I love it when ancient wisdom says exactly what I do :)

[Jean Chandler]

These guys seem to be fairly common but almost all beginners in any art start out this way and the problem can be fixed with adequate training and experience.

Yes exactly... a little study based on the manuals probably helps in the long run. I personally don't see the plague of double-hits you seem to be noticing, in fact I've noticed a sharp decline in double-hits in the tournaments I've been to just in the last 2 years - which was what allowed them to impose such a strict double-hit rule this year at FA.

The main problem we have right now is that nobody is seriously training the Abzug yet. I suspect this is because people are still used to training with their buddies in small groups around the country and fighting much more predictable bouts. So it's been relatively easy to disengage cleanly after a hit, and people even get in the habit of dropping their guard because they know their buddy isn't going to keep going after them after getting tagged (I have a very bad habit of doing this myself). As they are designed to do, the tournaments expose the problem: Against strangers hyped up on adrenaline it's a much less predictable fight and the clean hit your buddy will readily acknowledge in the backyard may not be even seen by the judge (just like it may not actually have any effect in a real fight for a whole slew of reasons) so the Abzug has now become much more important for a lot of people. I think this is what the afterblow rule is meant to stimulate as well. (This is actually progress because back in 2010 a clean entry, an effective vorschlag and covering the lines were major problems for most people).

Slicing cuts should be done with a push or pull but yeah, longswords are definitely capable of shearing blows and I favor that type of cutting with this weapon.

In theory if you are studying the KDF we are supposed to give equal consideration to all three wounders: the slice, the cut, and the thrust... but to be honest I'm probably doing 70% cutting 25% thrusting and 5% slicing right now. As people get better at defending against cuts we've moved more into thrusts; I suspect as people get better at defending against thrusts we'll see more schnitts. We are already seeing dramatically more ringen, pretty well executed.

The sport fencing mindset can absolutely lead to problems with the afterblow but I've not actually encountered very many HEMA practitioners with a sport fencing background, they exist but not in the numbers to explain the frequency with which we see the sloppy fighting.

I didn't say afterblow, a quarter of a second isn't an afterblow in any historical fencing context I'm familiar with. I'm talking about double-hits. And I don't know you Mike, so I'm not familiar with your experiences in HEMA, but among the people I've met in the historical fencing community, a background with sport fencing of some kind is not exactly rare. As a completely wild guess I'd say about 30% among the people I've met in the last 10 years or so. Another 30% some kind of Japanese or Chinese Martial Arts background, and 30% with SCA or re-enactor background. The last 10% are things like FMA, boxing, MMA, wrestling, and some more outlier stuff like LARP. Maybe we should do a poll on here?

or the Martial Arts zen Master who is so hung up on his kata that he goes through the form regardless of what his opponent is doing.

I know there's at least a few people in the community like this but honestly I haven't encountered many of them either.

Per above, we must not travel in the same circles then. I think a lot of HEMA people do this. Especially people who train alone alot, and especially if they have any kind of EMA background involving forms or katas.

J

[Mike Edelson]

or the Martial Arts zen Master who is so hung up on his kata that he goes through the form regardless of what his opponent is doing.

I know there's at least a few people in the community like this but honestly I haven't encountered many of them either.

People who think along these lines would benefit from an actual understanding of what kata is and how to practice it.

[Mike Ruhala]

The main problem we have right now is that nobody is seriously training the Abzug yet. I suspect this is because people are still used to training with their buddies in small groups around the country and fighting much more predictable bouts. So it's been relatively easy to disengage cleanly after a hit, and people even get in the habit of dropping their guard because they know their buddy isn't going to keep going after them after getting tagged (I have a very bad habit of doing this myself). As they are designed to do, the tournaments expose the problem: Against strangers hyped up on adrenaline it's a much less predictable fight and the clean hit your buddy will readily acknowledge in the backyard may not be even seen by the judge (just like it may not actually have any effect in a real fight for a whole slew of reasons) so the Abzug has now become much more important for a lot of people. I think this is what the afterblow rule is meant to stimulate as well. (This is actually progress because back in 2010 a clean entry, an effective vorschlag and covering the lines were major problems for most people).

I stress the abzug and afterblow in all my fencing, it's a habit I picked up from one of those darned Victorians.

