The Squinter

[Derrick Berrier]

Can anyone give a simple explanation on performing the Squinter from the Knightly Art of Combat. I am having a hard time understanding the translation. I know it counters the Pflug guard but I can't figure out how to execute it. Thanks to all of you in advance for your help.
Derrick

[Randall Pleasant]

Derrick

Although it does not show the actual breaking of the Pflug guard, the following image from Goliath should help you see the actions involved. In the image the adversary on the left was either in left Ochs or left Pflug and thrust into Long Point with a passing step. The man on the right cut a Squinter/Schiller into the adversary's blade during the thrust, displacing it down and to the adversary's right. The technique is finished with the man on the right thrusting into the adversary's upper right opening, notice the point sticking out the adversary's back. You basically perform the same actions if your adversary is just sitting in Pflug. Also check out the article The Mastercuts – What They Are and What They Aren’t.


<img src="http://www.thearma.org/Manuals/Goliath/78.jpg" width=500 height=600 />

[Jake_Norwood]

Derrick,

There have been some exhausting but excellent threads on the squinter (Schiller, Schielhau, Schielhauw, Schielhaw, Schaytler, etc.) in recent months. I suggest doing a topic-search for those key words and checking those out. I'd pass out if I had to do that again right now!

Jake

[Derrick Berrier]

Jake
Thank you, being new I hadn't learned all the different names for the strike. I will use your advice and do a search. Thanks again.

Derrick

[Jake_Norwood]

A quick self-edit, though. The Schaytler is a Scheitelhau, not a Shielhau! My bad!

(Shame on you all for not catching that)

Jake

[david welch]

Derrick,

It helps when you start to realize every strike is either an overstrike with the long or short edge, and understrike with the long or short edge, or a strike that starts with one edge but finishes with the other. None of it is nearly as complicated as it sounds at first.

A squinter is just and overstrike that you start with the long edge, and change to a short edge strike "just as" it comes into the bind... or where it would have if you don't wind up binding.

If you make a wrath strike to his head with the long edge and he goes into hengen to protect himself, when you change edges and thrust your back hand up, it makes the sword wrap around behind his blade and hit him anyway, like in the guy on the right in the picture Ran posted.

If you throw it low at pflug, flipping the blade over to the short edge knocks his point offline and puts your hands a little more to the outside so you can then stab him.

At least, that is how it is working for me. Hope that helps.

[Derrick Berrier]

David,

Thank you, it is all starting to make a little more sense now. I'm sure it will be even clearer after I do a few practical excercises.

Derrick

[Derrick Berrier]

I just finished looking at some older posts on the Scheitelhau. As a newb to the longsword it was refreshing to see that this strike is not cut and dry. I do however have a more educated view now after taking from what the rest of you have given. Thanks to all.
Derrick

[SzabolcsWaldmann]

Dijon 2006 is over now, and one thing I learned from Wolfgang Ritter, a very good instructor of the organisation Zornhau, is that the mastercuts break the gurads in the same moment as they are taken - and not after. You will not break a pflug with a schielhau when it's ready and waiting for you - but when you see him taking on the guard, in the same instant you throuw the blow - he cannot counter it then. The same goes for all mastercuts. I was wondering anyway, for the breakings did not make much sense, in themselves, actually. But whit motion, when they are taken, then the told mastercuts work well. Perfect, actually.

Szab

[jeremy pace]

That makes perfect sense Szab. I look forward to putting that spin on it. It never stops amazing me how so much of this is so obvious and simple and yet i am constantly faced with new info i feel i never would have thought of. It makes one appreciate the community all the more.

[Randall Pleasant]

SzabolcsWaldmann wrote:
Dijon 2006 is over now, and one thing I learned from Wolfgang Ritter, a very good instructor of the organisation Zornhau, is that the mastercuts break the gurads in the same moment as they are taken - and not after. You will not break a pflug with a schielhau when it's ready and waiting for you - but when you see him taking on the guard, in the same instant you throuw the blow - he cannot counter it then. The same goes for all mastercuts. I was wondering anyway, for the breakings did not make much sense, in themselves, actually. But whit motion, when they are taken, then the told mastercuts work well. Perfect, actually.

