Get a load of this guy

[Jaron Bernstein]

He would not do the same in a life-or-death situation, but Meyer is no self defense, in my humble, humble opinion.

Can't say I agree with you there for a variety of reasons, but that would be another thread.

[JeremyDillon]

That may be misstating our position a bit. It's true that the lazy vom tag reduces the force you can deliver with a blow, but with proper edge alignment it and the windshield wiper and other cut interpretations we disagree with may still be able to deliver lethal damage - if unopposed. The reason we disagree with some of these interpretations is often not because they can't work in ideal scenarios, but because they greatly reduce effectiveness when confronted with opposition by somebody who doesn't want to let it work for you. Test cutting may reveal some undesirable features of a technique, but by itself it won't tell you the technique is bad or wrong just because it's not as powerful as it could be, you have to look at what the technique was meant to achieve in a given situation.

Stacy,
My point was not that test cutting is the sole trial by which these particular techniques should be judged. The examples provided were merely to indicate that test cutting can be a tool useful for showing how and why a particular technique is ineffective. The claim that I was attempting to contradict was that test cutting is a useless and non-versatile training practice. A more apt example may be a video I've seen on this site of test cutting using quick cuts from the wrist which quickly revealed that, while it may be easy to land such blows, they are not capable of causing much appreciable damage.

As far as the contention that there were not many incapacitating blows in fencing, this is pretty well debunked by historical president. Anyone who has experience with violence (something I am not claiming for myself here) will tell you that it can be VERY difficult to kill or stop a person who is actively resisting and pumped full of adrenaline. I know that if I were fighting someone to the death I would want to be proficient with techniques that would cause the maximum amount of harm to my opponent while minimizing the harm done to my own person (in my opinion, that's the core of fencing). I doubt very much that a trained and battle-hardened European warrior of days gone by would be stopped merely by the sight of their own blood.

[Stacy Clifford]

Right, I think most of us here understand what each other mean in most cases (in this one, that test cutting is just one of several tools that must be used to evaluate fencing interpretations), but plenty of lurkers out there that read this forum and don't take active part or who are new to us may not pick up on that, so sometimes I think it's necessary to clarify the words that actually made it onto the page, even if I know what you meant. I think we all share the obligation to try to make each other's arguments better, so don't take offense or hesitate to do the same for me.

[JeremyDillon]

No offense taken, Stacy (if indeed your comments were directed towards me). My main concern was that I had failed to adequately express my views.

[Mike Cartier]

The torunament rules in belgium in Meyer's time (Matt Galas' research) allow simultaneous hits, where the higher hit counts. So somebody who studied under Meyer could have been traveling to belgium for a tournament, and 'give his leg' to the enemy blow just to be able to hit the head an thus win the tournament. He would not do the same in a life-or-death situation, but Meyer is no self defense, in my humble, humble opinion.

i have never seen meyer accept a double hit, meyer is self defense BTW and even more than that Meyer was chosen above many other fight masters to write possibly the most important HEMA manual ever, his book was essentially at the forefront of the first European attempts to form up a professional civilian army. Meyer was chosen because of his experience, i find it hard to beleive that what he taught was for play when he was expected to give sound instruction on battlefield combat and duelling combat.

Ithink Meyer was a Mercenary who learned his skills the hard way not in a school and learned in his travels probsbly in war, thats why he represents a hybrid system between German and Italian and a hybrid system between battlefield, duel and fechtschule/tourney.

Its all in there whatever your need for the knowledge

[Gene Tausk]

Hi Ilkka:

You wrote:

"Firstly, I have never done and never will call myself a master in anything. I'm only "interested" in descriptive titles such as "instructor", should I take such position in a school or an event. For myself I'm a scholar, hardly even a good one in my own opinion, and always will be such. A master in the English language today carries so many odd connotations that the whole title is best avoided altogether. I could call someone a master who displayed mastery in something, and I have seen martial artists who, in what they do, have possessed incredible skill.. but I think that in our arts (styles of swordsmanship) those people existed hundred's of years ago and may again exist in the future, but right now we're still just drowning our noses in books and figuring out which way to hold the sword.

