Simplified long sword fighting... and why.

[Patrick Hardin]

I think we can generally agree that in this art defense is offense, and vice versa. Your opponent offends you, and to defend yourself, you offend him. Effective defense is taking the offensive, forcing your opponent to react to you. Counter-attacking certainly does that. So the german master decides to write, "Here's how to seize the initiative." And the Italian master chooses to say, "If you lose the initiative, here's how to get it back." But both know the key to victory: As long as he is forced to react to you, as long as you maintain the vor, you're safer than he is. Defense by offense.

In regard to Phillipe's post on the techniques:
There are a very select few human beings on this planet who are born with an innate ability to excel in personal combat. They just know how to move, with very little formal training. I have known one, maybe two such individuals in my life, and only one of them was an ARMA member. But the rest of us are not born with this ability. We have to be trained how to move in order to fight effectively. Now, I have observed that the techniques in the manuals are best for developing muscle memory, i.e. training a person how to move. They are examples of things a person can do in different situations in combat, and they are useful for practicing movements for developing muscle memory, so that one can fight more instinctively (and maybe also a little bit of a boast on the master's part about what he is capable of). If we could all be born with innate fighting skills, we would have little need for such training. But most of us do need a lot of training in order to fight well. Once we are well-trained in techniques, and know how to move, it all becomes very clear to us that fighting is indeed a very simple thing. Just hit the guy before he kills you! I think David has it right. In reality, it is very simple. It's just that most of us need a lot of training in the techniques before we realize they all do the same thing in the end. But once you know how to move, it's simply a matter of hitting the other guy first.

Patrick Hardin

[s_taillebois]

M. Hardin,
The phrasing of your first paragraph explains it well, as does M. Chandler's noting that other traditions did have some emphasis on the defensive.
The cavaliers, knights and company, did have to survive more than one confrontation. And since there are always the lesser and greater in any skill, mayhaps a strictly offensive approach could not always work.

[JeanryChandler]

I think one thing we often miss in basing out understanding on the manuals is the reality of unequal weapons and numbers of combattants. Ive boxed a little and I've been in a lot of street fights and I can tell you there is a huge difference between how you might fight one on one with equal (or no) weapons vs against a group or someone with different and possibly superior weapons (in terms of reach like a staff or spear, or in defense as with a shield...)

It is a generalization but perhaps true that in Italy society was a bit more disordered than in the contemporeaneous HRE.

This may sound far fetched but it's essentially the argument (with the admixture of crossbows into fights) cited to explain the differences between the German or Gothic armor from the Italian types of armor harness which was heavier.

Maybe in Germany the formal judicial combat much more likely to occur, with the result that fights took place between equally armed opponents. In Italy perhaps there was more street fighting (there certainly was a lot!) in some cities even more or less continual urban warfare and open feuds going on for generations. The result the much more uncertain circumstances of an open fight with mixed weapons and uneven numbers of opponents...

Just a thought


Jr

[s_taillebois]

Or many of the fechtbuchs were written for people who were likely to be involved (or interested in) judicial combats, or the stage combats (not theater) of the period.
The armor plated aristocrats may not have needed these books in any substantial way, as the techniques were part of their class and status.
Very good point about the multiple assailants and how that adds complexities. Under the right context, an seemingly inferior weapon and tactic could win if the numbers or conditions were favorable. Such instances would be the Welsh daggermen after Agincourt, or the occasional successes of the peasant revolts against the aristocracy.
And as you note, such as the Guelphs and Ghibellines disputes would have had these inequities in weapons or numbers. Fights in a Florentine back alley, or in a street brawl, not all the hotheads would have had rapiers (or even less probable bastard's, estocs, falchions or such). It was just as likely to have been roof tiles, daggers, or whatever...

[Mike Sega]

I agree wholeheartedly David! I especially like your comment here:

"Later, Meyer uses many more guards... but he uses them as frames in a film to describe actions. If you follow him, you could take the "guards" he moves through and make a flip book out of them and watch his actions he describes as an animation in your head.

Fencing as we term it is always about movement. A guard is just a frozen point of time in a cut, thrust or strike. Practicing the basics in time is more important than "technique". IMO a special "technique" is just a well executed move in time that is effective against your opponent.

The better fighter's "technique" is just a movement that he has practiced well enough to employ at will. If it defeats enough people, others will think it special.

As John said, the simple can often be difficult.

[philippewillaume]

First I agree than a cut is just a cut however just a cut now is not the same as just a cut 5 years ago. And I really believe in sparing but I believe as mush in technique.

