The Armour Archive

Kilkenny wrote:That the authors of the manuals did not call any techniques by the names "flat snap" or "wrap" is certainly true. Whether or not they describe techniques that match the things we use those names for in some circles today is much less certain.

I had that happen repeatedly with Steve Hick (can't remember his SCA name), where I did attacks in the sabre method I learned that are essentially winden, and where several of the false-edge cuts are basically wrap shots. I was forced editorially to back off that when I published on it (which was okay, at the time, because while it would be fine with a messer, I really wouldn't want to rely on it with a straight blade...).

In the mean time, Leckuchner's messerfechten has all kinds of weird and crazy stuff, several of which could be considered long-range wrap shots. Snaps I'm officially agnostic on, as it's simply been too long since I've seen them done.

"Winden is similar to wraps, if you look at it right (or wrong, depending), as you're turning the sword around the opponent's defense to get to him"

Interesting, you seem to have a totally differnt understanding of winden from what I've studied. In the group I study with winden is a technique used to place the strong of your blade v the weak of your opponent- the blades are allways in contact so there is no "moving around" his defense. It does primarily lead to a thrust though.

Cet wrote:"Winden is similar to wraps, if you look at it right (or wrong, depending), as you're turning the sword around the opponent's defense to get to him"

Interesting, you seem to have a totally differnt understanding of winden from what I've studied. In the group I study with winden is a technique used to place the strong of your blade v the weak of your opponent- the blades are allways in contact so there is no "moving around" his defense. It does primarily lead to a thrust though.

Let me see if I can find a photo or video to explain what I mean.

EDIT: All winden that come to me off the top of my head twist, or 'wind' the blade at the bind around the opponent's sword to get around it. Probably not the best way of putting it, sorry.

In Ringeck's notes, he writes in his conclusions when speaking of the four windings:

"Likewise, if he binds above to your right side, wind also above your long edge at his sword. Raise up your arms, let the point hang and thrust to the face. If he displaces the thrust with strength, leave the point at the sword hanging from above, winding to your left side and thrust. Those are four winds from both upper binds of the left and right sides"

Hard to visualize, but the wind turns your sword around his (while maintaining contact as you said). That's what I was getting at.

I had an experience, long ago, which speaks to the technique vs power question.

I played Judo in those days, and I had received my shodan (1st black) from San Jose State University, which, at that time, was the top Judo team in the country. My fighting weight was about 205.

I was in the Army, stationed in Kansas, and I practiced with the Kansas State Judo club. At that time, that area of the country was on the lower end of the Judo scale. However, there was a Korean grad student who was 4th degree black belt, and we would practice with one another about every other week. He weighed about 135 pounds.

By mutual consent, we only worked on standing techniques. The score, after two years of fighting with one another every other week, was 0 to 0. Neither of us managed to score even a 1/2 point throw on the other. I came closest, but it was a technique move, not a power move.

What I got out of this was that technique can offset power, and power can offset technique. To determine which fighter would win, you have to add them together, and compare the totals. I have no idea what the equivalent values would be.

Paulb

Kilkenny wrote:That the authors of the manuals did not call any techniques by the names "flat snap" or "wrap" is certainly true. Whether or not they describe techniques that match the things we use those names for in some circles today is much less certain.

So true, there are SCA like blows in Toblers book on Ringeck, there is a perfect example of a "flat snap" in the sword and buckler combat. A "leg wrap" is there too. Much SCA sword fighting is perfect for unarmored sword and buckler fighting as long as it's practiced with an edged weapon it much will translate. Things you will not find are the wraps to the back or back of the head because they put you in grappling range which go against the swordmasters first rules of distance.

Gavin brings up a prime example of the HWMA side of the argument that is a little blind to the realities of SCA combat. People on both side often bring up incorrect points about the other.

Russ Mitchell wrote:I had that happen repeatedly with Steve Hick (can't remember his SCA name),

Steve Hick is Sir Strykar in the SCA.

