Zwerchau test cutting video

[Lance Chan]

Never managed to cut with zwerchau with the false edge before... but today I finally did it. Spent more than a year to get it done. I might be just dumb. But I found out that the zwerchau was not truly a horizontal cut but a slight diagonal downward cut and once I tried this blade alignment it worked like charm!

http://lancelot.servehttp.com/gathering/zwerchau-vcd.mpg

[Jeffrey Hull]

Cool, the Zwerch can be difficult to learn.

I like the efforts of you and your group. So I offer a couple observations in spirit of comaradery. I did some nice practice-cutting with Zwerch today to clarify my thoughts about this.

You may be stepping a little too much into centerline instead of to the side. A little more to side would make it more like "ideal" triangle step, and thus perhaps put your cutting into a more ideal technique for sparring. It may perhaps set you into better balance at the end of the move, and consequently your power in the strike may become more focused. I find that I myself may tend to step similarly centerline with this strike in particular.

Although not everybody likes plastic bottles as cutting-material, I think that they have their value, so I use them as part of broader scheme. No arguments there.

Yet I offer you the design of an alternative rigging which I use:
Take bungie-cord of 3 to 4 feet length with double-hooks; throw over tree-branch about 8 feet above ground (with enough space away from trunk); and suspend 2-gallon plastic milk-jug full of water by its handle. Such a larger heavier jug ends up being about head-height of imaginary foe and is about the size of head / helmeted-head. I like the dynamic this rigging gives to the jug. You can cut clean through if you do it right, or else the blade just thwacks the jug and skates away if wrong.

Anyway, good luck,

[Lance Chan]

Thanks for the tips. I still gotta practice a lot on this move. Will try to use it on sparring today.

[jeremy pace]

The biggest practical app i can see wout testing it myself would be the opportunities it sets up for backswording. Let us know how it works out. I have always been interested in the false edge zwerch but, like yourself, found it rather...... uncomfortable.

[Lance Chan]

Tried it out extensively today in sparring. Certainly it is far from perfect yet... but here you are:

http://lancelot.servehttp.com/gathering/zwerchau-sparring.mpg

[Jeffrey Hull]

You may fare best with Zwerch against the foe who wards in Roof (Vom Tag). Ringeck and basically all the other Liechtenauer-tradition masters advise this particular one of the Vier Versetzen as breaking that Leger (ward, stance) of Vom Tag, attacking that ward / the foe in before-time.

[Jay Vail]

When I first started practicing zwerchau, it seemed awkward and impractical. However, after having done it for some time, it seems natural and right. I've done test cutting with it and in fact it seems to cut more efficiently than a horizontal strike with the true edge, as counter intuitive as that may seem. I like it a lot.

[Craig Peters]

Lance,

Like you, I too had often initially wondered why the zwerch was supposed to be executed with the false edge when striking from right to left. The answer came to me after becoming more comfortable with the false edge zwerchhau and comparing it to a true edge zwerch. You should find that if you execute it with the true edge, and keep your blade horizontally aligned, (not cutting at a downward angle as you do in the video), that it's not as easy to control your cut as it is with the false edge. If you hold out your arms as though holding a long sword normally with the true edge as the forward striking edge and make the cutting motion with your arms in the air, you'll notice they can travel a long way from right to left and that during the motion, it's fairly easy to deviate from a perfectly horizontal cut. In contrast, with the arm position necessary to make a false edge Zwerch, your right arm will be bent in a nearly 90 degree "L" shape by the end of the strike such that your cut will wobble far less because the biomechanics of your arm's position prevents the greater freedom of movement found in the true edge version of the strike. In this case, "greater freedom of movement" equals "greater ease for the sword to deviate from the line of the cut". Try it out a few times and you'll see what I mean; remember, of course, to use a horizontal cut, rather than an angled one.

[Lance Chan]

I modified my technique and tried again. This time my forearm is not as extended as before, but my thumb is extended more. The result is that the zwerchau with short edge is now truly horizontal, not diagonal downward. Did it work? HELL YES! But it's quite exaggerated in sparring term too.

http://lancelot.servehttp.com/gathering/lancelot-vcd.mpg

I can now also use it better in sparring with zwerchau feints... from short edge first then from long edge right away.

[Matt_Conner]

I went out with the very next milk jug I emptied, and tried your rig for test cutting. I've got about a perfect tree for it in my yard (which also has foam padding and canvas wrapped around the trunk to act as a pell) so I hung the jug on a bungee from an outer branch. First cut I tried, as this was my first try at test cutting at all, was a straight from the right shoulder zornhau. I was more than happy with the cut, a nice perfect slice through the jug from one side to the other, diagonally.

Yesterday, I emptied another milk jug and promptly hung it for a test cut, this time trying the short edge zwerchau. Again, to my surprise, a clean flat cut right through the jug, severing it neatly in two.

I think it's time to take a trip to home depot and rig up a stand for test cutting tameshigiri style.

[Jeffrey Hull]

Lance:

I would advise that you did the Zwerch much more correctly in your first video than your second video.

Your original understanding, that the crux is above your head as you strike foe high, was right. Such lets you ward against Oberhauen by foe while indeed the blade arcs at an angle from horizontal. Such is in agreement with how Sigmund Ringeck and other masters teach is the correct way to fight with Zwerch out of Liechtenauer tradition. And such avails you in sparring.

So I encourage you to do more as you did originally.