I am just working from a single manual but for me sparing is essential. In fact sparing tell me if I understood the concept right and all the linking of concept I have made are coming from sparing. I.e. I did something and it did not work or did not work as expected.

And guess what doing a much more precise (i.e. a cut at 45.2 degree delivered at the precise moment when our opponent move his left finger) cut only reduce the windows of opportunity of my opponent as much as mine and at the end did not help that much or at all. And I think the whole idea behind Ringeck is that you have a bigger window of opportunity than your opponent.
I.e. the system place in that position but the consequence is that you do not need to be that precise.

So if you study technique only on the “how” to do it basis you will always miss the point, the most important point in a technique is “why” you do it.

I am a naturally gifted horse rider, and yet it is pretty clear that I could not ride as I ride without 12 years of tuition. Someone more gifted than me could eventually arrive tho the level I am at but it will take him a lifetime. He will have to re-invent the wheel every step.
After a while natural abilities will not overcome “technical” skills.

The better you get the less the “how” becomes important, because there is only little variation in the actual how thing are done.
But in my opinion linking a technique to the body and blade movement, we are missing a tremendous part of the technique (and modern martial art training as a lot to answer for that). Only by studying the technique you will the boundaries of it applications and that what I call the why.

If we take an example as the 5 masterstike, you need to have a point of differentiation in each strike very late in the blow because you do not know what his strike will be.
May be it did not look strong (so a zornh will be enough) but may be it is (and then you need a shiel), it can look like a strigh strike (Zwerch) and he can curl it at the end (krump) how do you bloody choose then….

In my opinion you do not have to because I have come up with an interpretation of each stike that let me chose very late.
So yes all my strikes start the same way and are the same just a slight difference at the end. The strikes in themselves cease to be important because they are not that important compared to the systematisation of the fight.

And you get that systematisation by trials and error (ie spasring) or you can save time and study the technique trying to find the why and when they are relevant.
phil

[Mike Cartier]

it is my opinion that Meyer does indeed teach defensive actions, or at least actions which are not purely offensive in nature. he even has a whole part of the fight devoted to the art of fading backwards and counter striking the opponent (abzug)

[david welch]

Thanks for the replies, everyone, and expecially to John and the more senior guys. I am glad to find out that I am on the right track, and that I wasn't just going crazy.

As far as the whole defense/offense thing...
My opinion of how to do the Liechtenauer tradition's defense?

"And beware of all displacements used by bad fencers. Note: Strike, when he strikes, thrust, when he thrusts"
Ringeck

philippewillaume:

If we take an example as the 5 masterstike, you need to have a point of differentiation in each strike very late in the blow because you do not know what his strike will be.
May be it did not look strong (so a zornh will be enough) but may be it is (and then you need a shiel), it can look like a strigh strike (Zwerch) and he can curl it at the end (krump) how do you bloody choose then….

In my opinion you do not have to because I have come up with an interpretation of each stike that let me chose very late.
So yes all my strikes start the same way and are the same just a slight difference at the end. The strikes in themselves cease to be important because they are not that important compared to the systematisation of the fight.

Your "point of differentiation" late in the blow is feeling if he is hard or soft.

"how do you bloody choose then…"?

Aha! That is what I was talking about.

I am in roof and you are in plow.

I throw a high diagonal long edge uberhaw at you, and you cut from plow to ox. I feel you hard on my blade when we bind, so I turn over to my short edge and cut your face behind your sword.

Did I strike a zornhaw to an inverted long wrathful point?
Did I strike a zornhaw at you and wind?
Did I strike an oberhaw at you and wind?
Did I strike a Glancing Strike?
Did I strike a long edge uberhaw at your upper opening, and then change it to a short edge uberhaw Indes?

I am thinking the answer is "yes".


There is no one thing, there are only a handful of things that you can put together to make anything you want.

You only have an uberhaw and an unterhaw. You throw either one these to any of the four openings. You can throw any one of those with a long edge or a short edge, and you can change edges in the middle or at the end.

Every strike can be made from this.

[TimSheetz]

Hi Dave<

"But it seems to me their "defense" was how to regain the initiative while not getting hit, not just defending. "

Absolutely. This is a fact. Even when taken to the battlefield the same is true...

This is why I used my qotes on simplicity. There are a few simple ways to defend and transition to the offense. Of course, when under duress doing these simpe things is difficult.

I think phillip said something about this being made more complicated by trying to break the techniqe down.... I canonly agree slightly.. the difficulty is less about the technique and more about how we COMMUNICATE the technique... and tht is where it get confused and complicated.

In allthings, a simple plan vigorously executed will win out over a complex plan... and so it is in combat and martial arts.

