Alber longsword

I will miss the Encased in Steel blog but I look forward to read Keith’s posts on his personal blog.

http://www.keithfarrell.net/blog/2017/03/homemade-gear-versus-off-shelf-equipment/

And he’s back! I’m always really impressed with Keiths work rate.

#HEMA #hema gear

#HEMA #Longsword #cutting #glasgow #Ringeck

“What if the other guy is good too?”

Axel Pettersson longsword seminar n2

Precious advice in a private session.

For the second time, Ben Grief from Pflug Fighters organised to fly Swedish HEMA legend Axel Pettersson over to England for a week-end seminar in tranquille Norfolk.

Once more, I appreciated the remote location: at a little more than 2 hours drive from my doorstep, a lovely town hall to train undisturbed for two days and no distractions, no wasted time googling public transport and sorting myself out. A good pizza place on Saturday night, there, done. For me personally, it’s ideal, I can focus entirely on the seminar.

“Focus” has been the goal of my week-end. The first seminar taught by Axel that I attended, last year, blew me away. Best teaching in HEMA I had ever seen and I’ve been making the most of what I heard, drilled and learnt there for the whole year since.

How do you beat such an experience? With focus, it turns out. I aimed to absorb as much as possible, to understand it and make it mine, rather than just follow the lead passively, if you know what I mean. I kept so focused that by Saturday evening I felt mentally exhausted. It was physically intense too. After nine hours of training on Saturday, Sunday morning I woke up sore just for the effort of drilling with decent mechanics and of keeping up the intensity.

The seminar was the perfect follow up to last year’s, where we explored more basics. This year, we started out sword in hand and we hardly put our feders down for water breaks and a quick lunch. I think I never wielded my feder for so many hours in one day!

We worked a lot on parries and follow-ups, cause you know, no parry, no follow-up. I loved the introduction: “What if the other guy is good too? That’s when you need parries.” Mechanics were especially interesting to me because I’ve been working on my parries since the Summer, so spending time understanding what is a good parry, how to do it and how to proceed from there, fitted right in with what I’ve been doing. I discovered some new things. I’d never parried with the flat, for example, or minded to keep a thumb grip and I found my parries were stronger that way. As we explored follow-ups, I especially liked the versatility of the Sturzhau, which I’d never studied before.

We also spent time on feints, on drills and sparring games and on the second day we looked at a couple of Meyer’s plays as well. I appreciated the intense pace, very sweaty, just the way I like it.

On Sunday there was also a small tournament all about hitting heads cleanly and time dedicated to free play and private sessions with Axel.

I sparred and of course I had a private session, all about the krumphau. It’s not my first private session with Axel, but this time I filmed it so I’m not going to get confused on how we drilled or forget any precious advice. All safely stored, if only the fencing masters of old had iPads too!

Stills from the private session. You know by now I’m convinced that one-on-one is the ideal way to learn. Then you need a big pool of fencers to fence and apply what you’re learning.

What makes a seminar with Axel Pettersson so special is the wealth of experience in all things HEMA that he brings to the table. He’s mostly known and celebrated for his success in tournaments, and that alone is of course of great value for any competitor, but equally valuable is the fact that he’s also one of the key men behind Gothenburg Historical Fencing School, one of the most successful HEMA clubs in the world, that he’s an experienced event organiser, a top instructor in his school and in countless workshops and seminars around the world, an excellent coach in competition and now, along with top fencer and Gothenburg Historical Fencing School founder Anders Linnard, a maker of HEMA gear as well with their business St Mark. Whatever is your thing in HEMA, whatever is your problem with your fencing, your interpretation of a technique, your sources, your club, your students, your jacket, your you name it, you get to ask your questions to somebody that has seen it all, experienced it all.

Speaking of HEMA gear and St Mark, I got to have a feel for the new version of their Koning gloves. I don’t think I’m going to wait for a smaller size to be available anymore, especially considering the hand fits me well enough. They’re big around the wrist for me, but not so big that I couldn’t use them so I’m keen on getting them and sell them when a smaller size will be available, eventually.

Back to the seminar, the number of participant was restricted to a maximum of twenty and twenty keen fencers took part. I knew most people from last year but there were new faces too and I had some challenging sparring bouts.

