Staying, Binding and Winding and the Dre Wunder

[JeffGentry]

Hey Gent's

That is why Liechtenauer means
that when someone strikes an upper strike
[Oberhaw] against you, then you shall
strike a rage strike [Czornhaw] at him; that
is you move quickly in towards him with
your point leading. If he defends against
your point, then go quickly up and over to
the other side of his sword. If he defends
against that as well, then be hard and strong
in your sword and turn [Wind] quickly and
skilfully. If he defends against your thrust
then throw and strike quickly below and
you will hit him in the legs. That is you
should always try one after the other so
that he never has a chance to come to blows
himself.

How the heck can we get this in practice with waster's?

I just can't see all this being done all the time with "real" weapon's, I think I must be missing something with waster practice/sparring, I am wondering how much staying I need to do with waster practice/sparring i know in drill's a few time's i have changed how much force i resist with and it does change the reaction.

Our group seem's to not do much practice with waster's when we do thing's it is usualy drill's are we missing something in our waster practice?


Jeff

[Travis Beamon]

Jeff,

It seems that I miss this sometimes as well in my practicing, but because I personally neglect it because I'm not used to doing so all the time. At our practices we try and have some time set aside in the end for sparring and freeplay. I believe freeplay with wasters to be very effective in this. Start out at slower speeds between the two of you keeping control high, and progress as you can. This effectively allows us to use counters we have drilled alone and impliment them one after another if the case does present itself. I agree that it seems unlikely for all of these to occur one after another all the time in actual combat for in actual combat you could (hopefully) fall your opponent in one strike (thrust) or counterstrike (counterthrust). For me the issue is to keep drilling and practicing for in the eventuality that this could and will occur at some point.

-Travis Beamon
ARMA DFW

[Randall Pleasant]

Jeff

At some point your group must indeed move beyound doing just drills and actually practice counters. In regard to practicing Liechtenauer's Zornhau counters you must pull your blow short so as to not actually hit your training partner. The two basic ways of throwing a Zornhau short is to either not fully extend your arms or to take a passing step backwards. Regardless of how it is performed it is the responsibility of the person throwing the counter Zornhau to not hit their training partner. Speed comes with trust. A fencing mask is a must for all but the slowest movements.

On the ARMA Training & Practice Video Clips page check out the sixth video. Near the end of the video John Clements shows how he is pulling his blow so as to not actually hit his training partner.

[David Craig]

Jeff,

At ARMA NNJ we have found that binding/winding with wasters isn't too useful. Wasters are good for some things, but not that. They are too thick, too stiff, and bounce off each other in a way totally unlike steel. If you haven't already, try it with steel blunts and you'll see a huge difference.

Since we don't have a lot of protective gear other than masks/gloves, obviously we can't go anywhere near full force/speed with steel. But even at reduced speed with pulled thrusts you get a much better feel for actions from the bind than you do with wasters.

David

[Jake_Norwood]

Hi Jeff.

Good stuff. Really good stuff.

You need to practice with masks. Something that both parties have confidence in so that you can hit the face either on accident or on purpose without fear of injury. "Waster bounce" will interfere a little, but not so much.

This is also easier to practice than you might think. This technique, if I'm not mistaken, comes from the "Czornhau-ort" section, right? The agent strikes any oberhau, the patient strikes a zornhau against it with hands high, aiming not for the sword but for the opponent's head while stepping forward and offline. One of four things happen:

1. The strike hits, either with or without contact am schwert. End of drill.
2. The strike whiffs totally, missing. Recover to another guard and try something else or simply end the drill.
3. The strike counters resistance (binds) and doesn't hit with the edge. This resistance is weak, meaning that a thrust is easily achieved. Stab him in the face or breast. End of drill.
4. The strike counters resistance (binds) and doesn't hit with the edge, but this time the resistance is substantial (hard bind), and the point is moved off-line, away from the face or breast. Pull the weapon so that the point goes up, allowint the opponent's blade to move off to the side (to your right, since he's binding hard), and strike down on the other side.

Number 4 is where the passage from Liechtenauer comes in. He says that you counter attack with a zornhau, that you bind, but the bind is hard and the point can't hit, so you change over to the other side. He then gives a follow-up move if that changed-over strike fails as well, by raising the hands to strike the legs.

Practice all four outcomes artificially, slowly but with intent. Then speed up to half, 3/4, or faster, and simply let the agent attack with an oberhau, and you counter. Any of the 4 outcomes could happen, but don't decide in advance which one (well, don't do the "whiff" option...and because the agent knows what's coming, the simple "hit" option, no. 1, probably won't happen either).

Thus you will learn fuhlen in the proper context, you will learn to keep your point aimed at your opponent, and what to do when you opponent won't let you. You learn to fight "am schwert," which Dobringer calls the "heart and soul" of fencing.

Jake

[JeffGentry]

Hye Jake

Yea that is the zorn, i am not so much interested in being specific to this passage just in a more general way to do this maybe the press drill is the best way to do the winding and feeling, I would just like more beginning variation in the drill i guess, maybe the mask thing is what is necessary to realy get into it.

I just seem to see so much in the manual's saying to close after a cut and wind and use the other 2 piece's of the DreWunder, and in my brain i can see it working and being very safe for the first one to close after a strike.

Remember "look to the point"(Ringeck) after all the point is the sharpest and fastest part of the sword so i want to be closer to the slow part of my opponent's sword with my fast part right in there face, with the bind telling me where there sword is and somewhat controling there blade with the winding.


Maybe i am just thinking to much.

Jeff

[Jake_Norwood]

I don't know if you're thinking too much. Just remember, it's fighting.

