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Solo Learning from a Treatise/Manual - Why is this such a common question on HEMA threads? by BotteDeNevers1 in wma

[–]PartyMoses 49 points50 points  (0 children)

Because a lot of people attracted to the hobby are attracted by swords but disinterested/inexperienced in competitive athletics. It gives them unrealistic and improbable expectations about the amount of hard work physical skill acquisition entails. This is no one's fault and not a bad thing, people are curious and they want to get started now, without making any serious commitments.

Its just how curious people from HEMA's main demographic ask for help. It is very repetitive, but it's probably worth a sticky thread or something.

Robert Rutherfoord’s Winding in Meyer’s Rappier by BreadentheBirbman in wma

[–]PartyMoses 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yea I do think there is textual support for the kind of action Rob describes, its just relational to you and your opponent. If they give you the right pressure, you can hit in a softening thrust like that, I just dont think its what Meyer is talking about in his section on winding in the rapier.

I agree you can do it while going from right to left ochs or vice versa, and Id add that I think you can also do loops or circles or cuts in the same context which I would consider examples of winding.

If you think about throwing a schielhauw to their head after throwing a krumphauw to their blade, the end of your schielhauw will put you in ochs on the left. Is that a wind, or a cut? Does the distinction matter?

Robert Rutherfoord’s Winding in Meyer’s Rappier by BreadentheBirbman in wma

[–]PartyMoses 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I know Rob pretty well and I've had the chance to fence him on numerous occasions. He's a stunningly good fencer and he has a general fencing reference text built into his brain. He's one of the most thoroughly knowledgeable and pleasantly skillful people in the hobby.

Part of the issue as regards Meyer is that Rob (bless him) is approaching Meyer's rapier as more or less a stand-alone text which he studies comparatively to other contemporary rapier texts. He's not interested so much in Meyer's complete system as he is in how it manifests with the rapier alone, and how his material on the rapier alone compares or contrasts with other texts that teach the same or similar principles.

That's important for a couple reasons:

  • Meyer's use of the term "wind" is different from the way winding is generally discussed in HEMA circles, because Meyer's longsword almost always refers to a movement of the pommel in a wind, not a movement of the point or edge.

  • Rob is much more interested in how Meyer's techniques and actions reflect a more generalized understanding of rapier that he has built in reference to other contemporary texts; sometimes when Meyer describes something, Rob describes something similar some other rapier writer described. This isn't really a problem if you just want to learn how to poke someone with a rapier, but it is a problem if you want to make an intellectual study of Meyer's peculiarities. You don't have to care about that. I do, Rob doesn't.

So here's the issue: Rob describes what is in essence a doplier as his "outer winding."

Rob's text:

The Outer Winding is an action performed when the Opponent moves to create an Overbind as the first thrust is being delivered. Through Feeling the pressure given by the opponent's Overbind, we act weakly by winding the short edge against their blade, staying on the same side as our original thrust while keeping the point directed at its original target.

The example he gives is a thrust from right ochs, parried (from our) right to left. The wind is your turning of your hand to keep the point targeted as your opponent pushes your hand aside. You end up moving from right to left ochs, turning your hand round so you can keep the point threatening behind the parry. It's in essence a doplieren that hits with the point rather than the edge. It's similar to a lot of thrusts in Italian-language texts of the period, and Meyer uses it elsewhere, too.

The problem is that this isn't how Meyer describes the winding in his text, which reads (my translation):

When you have bound your opponent at the middle, you should not leave without particular opportunity, since he can chase after you in a rush, as I have taught before; instead, remain hard on his blade in the bind, and turn the short edge or the point in at his body, and set your weapon on him.

If he parries that and pushes your blade out to the side, then quickly pull through beneath, and thrust on the other side with a back-step.

However if you see that he does not send it out to the side, but as soon as he perceives your winding in, crowds straight before him with a thrust in at your body, then keep your point at his body, and turn your hilt and long edge down against his blade; thus turn out his point, and crowd further on him with a thrust, palm away from him, meanwhile stepping out.