Calling it a day 9 hours in on Saturday. Photo by Ben Grief.

Pizza on Saturday night offered a good chance to socialise and talk all the talks that we had no time for while walking the walk during the day. Now, I knew GHFS runs classes every evening but I discovered it’s also open all day if students want to go there and train, spar, work out. OMG. I don’t know of any place like that in England. In the whole of the UK, the only club I know of that has its own premises, is The Academy Of Historical Arts in Glasgow and I don’t know if it’s open in this way to the students. This revelation might have planted the seed for a very long term HEMA goal. Wouldn’t a dedicated salle be just the thing? They say, if you can dream it…

Bottom line is, my week-end was so good that I’m still deep in post event down. Tonight I’m training, though, and I can’t wait to share all the new drills and to incorporate all the new information on parries and on the Krump in my training. That’ll cheer me up.

To sweat!

Not long till this now. Should be good fun and a bit different to any of the previous events I've been to.

Arms and Armour. Kelvingrove. Glasgow

#broadsword #targe

Proud my piece on competition is included in the launch of Afterblow, the first ever website dedicated to the HEMA competitive scene!

Although I'm much less dedicated, this mirrors a lot of my own feelings on competition.

Went to see Rogue 1 last night and got rather misty-eyed at the end seeing Carrie Fisher. Even more poignant now.

elsegno

Neo-Nazism and HEMA is something I’ll never fully grasp. Like, y'all. HEMA literally shows us where things crossed cultures all the time in the past. The structural similarities between Bolognese sidesword and Eastern European/Arabic saber, not coincidence bros. POC incorporated into period artwork casually because the racial categories Neo-Nazis are using literally didnt exist at the time (Paulus Hector Mair, Talhoffer, etal). Kenjutsu and longsword’s similarity, messer and FMA, Fiore and aikido, Captain Peloquon and shastarvidiya. Notes in HEMA about history like Baldwin V of Jerusalem and Salah Ed-Din having an ongoing chess match and letter writing relationship while they respectfully tried to coordinate their activities for mutal gain or kill each other, depending on the needs of their constituents. Like come on. Ain’t no place for that shit in HEMA as a field of study.

tevis-larsen

I’m so stressed and I don’t know why. Everything is done but my brain is all ringing alarms about all the things I haven’t done except they are done

My mind struggles to cope with something as strange as having everything done!

My Swordfish 2016

Pool bout with Anna-Lotta from Sweden. Photo by Oscar And A Camera

Third time for me at the HEMA top event in Goteborg, Sweden, unanimously recognised as our unofficial Worlds.

Presenting the top four fighters ahead of the semifinals, tournament manager Mr Carl Ryrberg said it was the best Women’s Longsword tournament he’d ever seen so far and I agree, it was so tough!

The competition kicked off on Friday afternoon and I had a fantastic pool, winning all my bouts with only a couple doubles and a shockingly small amount of hits taken, ranking first after the pool stage. I even got awarded some technical points, the novelty of this year, and considering I’ve been moaning a lot about my technique going belly up in tournament, I was very happy I finally managed to show some.

In close quarters with Karin from Belgium. Photo by Oscar And A Camera

I was feeling good going into the tournament, the best I felt in competition in some time. Last year I was so stressed and under pressure that I didn’t enjoy any fight, while this year it was the opposite: enjoying myself was as important to me as fencing well, reason why I had specifically teamed up with Michel Rensen from Zwaard & Steen in the Netherlands for coaching. Top fencer, top coach and overall top guy, Michel had coached me in the Dutch Lions Cup pools in Utrecht a couple months back and he’d really helped me not only technically and strategically but also mentally. He’d managed to keep my enthusiasm going and my love of sword fighting being the engine and the heart of every bout. He did the same this time around: I loved every second of every exchange and there was no other place I would have rather wanted to be than there and then, fighting bout after bout in my Swordfish tournament. I can’t thank you enough, Michel!

After the pools, with my coach extraordinaire Michel Rensen.

