet fully finished. They really need to be presented, and tried, as a whole (with four guards, the Five Strikes, binden/winden and the Vier Versetzen, along with timing, distance, footwork etc).

We are considering an article on the subject. But I can always pen an extensive forum post if people are interested.

[JeffGentry]

Hey Joachim

I have been doing something similar to what Martin is saying with pflug and ochs, i would be interested in seeing what your idea's are.

Jeff

[Joachim Nilsson]

Hey Jeff,

okay. I'll see what I can do then. Don't wanna give out any deadlines yet though. We're currently hard at work with our Talhoffer project.

Regards,

[JeffGentry]

Hey Gent's

I have alot of my own idea's about this whole subject of historical fencing and how we are going about it, in the respect of binding, staying, feeling, winding, cutting, thrusting, slashing.

I don't think we are doing it wrong I do doubt we are doing it absolutely right, I see alot of wide reaching parrie's, and cut's seem to be the norm, now i don't think this is intentional our padded's are not well suited to winding, on the other hand the people i have sparred with have not realy tried to stay on my blade whether it is drill's with waster's or padded sparring and until lately i had not been staying on anyone else's either.

Just staying will change the way we do thing's when i do it, it is much more difficult for the opponent to gather themselve's for another cut and force's them to wind, because if they try to pull away they cannot do it without me inflicting damage to them.

In displacement drill's now i will go easy at first then add a little more resistance and somewhat stay on there blade after we do it and become more comfortable with it, when i do become harder, then they need to oppose me by feeling and reacting accordingly on contact, doing this will change the way we do thing's in my opinion, this also seem's to help with "waster bounce" also, that was origanly why i did it to try to eliminate some of the waster bounce, then i started seeing thing's in a diffrent way and it seemed more like the text, in that when i was hard in the bind on my weak the reaction had to be a little diffrent or when i was weak in the bind on my strong i could move my point much quicker and there sword point would usualy go way out to my side.

I am not at the point i want to be yet i do believe i will get there.

In Doebringer it seem's to be alot of staying in the fight a little closer then what I had normaly been doing, it seem's that Doebringer advocate's alot of winding even in the 5 hidden strike's, he seem's to give alot of option's for if the cut doesn't work you stil have the thrust and slash at your disposal do not neglect the dre wunder.


Jeff

[Randall Pleasant]

Jeff Gentry wrote:
the guy on the left he is winding into left hengen prepring to close the distance for a thrust to the head chest

Jeff

I must correct myself. <img src="/forum/images/icons/tongue.gif" alt="" /> After taking another look at the image I too believe the man is on the right is in the process of winding and thrusting. Without changing the grip of his right hand he is pushing his hilt out and thrusting his point forward. This movement requires the left hand to move over the hilt to the inside, leaving the palm facing up and out. This nicely accounts for the strange grip of his left hand.

[JeffGentry]

Hey Ran

I must correct myself. After taking another look at the image I too believe the man is on the right is in the process of winding and thrusting

I looked at that image and text for about 40 minute's before notcing that they were past the zorn to zorn stage and were actualy "moving" on to something else.

I have found sometime's the hardest part of looking at image's and reading text is figuring out what part of the image illustrated corresponde's to what part of the text.

I do understand what you were trying to say though, and agree to a large extent, i just have a strange way of looking at thing's, and usualy it confuse's normal people.

Jeff