The danger of trusting others interpretations
Tonights technique training showed us how important it is to work straight from the sources, and not trust old interpretations of techniques too much. We’re working through Ringeck from cover to cover this spring, and it’s just so much fun!
We had some interesting work with the zwerhau tonight, and while most of it was fairly straight forward (small adjustments and minor new things came up), one technique that we usually skim through quickly with an interpretation we were taught a few years ago proved to be...well... wrong :-)
It was the first counter to the zwerhau:
Note,[18] when you bind him from your right side with an over-cut (or otherwise[89] on his sword), if he then strikes-around with the thwart to the other side, so come forward as well with the thwart-cut[90] under his sword on his neck (as stands pictured hereafter next to this),[91] such that he strikes himself the same with your sword.[92]
As we were once taught (or read/saw on youtube or wherever it came from), this was presented as a counter left zwer with a left step while trying to go under the sword. This works decently as a defense, but it usually just hits the arms with a kind of weak cut from the left and sometimes even causes double hits. Also not any faster than the vor zwer, so quite hard to do in sparring.
So tonight we went back to square one, and figured out how we should hit the neck. End result is that you just go up to the right with a short right zwer into the neck, under his sword just as the manual states. This is faster than he can strike around, so quite safe and very rarely ends up in doubles. And he strikes himself with your
This is probably how most others do it, and it just shows how important it is to revisit and revise what we think we’re certain of from the manuals :-)
Short video of revised technique below.