It was a harsh format, cause only the top 8 out of 22 women got through to elims. In the quarter final, I faced the dangerous Anna-Lotta Ericsson from Sweden, whom I’d fought in my pool as well, and boy, did she give me hell! I won with a close score and went on to face no less than Swedish women’s longsword national champion Julia Yli-Hukka in the semifinal. The score was tight again and I never gave up but she won so I wrapped up my Friday knowing I would be fighting for bronze in the finals the next day against this year’s revelation Carla Huvermann from Germany.

Hug time! With Julia Yli-Hukka after the semifinal. Photo by Oscar And A Camera

I spent Saturday morning judging in the open longsword, where I had the privilege to watch some of my favourite fencers going through their pool matches, something I hardly get the chance to do when I’m competing myself. Longsword heroes Thomas Nyzell and Dennis Ljungqvist from Sweden, Federico Dall’Olio from Italy and Jake Norwood from the USA for example, were all in pools I judged, what a treat!

The rest of the day was spent getting super excited while watching all the open longsword eliminations. I was on the edge of my seat all the time, gasping and cheering and enjoying the great display of skill in front of my eyes. I was really happy to see both Michel Rensen and Italian longsword star Federico Dall’Olio, (who had already faced each other in the Dutch Lions Cup final in August), winning their bouts all the way to the Swordfish final. Just to see that as it happened, the trip to Goteborg was worthy, trust me!

Inspired, I couldn’t wait to fight again on Saturday night.

Making finals was my goal last year but -alas!- I was knocked out at quarters, so I was extra pleased with having made the big show, this time. I was a heavy metal singer so I’m always thrilled to be part of the show and that’s how I approached the final. In the warming-up area, I kept feeling so happy to be among the finalists, surrounded by the the very cream of the various HEMA competitions. Felt like sharing the backstage with Iron Maiden, you know? “Wow,” I kept thinking, “look where I am!”

Many top fencers had been competing in the Nordic Historical Fencing League with me, so it didn’t seem strange to have them around, but when Anders Linnard showed up in the warming-up area, I completely reverted to fan girl status. I think I only managed to giggle when he tried to have a conversation with me about the St Mark gloves. Gah. Embarrassing.

To top up my excitement, legend Axel Pettersson was going to coach me in the final. Now, that was like being on stage with Iron Maiden!

After sharing a hug and a fist bump with my opponent Carla, it was finally time. When I walked in with the drum roll and the big lights and the audience cheering, I just couldn’t wipe the smile off my face: I was so in my element and so happy to be there!

Happy me before the final. Photo by Oscar And A Camera

I didn’t know Carla before, but when I watched her in the semifinal, I knew the bronze match was going to be tough.

Axel’s coaching was brilliant, both technically and mentally. I felt good in every moment and I only wished I could have followed his lead better. Thank you Axel so much for having my back! I gave it as good as I got and I enjoyed myself immensely in the process. The score was tight to the very end and even if it was Carla who scored the victory point and won the medal (and a much deserved technical award), I feel I fenced the best I’ve ever managed to pull off in a final. Maybe in any tournament bout so far at all. I loved it and I thank Carla for such a good fight.

Really cool shot of myself and Carla fighting in the bronze final. Photo by Oscar And A Camera

The rest, like they say, is history!

My tournament was over but the excitement continued when I watched Julia Yli-Hukka from Sweden win gold vs Sara Vertanen from Finland in another close final, Kristian Ruokonen win bronze vs Anders Linnard and then Federico Dall’Olio winning gold and making history for Italian longsword in a final that had already made history just by happening, “The battle of the Zwerch”, as excellent commentators Matt Galas and Scott Hellrond called it, with no Scandinavian contenders to the gold.

The Brits, and Waterloo Sparring Group members among them, took home medals too and I was pleased to see that this year there were a lot of competitors from UK clubs in all the disciplines. I hope to see even more next year and, as some of us noticed, maybe learn from team USA and work on our team spirit too, to honour the “Worlds” feeling of the event. Somebody already undertook the task of bringing a Union Jack, for example. It’s a start.

Swordfish kept up its truly International scope all the way to the finals, with medals also going to Russia, Italy, Finland, Sweden, USA, The Netherlands, fantastic!

The finals are a truly big show, professionally run in great style and I feel this is important: not only it’s live streamed so it showcases HEMA to a wider audience but it’s also a treat for all the attendees whether they are in the audience or in the arena.