It is important to avoid the double touch while executing time cuts or stop thrusts. In order to accomplish this it will be necessary to jump backward in the first case, and in the second one to extend the arm with the point in line of attack so as to obstruct the adversary's final blow.

It is of prime importance to avoid exchanging blow by blow, both from the practical as well as the scientific angles of the art.

Science teaches us to avoid this vicious practice and the fencer who is learning should watch himself on this point as carefully as if he were risking his life in a duel.

In my fight with Eric Wiggins at Dixie Krieg 2011 I felt I pulled off a pretty nice abzug in our exchange from 0:10-0:17 in this video,

http://youtu.be/fPSfJPL8HSE

In this particular instance Eric didn't really go for the afterblow but I liked the way I was able to use longpoint to obstruct his most likely line of attack while stepping back and threatening the point. I often like tag for the abzug since it gets the upper body out of the way, offers a strong suppressing strike and, imo, is a rather menacing guard but it was a small venue with a low ceiling so I had to adjust my tactics.

In theory if you are studying the KDF we are supposed to give equal consideration to all three wounders: the slice, the cut, and the thrust... but to be honest I'm probably doing 70% cutting 25% thrusting and 5% slicing right now. As people get better at defending against cuts we've moved more into thrusts; I suspect as people get better at defending against thrusts we'll see more schnitts. We are already seeing dramatically more ringen, pretty well executed.

I cut and slice way more than I thrust but that's a Meyer thing,

Now we come to the art and noble knightly practice itself, namely to the cuts, which are the true chief element in combat, as I said in the beginning.

Other than that I let my opponents tell me how they'd like to be hit, as it happens that's usually with a cut or slice too. My own instinctual preference is also for the cut because I consider it to be much more immediately incapacitating than the thrust even if the thrust is likely to be ultimately more lethal. As you could probably guess I wasn't exactly enthusiastic when I first started learning the foil but I trusted my teacher's wisdom and over time I've grown to be pretty decent with that weapon. I'd like to explore thrusting with the longsword more and I use it plenty with the staff which is currently the KDF weapon that's getting all my attention.

I didn't say afterblow, a quarter of a second isn't an afterblow in any historical fencing context I'm familiar with. I'm talking about double-hits.

Sport fencers have a lot of rules about priority but it seems few really understand its significance on a martial level and rely heavily on the rules, timer and halt for their defense. The latest thing I heard is that an afterblow is officially one step but it never even gets that far with sport fencing before the action halts so they don't really ever develop the mindset of protecting themselves after their blow lands, whether that's half a second later or till the other guys bleeds out.

And I don't know you Mike, so I'm not familiar with your experiences in HEMA, but among the people I've met in the historical fencing community, a background with sport fencing of some kind is not exactly rare. As a completely wild guess I'd say about 30% among the people I've met in the last 10 years or so. Another 30% some kind of Japanese or Chinese Martial Arts background, and 30% with SCA or re-enactor background. The last 10% are things like FMA, boxing, MMA, wrestling, and some more outlier stuff like LARP. Maybe we should do a poll on here?

That'll depend on where you're at. Florida's virtually an island, we're bordered by ocean on three sides and it would take half a day's worth of hard driving to reach the northern border, never mind find another HEMA practitioner. Though there's a lot of fighters in this state I only know a couple with a background in sport fencing. Asian martial arts and LARP/SCA/whatever are way more common, as is plain old fashioned nuth'n.

People who think along these lines would benefit from an actual understanding of what kata is and how to practice it.

You'd know better than I would. The closest thing I have to that would probably be something like practicing my molinets or working a target/dummy/cutting pattern.

[zarlor]

[snip]
In theory if you are studying the KDF we are supposed to give equal consideration to all three wounders: the slice, the cut, and the thrust... but to be honest I'm probably doing 70% cutting 25% thrusting and 5% slicing right now.

The only problem with the slice at the moment (at least in tournament) is that from what I have seen so far the judges rarely seem to acknowledge them (well, unless you flat out "saw" on a guy.) I think that's something we need to get judges a bit more used to seeing and maybe if we see the use of it increase we'll see judges getting more able to recognize it... I hope anyway. I notice our group doing a pretty decent job of remembering to use them overall so maybe we're just more used to seeing them at this point.

