Dagger Stabs

[scott adair]

Martin,

Are you saying that the blade length should be from the base of the palm to the tip of the elbow? Just want to clarify as I am about to make some wooden and sparring roundels.


Scott

[JeffGentry]

Hey Scott

The way i understood Vadi and make mine when i hold it in a reverse grip,"ice pick" grip, They go to my elbow they are about 15-16 inch's in total length, the picture's i have seen, rodell's are very long.

Jeff

[Jake_Norwood]

I have an old MRL rondell that is actually very nice. It's huge! The blade is probably 18" or longer, the whole thing is about 2' long.

Jake

[philippewillaume]

Hello matt
Sorry I did not reply to you sooner

Like you I have a very broad view of ringen (wrestling). In essence I find it relating a lot to aikido. Lots of grabs in aikido (hand grabs) does not make sense in modern wrestling but they do if someone prevent you to access a weapon, and lots aikido move are based on accessing a weapon.
So more than wrestling it is really just a part in the continuation of the fight

I do not think you can detach wrestling from any other weapons as it is integrated in them all. (You have wrestling in any weapon).
In the horse bit Ringeck even advise us to go straight to wrestling to bypass the sword/messer entirely and taking the advantage.

You could say that ringen seems to be as much as wrestling as a way to prevent access to weapon and a way to access your weapon safely.
Some people will use the left arm to clear the way for their attack, eventually tacking a cut in the left arm.
Some other people will hit and run
Some other will charge in.
That is exactly what you will face if you were doing pure empty hand, sword and bucler, messer or longsword.

Some rondel dagger were relatively sharp and the rondel protects the hands quite nicely, why not use it as a messer? At lest to gain entrance.

Or you cab use both hand together with or without dagger as if you were using a a shield and bucler

Or you can just deal with the dagger attack as if it was an empty handed blow.

What I was trying to say is, like swordsmanship, you will end up with a very uncertain situation unless you are using a system (be it arma or “ringeck only”).
The idea is to get in a situation where we can kill him as safely as possible.
IE where I can stab him repeatedly and where I cannot.

Using a dagger like ringen, longsword messer or sword and buckler is to give me cover and entrance, may be to gain an opportunity to deliver a murder stroke or a bainbruch, then to get into a unterhalten-like position.

phil

[Joachim Nilsson]

Are you saying that the blade length should be from the base of the palm to the tip of the elbow? Just want to clarify as I am about to make some wooden and sparring roundels.


Scott

Hi Scott.

Grab the "dagger-to-be" on the ice pick grip, i.e. regular rondell dagger grip and bend your wrist. If the tip of the dagger reaches your elbow, you've more or less got the corrct length Vadi specifies. It will also, as Martin previously stated, match the length depicted in for instance Talhoffer (with consideration for difference in body- and extremity length between the medieval and modern man of course).

This length of dagger is prefarable to a shorter one since so many of the techniques utilizes upper and lower shields and trapping manuevers etc.

[Joachim Nilsson]

The Lutel rondell daggers are excellent for this kind of work. They just about perfectly match the desciption and depiction of Vadi et al.

[scott adair]

Thanks for the responses.

Does anyone have a design they favor for sparring dagger construction?

Scott

[Jake_Norwood]

David Welch and Co. made some awesome, durable, heavy-contact sparring daggers for our Meyer Workshop last year. Perhaps he could post them here?

Also, a design I got from Bob Charron and have used to great satisfaction is the "Paper Knife:" Roll up a newspaper. Roll a magazine around that, so that some of the newspaper protrudes from one end. Cover with duct tape.

These are free if you use junk mailings, anyone can make them in almost any quantity, and although they don't last long, you can beat the crap out of each other with them.

Jake

[Joachim Nilsson]

We just use our regular wooden rondell wasters.

[Jaron Bernstein]

Well, the pottery barn catalog and some duct tape works well. Got 3 stitches from one of those once.

[JeanryChandler]

Not to toot my own horn but, I make a pretty good rondel out of duct tape and various types of foam.

JR

[Mike Cartier]

Jake looking at the Dagger section of Meyer's manual i see not a single image with a forward grip and going through your dagger guide i see no translations mentioning this forward grip?

Any idea why there is no forward grip. Personally i think you can stab about the same either reversed or forward grip but with a Rondell you probably won't pull it back out again with a forward grip stab. I have heard in FMA circles how even an edged knife can become stuck in a body from a stab due to bones, suction and other factors which make it difficult to pull the dagger back out.

Jay any mention of the forward grip in Fiore's dagger material?

[Casper Bradak]

"Here start the underhand techniques, strong techniques; Because of these technques, so many were killed: And my students will start these techniques and will start underhand."
Fiore

The whole "getting stuck" thing has been argued innumerable times, and the general outcome is that the human body is not a vacuum or block of sappy wood that can hold a sharp, blood-lubed blade. Either way, the grip style shouldn't effect it, sticky or not.

[Jared L. Cass]

Mike, IMO Joachim hit the nail on the head (although his reply was in reguards to length, it applies equally as well to this question). The reason might be because of the amount of trapping/catching/ect that is part of roundal fighting.

The vast majority of traps (with the dagger) are done with the icepick grip. It's much easier to get these traps to work by holding it that way. If you use more of the forward grip, you'll notice that many of the manual images are using the knife in a more lively manner (perhaps a "snip snip manner" ?) and use ones arms primarily to do the trapping/grappling upon closing with them rather than using the dagger as a grappling/trapping tool.

Does that make sense at all?

Look over as many dagger fighting bits available in the manuals, and you'll see what I'm talking about. A good quick "hands on" example might be to try achieving a "scissor lock" with the dagger in the icepick grip vs. the forward grip.

It can be done both ways, but the icepick grip is easier, "stronger", and I think faster. Have a stab come in at your face and meet it with an upper shield. Milliseconds after contact and maintaining the bind, scissor lock the opponents wrist and move inside or outside and forward or back to throw them.

Try it with the dagger held in each grip, and see how each feels. A guy can do the same thing with the various other traps/grapples that use the dagger primarily rather than the arms. It's pretty cool and you can imediatly grasp where/why the ice pick grip has a more prominent place in this fight.

Jared L. Cass, ARMA Associate, Wisconsin

[Jake_Norwood]

There are a number of counters against the forward grip in Meyer. There's an a attack or two as well, but it is by far the minority.

Jake