Sword grip length

[Matt Bryant]

I'm a Hands Apart Fellow myself. But that does not mean that one hand is holding the pommel. I don't think that Doebringer was saying to have your hands together, but just not to grab the pommel full on.
That's my two cents anyhow.

[Bill Tsafa]

Yeah, in that respect I too go as far apart as the grip will allow without actully covering the pommol.

[Bill Welch]

I have noticed that using the dobringer grip that the sword turns quickly because the hands(being like fulcrums(SP?)) are closer together and have less of a distance to travel than when the hands are far apart. Turning is quicker with the hands together also(forearms dont get in the way <img src="/forum/images/icons/tongue.gif" alt="" /> ).

Now the time difference is slight but it might make a difference in a fight.

I also tend to fight with my hands apart, but really like to roam, I even tend to cup the end of the pommel from time to time, mostly just in thrusting <img src="/forum/images/icons/laugh.gif" alt="" />

[Jake_Norwood]

Hold on, now.

I'm not a physicist, but if both hands are closer together there is a significant loss in power --and speed--due to a loss in leverage. Am I wrong?

Additionally the effects of the crossed-uncrossed open-closed dichotomy seen throughout the germanic works is largly reduced or even nullifed by keeping the hands right next to each other (as seen in Tobler and in the two plates of Von Danzig).

Compare the sloppy, slipshod wobbling of the sword with both hands held together as so awfully demonstrated in the film "A Knight's Tale" to the wide-handed grip of a comparitively teeny-tiny weapon in any Kurosawa film. I'm not talking about the characters here, but the actual mechanics of a person--trained or otherwise--holding a weapon so closely.

How can you be strong in the bind or wind properly if your hands are too close together? You can't.

That Dobriner says "keep your hand off you pommel" is--as far as I know--not only a singular statement in a very old book, but even if it is true it clearly doesn't mean that your hands should butt up against each other, nullifying the extra-long handles of the german war swords.

Jake

[Bill Welch]

in reply to:
"but if both hands are closer together there is a significant loss in power --and speed--due to a loss in leverage. Am I wrong? "

I would agree that there would be a loss of leverage, but not a loss of speed because the hands are closer together, and dont have as far to travel. If anything I would think it would allow the sword to travel faster.

in reply to:
"That Dobriner says "keep your hand off you pommel" is--as far as I know--not only a singular statement in a very old book, but even if it is true it clearly doesn't mean that your hands should butt up against each other, nullifying the extra-long handles of the german war swords.."

I agree, keeping your hands off the pommel with a 9" handle is pretty easy, unless you had monkey hands.

You should keep your grip fluid, ever changeing to meet the demands of fencing. Keeping a static grip just seems like a bad idea.

But i think the whole point of the Dobringer quote is to not swing the sword by the pommel, but drive the cut with the hands, like a the steering wheel analogy.

[Joachim Nilsson]

The "Doebringer pommel-gripping issue" have been discussed quite extensively before in another thread. I'm still of the belief that he is, in all probability, discussing/mentioning it in the context of using discpommels and also only during certain parts of the fight (as in up to and including Zufechten).

[david welch]

Hold on, now.

I'm not a physicist, but if both hands are closer together there is a significant loss in power --and speed--due to a loss in leverage. Am I wrong?

I would not say I know enough to say anybody is wrong. But consider:

If there is a biomechanical advantage to having your hand far apart for either speed or leverage... why don't we swing a baseball bat like that? Before you consider swinging a bat completely different, remember we also take a passing step when batting, so there is at least an attempt to put as much power behind it as possible.

[GaryGrzybek]

Yes, but a baseball bat and a sword are two different things. Have you checked the balance point on a bat? I think it's hard to make any reference of the kind, correct me if I'm wrong. Unfortunately I don't have the scientific background to argue the point but we're talking two different tools here. I find a lighter bastard sword handles just fine with the hands close together but the big cutters feel better with the added leverage. This is a personal preference but may hold ground to what the individual wanted or what simply worked for them.

[Aaron Pynenberg]

.....the bat is a good anaology though in asfar as the speed is concerned as the pommel is acting as the counterballace for the weight of the blade length not really the weight I would think...I also am not a scientific person but it just feels like you have much more speed with the hands clsoer.