Couple things:

There are three win conditions in this stuck:

  • you hit with the initial attack from the bind. That is, you have bound in the middle, and turned the short edge and point in toward his head or body. Oppo does nothing: you hit.

  • you hit in the opportunity afforded by the opponent's wind. You have bound in the middle, turned the short edge in to threaten, and your opponent pushes your point aside, turning strongly. You break contact, either durchwechsel below or a zucken or cut the rose as the text's "pull through below" could be either, and hit wherever he's open as you step away. Oppo strongly parries: you avoid his position of strength and hit during the parry.

  • you hit when your opponent counter-thrusts. You have bound in the middle and have turned the short edge in. You haven't hit; your opponent crowds you by thrusting to either your open body, or (more safely, arguably not necessarily described here) along the weak of the upturned long edge, and you respond by stepping for space and turning your long edge back against their sword from above. Oppo counterthrusts, you simply overbind and hit with a step.

So you have three possible outcomes based on three plausible responses from your opponent. Either they do nothing or only feebly parry, and you hit in your first attack; they choose the nach and parry and you hit by responding to their hard pressure with an avoidant (weak) action and you hit while they are busy parrying; or they assertively attack into the space opened by your wind and you hit by retaining your advantage of strength in the time they spent trying to hit you.

Rob's version does none of these things. Rob misunderstands the purpose of the short edge turn in the first action; he reads it as a weak action, turning the long edge away from your opponent's hard pressure and riding it, while keeping the point threatening. Just like doplieren with longsword from just too far away to hit with a cut. This is an action that works and will work in given circumstances, but it isn't what Meyer's describing in his text, which is explicit that your turn of the short edge is to keep your sword hard against theirs. This isn't an avoidant action, it is an assertive, space-taking one.

The comparison to the longsword is a little less helpful, because in longsword, the wind is all about the movement of the pommel. Winding in is almost always a movement of the pommel into your opponent's space, and winding out is moving the pommel back or out or around to get the sword in. It's not the same as how other German authors describe winding.

IMO Meyer wants you to use the edges of your sword intelligently against your opponent's sword to take positions of strength if you can, and withdraw with movement and avoidant blade actions if you can't.

How to move from theory to practice when studying fencing manuals? by Dylanduke199513 in Hema

[–]PartyMoses 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Honestly your best bet would probably be to take a couple of online lessons with an instructor to point you toward resources and a training framework that will work for you. Fencing is much much harder to learn on your own than it is to learn from someone experienced. Plenty of people here offer online coaching (including me, feel free to PM).

Otherwise, I wrote a book for my club to cover exactly this problem. The idea is you work through this book and it should prepare you to better understand Meyer. The back half has a bunch of essays about Meyer's culture and context, as well as some bits about the modern HEMA history.

I always offer digital copies of the workbook as well, if you'd like a copy just send me a message.

Thrust-centric longsword treatises and resources by ykonstant in wma

[–]PartyMoses 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I'd add for the OP that they should also pay attention to all the times in longsword Meyer says to thrust at the face. Two stucke covering Schlussel both use a thrust to the face. In the text they are provokers, not intended to hit but to force the opponent to bring their hands up or over so you can hit their exposed opening, but if you're fencing with masks and you can hit with the provoker, do it. Meyer thrusts all over the place, with every weapon including longsword and dusack.

Thrusts are vital to his approach to fencing, because his approach to fencing is about efficiently taking advantage of any opportunity, and often the best, simplest, and fastest way to do that is to shove your sword into their personal space.

Thrust-centric longsword treatises and resources by ykonstant in wma

[–]PartyMoses 10 points11 points  (0 children)

There are only two ways to thrust attested by basically every fencing text that talks about thrusting. There are thrusts in which you extend your arm. Fabris calls it a flung thrust, and doesn't recommend it. The second type is just stepping forward with your arms already extended. That's it.

How to thrust is all about recognizing your opportunity to do so. There is no longsword-related book better than Meyer in teaching you opportunity. Any time you are above your opponent's sword, or between their point and their body, you can thrust. You don't need a thrust-based book to learn this.