"count me in the grateful minority. Some experiences I never want to have, some questions I never want to have answered.

Gavin "


Welcome to the club, sorry you ended up in it.

It sucks.

Murdock wrote:"count me in the grateful minority. Some experiences I never want to have, some questions I never want to have answered.

Gavin "


Welcome to the club, sorry you ended up in it.

It sucks.

ack.. I said that the opposite of how it was meant to come out... I'm in that grateful Majority who have *not* been through the real life situation of violence.

the rest is right - I don't want those experiences, I don't want to know the answers to the questions that arise in those situations....

Gavin

Was a post deleted? I'm having a hard time following the chain through last night's replies.

Paul: My understanding through Moshe Feldenkrais is that judo was originally not supposed to have any weight classes, precisely because it allowed power, rather than technique, to be decisive (given the existence of both "big guy" and "little guy" techniques in the corpus).

James B. wrote:Things you will not find are the wraps to the back or back of the head because they put you in grappling range which go against the swordmasters first rules of distance.

Don't know about that. One possible interpretation of the left arm (buckler arm) grapple technique in I.33 includes a possible false edge cut (wrap) that might be to the back. It makes a certain kind of sense.

The more I study HWMA the more I appreciate SCA armoured combat. Of course, I am also on record as saying that I believe our force generation techniques are not correct for the time period the SCA assumed armor standard recreates (while perhaps being spot on for armoured combat in the age of plate).

Jester you may be right about that, I should know better than to say never. Buckler combat unarmored and SCA combat have alot in common.

Kilkenny wrote:

Murdock wrote:"count me in the grateful minority. Some experiences I never want to have, some questions I never want to have answered.

Gavin "


Welcome to the club, sorry you ended up in it.

It sucks.

ack.. I said that the opposite of how it was meant to come out... I'm in that grateful Majority who have *not* been through the real life situation of violence.

the rest is right - I don't want those experiences, I don't want to know the answers to the questions that arise in those situations....

Pretty sure none of us in Murdock's club joined up cuz we thought it would be fun...it is a learning experience, but it's one I'd happily have done without.

Jon

Russ,

I don't remember about Judo originally not having weight classes, (my Judo days were long, long ago) but it makes sense. It is really a style of Ju Jitsu (a very successful style), that can be played as a sport (which was why it was so successful). Since it was being compared with other Ju Jitsu schools, it wouldn't have had weight classes. I suspect that came in later, when it became popular as a sport.

Back when I was practicing, there weren't many big men in the game who were really good. One of the national "unlimited" champions, I think for more than one year, weighed about 175, being good enough to beat the lesser-skilled big guys. That started to change in the late 1960s, probably because of the success of a fellow from Holland who was huge, and good enough to put his size to good use, and who won the "open" class in one of the olympics.

Regards,

Paul

jester wrote:

James B. wrote:Things you will not find are the wraps to the back or back of the head because they put you in grappling range which go against the swordmasters first rules of distance.

Don't know about that. One possible interpretation of the left arm (buckler arm) grapple technique in I.33 includes a possible false edge cut (wrap) that might be to the back. It makes a certain kind of sense.

I've found myself a couple of times while doing Dardi school bouting in a position to deliver a falso to the back of the offside shoulder/head - mostly through good footwork on my part and poor footwork on my opponent's, but it was the best target at the time.

jester wrote:The more I study HWMA the more I appreciate SCA armoured combat. Of course, I am also on record as saying that I believe our force generation techniques are not correct for the time period the SCA assumed armor standard recreates (while perhaps being spot on for armoured combat in the age of plate).

Yes, and yes.

Jon

Cet wrote:"Winden is similar to wraps, if you look at it right (or wrong, depending), as you're turning the sword around the opponent's defense to get to him"

Interesting, you seem to have a totally differnt understanding of winden from what I've studied. In the group I study with winden is a technique used to place the strong of your blade v the weak of your opponent- the blades are allways in contact so there is no "moving around" his defense. It does primarily lead to a thrust though.