[Joey Nitti]

I'd like to explore thrusting with the longsword more and I use it plenty with the staff which is currently the KDF weapon that's getting all my attention

I feel like I'm a 45%-50%-5% cut-thrust-slice (so slightly more thrusty than most it would seem), and one difference you might find is in the distance you fight at. At our club we fight at a distance where an oberhau/zornhau finishes with the point online, and you can JUST reach the opponent if you triangle step or lean into longpoint or something. Not as much focus at being able to cut the guy in one step, more focus on controlling his blade and the space between you, then winding or cutting in after. You might find that you fight at a slightly closer distance that's better suited to cutting.

I really need to get some more video of us doing freeplay. Would be easier for you guys to see what I mean. Each of us is much better than we were 8 months ago in the videos I posted, so don't even watch those

[Mike Ruhala]

The only problem with the slice at the moment (at least in tournament) is that from what I have seen so far the judges rarely seem to acknowledge them (well, unless you flat out "saw" on a guy.) I think that's something we need to get judges a bit more used to seeing and maybe if we see the use of it increase we'll see judges getting more able to recognize it... I hope anyway. I notice our group doing a pretty decent job of remembering to use them overall so maybe we're just more used to seeing them at this point.

I agree, I've had that problem a few times. Sometimes it can be heard more easily than it is seen which is one reason why I think it's better for everybody to be quiet during the fight.

I really need to get some more video of us doing freeplay. Would be easier for you guys to see what I mean. Each of us is much better than we were 8 months ago in the videos I posted, so don't even watch those

I know what you mean. I'm not real big on video in the first place so there's not much of it out there and what is out there is not my best work. Even the one I just posted is a bit sloppy for my taste... I had very little sleep, my right shoulder was so badly injured by that point I was barely able to drive home and I was wearing experimental hand protection that severely interfered with my fuhlen. Heck, even my avatar pic is out of date. My gear has changed a bit and my form has, too. I can see the utility in using video to try and explain things over the net but I'd much rather just demonstrate stuff face to face, I guess that's a large part of the reason I generally stay out of technique discussions.

[Jeremy S.]

The only problem with the slice at the moment (at least in tournament) is that from what I have seen so far the judges rarely seem to acknowledge them

I agree, I've had that problem a few times. Sometimes it can be heard more easily than it is seen which is one reason why I think it's better for everybody to be quiet during the fight.

The rules regarding slices from the last tournament I was at:

Slices (Must visibly manipulate the opponent, e.g. push or turn)

I don't agree with the rule, but it did make the judging easier.

[Mike Ruhala]

The rules regarding slices from the last tournament I was at:

Slices (Must visibly manipulate the opponent, e.g. push or turn)

I don't agree with the rule, but it did make the judging easier.

I can see how that makes sense in a few cases but falls short in a great many others, a slice and a shove are different things. I believe the best answer is in the fighting culture but that will take some time to refine.

[Joey Nitti]

That's the rule our club uses for slices too. It's not that we only count a shove with the blade. it's just that the slice needs to press down "sufficiently" hard enough while slicing (by sufficiently, I mean a completely arbitrary amount that is purely to make judging easier). Either that or it needs to be really obvious (like a slice across the belly, samurai-style )

[Javan M.]

Dustin Reagan found this little gem for me:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31214/31214-h/31214-h.htm#Page_1

Here is the part I love. They might as well have put a footnote that said, "In the future, Mike Awesomeson will say the exact thing but no one will listen to him because no one will be awesome enough:"

Though stick-play[their stick is our modern plastic waster or steel blunt] is invaluable as an aid to work with the sword, it may be remarked that there are two reasons, and those important ones, why the single-stick should not be first placed in the hands of the beginner, and why it should never altogether usurp the place of the more lethal weapon[note the word lethal, implying real sword]. The reasons are—

(a.) The stick is very light, and short smart hits can be made, which are impossible with a sword. [Hmmm...who has been saying that since he learned how to type on the internets?? Hmmm?]

(b.) The hit with the stick is really a hit, and there need be no draw, which, as already explained, is so important in sword-play. [You mean hitting with a stick is not the same as cutting with a sword?? Who would have thunk it!]

To these may be added a third reason. With the stick there is always the temptation not to cut with the true edge, and it is very hard to detect faults in this direction—faults which are hard to cure, and which may quite spoil good swordsmanship.

I'm not sure that I understand what this tradition has to do with the tradition you practice. The swords and the method of using them are different.