George Silver Cap. 4

[David Kite]

1. If your enemy lie aloft, either in the open or true guardant fight, & then strike at the left side of your head or body your best ward to defend yourself, is to bear it with true guardant ward, & if he strike & come in to the close, or to take the grip of you, you may then safely take the grip of him as it appears in the chapter on the grip.

2. But if he doth strike & not come in, then instantly upon your ward, uncross & strike him either on the right or left side of the head, & fly out instantly.

3. If you bear this with forehand ward, be sure to ward his blow, or keep your distance, otherwise he shall deceive with every false, still endangering your head, face, hand, arms, body, & bending knee, with blow or thrust. Therefore keep well your distance, because you can very hardly discern (being within distance), by which side of your sword he will strike, nor at which of those parts aforesaid, because of the swift motion of the hand deceives the eye.

DAVID KITE'S INPUT: Part 1: Guarding yourself with the true guardant ward (or hengen as I interpret it), is the best ward against high strikes (aloft), because it keeps you covered well enough, even to counter the opponent's close and seizure.
Part 2: If, however, the opponent does not try to close, closing with him may not be the best option. Better to just ward, strike him quickly, then clear out of there!
Part 3: Either ward or keep your distance (void). But if you ward, be sure you do ward, because if you miss, and you don't void, you'll be too busy trying to ward feints, and he'll eventually trick you, or out-maneuver you, and win.

DAVID KITE'S QUESTION: What's the forehand ward?

[Guest]

David's Question: what is a forhand ward?

Vipers Answer: being new i am probbly way off base but here is my two cents, if you look at Rector translation of Talhoffer i think it is eather plate 224, or 231 what do you think?

David McGirl
ARMA Oregon

[David Kite]

DAVID'S INPUT: I don't know. My guess would be maybe Plate 224, the swordsman on the left. So basically then, the forehand ward is the middle guard, at least with single-hand weapons.

David Kite

[Guest]

Vipers input: 224 looks like it would be right but i am kind of skittish about my own conclutions being as new as i am. is there a third person reading that could throw in a thought cuz correct me if i am wrong Dave but you sound kind of unshure about it as wellnot to offend you kind sir <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" /> . <img src="/forum/images/icons/confused.gif" alt="" />

[David Kite]

Yeah. I'm relatively inexperienced. My assumptions are based on scholarly analysis, and thinking about how this stuff would work in my head; which I know I shouldn't be in the habit of doing. Most of Silver, to me, seems more theory than techniques you can go out and drill with, so I haven't figured out how to go outside and try this stuff, yet. Right now I guess the two of us are the blind leading the blind. <img src="/forum/images/icons/grin.gif" alt="" />
David Kite

[Jake_Norwood]

My assumptions are based on scholarly analysis, and thinking about how this stuff would work in my head; which I know I shouldn't be in the habit of doing. Most of Silver, to me, seems more theory than techniques you can go out and drill with, so I haven't figured out how to go outside and try this stuff, yet. Right now I guess the two of us are the blind leading the blind.
David Kite

I've been working with Silver in-the-flesh lately, and a great deal of the early stuff is mostly "generic advice" or theory, but the later chapters get more and more into actual set-plays and techniques. This passage, for example, could be worked out...it reminds me a lot of a plate in Talhoffer that shows a guy bound at the elbows and wrists under the left arm of someone who apparently executed a hengen and did this very manevuer.

[Guest]

This is a very nice technique. You do however have to understand the rest of his system to make it work well. Once you have got to grips with the footwork the rest of the technique falls into place.

I'll try and explain what I mean.

You are in TG and your opponent is in either TG or Open (irrelevant) the second they start to move you draw your front foot back slightly and to the right. Your next move is to then move your back foot in a circular direction away from the attack which puts you more square on to the weapon of your opponent and more side on to him. From here you can safely slightly extend your ward to form a strong block with the strong of your weapon. The remainder of the footwork of course depends on where you wish your counter to land.

The little not he puts in on Grips I think is just a throwaway. I wouldn't look at his close fight until the Guardant fight was well practised.

The section on Forehand is there because Silver tells us not to be predictable with our wards and not to stick to TG all the time. He is quite happy for us to swap between TG, open and variable (everything else) but he does specifically tell us not to ward guardant from forehand (hilt low, tip high) so you must ward it forehand if you are in forehand when the attack starts and because this is a much more dangerous option he tells us to be extremely careful (rmember the governors).

Take care

Oz