Weakness

[Craig Peters]

For all those familiar with his text on Longsword he states that the ART of fighting is when a weaker person can use his weakness to win, i.e. use the five words concept, the vorschlag and nachslag, the drei wunder (Strike, trust and drawcut) the nachreisen und so veiter...

This brings up another point that deserves a thread of its own. One emphasis that I have noticed in the ARMA training is to "fence with all of one's strength." Judging by some of the sparring videos that I have seen posted here from time to time, most people have little difficulty with this concept. Yet, is it possible that in our emphasis to fence strongly, we have neglected to more fully develop our understanding of the principle of weakness?

Ask yourself- when you spar, how often do you defeat your opponent through weakness? My answer is "hardly ever". Understand too that I'm not saying that one should fight "without strength" when one is employing the principle of weakness. What I am saying is that with a mentality of "fence with all of one's strength" there seems to be a tendency to neglect the usage of weakness in practice or sparring, since one is already mentally prepared to use strength.

[Jake_Norwood]

I win "though weakness" all of the time. Nachreisen, or binding weakly (what is a hengen followed by a cut, after all, but a weak bind and a strike to another opening...textbook Liechtenauer).

There's also a translation issue here. It's not "strong and weak" at the sword. It's "Hert und weych," or "Hard and weak" (or perhaps better translated as "soft," to differentiate from Sterck und Schwech, or "Strong and Weak" when referring to the divisions of the sword).

Yes, you fence with all of your strength. Yes, it actually takes more practice to effectively fight with strength than without it, as you have to learn to control and harness strength if you wish to use it without becoming a "buffalo."

Next time someone beats your weapon away, and instead of opposition you ride the beat's momentem to power your own strike to another opening, you're fulfilling both "fence with all your strength" and using weakness to overcome strength all at the same time.

Jake

[JeffGentry]

Hey Jake

There's also a translation issue here. It's not "strong and weak" at the sword. It's "Hert und weych," or "Hard and weak" (or perhaps better translated as "soft," to differentiate from Sterck und Schwech, or "Strong and Weak" when referring to the divisions of the sword).

Didn't we discuss this similart topic at the little gathering at your place?

I do agree to a small extent with Craig, This whole fnecing thing is confusing at time's trying ot keep all these principal's straight in our head's.

I think we need to be aware of them, I think what we need to do sometime's is just not think about them at all and just fight, sometime's what we need is to just be in the moment and do what we know and focus on the opponent like Doebringer say's fence like your opponent doesn't have a sword or you can't see it.

I know me personaly i do not use the concept of hard and weak in the bind as much as i should for the simple reason my "feeling" in the bind is not that good, I am trying to learn the feeling so i can play off my opponent' sword more, also strong and weak of the sword do play into this.


Jeff

[Matt Bryant]

I am in agreement with Jake. Often when fighting and someone trys to overpower you in a bind I will "go weak" and twitch (Zucken). It is a reference to knowing how to implement technique and having blade control, I think, it is not telling you to fence weakly overall.

[John_Clements]

Using "weakness" or "softness" is just about using contact sensitivity to feel the opponent's pressure and intention. It's vital and something we use and teach all the time.
It takes practice to develop.

JC