That's exactly how I interpret it as well. Against a strong bind, you raise your hilt to place your strong on his weak so you can thrust and displace his blade. Of course, he can wind against your winding, etc.

Doug Confrere wrote:Winden is similar to wraps, if you look at it right (or wrong, depending), as you're turning the sword around the opponent's defense to get to him"

In contrast to the people who have posted that they disagree with this interpretation, this is indeed *one* of the meanings of "winden" which I was taught. There's also a meaning which agrees with M S Anderson and Cet - but the one in which your blade goes around (and seems to go "through" if you're on the receiving end) of your opponent's blade is also in the corpus. I believe it comes to us from Liechtenauer, via Christian Tobler - though it's of course possible that my memory of the source, my memory of my group's interpretation, or my group's interpretation are mistaken.

It's easiest to do this and then thrust, but it's possible to do it and then cut - the blow doesn't travel far, but you can find this in the unarmored play sections, and I can testify from personal experience that it's possible to get hit quite stoutly from one of these.

The Duplieren is a wind that can be used to strike or cut, for example, but it falls pretty far from being a wrap shot.

Doug Confere wrote:The Duplieren is a wind that can be used to strike or cut, for example, but it falls pretty far from being a wrap shot.

Agreed - but I didn't say anything about a wrap shot. I responded to people who were disagreeing with your understanding of "winden".

I fail to see how winden compares to the wrap. This is perhaps because I am not a student of the Lichtenauer school. As I understand winden:

Larry and Ralph stand left foot forward at wide distance. Larry attacks, striking an oberhau (a descending blow moving from his right to his left) and passing forward with his right foot. Ralph counters this by striking essentially the same blow. Their swords bind in the center putting them both in, roughly, Langenort. Larry moves into a left side Ochs position (or left side Posta di Finestra in Italian terminology) which puts his point in line with Ralph's face for a thrust and places the strong of his blade against the weak of Ralph's blade (meaning he has a good chance of accomplishing the thrust). Ralph has to get that point offline, fast. If he doesn't, then he die. So Ralph applies a lot of force to Larry's blade, which takes both swords off the centerline. Larry, not particular about the technique he uses to kill Ralph, opposes strength with weakness and lets Ralph's sword slide to his right and off his blade. As Ralph's blade slides away, Larry strikes a left side oberhau (a blow descending from left to right) either with or without passing forward and left with his left foot.

Am I missing another facect of winden? How does this compare to a wrap shot?

That's why I'm all confused. I don't see how that connection got made.

Jost von Aichstadt wrote:

Doug Confere wrote:The Duplieren is a wind that can be used to strike or cut, for example, but it falls pretty far from being a wrap shot.

Agreed - but I didn't say anything about a wrap shot. I responded to people who were disagreeing with your understanding of "winden".

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply you were saying anything about a wrap shot, I was referring to my earlier statement that some winden might be compared to it. Sorry!

Guys the only reason I compared the winden to wrap shots is because some of the winden go around the opponent's sword in the bind. i.e. you might strike and meet at the bind on his right side, move into ochs on the rightand thrust around his defense. Sorry, bad comparison on my part and bad way of trying to explain it.

I am NOT trying to be a dick here, but why has talk of technique always made me queasy with boredom?
I hate intellectualizing or even analyzing things that are fun- art, sex, violence. It's such a failing of mine. I can't pay attention to it. My ears just close.

Weird, I didn't get that impression of you when reading your books Sir Vitus.

Vitus von Atzinger wrote:I am NOT trying to be a dick here, but why has talk of technique always made me queasy with boredom?
I hate intellectualizing or even analyzing things that are fun- art, sex, violence. It's such a failing of mine. I can't pay attention to it. My ears just close.