Anyway, yours was a good post, and I agree with you. Common sense is important. I do test-cutting myself every now and then, and find it useful, regardless whether it was done in the exact same manner 600 years ago or not. Still it is important to be honest about the origins of the practice. I mean, almost all of the training tools we have are not historical in the sense that they would be described in a treatise, since the treatises don't really give us that many drills to practice, they give us perhaps enough, but I think that the texts should be seen as guiding tools rather than limiting and restricting sets of rules. "


Agree, agree and agree!


Kiitos!

[SzabolcsWaldmann]

Hi

i have never seen meyer accept a double hit,

Mate, I was talking about tournament rules.

meyer is self defense BTW and even more than that Meyer was chosen above many other fight masters to write possibly the most important HEMA manual ever, his book was essentially at the forefront of the first European attempts to form up a professional civilian army. Meyer was chosen because of his experience, i find it hard to beleive that what he taught was for play when he was expected to give sound instruction on battlefield combat and duelling combat.
Ithink Meyer was a Mercenary who learned his skills the hard way not in a school and learned in his travels probsbly in war, thats why he represents a hybrid system between German and Italian and a hybrid system between battlefield, duel and fechtschule/tourney.

Now where did you get this information?
There is loads of "facts" in your post, the most of it I can disprove. Before I start, I think this is where Academics die so I will be done with this thread very soon.

I tell you what you can read in the Yearbooks of Strassbourg, the city of fencers. This information was painstakingly collected by Olivier Dupois, who does presentations of his research every annual HEMAC meeting in Dijon:

Joachim Meyer was born in Basel (now Switzerland). He is a Strassbourg citizen from 1560, he earns his money as a knifemaker. Now he was in a great debt, so he held 5 Fencing Schools* from 1561 to 1568. in 1570 he releases his book you all know of (before that he did a manuscript on the longsword part), in which time he was part of the Federfechter Guild** and held the rank of a Freyfechter***.

*A Fecning School is not to be misanderstood for an organization (that was the Fencing Guild). Fencing Schools were public demonstartions, feats of arms, or simply swordsmanship circus for the citizens. Was used to show off the Master's skills as a teacher to acquire new students, and to earn money. The entrance fee was not too high, but still only a small amount in comparison to the lesson itself.
From the annual books of Strassbourg, dating from 1539 to 1581 (42 years) the following numbers can be derived: in Strassbourg alone in this timespan 307 Fencing Schools were held, by more than 190 different masters.
So the public, the poorer public I mean, went to this schools to watch an hour or two of fencing. Now this is only my opinion, that this was a poor man's fencing lesson they could try out at home with sticks. After watching a number of these maybe they got some information out.

**The Federfechter have a "mysterious" history before 1570, for they were not officially aknowledged as a Guild. That only happened in 1607, 7th of May. Jacob Sutor and Joachim Meyer are two better known members.

***The term Freyfechter is an interesting one. The research is not yet finished on my part, weather it is just another name for the Federfechter Guild, or a ranking in it. My own translations of the Schining codex seem to prove that it was a rank under the Master, maybe, just maybe identical to, what the London Masters of Defence called a Free Schollar, or maybe even a Provost.

So. The above proves that Meyer was part of a serious Fencing Gulid, and ****maybe**** not even a master yet when he tried to publish his book. There were financial problems with the first issue, and after that he shortly died. Anyway, the book was re-issued several times.

Now, since many serious researchers and newbies are reading this forum I would like to ask what you meant by "he represents a hybrid system between German and Italian" for I do not see any connection to Italy.

Meyer uses a Fechtfeder, and a number of techniques (like the doble prellhauw) only actually work with a Feder. I wonder how that is self defense or battle combat.
We can argue for weeks what self defense is, but I wonder how often it happened that somebody was attacked by a lone longswordsman, and just by chance, he had his own longsword with him (stupid of the attacker, no?). Even more that in Germany and France and England wearing a weapon in a city was stricklty prohibited and was punished by the law.
As for the battle, swords never were the mostly used weapon of a war in Meyers time. Now Machiavelly argues that the best unit of the battlefield would be the armoured swordsman with a shield, but he wrote the book because that was not the case.

