Meyer Longsword Questions

[Keith P. Myers]

As a newbie to the Guild and someone not training directly with you all, I printed out the Longsword material from the website to use as a primer on Meyer's technique. I've read the Longsword section in the 1570 book as well. So I started looking at the stances in detail to compare with how I was doing things before and came up with some questions.

1. Mittelhut and Nebenhut:
These seem to be relatively minor guards in Meyer's system, yes?. I've never used Mittelhut before, and never liked Nebenhut on the left side (right foot forward). In the pics from the website Mittelhut is only shown held to the left and Nebenhut is only shown held to the right. Could it be that Mittelhut is simply Meyer's modification/adaptation of a left side Nebenhut? Holding a Nebenhut on the left always felt awkward and uncomfortable to me because the arms are crossed to such an extreme. Holding it higher and more horizontal as a Mittelhut takes care of this.

2. Schrankhut:
I've always practiced this with either side forward. When the left leg is forward, the arms are uncrossed and the point of the sword is in front on the right. When the right leg is forward, the arms are crossed and the point of the sword is in front on the left. This sets you up for doing a Krumphau with a passing outward step. Meyer seems to show the opposite. In Meyer the Schrankhut seems to be a Hangenort that touches the ground. Its only shown with the left leg forward, in which case the arms are crossed. This does not set one up well for the Krumphau. Anyone have any thoughts on why this is the case?

3. Brechfenster, Kron and Half-swording:
Well, first off....there is no Kron! What Meyer shows as Brechfenster is what the older manuals seem to mean by Kron. But I like that! You see Paulus Hector Mair has both! In PHM a Kron is a half-swording position held overhead. He has a whole section on half-swording that is clearly based on fighting in armour but that has been adapted to fit with "fechtschule" fencing and is shown without armour. I haven't come across any half-swording in Meyer, but maybe I'm just missing it? If Meyer has no half-swording, I could do an article for the Guild on it from PHM.


4. Schlussel:
I haven't see this in any of the other manuals before. I like it! This position is found in Kukishinden Ryu Kenjutsu....one of the old battlefield oriented Japanese methods. This makes perfect sense as a way to rest fatigued muscles by simply modifying your Ochs position.

5. Tag:
Why does Jeff Forgeng translate this as "day" guard? That makes no sense at all!

[Mike Cartier]

"1. Mittelhut and Nebenhut:"
Meyer has mittelhut on both sides as far as I remember but not for Dusack., nebenhut only on one side.
i see Mittelhut as a derivative of Zornhut personally. I definatly don't like nebenhut on left, but i love mittelhut on both sides.

"2. Schrankhut:"
Not too sure whats up with the Schrankhut, i don't use it much, i think its somewhat de-emphasized in Meyer, but yeah looks like Meyer's version is just a low hanging and not that good for some Krumphaus. But then Meyer has quite a few krumphaus IMHO

"3. Brechfenster, Kron and Half-swording:"
Oh Meyer definatly has the Kron, Brechfenster seems to be a initial binding guard an extreme neutral position thats rather dangerous to be in too long, Kron is the next natural step from it i think. kron is another neutral but much safer position i think. By neutral i mean advantage could go either way rather quickly. Don't forget what Meyer says about Kron too.
"do not use Kron too much or you will tend to get much scorn from it" i think its like a clinch in boxing, displeasing to the crowd haha..

I look at Brechfenster as the position you are in for a split second before you explode out of the bind into another technique or jam him up with Kron.

"4. Schlussel:"
Yes indeed its proof Meyer was in fact Japanese (hehe joke). Schlussel is my favoritie guard i think. Its dominance of centerline i love, its deceptive range and its ability to mentality unhinge the opponent is masterful. In addition its great for using Mutieren. i love it , god help me but i love it so
As meyer says, "as a small key unlocks a large door, so too does the Schlussel," From here all strikes and devices can be undone..

