Joachim Meyer's Rudder

Back to the Kreutzhau

As previously seen last year when me and Martina started practicing them, I have a certain fondness for the Kreutzhauen. They are found in the halberd section, but I think they are useful to explain some of the swinging and hitting mechanics that Meyer left unsaid in the staff section. For example in the first k. the authors tells you to hit your diagonal blow with the left arm stretched: that is a setup for the following move, but also tells us that it is pretty common to hit by dynamically sliding the grip on the staff, while here you are instructed to do the opposite. Yeah, I know, pretty obvious, but when I started from scratch I had to figure out everything, even the basics of pole weapons.

The first k. also tells us of a false edge descending blow, a sort of inverted treiben/driving, which is pretty useful for an hooked halberd but works with a staff too, like its upward variation.
The second k. is also pretty rich on data: an unterhau that ends in an Ochs and flows in an upward false edge blow by untwisting the back. Better watch you elbows, mister, you have to find the right path for your staff!

As in the Four Openings Square exercise, Joachim Meyer gives us a series of waypoints and leaves to our head the rest. You have to reason it through, grind at it until it gets good, and you also get to decide when you are doing it right. It's a win-win situation for an open and agile mind.

The long hard wooden object is erect again!

After a forced stop, months in which I had to focus on I.33 and longsword, I got back to everybody's best pal: a very long stick. This time I have an entire focused study group, from four to six (4 or 6: the Magic Döbringer numbers ) guys and gals to either poke or bash. Long and hard I debated with myself about how to approach the subject. I had an interesting discussion with Roger Norling on this, and he thought that it would be best to start with the binding and Gerade Versatzung-centric portion. In the end, I chose the traditional approach, if studying Meyer's staff could be ever considered traditional at all, and chose to follow the order used by the Author.

Why? because starting or fighting from "secondary" positions is useful later on, even if the Gerade Versatzung is the basis. Also because those first stucke are quite good for a couple of fundamental concepts, like being quick to avoid a thrust and noticing that once his point is past you, he is in big trouble. Also, you are treated to the Treiben on the third stuck, and I believe it to be a pretty big tactic to goad an adversary and unbalance him.

As for the reception, everybody is having fun. They all noticed how longsword and staff are tied within the same tradition and how hard it is to judge your measure against a quick thrust with a staff.

Meyer's Rose (longsword version). If you pull it off he literally won't know what happened.

I had some time trying out with Luca this enigmatic technique. The most frequent comment was "What the fuck are we doing? WHY are we doing it?". I'm starting to think that done right it is a kind of weird inverted Krump-thingy. Why do it in the bind? The answer seems to be that you must put the Man in a situation in which he binds you from his upper right. Why Meyer did choose to be so elusive about the Rosen? Why define an outline but avoid to flesh it out? Even the Zirckel is pretty detailed. Whatever it is, if you manage that kind of weird binding, your Man is just SO fucked.

Jeff Tsay's lessons are interesting and he nails much of this stuff. Only, I don't completely get why he raises the point so much and rests the pommel on the forearm. I do that too, but it's not a static position, more a transition you pass through when carving out the adversary's face, or while wrenching his sword about. (CORRECTION: he doesn't, I remembered it wrong. He's just pretty much horizontal with the blade, but the wrist are raised) Table N conspicously shows the hands over the fighter's head and the point turned downwards.

Now I need only to understand what the hell Meyer says about the Mittelhut being the best position to learn the Rose, and how you proceed through it from there. I positivley hate when he isn't as detailed as he usually is.

Spear fighting

The video above is quite good. I'm not sure where this kind of fighting comes from (Japanese? Some sort of fusion weaponed MMA?), but here's great food for thought and a Meyerite can recognize all of this. Even the one handed thrusts are present on the treatise, and are employed pretty decisively in at least one stuck. Of course, we fight with a staff and we don't have a sharp point: after such a blow the combat doesn't stop and you keep rolling the ball.

As even casual Meyer readers have surmised, there is much in the staff section that is inherited from or can be adapted to spear fighting. A great deal of the author's stucken is devoted to quick thrusts and bindwork with the Weak (the bit near the tip!). This "linear" system is pretty well developed, and bears many similarities with another well known "linear" system, Italian rapier fencing. It has to be studied together with the flashier, rotational and bludgeoning techniques, where the footwork tends to be circular. It could be postulated that the Krieg, the middle of the fight in which bindwork and handwork happens, is dominated by the thrust-centric portion of the system. The blows, wheter they be longsword like, rotational, one handed or two handed are considered by Meyer himself either Zufechten (or starting moves) or "recovery" and/or withdrawal moves (Abzug, in German). Of course, there are Zufechten thrusts and off-the-bind rotational strikes, but blending the different portions of the manuscript and learning the correspondence between techniques is what characterizes a Meyer disciple. You must learn to hit with strenght, parry effectively... And from that block, the bind and its techniques are born. Also, you could do like the two guys in the video and walk into the bind. This doesn't happen much with a weapon like the longsword, but with a longer reach this makes sense, especially if both fighters are in the Field Guard from the onset. That is also the common approach in rapier fencing, where the two combatants try closing the line by gaining the opponent's sword.

