High-Percentage Techniques

[Jake Norwood]

What techniques in your various areas of study would you consider "high percentage" when freeplaying/sparring/whatever? And why?

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, since we started focusing heavily on the 17 Hauptstucke as our foundation for training at MKDF.

What I've noticed is that some things are easy to do, but I don't do them very often; others are harder to do, but I perform them often enough, and others I've mastered in drilling, but they never seem to surface in freeplay the way I want them to. This applies across weapons (or grappling), so feel free to toss in input from any area.

Here's what I'm seeing in my longsword work:

Zornhau-ort and auswinden (winding to left ochs from a zornhau) have a very high percentage for me. I do them often, and the often succeed.

In the bind, I find Muteiren to be dependable and a natural step--it takes no thought, generally, and it's effective against most opponents.

It's brother, Duplieren, however, is another story. I'm getting better and better at it in drilling, and I feel like I've made a lot of progress in understanding "when" to perform it (when it's appropriate, that is), but unless I pre-script it in my head--often forcing me to force the move--I don't do it in sparring at a high percentage of either attempt or success yet.

The "big" movements, like Umbschnappen and zucken are common. These are related movements, of course, and they've become instinctive after many years of doing them. I am reminded that in 2003 I hardly ever did the latter, especially if it came to using a Zwerch.

The five strikes have become staples lately, due to a lot of time focusing on them. I schaytel, schiel and krump when I'm supposed to about half of the time now. This is a result of (a) what I think are improved interpretations and (b) drilling them in context using a variation on a drill from the Ochs Longsword DVD from 2003.

I find that while Durchwechseln is very easy, I rarely think of it. Many of my movements are still to large in that category, and I pay for it. I think my problem here is also that I'm working very hard on being a more offensive fighter (the urge to sit back and counter-fight always plaguing me), which means relegating the Durchwechsel into a feint…and I don't do those very often, because most of the folks I train with are trained not to parry, but to counter-attack.

I've got more, but I'm interested in hearing everyone else's. The next stage of the discussion will be to figure out how we can bring our low-percentage moves into a higher category.

Jake

[Mark W]

My high percentage techniques:

Krump
Double zwerch
Thrust from Pflug
Zornhau vs. VT
Scheitelhau vs. Alber (speed is your friend!)
Zucken
Duplieren
Nachressien

Best regards,

-Mark

[Jake Norwood]

Hi Mark.

Could you expand on the "why" some of those work for you? Likewise, which came naturally and which had to be practiced. And the ones that needed extra training--how did you train it?

Jake

[Stewart Sackett]

I think there are a lot of fundamentals that everyone has to know, but the specific moves/attacks/strategies employed in sparring will be largely determined by the personality of the individual. This is more pronounced with more experienced players, as the style of new people will be shaped by what they have or have not been taught yet & what techniques they’ve had time to drill significantly.

For me, when fencing, I tend to do well with Kron & closing to Ringen. That’s just because I have a lot more hours of grappling under my belt than I do with a Longsword, so that’s a preference based on training rather than temperament. I expect it will change over the years if I can manage to bring my blade work up to snuff.

In Ringen I really like the half hip throw from an Underhook at the moment. It’s proven fairly high percentage for me & I can enter into it safely without the sort of big commitment needed for other hip throws. I’m also getting decent mileage out of counter throwing off the hip throws of others (plate 42 of Auerswald is an example).

[Mark W]

Hi Jake,

Here's my experiences:

Krump breaks any hau, though against a vertical unterhau it's a little hairy. It's pretty much a "can't fail" manouvre, hence me calling it "high percentage". Heck, it'll ever break a Zwerch, although it's not as optimal as falling on it with the long edge like Ringeck says to do.

Double Zwerch: Works great from a bind or as a feint. It doesn't matter whether the opponent makes blade contact or not. If there is, you have to try to dominate the bind, and if you can't, cross smash and zwerch to the other side. If there's no blade contact, then zwerch to the other side anyway... no muss, no fuss.

Thust from Pflug: with my new interpretation of Pflug (thanks to Ringeck and the Von Danzig image), the thrust from Pflug is viciously fast, and very hard to see coming when combined with non-telegraphic movement.