I'd guess that you are a doer. How many people in period actually used a fighting system as portrayed in the manuscripts? Well, compare the number of manuscripts produced in the SCA over a 30 year period by several thousand participants. 3 major and approximately a dozen minor, many of which are fairly vague. Most people probably fell into your category. They didn't analyze it to reduce it to a system, they just applied what worked. Neither method is superior, just different.

I, on the other hand, must understand. Studying WMA was like having somebody open a door for me. Suddenly so much of what people had been trying to tell me started to make sense. But I have a feeling that I'm in a minority in this regard.

I think turning technique into a system makes it easier to teach to others. It also helps you analyze how you fight and possibly improve your technique.

Jost von Aichstadt wrote:

Doug Confrere wrote:Winden is similar to wraps, if you look at it right (or wrong, depending), as you're turning the sword around the opponent's defense to get to him"

In contrast to the people who have posted that they disagree with this interpretation, this is indeed *one* of the meanings of "winden" which I was taught. There's also a meaning which agrees with M S Anderson and Cet - but the one in which your blade goes around (and seems to go "through" if you're on the receiving end) of your opponent's blade is also in the corpus. I believe it comes to us from Liechtenauer, via Christian Tobler - though it's of course possible that my memory of the source, my memory of my group's interpretation, or my group's interpretation are mistaken.

It's easiest to do this and then thrust, but it's possible to do it and then cut - the blow doesn't travel far, but you can find this in the unarmored play sections, and I can testify from personal experience that it's possible to get hit quite stoutly from one of these.

What you (and Doug) are describing sounds more like abnemen to me, (taking off) where you end up cutting from behind his sword from the bind, or zucken (twitching) where you come off a strong bind and snap the blade around from the other side and cut, usually with a zwerchau. Of course, all these techniques are related and sometimes hard to define in practice. Also, there are probably as many interpretations of these techniques as there are people interpreting them

If you have Toblers' book, he does a good job of describing winden on page 26. Here's how Ringeck describes it:

"When you strike a zornhau and he displaces it, hold strongly against it. With the strong of your sword slide up to the weak of his blade, wind the hilt in front of your head while remaining on the sword, thrusting into his face from above".

M S Anderson wrote:What you (and Doug) are describing sounds more like abnemen to me, (taking off) where you end up cutting from behind his sword from the bind, or zucken (twitching) where you come off a strong bind and snap the blade around from the other side and cut, usually with a zwerchau. Of course, all these techniques are related and sometimes hard to define in practice. Also, there are probably as many interpretations of these techniques as there are people interpreting them

.

Matt,

I am not at all describing the abnehmen or the zucken. See the duplieren and mutieren for good examples of the type of winden I am referring to.

Doug Confere wrote:

M S Anderson wrote:What you (and Doug) are describing sounds more like abnemen to me, (taking off) where you end up cutting from behind his sword from the bind, or zucken (twitching) where you come off a strong bind and snap the blade around from the other side and cut, usually with a zwerchau. Of course, all these techniques are related and sometimes hard to define in practice. Also, there are probably as many interpretations of these techniques as there are people interpreting them

.

Matt,

I am not at all describing the abnehmen or the zucken. See the duplieren and mutieren for good examples of the type of winden I am referring to.

Well yes, I'm very familiar with those techniques. The muterien certainly flows from winding, but the duplieren is really just coming off a strong bind to cut behind his sword to the right side of his head after rolling the sword over, no winding involved really. But I get your point (no pun intended) about working around your opponent's sword. Is that what is meant by a "wrap" shot in the SCA?

M S Anderson wrote:Well yes, I'm very familiar with those techniques. The muterien certainly flows from winding, but the duplieren is really just coming off a strong bind to cut behind his sword to the right side of his head after rolling the sword over, no winding involved really. But I get your point (no pun intended) about working around your opponent's sword. Is that what is meant by a "wrap" shot in the SCA?