The afterparty was as wild and crazy and fun as always, such an essential part of the Swordfish experience! When I knew I was in the bronze final, I decided to drop out of the wrestling tournament to avoid overdoing myself or risking injury, so I jumped head first in the Midnight Brawling (well, more like the almost 2 am brawling by the time I joined in) to scratch my wrestling hitch and play with dussack and laugh and all, before joining the sauna party. What happens in the sauna stays in the sauna but there was a lot of singing, that much I can reveal.

Saturday night is a big party for all; those who didn’t compete, those who did, those who won and those who lost, the judges, the refs, the secretariat staff, the kitchen staff, the people that worked in roles I’m not even aware of but without whom Swordfish wouldn’t happen as well and smoothly as it does, all come together to enjoy the community and the fun. It creates priceless moments, unity, and many funny memories!

Credits

Jonathan Middleton, my coach in the UK. Thank you so much for all the training, the support and the encouragement. I’m so happy my recent progress did show and though I didn’t bring home a medal and I’m aware of all the work ahead, I’m proud of where I am as a fencer at the moment. That’s in no small amount thanks to your positive attitude and your ability to make me see my strengths as well as my weaknesses. Fully expect me to try and drag you to compete outside the UK too, to show everybody just how good a fencer, as well as a coach, you are!

Fred “Fiore 101″ Thomson for the extra drilling and the friends and fencers at Waterloo Sparring Group, Schola Gladiatoria 5 and New Cross who drilled and sparred with me, gave me feedback and advice.

Michel Rensen my coach extraordinaire in the pools and elims, as I already said above. Thank you so much!

Axel Pettersson for the distance coaching program and for coaching me himself in the final when both the fencers I had teamed up with for the occasion made it in the open longsword final (have I got an eye for excellent fencers or what?). Thank you Axel, you really are the super coach everybody from GHFS says you are. Along with the technical advice, it’s once again the mental coaching that make good coaches stand out. I felt fantastic before, during and, most importantly after a loss in a final, after the bout. Your words were the right ones at every step and I walked out of the arena already thinking about how to improve for the next time instead of dwelling on the disappointment for having missed out on the medal.

All the Swordfish crew (and just the ones I know of are too many to mention!) working like machines to pull off another smooth fantastic event.

Everybody I sparred with, especially Michel Rensen and Jake Norwood for the feedback.

Everybody, literally EVERYBODY, I hanged out with, old friends and new, cause you made my Swordfish special and a shout out to the Italian contingent that made me feel part of Team Italy too!

And most of all, a super thank you to my family for putting up with this sword madness everyday, never asking me why there’s no clean laundry when I come home exhausted, but asking me instead, “How was training?”. Your love and support mean the world to me.

Ready for another year of madness? Countdown to Swordfish 2017 has already started!

Swordfish finals 2016 livestream

Great account of Swordfish 2016.

#HEMA #Swordfish

Going into swordfish, I was stronger than ever and fencing better than ever. This was not good enough to eke out even a single win. Disappointing. Training continues. Todays agenda was simple: work, fence, lift, eat, sleep. Repeat for the next 360 days. Hopefully that will work. I can’t train more; I have to train smarter and harder.

Having been well beaten by guys who didn’t make it out of the pools i’ve got admiration for anyone competing at Swordfish. The quality and intensity is clearly at a different level to anything I’ve experienced!

You should come!

That's definitely the plan! Even just doing workshops, sparring and enjoying the atmosphere would be pretty awesome. :)

Having been well beaten by guys who didn't make it out of the pools i've got admiration for anyone competing at Swordfish. The quality and intensity is clearly at a different level to anything I've experienced!

#Swordfish #HEMA

mindhost

One of the lads brought a pair of practical ‘stunt’ lightsabres along to our last longsword training session before Sweden, so we decided it would be fun to play around with them and see what all the fuss was about.

I can confirm that they bind as well as you’d expect two cylindrical plastic tubes to, the grip is a touch short, the weight distribution is odd, we found their lack of crossguard disturbing, there is no flex at all when thrusting, they are a bit wobbly and probably too fragile for your average sparring intensity. Also, maybe not the most sensible type of practice just before a big tournament like Swordfish.

