Hits in sparring

[Randall Pleasant]

At the WMAW event back in October of 2006 I was able to observe such weak cutting interpretations in action. Two things that really stood out to me at the event were people standing in the Vom Tag guard with the sword held in front of the chest (what I refer to as “Lazy Vom Tag”) rather than over the shoulder and people cutting by pulling the pomel down. Not only were their cuts weak they were also very short. Rarely did I see anyone perform a fully arm cut. This resulted in people starting a fight at too close of a range. The short weak cuts also result in a vast amount of edge-on-edge blade impacts. But while their blade suffered many nicks due to the edge-on-edge actions because of the weakness of their cuts they generally did not suffer major damage, which probably re-enforces their view that edge-on-edge actions are ok. Because of the weak cutting the sparring I observed at the event was basically little more than sword-tag. The sparring was clearly not at the same level as what I have experienced at ARMA events.

[Axel Pettersson]

Mr Pleasant,

Two things that really stood out to me at the event were people standing in the Vom Tag guard with the sword held in front of the chest (what I refer to as “Lazy Vom Tag”) rather than over the shoulder and people cutting by pulling the pomel down.

Im sorry as this is perhaps a bit of topic, but does not the von Danzig manuscript display a vom tag held with the sword in front of the chest, rather than over the shoulder? I do not use that variant myself, but surely it is possible to perform correct zornhaus from that position?

[John_Clements]

Mr Pleasant,

Two things that really stood out to me at the event were people standing in the Vom Tag guard with the sword held in front of the chest (what I refer to as “Lazy Vom Tag”) rather than over the shoulder and people cutting by pulling the pomel down.

Im sorry as this is perhaps a bit of topic, but does not the von Danzig manuscript display a vom tag held with the sword in front of the chest, rather than over the shoulder? I do not use that variant myself, but surely it is possible to perform correct zornhaus from that position?

If you interpret that image of that posture literally...But then you must interpret all the rest from that source literally too, and in all their body positions --- feet, hands, heads, etc., --- not just blade angle. As well, in the process you cannot then ignore the much more voluminous depictions from the source works (especially the far more natural and detailed examples by late 15th & early 16th century artists) showing distinctly Vom Tag held over the collar with the hilt next to the head, or showing it held above the head, but not with it resting on the collar, or with the cross under the arm pit, pressing into the chest, or the hilt placed outside the shoulder.

We can’t selectively interpret the source images to our liking to fit our own limited assumptions while ignoring those that clearly contradict them. Nor can we assume all artists represented stances literally, or illustrated them from the same identical angles or the very same temporal moment of action. Make sense?

It's no surprise that some people will believe wrong things or do incorrect things in their fighting yet think it good. After all, look at the inane fighting of the Sca practiced for decades by thousands, but working only under the absurd conditions of their own invented ahistorical style. Or look at most stage combat theories with their foolish movements and imaginary actions that defy the physics and nature of actual close-combat. Even some Asian martial arts promote notions that are easily evaporate in the reality of an earnest street fight or full contact match, but schools and teachers still continue to push them onto ignorant and unquestioning students.

Broaden your practice and the natural biomechanics of what is martially sound, what really works at high speed and force against a comitted adversary, will reveal themselves.

JC

[Martin_Wilkinson]

Mr Pleasant,

Two things that really stood out to me at the event were people standing in the Vom Tag guard with the sword held in front of the chest (what I refer to as “Lazy Vom Tag”) rather than over the shoulder and people cutting by pulling the pomel down.

Im sorry as this is perhaps a bit of topic, but does not the von Danzig manuscript display a vom tag held with the sword in front of the chest, rather than over the shoulder? I do not use that variant myself, but surely it is possible to perform correct zornhaus from that position?

Could this not be one of Fiores guards?

[Gene Tausk]

Mr Pleasant,

Two things that really stood out to me at the event were people standing in the Vom Tag guard with the sword held in front of the chest (what I refer to as “Lazy Vom Tag”) rather than over the shoulder and people cutting by pulling the pomel down.

Im sorry as this is perhaps a bit of topic, but does not the von Danzig manuscript display a vom tag held with the sword in front of the chest, rather than over the shoulder? I do not use that variant myself, but surely it is possible to perform correct zornhaus from that position?

Could this not be one of Fiores guards?

The "ward" that is being described is a great way to get your elbows hit. I speak from experience here, both as someone who has been on the receiving end of holding a sword in such a "ward" and as someone who has dealt it out to others who have left this tempting and easy target for me to hit. John's description of this "interpretation," cited earlier in this thread, is dead on the money.

To answer the question, I suppose a zornhau can be done from this "ward," but not only is the person in an unnecessarily vulnerable position, the resulting strike will lack the power that is available if a zornhau is performed from a person in a correct vom tag ward.

