Art of the Sword

"The tall man has the vantage, he can maintain his fight, both by nature and by art, with more ease than can the man of mean stature, because the man of mean stature has thereby a further course with his feet to pass to the Place, wherein he may strike or thrust home, and in winning of that place, is driven by art to come guarded under his wards to defend himself, because in the time of his coming, the tall man may have both naturally or artificially strike or thrust home, in which time, if the man of mean stature should fail in the least iota of his art, he should be in great danger of death or hurt." George Silver, Paradoxes of Defence 1599 A little follow on to this post.

"In the HEMA community critics are rarely remembered. A great many of them act out of self-interest, or out of the perverse pleasure of seeing others torn down, or because they find strength in it because they lack strength of their own."  Richard Marsden

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"Attack is the secret of defense; defense is the planning of an attack"   ―  Sun Tzu, The Art of War Just to clarify my understanding of terms, as I see it, being offensive or defensive is about who takes that first step from out of range to into range, whomever takes that step is being offensive and whomever waits to receive that step is being defensive. I then agree with Meyer that broadly people fall into four types based on who steps into range and then the type of action they do in range. So this means either acting Before or After in the first action and then acting Before or After on the second action.  This breaks down into four behavior types: 1. Acts Before, then acts Before 2. Acts Before, then acts After 3. Acts After, then acts Before 4. Acts After, then acts After Sounds weird but I think it is shorthand for: 1. This person steps into measure behind an action that blocks their opponent & takes center, they then act immediately ...

"It is not possible for me to make a better gift than to offer you the opportunity of understanding in the shortest time all that I have learnt in so many years, and with so many troubles and dangers; which work I have not embellished with swelling or magnificent words, not stuffed with rounded periods, not with any extrinsic allurements or adornments whatever, with which so many are accustomed to embellish their works; for I have wished either that no honour should be given it, or else that the truth of the matter and the weightiness of the theme shall make it acceptable." - The Prince, Machiavelli

I was chatting with one of my club the other night and she said she couldn't find any information about this on the internet so I thought I'd put something up here in case it wasn't an observation that was well known. A distinct part of the "German" branch of longsword fighting, to my mind, is the use of the three ways of cutting with a longsword. These are true edge cuts and the two types of false edge cuts. If you haven't already made this observation, then on each cut line you can do the cut three ways. Looking at the High Line then firstly, obviously, there's with the true edge. Secondly you can push the pommel under your arm turning the blade anti-clockwise for the Crooked (or "hooking" as I think of it) false edge cut, and finally you can Squint (or "twisting" as I think of it) the blade clockwise to bring around the false edge for the Twisting cut. On your right side the hooking type cut ends with your palm facing out, while ...