Every source tells us that in the 16th century a number of fencing guilds with a great number of fencing grups around europe flourished. In Nürnberg alone there were 3 Houses built to house the numerous Fechtevents (the Heilsbronner Hof, the Fechtboden and the Fechthouse. The later was opened in 1628, had a 25×20 meter fencing arena and could hold 3000 people in galeries watching the show). We have tournament rules by the dozen, we have evidence of the fencing life showing citizens spending their money in fencing guilds, and the list goes on which would prove that Meyer was neither a war veteran nor did he teach any kind of self defense or war activity, but a very serious master or freyfechter in a martial art, that in the 16th century shows the signs of a mass-sport activity. Of course he uses Lichtenauer, that is the very source, but he has a lot of techniques that only make sense under specific rules ond/or with a Fechtfeder which is no weapon according to period law.

Szab

[Jay Vail]

Szab --

Yes, there is a lively debate about the combat utility of Meyer. Most of the discussion seems to focus on his longsword material rather than the sections devoted to other weapons. Looking at that other material may shed some light on the longsword discussion.

I don't feel competent to weigh in on the longsword end of the debate, but I can tell you that his dagger material is first rate and I am confident you can take it to the street today unedited. Modern self defense gurus could learn a lot from it. It is consistent with the older clearly combat oriented treatises such as Codex Wallerstein, Talhoffer and Gladiatoria (and even Marozzo in some respects), and Meyer's advice is simple, practical and IMO effective. None of it is sportive.

If the dagger material is for combat, why would Meyer mix it with a section intended for sportive play? Even if longsword fencing could, in the right circumstances, be treated as play, that does not mean his ideas will not work in combat.

[Jaron Bernstein]

Now, since many serious researchers and newbies are reading this forum I would like to ask what you meant by "he represents a hybrid system between German and Italian" for I do not see any connection to Italy.

Meyer uses a Fechtfeder, and a number of techniques (like the doble prellhauw) only actually work with a Feder. I wonder how that is self defense or battle combat.
We can argue for weeks what self defense is, but I wonder how often it happened that somebody was attacked by a lone longswordsman, and just by chance, he had his own longsword with him (stupid of the attacker, no?). Even more that in Germany and France and England wearing a weapon in a city was stricklty prohibited and was punished by the law.
As for the battle, swords never were the mostly used weapon of a war in Meyers time. Now Machiavelly argues that the best unit of the battlefield would be the armoured swordsman with a shield, but he wrote the book because that was not the case."

Very good discussion. I am using the Forgeng translation. I must admit some envy of your access to local primary sources. As for the Italian link:

"As regards rapier combat, which at the present time is a very necessary and useful practice, there is no doubt that it is a newly discovered practive with the Germans and brought to us from other people." (pg. 173 2.50r) This paragraph continues on that theme for a bit, in which Meyer says he learned his rapier from foreigners in addition to talking about the prohibition on thrusting except for wars. I have read others suggest that the foreigners Meyer refers to are the Italians due to similarities between his rapier chapter and Italian schools in the same time frame.

As for the "sport" debate, it is quite lively. On the one hand there are a number of places in the longsword chapter where he talks about hitting with the flat. There is also the thrusting ban.

However, going against that, the staff, dusack, rapier and dolch/ringen chapters all include thrusting. Additionally, the manual in the introduction talks of the purpose of this art being for warfare and not sport. Finally, a number of the applications even in the longsword chapter are not "tournament friendly." A few examples:

"When you have come this close together, then step between his legs with your left foot; with this , release your left hand from the sword, and turn your back a bit toward him; meanwhile, send your left hand (which you have released from the sword) through under the arms and grip outside over his left arm; and send your right hand, along with the sword (unless you cast it away from you), outside over his right arm, to grip your left hand over his arms. Press his hands together on your left shoulder; meanwhile, step with your left foot in front of his feet; with this, swing yourself to your right side, and in the swing, bend forward and down, and cast him down before you." (pg 108 1.63r.1)

That reads to me like an over the shoulder throw. Did the tournament rules of the day allow for that?