But none of that mattered and we are all obviously going to have to buy one now. Ideal for anyone who likes fencing, hamming it up, and shiny things.

Doing the rounds on Facebook, Jake Norwood explains HEMA on ESPN 3 and he says it like it is. Good job and well done showcasing our passion to the wider martial arts community!

#HEMA #Longsword #longpoint #ESPN

Great exposure for HEMA and I think he absolutely nailed it in the interview.

When should HEMA fencers start sparring?

I wholly disagree with the premise that sparring is not beneficial before six months.

People are ready to spar in a limited fashion when they can execute basic attacks and parries. If they know it, they should be applying it.

In epee class we started bouting on lesson five. There’s no reason in my mind to wait longer than that.

As a thought experiment: take two persons and give them seven months to prepare for a duel. One will be drilling for six months and drilling and sparring for one. The other will be drilling for one month and drilling and sparring for six. Who do you imagine would win the duel?

I do think that most of the training volume should be drills, with sparring being maybe 20-40% of total training time.

mindhost

I don’t know, they might have a point - I’ve been practicing table tennis for almost half a year now, and I think I’m getting pretty good at it. The minute I’m allowed access to a ping pong ball, you’ll see.

#HEMA #Longsword #Sparring

Technical benefits aside, i found sparring had a huge impact on me psychologically. I'm very slow at learning sequences (drills/kata etc) and on my first longsword class I made so many mistakes I could tell people were getting fed up with me while doing paired drills. My lowest point was doing a series of alternating ober and unterhau strikes up and down the hall where despite help and prompting I was only halfway down the hall when everyone else had finished. Having always been decent at almost any sport or activity I've tried my competitive nature left me feeling pretty humiliated (my issue I know) Finally, just as I'm thinking this sword thing might not be for me, we finish off with some sparring. It's synthetic, it would have been technicality dreadful, its against people who have probably only been doing this 6 months more than me but I get a few hits in and I leave the class on a complete high. 3 years later, and still loving longsword, i realise sparring may have saved me from giving up before I'd even started.

mindhost

Secondary German Longsword Guards

Johaness Liechtenauer’s teachings preserved in the Zettel mention that ‘you shall not hold to any position other than solely to the four which will be named here’, in reference to the four main guards, or vier leger, Pflug, Ochs, Vom Tag and Alber. But other sources and fencing masters, particularly later ones, do mention quite a few other secondary guards for longsword. There are some variations and discrepancies between authors of course, as well as different interpretations among contemporary researchers.

Many, if not most of these are considered only transitional guards, so just particular positions while in motion from one to another primary guard or end point of a strike, cut or thrust. In no particular order, these are the ‘other’ longsword guards mentioned in the treatises of the German fencing tradition between approximately 1390 and 1570:

Zornhut - wrathful guard

Langort - longpoint

Mittelhut - middle guard

Wechsel - the changer

Hengetorte - hanging point

Nebenhut - close/side guard

Schlüssel - the key

Einhorn - unicorn

Eisenport - iron door

Brechfenster - breaking window

Schrankhut - barrier guard

Kron - the crown

Zornhut (Wrath)

Zornhut, or Zorn-Hut, is the Wrathful Guard, a left-food forward guard that holds the sword over the rear shoulder so that the flat touches the shoulder and angles slightly backwards, allowing you to deliver powerful ‘wrathful’ strikes. Alternatively the sword can be held slightly above the shoulder and angled back. Typically the sword points down to the floor, though some fechtschule illustrations show it pointing upwards. Even though the Zornhut looks like a variant of Vom Tag, Joachim Meyer tell us that you can do all the techniques from Ochs from Zornhut. Roger Norling mentions that the Zornhut is a guard that can be found in Wilhalm, Erhart, Sollinger, Meyer, Sutor, Verolini and possibly Czynner. Michael Chidester suggests that 16c Germans might have noticed fencers incorrectly ‘chambering’ their sword backwards from Vom Tag to deliver Zornhaw (a powerful cut delivered diagonally downwards from the shoulder), and knowing the the Italians had a similar guard (Posta Di Donna) they decided to just give this position a new guard name in the German fencing tradition. In a contemporary setting if you see people using this guard it’s more often than not Meyer fanboys.