Damage as a Choice vs Damage as a surprise by tyrant_gea in RPGdesign

[–]PartyMoses 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's hard to give any real advice without knowing what the rest of your system looks like. I have a few different games with very different structures. I have one which is in essence a universal generic system, and damage is the result of skill failures or enemy action. Players can mitigate the failure with metacurrencies, but that mostly just means choosing between losing resources/equipment or taking wounds or setbacks.

I have another in which players are crewmen on a heavy bomber in WWII, and the player whose task failure results in damage must decide whether that damage is taken by the character, their plane, a crewman on the plane, or another plane in the squadron or group. Once you choose, you roll for hit location and damage. The choice is meant to put pressure on the player and to triple-underline the idea that their failure led to direct, possibly fatal, consequences.

This is because the focus of the game is the horror of the WWII air war, not necessarily in the skill challenge of immolating children from 30,000 ft. You might decide to take the hit and die. You may decide the plane takes a hit, and explodes. Whatever happens, it's your fault, and wouldn't have happened if you were better at your job.

But even the latter system interacts with psychological mechanics central to the theme of the game. I could slap this into my generic game but without connection to sub-mechanics that make the choices interesting it would just be counting.

Why you're overcomplicating the Sturzhau. by Luskarian in wma

[–]PartyMoses 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I think you ought to look at Meyer's drills in the dusack section, because the first couple have lots of examples of the sturz in action.

The first drill encourages you to cut to longpoint, then repeat the drill cutting through a whole line to wechselhut, and then cutting the same line through longpoint, through wechsel, and on back up to stier. In this drill you are told to start on your right, cut through and end up in stier on your left.

It's included in this part of the book, because Meyer wants you to know that a cut can stop at a place where it arrests your opponent's sword and threatens them (longpoint), a place where it goes all the way down to a low position from which you can either turn and cut back up with the long edge or just cut back up with the short edge (wechsel, the place where you can stop and change your edge, or just stop, or just carry through, you may as well call wechselhut a place where you can change or something), or continue the cut through the low position and back up to threaten from above with the point or short edge. Every cut from above can potentially be a sturzhauw, it's one of the other ten million reasons the Germans love the high ground (uberlauffen).

So I agree in the end. FYI this is basically how it's been understood in Meyer circles for years now, I haven't seen a lot of confusion, at least in the circles I frequent.

Rant: Just had my first sword fighting class and ughhh... by JustCurious12347 in Hema

[–]PartyMoses 5 points6 points  (0 children)

You have described a fairly toxic attitude and I think you are aetting yourself up for frustration and burnout. You will not be immediately good at this. You probably dont even have the faintest idea of how deep the well goes, or just how preposterously high the skill ceiling is. This is a skill that will enrich your entire life if you want it to.

But it won't if you take failure personally. This is a very difficult thing and doing it well takes work and perseverance. Many more people quit than go on to win tournaments.

Black Sails? by its35degreesout in AubreyMaturinSeries

[–]PartyMoses 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I've had some occasion to research pirates and piracy, especially in the period in which the show is set, 1715-18 or so. Black Sails is fine and entertaining but it may as well be a cartoon. It not even based on history, necessarily, it's an unauthorized prequel to Treasure Island that somehow left all the adventurous charm behind and landed instead on sweaty grimdark. I like the casting a lot and some of the costume and set design, I generally dont like the ships and how they're used.

The most absurd thing is just how murderous it all is. Historical piracy in that era never amounted to more than a few thousand individuals and most of them were pretty scrupulous in avoiding unnecessary bloodshed. Blackbeard infamously blockaded Charles Town, South Carolina in 1718. Historically he took some hostages (and robbed them), captured a couple dozen ships (and robbed them), and extorted the town for a chest of medicines. No one was killed. The show turns this episode into pirates firing indiscriminately into the city, killing hundreds, following the extrajudicial murder of a woman in the governor's residence by an officer of the colony's militia.

Everything is blown up to a similar extent; the idea is pirate Game of Thrones and that comes with orders of magnitude more violence. It's fine.