[philippewillaume]

Hello martin
No, that is the picture we are talking about
http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Bild:MS_44_A_8_2r.jpg
so it definitly von dantzig

The text in ringeck (1440-52) is
Die vierd hu°tt.
Vom tag. Do schick dich also mit: stand mit linckem fu°ß vor, vnd halt din schwert an diner rechten achseln. Oder halt es mit vßgerechten armen vber din haup. Vnd wie dü vß der hutten fechten solt, das findest dü in dissem bu°ch geschryben.

The fourth guard
Von Tag: So set yourself like so: stand with the left foot forward and hold your sword at you right shoulder or hold it with extended (uz rekten=to extend) arms over your head. And how you are to fight from those guards you will find written in this book.

That is Vd (1452)
Merck die hůtt haist vom tag / do schick dich also mit / Stee mit dem lincken füeß vor / und halt dein swert an deiner rechten achsel oder mit auff gerackten armen hoch über dein haubt / und stee also in der hůt
translation same as above

John,
I would say that Axel is right it can be taken anywhere above the head or the blade at the shoulder.
If they meant above the shoulder we would have had ober diner rechten achlen not an diner.

That is not necessarily an antinomy with what you stated
I mean dobringer 1380ish tellus that it anyting between lagen ort to the sword above the head as long as tou have the arms extended.

This is Lew (after 1450?) and speyer (1492)
Item die vierd hut heisset vom tag Und schick dich also mit Setz den lincken fuß für und halt dein swet mit aufgerackten armen hoch über dein haubt und wende die langen sneiden für und laß den ort ein wenig zeruck hangen und stee also in der hutt etc.

Basically, VTag is above the head with the tip slightly back,and that is the way suttor and meyer have it as well. And I think talhoffer has it like that in his 59 and 67 edition.

So yes above the head is the common denominator and that is the route that one would chose if he had multi manual/multi master approach.
But it is equally possible that vocabulary and the method evolved in a little less than 300 years.


Phil

[Axel Pettersson]

We can’t selectively interpret the source images to our liking to fit our own limited assumptions while ignoring those that clearly contradict them. Nor can we assume all artists represented stances literally, or illustrated them from the same identical angles or the very same temporal moment of action. Make sense?

JC

Mr Clements,

It makes perfect sense (and it is not something that I have disagreed on), and perhaps that is why I should not discard the possibility of a vom tag executed like that? As I said it does not make sense to me holding my sword in that angle etc, (as Mr Tausk and yourself pointed out, it endangers your elbow, gives bad protection for your upper right opening and seems to be biomechanicly inferior to other variants of vom tag)

But due to my limited knowledge I should perhaps leave the door open ( I dont want to stagnate at my tender age ). Could it be possible that the von danzig vom tag is a local variant, and differs from other manuscript in this way, as other manuscripts differ from eachother?

I seem to be more and more slipping away from the actual topic in this thread, so excuse me, an excuse also if my poor english makes it hard to bone out what I am trying to get across.

[philippewillaume]

The "ward" that is being described is a great way to get your elbows hit. I speak from experience here, both as someone who has been on the receiving end of holding a sword in such a "ward" and as someone who has dealt it out to others who have left this tempting and easy target for me to hit. John's description of this "interpretation," cited earlier in this thread, is dead on the money.

To answer the question, I suppose a zornhau can be done from this "ward," but not only is the person in an unnecessarily vulnerable position, the resulting strike will lack the power that is available if a zornhau is performed from a person in a correct vom tag ward.

Hello gene,
Well you notice how his elbow is tucked in on the picture.
Again this is not an antinomy with what you are saying, holding the sword like that naturally will have your elbow sticking out.

Personally I use both position and once, you get use to that one it does not make much difference in the cut. But I would have said the power of the cut has more to do with bio-mechanic that sheer arms strength.

But I think that may be go back to what we believe is a good cut. Because like you and Jonh, I hate tag.
I am not really in favour of leathering the hell out of each other when sparing (we use shina with cross guard). And from my test cutting experience, it will not take that much to cut a wrist or a hand but you still need a certain tip velocity. So flopping the sword with the wrist and with out body motion is not a valid cut. It may be a preparation that is setting the blade for a shcnit but that is not a cut.

I need to go to train…sorry, but that is an interesting subject.
phil

[Gene Tausk]

The "ward" that is being described is a great way to get your elbows hit. I speak from experience here, both as someone who has been on the receiving end of holding a sword in such a "ward" and as someone who has dealt it out to others who have left this tempting and easy target for me to hit. John's description of this "interpretation," cited earlier in this thread, is dead on the money.

To answer the question, I suppose a zornhau can be done from this "ward," but not only is the person in an unnecessarily vulnerable position, the resulting strike will lack the power that is available if a zornhau is performed from a person in a correct vom tag ward.