Now in the beginning I thought it was a method of resting the weary arms, Zornhut too. But now i am not so sure.
I think Schlussel is a derivative of Ochs, Einhorn and Pflug and if you use the magical powers of UMB the transitions are wonderful (i'll show you in April in Orlando)

"5 Tag"
No idea why Forgeng calls it day


here is a few questions for you


1 Why no right side Vom tag, even in the (gasp) Dusack)
i have my own theory on this, but its all just conjecture really

2 Dusack Wacht Guard
Why is it not in line with the rest of the German High Guard depictions, I think i understand why the supporting hand (also in Stier), but If Meyer added this himself he is quite the radical trend setter.

3 why does PHM have Wooden Dusack with Steel Dagger?

4 Why is the PHM Dusack and some others so much more curved than the Meyer, could this be because of a more eastern (czech) influence or because Meyer was more in line with the Messer application?


great questions BTW i can see you are not wasting your time in about in Meyer Land

-mike cartier
Meyer Freifechter Guild

great

[Keith P. Myers]

Hey Mike!

Thanks for the quick response!


Meyer has mittelhut on both sides as far as I remember but not for Dusack., nebenhut only on one side.
i see Mittelhut as a derivative of Zornhut personally. I definatly don't like nebenhut on left, but i love mittelhut on both sides.

--Mittelhut on the right would just be a Nebenhut that has been allowed to "drift up" a bit...yes? One of the advantages I see in the Nebenhut on the right side is that it allows you to "hide" the weapon along your leg. At the beginning of an exchange on the battlefield, the opponent wouldn't be sure what weapon you held or how long is actually was.


Not too sure whats up with the Schrankhut, i don't use it much, i think its somewhat de-emphasized in Meyer, but yeah looks like Meyer's version is just a low hanging and not that good for some Krumphaus. But then Meyer has quite a few krumphaus IMHO

---Yeah, the way Meyer shows it, I'm not too sure how useful it would be, and what it would be used for. As a set-up for a strong Krumphau like I described before, it works great.

Oh Meyer definatly has the Kron,

--Ah! I guess I need to look closer at his text! But you didn't list it on the website in the summary of all the guards? And does Meyer have actual half-swording techniques? PHM has 8 to 10 plates with multi-step set-plays dedicated to fighting half-sword vs. half-sword.




I think Schlussel is a derivative of Ochs, Einhorn and Pflug and if you use the magical powers of UMB the transitions are wonderful (i'll show you in April in Orlando)

--Sounds good!

"5 Tag"
No idea why Forgeng calls it day


here is a few questions for you


1 Why no right side Vom tag, even in the (gasp) Dusack)
i have my own theory on this, but its all just conjecture really

--There isn't? I thought at one point Meyer states that all guards can be done on either side.

2 Dusack Wacht Guard
Why is it not in line with the rest of the German High Guard depictions, I think i understand why the supporting hand (also in Stier), but If Meyer added this himself he is quite the radical trend setter.

--I think this is just a modification of the Tag or "Luginnsland". It is a primary guard position. But if you held the weapon straight up in the air for any length of time, its going to cause fatigue. So Meyer lets it hang down instead. Otherwise it seems to function exactly the same.

3 why does PHM have Wooden Dusack with Steel Dagger?

--That's only in his section of "strange combinations." It doesn't figure into his dedicated Dussack section at all.

4 Why is the PHM Dusack and some others so much more curved than the Meyer, could this be because of a more eastern (czech) influence or because Meyer was more in line with the Messer application?

--Too me, PHM's Dussack doesn't look that much more curved that Meye'r's. The biggest difference I see in them is that PHM incorparates a "nagle" to protect the back of the hand.

[Curt Dunham]

Isn't Tag the German word for Day? Why is it sometimes translated as Roof when Dach is the German word for Roof?
I take either to mean point the sword at the daylight/sky or the roof.