Peace,

Tim

[JeffGentry]

Hey David

it remind's me of something i saw in Cappo Ferro.

He was talking about tempo i think it still somewhat applies to what your saying.

"My need is to reach a point defined for some design of mine, without considering the length of that tempo, only that I reach this point in the end. As in the art of fencing, when coming to misura my need is a certain and correct tempo of motion and stillness. It does not matter whether I arrive there quickly or late provided that I arrive at the desired place."
(the bold is the main thing the rest is just to give it context)


I realy don't think it matter's how or when you hit them as long as you hit them before you get hit.


Jeff

[Mike Sega]

Every strike, if performed with intent, has the ability to both attack and defend. Fading back and then counter striking I suppose could be called defensive, but the purpose is to counter-strike. If you stopped at fading back, removing yourself from the battle-field, then I would call that purely defensive.

Attacking with all abandon is not prudent, as is defending for the sake of defending.

I think we agree. Do I understand you correctly in regard to defensive moves Mike?

[Mike Sega]

Yes, of course, sparring is essential. Studying the techniques, I should say reading the techniques without trying to do them in time with an opponent with intent will teach you nothing. I read somewhere that a test was designed where one group of people practiced throwing freethrows and another group just thought about throwing freethrows. The reusults were that those who merley thought about throwing freethrows did a little better than those who practiced throwing freethrows. Even if we can take that for truth (which I don't), once you actually play a 5 on 5 game, no amount of thinking about practice is going to help you do better than practicing at actually playing the game.

I can stand at a pell and think through shielhau all I want. the mintue I try to employ it against an opponent, reality steps in.

Changing the term technique to example seems a good idea to me.

[Jake_Norwood]

David et al,

Yes yes yes!

And no! No! No!

When I first started in art classes--I draw quite well, once it was a proffessional aspiration--they began teaching things like 1, 2, and 3 point perspective and proper proportion--both realistic and michelangelo's proportion. This was a bunch of very mathmatical stuff that appealed to the left side of my brain and helped me "get it." My teachers always said, however, that perspective and proportion were the kinds of things that, once you learn them, you need to forget them.

But only after you've learned them.

I think that the seeming over-analysis of technique, the mathmatical rigors of what is ultimately an art more than a science, more intuition than math, are indespensible.

Liechtenauer and Ringeck can say that there are only 5 or 9 or 17 techniques or principles or whatever until they're blue in the face, but dozens of fight books, each dozens if not hundreds of pages long, prove that this is not the case.

But it also is.

The danger is letting the search for technique and terminology overcome the search to fight well (if that's your goal, as it is ours). However, if we just simplify it to "a cut is a cut and a thrust is a thrust" without really understanding what a cut and a thrust *really are* then what was the point of studying to begin with? Why read manuals and practice specific movements if the dagorhir guys would all be the awesomest fighters ever if only they had more realistic weapons?

Because it doesn't work that way. You must learn detail before you can forget detail and give into to simplicity and intuition.

Yes, fighting is simple. But reaching simplicity is not.

My 2 dinar.

Jake

[James Sterrett]

I could probably title this as "How a young twit discovered the importance of technique". <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

When I was a beginner fencer (foil), I regarded footwork drill and technique as reasonably pointless. After all, in sparring, my feet went where they needed to go... right?

Wrong! First, boneheaded footwork was causing me physical damage due to such "techniques" as having my lunging foot land at a 90 degree angle to my lunge.

Second, it dawned on me that my bad footwork technique made me slower than my opponents and thus made me lose.

Cue an attitude change to pay much more attention to learning technique properly in drill, so that I'd be more effective in sparring.

All of which supports what others have said - technique is a useful means to the desired end of effective fighting, and ignoring it isn't helpful unless you really are a natural (which I decidedly am not. <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" /> )

[Mike Sega]

Jake I think you have it right when you say:

"You must learn detail before you can forget detail and give into to simplicity and intuition.
Yes, fighting is simple. But reaching simplicity is not."

I think different interpretations will at times conflate that issue of simplicity; one person might see a distinction between two strikes where another might see both as versions of one strike and both may be right. A balance between over analysis and under analysis is, of course, preferred. I think that there is a tendency for some to over analyze. This is when I think sparring with intent has its greatest value. The overcomplications fall to the wayside as you try to recreate them at speed. Similarly, when certain descriptions of techniques that seem very difficult actually work, one finds it is the describing that is difficult (as I believe Tim mentioned earlier), not necessarily the movement.

At any one time in our study, things can get overwhelming. At that point, I think it is a good idea to fall back to the "basics" as it were. These basics will be different for each person and different at different times in their study.