I agree completely with the facts of the hands having to move around and be placed diffrently for diffrent functions- like was mentioned about winding and binding- but if I am giving a powerful basic cut- I am trying to get me hands closer than further-

I also think that having hands "off pommel" and "together" are seperate matters all together-?

[Joachim Nilsson]

I also think that having hands "off pommel" and "together" are seperate matters all together-?

That I agree about. But to a certain extent that is dependant on the type of hilt being used.

[Jake_Norwood]

Actually I'm shocked that a baseball bat swing would be compared to anything we do with a sword--baseball bat swings require no recovery, no point control, and absolutely no ability to change indes into a winding. Just try for one second to stand with a bat--or a sword--in pflug and then try to out-speed yourself or anyone with their hands positioned further apart.

No contest.

Shocked, really.

Jake

[david welch]

That Dobriner says "keep your hand off you pommel" is--as far as I know--not only a singular statement in a very old book, but even if it is true it clearly doesn't mean that your hands should butt up against each other, nullifying the extra-long handles of the german war swords.

Goliath clearly shows such a grip being used. One of the plates it shows is pflug. And in Goliath the swords they are using have some long honking hilts too. The grips they show range from as far apart as possible to what looks like as close together as possible.

I can only surmise that someone thought a close together grip has a use, and I am not ready to dismiss it out of hand yet until I invertigate it further. <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />

[Aaron Pynenberg]

I think we may have simplified our baseball bat analogy- obviously swinging a bat and fighting with a sword are not the same type of activities-no one would argue that point Jake!

The idea though is that the baseball bat has it's mass and weight at the large end and the hands are placed below that mass at a certain length specific to that activity- hitting a ball.

The weight of a sword includes the length of the blade/grip plus the pommell acting as a counterweight.

It makes sense that you wouldn't grip the bat with one hand holding on to the weight, that would slow your swing and be counter-productive to the power delivery of the ball.

The question is in terms of how the hands interface with the sword can the same conclusion be drawn?- That is that holding on to the pommell is in essence slowing down the sword?- not saying I have the answer one way or the other-and i also love gripping the pommel for certain actions, it's just an interesting discussion- later- Aaron

[Curt Dunham]

The bat (or battle axe) with its center of mass located far from the center of rotation has a higher moment of inertia than the sword with its center of mass closer to the center of rotation. This means the bat/axe is harder to accelerate and harder to stop than a sword of the same mass. For a given person, the axe take longer to put on the target and be much harder to reverse direction if the target is missed than a sword of the same mass.

In hand placement, the right hand should be considered the pivot and the left hand the driver. The farther the driver is from the pivot, the farther it has to move to get the same movement of the sword tip; but the easier it will be. Since you want both quickness and power, your hands should only be separated enough to deliver the desired power. Heavier swords require more separation.

[Jake_Norwood]

I think it's interesting that you should point out the pflug issue, because the primary locations we see the "hands close together" are mostly all pflug in the early Liechtenauer sources.

Why? Note how far back the hilt is--can you do that with hands far apart? Not really. But what of pflug on the other side, with arms uncrossed? In the illustrations that come to mind the hand is usually down butting up against the pommel.

Part of this, frankly, is an issue of simple biomechanics. Your hip and your hand can't occupy the same space at the same time.

But what of striking? Yes, sometimes when letting out a whopper of a hit my hands slide together like they might on an axe when splitting wood, but here the forward hand slides down, not the backward hand sliding up.

Is much of what we're seeing here really an issue of "liquid grip?" Yes, definitely. But some of what we're seeing here, too, is "Dobringer's old, so he must be right! I can feel it." Humbug, I say. Do I believe Doebringer's wrong? No, but I'm not ruling it out, either.

Again, if the heart of the art is in winding, then the wider grip is the grip most closely associated with the heart of the art.

As for the baseball bat anlogy--I wasn't rebutting it because of some kind of clumsiness, but out of the range of activities done with one tool as compared to the other. One does not wind or bind or change-through or twitch with a bat. Try any of those activities with a close grip and you will lose speed, power, coordination and--at the heart of the art--leverage.

Jake