[Keith P. Myers]

I dont know Curt but the pronunciation is similar, dach is roughly dock, and Tag is tog like as in toggle
Maybe the tag was the crest or peak of a Roof? I'm looking at my old Dictionaries and it mostly says Tag meant day or daylight dawn, daybreak, also an den Tag bringen to bring to light, to disclose, there are many versions of Tag used like that, so maybe this was something to do with an unknown colloquial saying. I like vom Dach,
I found what Luginsland meant back in those days, it meant Look-out, no wonder Meyer called it his Wacht Guard in 1570 Dussack the Watch Guard. the Look-out guard,
kevin

I think it may have started as a dialectical/pronounciation issue. Spelling wasn't exactly standardized back then. In Mair, he will sometimes spell the same word two different ways in the same set-play text! I think a lot of the spelling was phonetic. In that case, regional accents and dialects played a big role in how things were written down. I can easily see "Dach" or "dock" becoming "Tag" or "Togk" and the spelling shift. Then we look back at it and assume that the "Tag" they are referring to is the modern word for "Day" rather than the original word for "roof." BTW....Luginninsland translates literally at "Look into Land." How do you "look into land"? From a tower! So I had already starting rendering "Luginnsland" as "watchtower." This fits with the vertical overhead position of the weapon...like a tower. When I started checking out Meyer I discovered that he called his similar guard "wacht" or "watch." I felt at least a little bit vindicated.

[Keith P. Myers]

Ok guys, I started taking a look at Meyer's various strikes this afternoon. I always thought it interesting that Meyer had so many specific named strikes. I also read Mike's essay on thrusts in Meyer. I agree that anyone that thinks Meyer didn't know or do longsword thrusts just isn't paying attention! It occurs to me that many of Meyer's named strikes are simply adaptations of what would have been a thrust. For example...the "Glitzhau" seems to me just an adaptation of the basic winding from the bind to lift your hilt and thrust into the opponent's face. Standard issue from Ringeck. But Meyer adapts it to what is essentially a zwerchhau from the bind so that it can be practiced more safely in the fechtschule. But if you can manage to do the zwerch from the bind, then doing a thrust to the face is a piece of cake! Likewise the "Kurtzhau" seems to take what would have been a thrust after doing a Krumphau from some distance away and converts it to a short edge strike. But again, if you can put a strike with the edge on target from here, then a thrust would be easy! Now granted, I wouldn't want to be the guy that got smacked in the side of the head by one of these strikes. But it would be a heck of a lot better than having the point of a training sword driven into my eye socket! So I think all the thrusts are there. Meyer has just formated it for safer practice. But if you know his strikes, all it takes is for someone to say...."now this is how it would work as a thrust"...and you've got it! I'm sure you guys have already come to realize this. But I had to put this little "eureka" moment down somewhere.

[Mike Cartier]

--Ah! I guess I need to look closer at his text! But you didn't list it on the website in the summary of all the guards? And does Meyer have actual half-swording techniques? PHM has 8 to 10 plates with multi-step set-plays dedicated to fighting half-sword vs. half-sword.

Yes your right Keith, I didn't include it and Meyer doesn't give it as a guard although he does give mention to brechfenster.
He does however allude to Kron in many of his devices and even gives us a warning not to use it. But i think it was considered less of a guard and more of a position you moved thru very quickly. Certainly standing in Kron or Brechfenster in front of a ready opponent is asking for a cracked hand or arm.

He does give a Kronhau though which is essentially done from the Kron position.

Glad you agree on the thrusting and your perspective is even better than my article on it, you are correct that many of the cuts are adapted from the thrusts, great point.

i can't wait to see the PHM Sword and Buckler, its definatly my second favorite manual.

[Michael Chidester]

Paulus Hector's fighters have all of the best beards. Admit it, Kevin, you know it's true.

[MichaelJPierce]

This seems to be an interesting discussion on Meyer Longsword... so why is it here in MFFG and not in the general discussion? I'm confused at the format of having a forum within the forum discussing the same material. I understand the MFFG specific things, but this stuff ought not to be hidden away here.

[Jake Norwood]

Hi Mike.

Having your own subforum is a perk of club membership!

In this particular case there's no reason that this thread couldn't be in the main forum, but the MFFG guys get to use their forum any way they like. They even moderate it on their own.

Sure, it means sometimes great threads will be "hidden" in these subfora, but that also encourages other groups to take a look at each others' forums…so it's a good thing.

Jake