Jake

[Mike Cartier]

The way I look at it is german longsword combat has 3 phases of combat. Zufechten, Krieg and Abzug.
Time should be spent training in all 3 phases. Most of us tend to stay in Zufechten and perhaps enter in to the Krieg here and there. We need to force ourselves into Krieg more which is a pain with paddeds so we want to try and do more blunt sparring.

[JeffGentry]

Hey Mike

We need to force ourselves into Krieg more which is a pain with paddeds so we want to try and do more blunt sparring.

That is my feeling as far as most staying in Zufecten, and I am trying to figure out how historicly they trained/drilled for moving to krieg and then fighting from there, I just have trouble believing they only trained to go to krieg and then stay there with blunt's or there actual sword's, since once someone move's to krieg the reaction's have to be very quick.

and most absetzen are very short quick movement's that allow you to bring the point on and move to krieg using the principle's of binding, staying, winding and feeling so you know whether to cut, slash, or thrust, after all that is the reason for being able to feel with the sword.

I could be wrong.


Jeff

[John_Clements]

Not meaning to be facetious in the least, but how to do it with wasters? Like this: wham, wham, wham!

Make sense?

JC

[Matt Bryant]

I definately agree with getting masks and doing it with good blunts. That is pretty much the only way that you will get a really good feel for it. You can do it with wasters, but they just don't handle quite the same. Andrei and I have worked on winding a good deal and we have done all of the afformentioned actions. It actually goes a lot faster than you would think from just reading it, and we often ended up doing Ringen am Schwert techniques. It is pretty easy to close in winding (provided you aren't on the point of your opponent's sword). I love winding and have used it successfully in full speed sparring. I hope to become much better at it though.

The Knightly Art of the Longsword by Lindholm (sp?) is a very good source for winding.

[philippewillaume]

Hello all
Jeff , if it can helps we break the practice like so
After warm up (masterhaw and breaking of the guard)
We do two or three technique
In parried form work and then in control sparing]
Then we tried to have 15 minutes free sparing at the end before the cool down.
Weather you are using shinai or waster your will have bounce and you need mask (and fore arms protector…:-))
But all that has been said before by a few poster, so I am forcing open door as we say in French.

Personally I am against anybody shortening his or her blow (goody or baddy) if there is no reasons other than make the technique easier.
The baddy should really strike to hit the goody and the goody need to zornh to hit the baddy.
The baddy should then realize “oh bugger, he is going to twat me” and give the appropriate response for the exercise.
As you can imagine it is pain to set up when the practitioner do not have the habit of doing it.
So I usually have them starting from the bind the baddy giving the first impulse as to what the reaction we expect to act upon.

About the bind and all the related pieces
You are not the only one to have been there, mate J. That is why I see ringeck as a system (which in essence is not that different of what you are doing in Arma. I am just limiting myself to Ringeck technique as opposed to using other master) where every technique principle complement each other.

I know it is really difficult to convey with word especially since we probably do not use the same vocabulary and we may even have a slightly different understanding.
But binding is like kissing you need to be two for it to work.

My understanding of zu fecheten is just what it says on the tin. You are coming to fence. IE You are getting into distance where you can strike you opponent in shuch way that a body movement will not get him out of trouble on it’s own.
What I am trying to say is that it took me ages to realize that strike to hit the man means precisely that. There is no point to strike him if he can get away by body motion alone. It means that I was too far when I launched my attack.
I believe that we have to make the bin the best option available to our opponent and I think that is directly dependent of the structure and the distance from which we launch the attack.
I really think that is the critical part of the German teaching and Ringeck in particular.

Cheers phil

I know that seems glaringly obvious but it is harder to actually do than it seems, an other way to look at it could be to say that if he can do something else than binding of being hit, the initial strike was not good enough…
Ps please take my comments at a conceptual level, it is not a slant on anybody abilities or capacities.

[JeffGentry]

Hey Philippe

You are coming to fence. IE You are getting into distance where you can strike you opponent in shuch way that a body movement will not get him out of trouble on it’s own.
What I am trying to say is that it took me ages to realize that strike to hit the man means precisely that. There is no point to strike him if he can get away by body motion alone. It means that I was too far when I launched my attack.

This is what i am thinking, I just can't get people willing to do it in sparring and have no specific drill's to get people accustomed to moving in as a defense instead of running away, it is hard to to do in sparring when everyone run's away from you, and stay's out of range, what i have taken to doing is staying barely out of range of cut's, i mean close enough to know i am in a dangerous place, and i am getting hit alot because i am busy looking to disrupt there attack and find the blossen i am going to attack and when i do bind and move in people tend to run away as a defense instead of winding.

Maybe John is on to something and i need to just do the Wham, wham, wham thing.



Jeff

[Jaron Bernstein]

"it is hard to to do in sparring when everyone run's away from you, and stay's out of range,"

Eh? I spend LOTS of time in the Handarbeit range. But at that range I also have a hard time getting a bind to work with paddeds at least. <img src="/forum/images/icons/grin.gif" alt="" />

[JeffGentry]

Hey Jaron

Eh? I spend LOTS of time in the Handarbeit range. But at that range I also have a hard time getting a bind to work with paddeds at least.

Like i said everyone run's away and you don't get into the range of Krieg, and when you do get into range you don't stay on your opponent's sword you keep cutting and breaking the bind and your opponent doesn't stay on your blade either and when they do it goes to the range of ringen because you keep advancing(buffalo) remember Dre Wunder use the right one at the right time.

Every time the sword blade's touch it is a bind and if you want to wind you need to stay on the blade so you know where ther blade is in relation to you and your blade so you can set yourself for advantage.

Jeff