Hello gene,
Well you notice how his elbow is tucked in on the picture.
Again this is not an antinomy with what you are saying, holding the sword like that naturally will have your elbow sticking out.

Personally I use both position and once, you get use to that one it does not make much difference in the cut. But I would have said the power of the cut has more to do with bio-mechanic that sheer arms strength.

But I think that may be go back to what we believe is a good cut. Because like you and Jonh, I hate tag.
I am not really in favour of leathering the hell out of each other when sparing (we use shina with cross guard). And from my test cutting experience, it will not take that much to cut a wrist or a hand but you still need a certain tip velocity. So flopping the sword with the wrist and with out body motion is not a valid cut. It may be a preparation that is setting the blade for a shcnit but that is not a cut.

I need to go to train…sorry, but that is an interesting subject.
phil

Hi Phillipe:

Maybe I am looking at the image differently than you, but the elbows seem unecessarily exposed to me. As I said, my goal when sparring is to present as little a target as possible and when the elbows are in front of the torso, as this image seems to demonstrate, the elbows are unecessarily in a danger position.

I agree that it will not take much to cut a wrist or hand or to inflict damage on an opponent using a sword, however, this does not mean that cuts should not be executed as powerfully as possible in combat. This does not mean, of course, that a person has an open invitation to wail at full speed with a waster on an opponent. Of course not. However, in full combat, warriors would not be swinging their weapons with "just enough force" to cause damage; they will be executing techniques with all of their strength. This is what test cutting is for. Make sense?

[philippewillaume]

Hello gene,yes you do.
I think that we have the same idea of what a good hit should be or (there about).
I just spared once ages ago in Sweden with one of your member there and that the feeling I had at the time.

However I think we acknowledge hit much lighter than that when we get hit, especially in target like the hand and forarms. Kind of no it was not really a good strike but I think it would have done me enough. (We even count graze on an experienced student fencing against a newer fencer, after all it is as much as not being hit as it is hitting the opponent and as an experienced student you should know better but that is really another topic)

About the picture, it probably has to do as what we understand by hutten/leger and the interpretation of what is a strike.
My understanding of VD is that this is a position he take when he is in what he call the zufechten.
So he is either out of range/ his opponent will have to pass and extend so it probably do not mater as much as lest say fiore posta/guarda.


Phil

[Randall Pleasant]

My understanding of VD is that this is a position he take when he is in what he call the zufechten. So he is either out of range/ his opponent will have to pass and extend so it probably do not mater as much as lest say fiore posta/guarda.

Philippe

You noted that a good cut is related to the bio-mechanics as much as with actual strength. From the Lazy Vom Tag position a person simply cannot physically perform a cut with the same power and reach as they can when they hold Vom Tag with the sword over their shoulder (assuming that they know how to perform a proper cut). The bio-mechanics of the human body is the limiting factor! I can say without any doubts that from the Vom Tag guard ARMA members engage their adversarys at a much greater distance than the people I saw at the WMAW 2006 event. I can also say without any doubts that the sparring I observed at that event was clearly not on the same level as what once observes at an ARMA event. Attempting to fight with the hilt held in front of the chest is just not martially sound. Not suprizing one bad interpretation has a negative affect on other interpretations. For example, because of the way in which they cut from Vom Tag the manner in which people at the WMAW event perform Ringeck's Zorn to Zorn counter was, in my opinion, very poor - no reach, no attempt to actually cut their adversary, binding much too low to allow a quick follow up thrust or effective twitching, edge-on-edge bashing, etc.

If you interpret that image of that posture literally...But then you must interpret all the rest from that source literally too.

Philippe

Not only do the VD images show the Vom Tag guard with the sword held in front of the chest, it also shows the right Ochs guard with the sword held over the head and the Pflug guard with the hilt held behind the hip. In right Ochs do you hold your sword over your head or do you hold your sword to the right side of the your head as shown in all the other historical images? In the Pflug guard do you hold the hilt of your sword behind your hip? Remember, if you take one of the VD images as literal then you must take the rest of them as literal.

[Gene Tausk]

Hello gene,yes you do.
I think that we have the same idea of what a good hit should be or (there about).
I just spared once ages ago in Sweden with one of your member there and that the feeling I had at the time.

However I think we acknowledge hit much lighter than that when we get hit, especially in target like the hand and forarms. Kind of no it was not really a good strike but I think it would have done me enough. (We even count graze on an experienced student fencing against a newer fencer, after all it is as much as not being hit as it is hitting the opponent and as an experienced student you should know better but that is really another topic)

About the picture, it probably has to do as what we understand by hutten/leger and the interpretation of what is a strike.
My understanding of VD is that this is a position he take when he is in what he call the zufechten.
So he is either out of range/ his opponent will have to pass and extend so it probably do not mater as much as lest say fiore posta/guarda.