Take a look at the rapier woodcut #I (pg. 231). The fellow in the left front is performing a neck break. It is not referenced in the text, but we (the Columbus study group) have figured out a way to set up that break/crank as shown. Did tournament rules allow for such things? I can see the obvious self defense utility, but would hesitate to allow something like that in a tournament.

My current sense is that evidence for both sides of this debate exists within the pages of the 1570 manual, but that the greater part tends towards the earnest rather than the sport side.

[Mike Cartier]

Meyer was a master at arms, he died while in the service of the Duke of Mecklenberg who also helped to get the Imperial credentials for the federfechter guild. I think that speaks for itself really as does the rest of the contents of the Meyer book.

[Jay Vail]

"When you have come this close together, then step between his legs with your left foot; with this , release your left hand from the sword, and turn your back a bit toward him; meanwhile, send your left hand (which you have released from the sword) through under the arms and grip outside over his left arm; and send your right hand, along with the sword (unless you cast it away from you), outside over his right arm, to grip your left hand over his arms. Press his hands together on your left shoulder; meanwhile, step with your left foot in front of his feet; with this, swing yourself to your right side, and in the swing, bend forward and down, and cast him down before you." (pg 108 1.63r.1)

That reads to me like an over the shoulder throw. Did the tournament rules of the day allow for that?
.

I read this as a tai-otoshi variant, which Auerswald called the "short hip." The key to this interpretation is the phrase "step with your left foot in front of his feet; with this, swing yourself to your right side, and in the swing, bend forward and down, and cast him down before you" which is how tai-otoshi/short hip is characteristically performed. It is an over-the-leg throw. The grip is irrelevant to the classification of this throw, which is defined by the placement of the feet. Incredibly cool stuff tho, and very effective.

[Jay Vail]

My current sense is that evidence for both sides of this debate exists within the pages of the 1570 manual, but that the greater part tends towards the earnest rather than the sport side.

Agreed.

[Steven Blakely]

brotheren and sisteren
HE IS A KNIGHT IN THE SCA! and it is clear by his physique that if he does practice it is few and far between. The SCA although looks like a gang of fun. Is, was, and will ever be a sport. None of the members ever use ANY! techniques that i have seen demonsrated by arma vids. I am an extreme newbie to wma. all the things i thaught i knew by doing similiar games was thrown right out the window when i had a few minute introduction buy one of your members. I gauranty there is no way for him to keep up with his sport and learn true wma. and i would be willing to bet his ideas are sqewd based on his involvment in the sca. i gauranty if i were to put paul or any one of the instructors on the field they would be disqualified for seriously injuring another plalyer. they DO NOt practice wma (even though they like to think so.) My brother who studies eastern martial arts has run into at least one guy that told him his martial art was called sca. so im not all that suprised everyone seems to have an opinion on the matter.

[Jonathan Newhall]

Meyer uses a Fechtfeder, and a number of techniques (like the doble prellhauw) only actually work with a Feder. I wonder how that is self defense or battle combat.
We can argue for weeks what self defense is, but I wonder how often it happened that somebody was attacked by a lone longswordsman, and just by chance, he had his own longsword with him (stupid of the attacker, no?). Even more that in Germany and France and England wearing a weapon in a city was stricklty prohibited and was punished by the law.
As for the battle, swords never were the mostly used weapon of a war in Meyers time. Now Machiavelly argues that the best unit of the battlefield would be the armoured swordsman with a shield, but he wrote the book because that was not the case.

By Machiavelly do you mean Machiavelli as in Niccolo Machiavelli author of The Prince and Discourses on Virgil?

[Adam Bodorics]

He does. Machiavelli stated his opinion about this in the Art of War.