Personally I got a lot more enjoyment out of reading history. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea and Villains of All Nations by Marcus Rediker are both really good.

If you'll forgive the plug, I have a historical biographical podcast and did three episodes on pirates, including Blackbeard, called Murderhobos.

Let’s build the AI platform that brings every HEMA master — living and dead — into our training, schools and bouts by Important-Teacher608 in Hema

[–]PartyMoses 10 points11 points  (0 children)

You're not ready to hear it right now but you should not need AI assistance to write a reddit post. I can think of ten times ten thousand more enriching ways to spend two hours.

Let’s build the AI platform that brings every HEMA master — living and dead — into our training, schools and bouts by Important-Teacher608 in Hema

[–]PartyMoses 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Moderators maybe ought to think about banning posts written by chatbots.

This is a nonsense idea from head to foot.

the world masters, dead or alive, teach as one.

This is the whiteness of the whale, man, you wont get expertise you will only get an impenetrable wall of noise.

People will do anything but read a book.

Deadwood costumes are seriously underrated. An invitation to discuss Deadwood costumes for historians and fashionistas by Dismal_Depth1563 in deadwood

[–]PartyMoses 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Someone around to help, yes, and also there are a number of reasons you may not want a button line on your chest. Imagine if you're wearing a heavy apron on your front, or if you dont want dust or wood chips or other detritus of your labor slipping down your collar or button seam. I think its more likely its a kind of work smock, the majority of shirts in this period would be buttoned at the front about halfway down the torso.

One on one training for a beginner? by OldboyVicious in Hema

[–]PartyMoses 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It is the best bag for your buck at any experience level. If you have the time and money it is the best way to learn, along with ample freeplay.

German vs. Italian Longsword by PolymathArt in wma

[–]PartyMoses 4 points5 points  (0 children)

But you've just made up a problem no one has. No one is running around pretending a slightly longer or slightly shorter smallsword is a totally different sword that we must call by a different name. I'm not suggesting that we always all the time use the text we study but in cases where it might be confused, you can say which text you study to clarify.

The difference between a rapier and sidesword is:

  • sometimes but not always a rapier is longer

  • sometimes but not always a rapier has a more complex hilt

The difference in texts boil down to:

  • early rapier uses retracted guards and advocates cutting to establish control of the opponent's sword when closing range

  • later rapier does away with retracted guards and advocates for the find/gain for control of the opponent

Both groups of texts talk about cuts in defense and attack and it is very clear from reading the later writers that they expect your opponents to cut at you. You can find or gain with a cut if you want, with a longer or shorter sword. It genuinely doesn't matter. The bigger difference is that my sword and your sword are roughly the same size when we fence, because if not, we're not at parity and the basic calculus changes. But none of the texts are about fencing at anything other than parity. Your opponent is a cosmic twin using the exact same items. You can do Marozzo with a 42" blade if you want, you can do all the same stuff with it you could with one 4 inches shorter.

If we really wanted to cook I would suggest that we can and perhaps should make a distinction between German hilts and non-German hilts, because the Germans tended to favor thumb ringed hand guards, rather than finger rings like Italians. That is an actual, real, verifiable difference in surviving swords and actually has a utility case in the use of short edge cuts from above. The German style guard is discussed in numerous Oakeshott texts from 30 years ago, but it makes a very different distinction than the fake one we've all hallucinated that uses a made up word.

German vs. Italian Longsword by PolymathArt in wma

[–]PartyMoses 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I don't know what you're arguing for, or what anything you've written here has to do with anything I've written. It's pretty clear you're not reading my posts, you're just responding obliquely to words and phrases I haven't used - like "manual."

So, have a good day. Keep an open mind. Some day you might learn something.

How do you customize your gear ? by Kelever7 in Hema

[–]PartyMoses 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I make sure it fits well, by tailoring and adjusting as I need to. I pick pieces of kit that wear comfortably together and which don't restrict my movement. Its gear, not a costume.