Szabolcs

I must disagree with Wolfgang's very limiting interpretation. I do agree that striking just as your adversary enters a guard has many advanages. However, if this timing was that critical to the master cuts then I think the Masters would have pointed it out to us. In Ringeck it is very clear that the Zwerchhau both breaks the Vom Tag guard and counters Oberhaus thrown from the Vom Tag guard. If Wolfgang's interpretation was correct then the Masters would have advised us to just go into a guard and wait for our adversary to attack. Instead we are advised to do the opposite. I think it is in Doebringer's manual where we are advised to keep moving, I can't remember the actual line off hand but it goes something like: "He who moves lives, he who is still dies".

Wolfgang's interpretation is also not supported by my personal experience in sparring. I am far from being a good swordsmen yet I have used the Schiller to break the Pflug guard well after my adversary had moved into the guard. I have also seen other ARMA members do the same. The only times I seen well executed master cuts not work at all has been against the senior level members who knew well what to expect and were readly to counter.

[Aaron Pynenberg]

I agree with Ran, i have never heard of that theory before....it would mean that our entire system would be an imperfect one because it would rely on the ability to observe the movements much more than the fighting positioning themselves. While it is a key component of the fight it is by far secondary to good technique and a solid foundation in presure and leverage, timing and distance. This is probably what the guy is trying to communicate through his verbage?

[Jaron Bernstein]

Perhaps we could say that while it can used to break a static guard, it works better just as they move into the guard?

[SzabolcsWaldmann]

He was working from Danzig and Speyer; which two I do not know for the very last word.
And the two things - keeping yourself in movement and hitting the opponent whyle he is moving - are not contradictory. It was Matt Galas who pointed out in his tempo theory lesson in Dijon that all manuals which describe tempo say to attack whyle the enemy is in a movement. espetially (Silver!) when the whole body moves, not just the hands. Like, cmon, is the krump not supposed to break the ox guard? Have you ever tried that and came out alive? Espetially that krump is supposed to hit the hands?
I don't see anything wrong with that theory. Yesterday in training I tried do work like that in sparring, and I found myself using mastercuts and single time.
Well, it's one's word against the other, so without written evidence it still remains a theory. All I can say is that it is clearly written in the rapier manuals.

Szab

[philippewillaume]

Hello, Szab
Here is my take on the breaking of the guard.
Yes I have and yes it breaks static guard ox, plough, alber and von tag even taken by an opponent that really really tries to hit me. Otherwise what he hell do you do if you opponent take a static guard or someone that uses Italian guard?
(beside Ringeck clearly says when he stands against you in the guard of xxx).

In fact I believe that is why they are called leger/hut (position/guard) because any guard can be expressed in function of those 4.
The guard we take are, if we are fighting German, the most threatening version of that leger. If you can break those you can break any guard from those position
Regardless of the position of the blade, you hands can be in only five positions using the vertical median line of your body. In front up (i.e. Ox), back and up (i.e. von tag,)
Low and in front (alber), low and back (plough).

That is why I thing there is discrepancies between Dobringer and the other master in the guards descriptions.

I said five because in front and low where the sword point makes a difference.
If it point at you and the arms are somewhat in front of the body it should be treated like a long ort and not an alber.

Since you mention the ox, if you look at VD picture the guy has his hand in front
and all the texts says in front of the the head (vor dem haupt) as well. Now take an &amp;#8220;ox&amp;#8221; against your hear and the krump will fail but the Zwerch will break it.

There are guards, like the alber, which only purpose is to lure you into attacking.
Try VD description of the shaitlel against a static guard, if your opponent is tuned in, it does not work. The best you can expect is a double kill.
The guy in abler can easily subtract his upper body from our strike and twat us in the hands at leisure (or trust us in the face or chest according how playful he is).

Starting from a dynamic or not dynamic alber does not change anything to the above statement. Dynamic just makes it a tad more difficult for the one that actually takes the guard, but again nothing prevents him to not really commit.
At the and of the day your attack need to protect you should he move and combination of left, right, front, back or stain in same place swapping posture or not.

For me the key is that mastrehaw are not magic, you still need to be striking from the right place
In a VD world, you have a Zwerch that ends up in shrankhurt a strike the hands and that very easy to transform VD shaitle into that, if your opponents tries to counter you as you initiate the shaitle.
in a Ringeck world you stike from the schaitle not with the shaitle.

phil