Zorn vs. VT. Although the manuals do use Zorn to "break" VT the way that Zwerch does, it's still relatively safe when done with speed. If done properly, it's very hard for the opponent to krump the hands, which is the prime danger. Anything else likey results in a bind, and that's OK. It has the advantage over Zwerch that if the opponent throws a Zorn as well, you'll be reasonably safe as long as the line is closed. Sometimes we've had two opponents in VT both throw a fast Zwerch at the same time, resulting in a double kill. Zorn negates this possibility, though zornhau ort remains a danger.

Schetelhau vs. Alber. This is a no-brainer. A non-telegraphed Scheitelhau is the fastest hau there is. Very hard to react to in time. I've hit people in the hands as they were trying to get to Kron. Nice stuff.

Zucken: it's easy... get a bind, strike around to the other side. It's easy to do, and especially good for beginners to learn.

Duplieren: it's easy to do. Just don't do it without doing your Fuhlen! If the other guy does the same thing, it's a double kill. If you're trying to dominate the bind properly, it's easy to feel coming. However, in the heat of sparring, people often forget and when they just push back mindlessly, this nails them well. It's hard to do on the weak side though. You've gotta move in an almost fasle time from the bind to keep enough pressure so the opponent's blade doesn't slide into your hands.

Nachreissen: Oldest trick int he book after Uberlauffen! Won't work against a canny fencer, and can sometimes result in the "knight's metronome" of strike, hengetort, strike, hengetort that makes that "ting, ting, ting" sound. But it's great against a fully commited strike that goes down to Wechsel. Don't do it against someone with a significantly larger reach than you... he might hit you in spite of your void.

I found that most of these techniques required very litte in the way of training. It's just very basic swordsmanship, with a few things to do with a hard bind.

In contrast, I've never managed a Mutieren in freeplay.

How's that?

Best regards,

-Mark

[Jake Norwood]

Not bad, thanks.

Funny we've got the Muteiren/Duplieren in reverse situations.

Good call on nachreissen. That may be my highest percentage technique of all time.

Jake

[Ben Smith]

Jake, oddly enough my techniques mirror yours. Part of it is that most of the people I train with were introduced to the art by myself and my training has strongly mirrored, and sometimes been modeled on, yours.

Techniques that regularly come up every time we spar:
Zornhau and Zornhau-Ort
Mutieren
To a lesser extent Duplieren, we also have some issues getting it to work right sparring
Zwerchauen
Krumphauen
Schietelahuen
to a lesser extent Schielhau- this is mainly because we are still in large measure experimenting with this technique (and because most of the people I work with get taught with my very offensive perspective in the background and don't hang out much in pflug, so the Schielhau only comes up when we do specific versetzen)
Arm and Hand grabs

Techniques we see less of but still crop up often enough:
True edge unterhau
False edge unterhau
Free Thrusts- defined as an opening move or after a single beat where there is a pause
Basic throws/trips
Knee to the groin/stomach
to an even lesser extent Nachreisen, Uberlauffen, Abschniden, etc... we're still working here.
Half-sword transitions in close

Techniques we don't see much at all:
Hip Throws
Kicks

[Jake Norwood]

I kick all the time! It's awesome! I worked hard, in fact, to make sure kicks were allowed in the Tourney rules, lol.

Jake

[Mike Cartier]

Durch and Umb Wechselen certainly, Zucken also and its brother (or sister) technique Duplieren

For me Verscheiben (sliding) is a great technique, like wise the various Windhaus of Meyer (there are several)

[Matt Anderson]

I can pop most players in the shin with das gayszlen, especially if they like to just sit and wait in VomTag. I think the key to making this work is making it look like you're throwing a big uberhau. I launch the sword off the shoulder, then go low. A little gathered step, keeping the left foot forward, is generally enough to get in range and if I miss, I recover quickly to Vom Tag. It's actually really easy to void or counter, but most people just don't react quickly enough. It's kind of a dirty trick, and it hurts like hell if you do it too hard, so I don't do it that often, but it has always been very "high percentage" for me.

I can close with a Kron against an uberhau and wrestle at the sword against most people. My highest percentage follow-on is a quick elbow push and pommel to the head.

Zwerch against Zorn is pretty high percentage. I don't often hit with the zwerch, but generally follow up with a thrust or twitch to the other side.

I can generally make Scheilhau against Zornhau work for me if I keep the hilt high. I'll usually hit the arms or end up in a very advantageous thrusting position.

If a player likes to sit in right Ochs, I can almost always krump their blade and then either pop them with short edge or thrust from the bind if they hold strong.