Unarmed "Gaurds"

[William Savage]

sorry to ask such an ignorant question. but me and my friends have just starded practicing medieval unarmed combat.
The only gaurd i could find is in Talhaffers and has you feet double shoulder width and both hands at your hips palms outward. I've taken some boxing and this is quite a radical swich.
If this is realy the only medieval unarmed gaurd Im enthusiastic about learning to use it, only my face and stomic seem vary vonlerable to strikes.
Are there any more gaurds? thanks.

[JeffGentry]

Hey William

Check out The Codex Wallerstein, it has a good bit of unarmed combat and does show a number of gaurd's.

Jeff

[Randall Pleasant]

William

Check out Hans Wurm’s Ringbuch c. 1507.

[Brian Hunt]

You might also want to look at Fiore, his Abraze (wrestling) is basic and has four guards.

Brian Hunt.
GFS

[Axel Pettersson]

In this link you will find some unarmoured techniques described with photos and pics from manuals, at the top of the page you will also find some guards from different manuals.

http://www.nada.kth.se/~jsh/hobby/tekniker/unarmed.html

Look to the text at the right under each picture, if you do not understand Swedish (if you do, look at the text to the left <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" /> )

have fun!

[JeffGentry]

Look to the text at the right under each picture, if you do not understand Swedish (if you do, look at the text to the left )

Or you could go back and forth between the two and teach yourself some swedish. lol

seriously that is a very good site to look at though, there is some excelent work on it.

Jeff

[William Savage]

Sorry about taking so long to reply but thanks for all the great help!

[Axel Pettersson]

yes it is indeed a nice site, I can recommend you to look around abit, since you in the menu to the left also will find techniques for longsword (långsvärd), polaxe(pålyxa), rapier(rapir), sword and buckler (svärd och bucklare), dagger (dolk) as well as the unarmed (obeväpnat) part. Both in English and Swedish so you can touch up your language skills while you are at it <img src="/forum/images/icons/grin.gif" alt="" />

[Jeffrey Hull]

Check this out:

Fiore de Liberi offers us 3 or 4 (depending how you look at it) distinct unarmed guards in which to stand at beginning of unarmed wrestling:

http://www.varmouries.com/wildrose/fiore/section1.html

Enjoy,

[Joachim Nilsson]

Talhoffer has got one or two lurking about, "hidden" away in different parts of his fechtbücher too.

[JeffGentry]

Hey Guy's

From what i have seen most of the fechtbuchs have at least one or two, they just are not at the beginning of the ringen you have to go through the whole ringen section and look to find them.

I think this is part of the fun is the "treasure hunt", i alway's find thing's i didn't expect when doing this.

Jeff

[Bill Welch]

In the Medieval hand to hand combat manual Keith Myers has a chapter showing a lot of the guards.
I have a copy of it but I can not find any link to it online. If someone can come up with one I am sure that it will be of use. But I will keep looking. <img src="/forum/images/icons/grin.gif" alt="" />

[Joachim Nilsson]

Yes, absolutely. It is almost like many of the Masters are saying that "you should already know this, therefore I'm not going to show you". Just because things aren't visible at the get go, it doesn't mean that they aren't there. And yes: that is part of the fun with the fechbücher. <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

[Shane Smith]

It seems to me that Fiores guards are also representative of transitioning. For instance, if I meet your initial rush this way; and throw you to the ground with a unbalancing throw as I pass back, I will end up much like this;

Much good work can be done going from guard to guard maybe, just as in Fiore's armoured work.

[Randall Pleasant]

Shane

I agree and we also do this with Fiores guards. For example, against a dagger stab from above move into the long guard with the right hand (right foot forward) and grab the adversary's arm at the wrist, next step in with the left foot and move into boar's tooth with the left arm and grab the adversary's elbow, finish by stepping out with the right foot and move into Iron Gate to pull the adversary off balance and snap his elbow.

We can view the man on the right in the following image from Goliath as moving into Boar's Tooth with his right arm to strike the advesary's arm, he will then grab the dagger and move into the Long Guard in order to throw the adversary backwards.

<img src="http://www.thearma.org/Manuals/Goliath/187.jpg" width="600" height="900" />

Likewise, the simple act of throwing a punch can be viewed as moving from Boar's tooth to Long Guard. The act of pulling on an adversary is moving from Long Guard into Boar's Tooth.