Langort (Longpoint)

Langort, or Lang Ort/Langen Ort, “the noblest and the best ward with the sword” is a point online guard held with the point forward and slightly upward toward the face of the opponent, shown in later German treatises as illustrated above, right foot forward, though earlier masters such as Sigmund Ringeck and Pseudo-Peter Von Danzig indicate that it should be left foot forward: “Before you come too close to him in Zufechten, set your left foot forwards and hold the point towards him with outstretched arms towards the face or the chest.(MS_Germ.Quart.2020_052r)“ Ringeck also specifies that this guard is called the Sprechfenster, if your opponent binds with you, as does, among others, Hans Döbringer, who says that you are standing at the sword with your opponent and that you should feel what he intends. Keith Farrel concludes in this article that to Ringeck then, it seems that the Langort is a position when you have not been bound, and Sprechfenster is when you have been bound, whereas Pseudo-Peter Von Danzig treated the terms Langort and Sprechfenster as more or less interchangeable. As Martin Fabian puts it, Langort is one of the most used positions in longsword fighting nowadays, and for good reason.

Mittelhut (Middle)

In this Middle guard, like the Nebenhut, the blade sits back facing away and behind from oneself with the long edge aimed at the opponent, but raised up to shoulder level with the sword extended in preparation to strike. It can be done on both the left, with right foot forward, and the right side, with left foot forward. It is depicted sometimes as having the point slightly upwards rather than completely horizontally, though according to Mike Cartier the point should slight point to the ground instead. It can be described as both the beginning and the end point of a Mittelhau.

Wechsel (Changer)

Wechsel, or Wechselhut, is known as the Changer, a guard with the hilt next to the abdomen, the point hanging downward to the side at a right angle to the opponent. It is the natural end point for a diagonal full cut through the target, such as the Zornhau. Left Wechsel has right leg forward and the sword on the left side of the body, with the short edge facing forward toward the opponent. Right Wechsel has the left leg forward, sword beside the body, again with the short edge toward the opponent. The Wechsel as a guard is not named explicitly in the earlier sources, but a position that looks like it is shown on several occasions, such as Hans Talhoffer’s Cod. icon. 394a.

Hengetorte (Hanging point)

Hengetorte, or Hangetort, or Hanging Guard, at a glance looks simply like a slightly downwards pointing Ochs guard, but it is used quite differently. Ochs is a threat with the point towards the opponent and prevents attacks on the same side as you have your hands, so an arms-uncrossed Ochs on your left with the right foot forward closes your left opening from attacks, from a right Oberhau for example, whereas the Hangetort, which is typically a displacement rather than a static guard, primarily prevents attacks on the opposite side of your body from where you have your hands, so that same arms-uncrossed with the right foot forward Hangetort points offline to your right, and closes the opening from attacks on your right, from a left Oberhau. In this drill we show both sides of this guard:

In terms of naming conventions, it doesn’t perhaps help that the Ochs guards are also referred to as the two upper Hangers from the Vier Hengen (the right and left Ochs are the Oberhangen, combined with the right and left Pflug, or Underhangen), which are not the same positions as the actual Hanging Guard, since the Four Hangers all point forwards towards the opponent. Inevitably during practice in an English-speaking environment either of these guards ends up being called ‘Hanging’ or ‘Hanger’ which can cause confusion. As far as the present-day popularity of this guard is concerned, just watch this sparring video by Blood & Iron, a hard training and competitively successful group, and count how many times the Hangetort is used to parry overhead strikes, compared with parries with the more traditional Ochs guard for example. It clearly is a very effective position to safely counter from.