My point was the principle was similar, going around the opponent's defense rather than displacing it or using another opening. Someone else will need to describe a wrap shot, as I'm having a terrible time saying what I mean recently, it seems

I was a tennis instructor for years, and I never sat down and read a manual on how to play tennis. I played, took lessons, played more, and got to be pretty good. I generally found that such things as manuals and written descriptions didn't work quite as well as someone just demonstrating the technique. Similarly, I never wrote books for my students to read, or drew diagrams for them, we worked on shots and strokes until they got things down correctly. At several times I was invited to discuss and help interpret how a "shot" that someone read about in Tennis Magazine actually worked in real life. It was often times very different from the way they imagined it to work and/or the way they were attempting to accomplish the shot.

I think that fighting is similar to this, and that is why the manuals are few and far between, are likely to have huge gaps in what they show, and are subject to interpretation.

I think that it is great that people are learning some about period techniques from these books, but I imagine that there is a whole host of practical knowledge gained from personal experience that is being overlooked. I also think that a lot of this knowledge is evident today either in relic form in other sports, or has been re-discovered by any one of several groups out there.

I don't think that these "Buddhist Palm" manuals are the end all be all of medieval fighting, and they certainly shouldn't be treated as such. The only way to learn fighting is to go out and fight, unless you are a Kung Fu Genius.

Alaric

DukeAlaric (George S.) wrote:I was a tennis instructor for years, and I never sat down and read a manual on how to play tennis. I played, took lessons, played more, and got to be pretty good. I generally found that such things as manuals and written descriptions didn't work quite as well as someone just demonstrating the technique. Similarly, I never wrote books for my students to read, or drew diagrams for them, we worked on shots and strokes until they got things down correctly. At several times I was invited to discuss and help interpret how a "shot" that someone read about in Tennis Magazine actually worked in real life. It was often times very different from the way they imagined it to work and/or the way they were attempting to accomplish the shot.

I think that fighting is similar to this, and that is why the manuals are few and far between, are likely to have huge gaps in what they show, and are subject to interpretation.

I think that it is great that people are learning some about period techniques from these books, but I imagine that there is a whole host of practical knowledge gained from personal experience that is being overlooked. I also think that a lot of this knowledge is evident today either in relic form in other sports, or has been re-discovered by any one of several groups out there.

I don't think that these "Buddhist Palm" manuals are the end all be all of medieval fighting, and they certainly shouldn't be treated as such. The only way to learn fighting is to go out and fight, unless you are a Kung Fu Genius.

Alaric

The manuals give us a glimpse into how they fought, both in a broad sense and also in a more narrow one.

Nothing beats good instruction. However, the art we are studying has not survived and there is no one to learn it from So all we have are these manuals. One doesn't learn to fight by reading them, one learns to fight by reading them and DOING! One only has to look at any of the top WMA practitioners (many of whom were once or still are SCA fighters, BTW) to see that a complete and effective system can be built out of the manuals we have access to.

Also, it's interesting to see this widespread notion that WMA practitioners don't fight in action. It seems to be similar to the misconception that LHers are nazi's. I wonder where these come from and why they are so widely accepted?

DukeAlaric (George S.) wrote:I was a tennis instructor for years, and I never sat down and read a manual on how to play tennis. I played, took lessons, played more, and got to be pretty good. I generally found that such things as manuals and written descriptions didn't work quite as well as someone just demonstrating the technique. Similarly, I never wrote books for my students to read, or drew diagrams for them, we worked on shots and strokes until they got things down correctly. At several times I was invited to discuss and help interpret how a "shot" that someone read about in Tennis Magazine actually worked in real life. It was often times very different from the way they imagined it to work and/or the way they were attempting to accomplish the shot.

I think that fighting is similar to this, and that is why the manuals are few and far between, are likely to have huge gaps in what they show, and are subject to interpretation.