Phil

Hi Phillipe:

Well, I guess we have a different interpretation on what counts as a hit. In ARMA, it has to be a good, solid hit. A "graze" will not cut it (no pun intended). In the limited experience I have with actual knife combat, I have seen individuals receive a strong cut across the arms and hands that cut open the skin and profuse bleeding immediately ensued, but they still moved forward with attacks, overpowering their opponents. Hopefully Jay Vail can make a comment about this as well, as he has much more experience with this. I would find it hard to believe that someone cut with a sword, a mild, grazing cut that just scratched the skin would be "disabled" and could not continue.

And, I guess we disagree on the interpretation of the ward. I really don't feel it is productive to argue this point because the only real way to demontrate it would be in an actual sparring match. Once again, from my experience, when I held my elbows in the position described, both John C and Jake N were able to routinely score against me by striking the elbows. When I wised up, they were no longer able to do this, and it was not from lack of trying on their part. When I have new students in the Southside group, when they begin sparring, they always make this mistake of holding vom tag in the position you describe and I am able to usually hit them on the elbows at will. Soon, they learn not to do this and I have to work at my sparring.

All the best.

[philippewillaume]

Hello
Gene,
I wonder how you did come up with notion that I believe that graze where a good hit. May be I was not clear, I think grazes are not going to stop you fighting whatsoever most of the time I am not even sure it would put a hole in you doublet.

I said that if you are experienced enough and fighting a much newer fighter. It is fair to acknowledge graze on you (as it is fair to ignore it when sparing against someone more experience.). From the side of the experience fighter, You still have to hit the newer practitioner properly but the idea is to promote hitting someone with a proper defensive structure to your blow. I said when sparing you can use graze as a handicap system if you see what I mean.
The other bit of that section was about that, a good hit to the hand will be lighter than a good hit to head. In other world a hit that we acknowledge on the hand is not going to be acknowledge necessarily if it lands on the head.
No matter how one puts it without hand it is hard to hold the sword. It takes less force to cut a wrist that it takes to cut a head. And the manuals clearly indicate lighter blow.
(I.e. throwing the point to hand in the krump or to the shoulder in the schiel). A graze to the hand is not a valid strike but I think there is room to acknowledge hit light than what I would call a good hit on the head. That does not change the fact that you need to strike as hard as you can for the blow in question.


About the leger,
That is precisely my point, I do not believe the 4 leger are not something you take and you stay in. And your explanation is precisely what led me to believe that.

You are taking them on the way to get in range or after you have delivered a strike/trust. (IE the final position of the strike or the thrust)
For me, if you use the German system alone, it makes no sense to wait for some on is a grade and if you are in range you should be striking and not be in a guard.
For me the German leger do not work at all like fiore/vadis guard. When you are the one using them, they are dynamic/transitional what ever you want to call them but it is not something you stay in or move around in. Because as you said someone, even marginally quicker than you (let alone significantly) will hit you on the bit that sticks out.

That does not prevent, that if you are using VT as Jodan no kamae in kendo (which I believe is the case in latter manual and may be with Talhoffer), which is much more static, the conclusion you reached is right and relevant. It is just not the only way possible.

VD drawings make sense with his text which seems to indicate dynamic use of the guards. It does not have necessarily to agree with what Meyer (150 years later) is doing or with Talhoffer (probably same time as VD)

Phil.

[John_Clements]

Could it be possible that the von danzig vom tag is a local variant, and differs from other manuscript in this way, as other manuscripts differ from eachother?

I suspect that it is more a quirk of the artwork, combined with the understandng that the posture / position itself is fluid, not static. You move with it, rather than place it somewhere stiffly. It can be over the head, or on/at/over the shoulder, but definately not with the blade resting upon the collar bone or with the cross tucked under the armpit or pressing into the chest, as some are now insanely doing.

It is by interpreting "some" textual descriptions literally that seems to cuase a great deal of problems in this craft (e.g., "edge toward you" = aimed perpendicular, or "on the shoulder" = upon the collar, for example, or "in front of the chest" = held before the sternum, or "on the ground" = touching the floor, etc.)

The best evidence one can acquire though, in my opinion, is attempting that passive resting version in serious free play against a skilled opponent who doesn't bother with it.

JC

[philippewillaume]

Hello john
You last post just made me realise that I missed a bit here. I think that may be I did not really understand the point gene was making.
I am in total agreement with what you said here regarding the guard.
It is not very smart to tuck it under the arm pit or against the chest, I did not realise that the picture could be interpreted that way but now that you said it

I got my hand slapped on other forum for that but, if ones interpretation of a text does not work in sparing against and oppoent tat doesn not want it to happen then it is not a correct interpretation of the text.

phil