Nebenhut (Close/Side)

The Nebenhut, or Close, Side or even Tail Guard, is similar to the Wechsel, with the grip of the weapon at hip height, but with the tip extending back and down. Being an ideal starting point for an Unterhau, the Nebenhut on the left side with the right foot forward is one possible endpoint of a Zornhau/right Oberhau, and the one on the right flank with the left foot forward, that of a left Oberhau. In both cases the long edge faces forward toward the opponent, and the tip of the sword points backwards. Ringeck advises the use of Nebenhut only on the left, because from the right it is not as safe. Jeff Ross suggests in this interesting analysis that there is no historical evidence that the Nebenhut is, as commonly thought, a Tail Guard (like the Italian Posta Di Coda Lunga), but rather that it is actually the same guard as Schrankhut or Eisenport, since several treatises offer essentially identical instructions for a number longsword plays, differing only in the name given to the starting guard involved: Nebenhut in some cases, Schrankhut or Eisenport in the others. Regardless of what the original usage was, I think it’s fair to say that the Nebenhut is generally executed nowadays (perhaps incorrectly?) as a Tail Guard.

Schlüssel (Key)

Jakob Suttor tells us that to be in Schlüssel you stand with ‘your left foot forward and hold your sword with the hilt and hands crossed in front of your chest such that the short edge lies on your left arm and the point stands against the opponent’s face’. A posture from which Meyer describes some plays involving thrusts and cuts, though it does not appear named in earlier sources. There isn’t perhaps an enormous repertoire available from this position, but there are nevertheless some useful techniques and transitions, as Björn Rüther demonstrates in this handy short video.

Einhorn (Unicorn)

Einhorn or Einkiren/Einkhiren is described by Mair as [once you bind with your opponent with the right foot forward], you ‘wind your long edge on his long, drop downward with your short edge at your right side, and step well in towards him in the bind. (…) Then immediately wind around and through, invert your hand and grab around the pommel such that you stand in the Einkhiren and then stab with your point to his face or chest.’ Meyer, once again doing things slightly differently states, ‘strike in powerfully and high at his left ear with the flat or short edge… Thus you force him to go upward rapidly; as soon as he does this, then release your left hand from the pommel, and let your blade snap around in one hand up from below against his right, and plant the point on his chest; meanwhile grab your pommel again… Jab at him thus with reversed hand’. Anders Linnard, in his video description of the Edel Krieg (or Noble War with a reversed grip, one of Ringeck’s counters to Krumphau), shows us a play interpretation which illustrates one of the ways to end up in what I believe to be that Einkleren guard described by Mair:

Though it might resemble Fiore’s Posta Di Bicorno, Brian Kirk in this comparative analysis maintains that the two guards are fundamentally different, as the Einhorn sometimes requires that you actually let go of the sword with the left hand, let the sword rotate in the right hand only, and then re-grip reversed, with the left hand.

Eisenport (Iron door)

Like some of the other guards, it is worth mentioning that Eisenport, or Eysen Pforte (or eiserin pforte/eyserynen pforten/eysnen pforttn), the Iron Door, exists in two or more variants; with the point upwards, as described by Meyer, or with the point downwards, as described by apparently everyone else. Meyer tells us to stand with our right foot forward, hold our sword with the grip in front of the knee, with straightly hanging arms, so that our point stands upward out at our opponent’s face. He refers to this as the Italian posture Porta Di Ferro [Alta], as illustrated above by Marozzo, and mentions that since thrusting with the sword is abolished among Germans, this guard is not much in use by then. It’s roughly midway between Pflug and Langort.

The other numerous versions of Iron Door in the older German texts are described as a variant of Alber, with the point offline to either the left or the right (halfway between Alber and Wechsel), or in a manner similar to Schrankhut on the right side (or the Italian Tutta Porta di Ferro), with wrists uncrossed and the point offline, or even interchangeably with Nebenhut according to Ringeck. Iron Gate is referred to as ‘the best of all techniques‘ and particularly effective when facing several assailants, more specifically impertinent peasants.