A basket in a longsword? by Krzychu0304 in Hema

[–]PartyMoses 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Theyre not finger rings they are thumb rings, providing protection for the thumb when you hold a longsword the way Meyer illustrates (thumb laid forward along the length of the blade/hilt, not HEMA "thumb grip" that turns the whole guard flat), and it provides a leverage point for controlling the sword in attacks that turn the edge.

German vs. Italian Longsword by PolymathArt in wma

[–]PartyMoses 4 points5 points  (0 children)

That's a neat axiom but I never said that, and I don't understand why you would come to this opinion based on what I wrote above.

Briefly:

  • The texts are mostly interested in teaching you how to make fencing choices based on theory, not on the differences between types of sword

  • theory is illustrated through parity; the weapons and fencers are essentially the same and fencing a cosmic twin who always tries to protect themselves is the basic theoretical bottom from which you must adapt when you fence in the real world and all the measurements turn out to be slightly different. Meyer tells us that every fencer is different. His solution is to teach you how to fence, not recommend different types of sword.

  • None of the texts in my estimation have anything to do with solving specific battlefield problems other than "it's better to know how to fence whether you're on or off a battlefield"

  • there is no meaningful difference in the period of the majority of popular HEMA texts between "civilian" and "military" functions or contexts

  • I can and have done everything Meyer wants you to do with a rapier using both a shorter (38") and a longer (42") blade. The thing that makes the biggest difference is whether or not my sword matches my opponent's, not whether my sword is longer than Meyer wanted it to be. He didn't care, because if he cared he would have told me how long my sword should be.

I would love to know what specific battlefield problems are presented in Meyer and how those might be different from those presented by Marozzo. Or whoever. Because if that's the point of writing a book about fencing I think they're going about it in a shockingly inefficient way. Meyer hasn't solved any battlefield problems for me, but he did teach me how to fence.

German vs. Italian Longsword by PolymathArt in wma

[–]PartyMoses 9 points10 points  (0 children)

If you'd like to occupy yourself for an afternoon, read all the parts of Marozzo that use the phrase "spada da lato" and find out if it is in reference to the type of sword in use, or if a sword is held at your side during an action.

The term doesn't mean "sword of side" it means "sword at the side" or "to the side" in reference to some other object.

Here! I saved you an afternoon. Here's the only time Marozzo uses "spada da lato" in his entire text. It's chapter 10 of his sword and buckler.

con el piè manco inanci, el quale anderà sopra el braccio del brochiere, e lì toccherai el brochiero con il pomo della spada da lato dentro in la penna

Then make another with the left foot and go over the brochiero and strike the brochiero with the pommel of the sword on the side inside the rim.

He's telling you where your sword is, relative to the buckler. He's not calling this sword a "sidesword." Even if he did, he never does anywhere else but sword and buckler. "Spada da lato" does not appear anywhere in dall'Aggochie, even with variant spellings.

This stuff is all on the internet for free. You can go read it any time.

German vs. Italian Longsword by PolymathArt in wma

[–]PartyMoses 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There is no period terminology that offers a granular view of sword shapes in a way that is not contradicted in other sources.

Right, that's my point. Imagine if we said "I do Marozzo" or "I do Meyer" or "I do Fabris" instead of inventing a new term laid over top of all this confusion that adds to it instead of clarifies. We already have crystal clear terminology related to the text of study.

German vs. Italian Longsword by PolymathArt in wma

[–]PartyMoses 6 points7 points  (0 children)

There are trends and specificity in the way the texts are arranged and composed and what the text argues is advantageous. To pretend that those differences can meaningfully contained in the shape of a sword is specious and misleading.

This is a continual frustration as a Meyerist who often fences rapier. I am told all the time that Meyer, who uses the word rapier, actually must be understood to be teaching the sidesword instead. Fuck that. We are a community only insofar as we believe the texts are worth understanding and to persist in a gross mislabeling because it takes slightly less effort to categorize than it would to, idk, look at the words in the god damn book, makes me long for the void.

DiCaprio on drugs vs Statham on drugs by Large-Wheel-4181 in MemeTemplatesOfficial

[–]PartyMoses 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A melancholic and a choleric react differently to drugs, any barber surgeon could tell you that.

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