I think that it is great that people are learning some about period techniques from these books, but I imagine that there is a whole host of practical knowledge gained from personal experience that is being overlooked. I also think that a lot of this knowledge is evident today either in relic form in other sports, or has been re-discovered by any one of several groups out there.

I don't think that these "Buddhist Palm" manuals are the end all be all of medieval fighting, and they certainly shouldn't be treated as such. The only way to learn fighting is to go out and fight, unless you are a Kung Fu Genius.

Alaric

I agree completely, you can't learn to fight well just by studying books. Actually, I'm pretty sure no one in this thread has suggested that. But the fact is, the books are the only real connection we have to medieval fighting. By studying fechtbuchs, period art, accounts of tournaments and battles, we get an insight into how medieval weapons were used and how these men trained and fought. Not a very clear picture, but's that's all we really have to go on as a starting point to recreate the art. If you're making up an art as you go, learning by trial and error what works and what doesn't, importing principles and techniques from other martial arts, with the more experienced fighters passing down what they have learned, that's great. But it's not "medieval fighting," it's something new. But really, even in the SCA, you are trying to recreate fighting as it's depicted in historical sources right? I mean, you aren't using modern weapons, you're using something that simulates medieval weapons and armour. You are fighting in a simulation of a medieval tournament right? How do you know? From books! Maybe you haven't read them, but someone in the SCA did and they continue to influence your hobby, even if indirectly. I really believe that if you want to learn to fight with a 15th century weapon, you're not likely to improve on the techniques and principles taught by 15th century masters. If Sigmund Ringeck were still around, I'd be very anxious to become his student, but all we have left are his books.

Which is a crying damned shame. I have a living lineage which may date back through the 18th century, judging by some *eerie* parallels I've seen... but it's an incomplete transmission. You can't teach as well or as completely when you're trying to hide from Ceaucescu as you would in normal times. I've stayed awake late at night many times trying to figure out what drills might otherwise have gotten to me, how people were dressing, and whether, when something seems to point to a trick, whether that's something my mentor's grandpop would have done, or shown his recruits.

So artwork, manuals, and straight-up fighting. The surprise is how different the manuals frequently are. The big surprise is how close the SCA sometimes gets all on its own to some of the stuff they show.

Unfortunately, power, and power generation, is one of those things that depends on a system. Because that's the transmission putting power in the techniques. All our screwdrivers are slightly different gauges, as systems come in and out of being... so our technique interpretations necessarily differ. He who gets lizard-brain knowledge on a systematic level will be able to spontaneously create appropriate technique, and have it fit his system. Who doesn't, may collect techniques until he dies, but will easily get pounded by somebody whose body-knowledge surpasses him, even if the latter guy thinks that he's thick as a brick for lack of technical knowledge. In a sense, back full circle to "power IS technique."

My $0.02. or, maybe $0.25

Vitus von Atzinger wrote:I am NOT trying to be a dick here, but why has talk of technique always made me queasy with boredom?
I hate intellectualizing or even analyzing things that are fun- art, sex, violence. It's such a failing of mine. I can't pay attention to it. My ears just close.

Well, discussing technique is all well and good and we really have no choice when it comes to the extant manuals. We need to talk through them because it's a dead art we're trying to recreate and we're so far removed from the actual usage and the context that discussion is the only way to figure out what exactly we think they were trying to say.

But asynchrous electronic discussion like this is just about the worst possible way to explain technique. Russ and Matt will agree that I can show you more of what I mean in 5 minutes than I can ever get across in a week-long discussion on some BB. This sort of thing is nice for getting different perspectives but it's no substitute for face time.

Personally, I like breaking fighting of any sort down into its individual buildng blocks so I can understand each piece better. That lets me extrapolate it out of the setting I learn it in and use it elsewhere. Other people just do better by doing, not intellectualizing. One isn't better or worse than the other.

Jon

Jon, which methods do you practice?

John
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