Brechfenster (Breaking window)

Brechfenster or Prechfennster (breaking / speaking window), is, according to Paulus Hector Mair, to ‘stand with your right foot forward and hold your hilt in front of your head such that your thumbs are underneath, with the point high on your right side, and looking at the opponent between the arms’. Mair mentions that if you stand in the Pflug and your opponent throws a Scheitelhau, you can wind up into the Brechfenster so that you are looking out through the arms with the right foot forward, to then drop down and strike in with the half edge to the left ear (zwerchhau). Something similar is shown by Jörg Wilhalm Hutter in Cod.I.6.2º.2_21v. That upwards displacement description sounds a lot like going into Kron, right? In the section on the Schaeitelhau, Mair specifically mentions ‘When he then does the Schaitler to you, displace it with the Kron such that the point and the hilt of your sword both stand above you‘. From what I can tell the difference being that the Kron is an active parry with regular grip, and not a thumb grip like in the Brechfenster, and that the hands are held higher, aside from the fact that the Brechfenster does not require you to necessarily be in contact with the opponents blade. It seems like an unusual longsword guard, but it does appear in contemporary settings (if practicing with minimal gear and aiming for high targets for example, or people that both zwerch and feint a lot). It’s sort of the mid-point between Vom Tag and the end point of a Zwerchhau.

Schrankhut (Barrier)

The Schrankhut, or Schranckhut, is the Barrier Guard, described by Pseudo-Peter Von Danzig on the left side as ‘setting your right foot forward and holding your sword with the point to the ground near your left side with crossed hands such that the short edge of the sword is above and give an opening on your right side’, and on the right it’s ‘standing with your left foot before and holding your sword with the point near your right side on the earth (so that the long edge is above), and giving an opening with the left side’. Several masters consider this guard interchangeable with the not-so-backwards-pointing version of Nebenhut.

Joachim Meyer shows the Schrankhut as a left foot forward Crossed Guard, as seen above, a position with the hands low and forward, with the point forward towards the ground, similar to Hengetorte but with both hands and weapon lower. Meyer also refers to this guard as Eisenport, or Iron Gate, which is a bit interesting considering that elsewhere he refers to Iron Gate as the point-up Porta Di Ferro Alta-looking guard.

Kron (Crown)

In Kron, the sword hilt is held out about head height with the point up. It’s a high parry using the crossguard horizontally, with a regular sword grip. More than an actual guard, Kron is a defensive move in which you lift your sword vertically to catch a descending strike, often described as the best parry against a Scheitelhau, on the cross. Kron is used at the bind and can be a prelude to grappling. The few unequivocal images we have of Kron, like the one above from Ringeck, are always about how to break it with Unterschnitt/Abschneiden, so it doesn’t come across as a position of the utmost interest to the authors.

Some eminent chaps argue the possibility that what we see in Mair and Falkner described as Kron is not the fighter above on the right, but rather the one on the left, with a halbschwert (half-sword) grip against an incoming strike. Contemporary historical fencers certainly use both moves, but in the halls I train in, virtually everyone only calls Kron that parry or bind with the high crossguard forward. I personally call the other half-sword one “Shit, there goes Dave again”.

This post exists mostly because I couldn’t find a comprehensive comparative listing of all these different versions of the non-core Liechtenauer guards online in one place to share with my training partners. Meyer’s terminology in particular is relatively divergent from the earlier sources in the German longsword tradition, but well described and illustrated, so there are quite a few articles exclusively about his works, such as the ones in the Meyer Freifechter Guild, the Meyer Free Scholars Guild and Wiki or even the Scholars of Alcala Meyer study, but for the pre-16th century guys, not so much. There’s ARMA’s basic guards of medieval longsword , which seems maybe a bit outdated, as far as the current understanding of the sources goes, but aside from chapter 4 in Keith Farrel’s German Longsword Study Guide (which is an excellent book btw that you should totally buy), I couldn’t find all of these positions within the German school, ranging from Hans Döbringer to Jakob Suttor, in one single easy-to-access online location. This is almost certainly because it’s quite a pain in the arse to do so. I thought this would be another simple copypasta tumblr job but it’s taken ages, and I’m far from having read, captured, and possibly understood, all the different nuances between sources.

All credit to Wiktenauer for most source images and much of the text, in particular the Jeffrey Forgeng’s Fechtkunst Glossary. The KDF Glossary is another great reference point. None of this is primary research of course, this was learnt in the training hall, or by reading other people’s translations, as well as trolling the forums, particularly HEMAA and Schola. Just like any other interpretation in HEMA, there is (some) room for debate in these. I also realise that the minute I post this someone will share a link to an even more comprehensive and better illustrated guide to German longsword guards, but hey, such is life.

Fantastic. Thanks for posting this.

#HEMA #Longsword