Bindwork clearly doesn't consciously happen in Jogo do Pau, as far as I know, or at least it is not taught as such (yet, as I said, every time there is a parry or a thrust in time, there is bindwork). The spear fighting of this video is about 100% bindwork. Even when the pole weapons aren't touching we are within the bind: a lesson I learned from Salvator Fabris, and boy he knew about what happens when weapon tips are pointed at a human being.

What is interesting is that a great deal of the techniques of JdP and all of what we have seen today in the video are within Meyer's staff art. And I once thought that it was a short anthology!

Update: the martial artists who filmed the video answered my YouTube comment and said that most of this is Japanese, but that they study HEMA too, which is not a surprise. I also appreciated very much their older video with the short staff. Again, it is of interest to note that Joachim Meyer seems to blend this kind of techniques with the spear-like work.

The soul of the staff

Yesterday I discovered where the soul of the fascination that I have with the staff comes from.

It's fright.

When it is s&b we are talking about I sometimes get nervous because I am simply not good enough to pull off whatever I set up to do. With longsword and rapier it's mostly the same. The rest is all fun, fascination, the commitment of a pretty involving martial art.

With a staff, it is true fear. Not that I'm afraid that my sparring partner will maul or deliberately hit me to hurt, even if accidents do happen. I'm simply just afraid of using a real weapon, and that an human being is wielding the same weapon against me. As an American would say, it is a gut reaction. While fighting with a staff, I earnestly parry with conviction, tend instinctively to fight in two tempi and take less risks. Even when I should act otherwise, of course.

This is refreshing, even if it has its problems. Who knows if it will ever fade away? Can you really get blasé about such a weapon? I don't think so.

Toying with Meyer's Zirckel is a good way of letting the morning slip by... Hellish weather!

• First Zirckel instance (1.20v) - Zirckel + Scheitelhau. Looks good enough as a 1-2 strike, it will be interesting to practice.
• Second Zirckel instance (1.47v.2) - Zirckel + Krump. Looks pretty risky, but hey, this is fencing and not scrapbooking. Looks like doplieren often puts your opponent's sword between your blade and your face too. Meyer says that you have to protect your head, but with this "dry practice" of solo forms I can't really picture the "anatomy of motions". Of course, he also says that you have to der Mann's head behind his blade OVER his right arm. If he's still high with his hands, that will both hit AND neutralize him.
• Third Zirckel instance (1.47v.3) - Zirckel + Zwerch underhau to the throat. Looks good and you end up exactly like the picture.

Slip out from his thrust in the Left Low Guard and thrust in the same time as him - 3.20r.1

Here Meyer repeats that you have to stand well positioned in the Left Low Guard. To be perfectly clear, that is with the left food forward, pretty low on your knee but with your back straight (as opposed to the right guard, in which it is tilted forward). The staff is placed with its butt (and your right hand) on the right hip, the tip points off to the left and to the ground. As soon as the opponent thrusts, step with your right foot (which is, if you remember, behind the left) out to the left. Interestingly enough, Meyer chooses to say that you need to step toward his right side, and that probably means that this step won’t widen your distance from him, and that you could even close in. This removes your body from the line of attack, and is the mirror of a movement known as scanso di vita among rapierists, which, as you know, are condemned by god to live their life with the right foot forward almost all the time.
The moment you set your right foot down (you’ll land on the ball) you’ll spring forward with your right foot, also toward his right side, this time closing in and thrusting over his right arm and staff.

Notes: Yeah, I know. “Slipping out”, i.e. stepping with your back foot out to the sides behind the front foot is not commonly seen in many German martial arts interpretations, at least AFAIK. As I have already said, this move is pretty common in 17th century fencing, albeit it is never used alone but only after a feint, and it is done on the other side. In fact, it is pretty suicidal to try this trick “on its own” against a rapier lunge, which is just too quick, too near. A staff thrust is slower, coming from rather far away. And, besides, you are covering yourself by raising your weapons and aiming above the opponent’s right arm as Meyer says!

How does it look? Is this unique in Meyer’s book? The answer is simple. I believe he refers to these when he speaks about the triangle steps at the beginning of the longsword section (1.24r). He actually takes the time to describe it, as he says that it is not something that “the market teaches”, but otherwise I’d judge it to be pretty common throughout and used whenever the situation calls for it. We find this footwork described again when we have to parry with the Bow/Bogen in the dusack section (2.36v.1). This works pretty much as the “slipping out” with the staff that I have just described, and I used it as a stepping stone to understand what the author was talking about. This parry is practiced with two devices, and is drawn like this on Table B (Book II, dusack), as referenced on the text:

Click for full size - Uploaded with Skitch

Notice the aptly placed diagram on the floor. Of course, it’s used with the other foot forward, but the staff is mainly used with your left hand/left foot forward. Above I've stated that this kind of step can close the measure, and should land with the ball of the foot. This image doesn't seem to support this notion, but I'm pretty trained to perform the scanso di vita in this way. However, even if the market won't teach you on its own this footwork, it will teach you how to calibrate its width, speed and measure: you need to step just far enough to avoid the enemy staff and hit, no more.

Another - 3.19v.2 (defence from the Left Low Guard against one handed attacks)

This is a device from the left low guard. The opponent attacks with one hand from above at the head (we can come up with a lot of mechanics for such an attack). You spot his plan, and:

• You dash toward him, raising both arms and parrying with your middle (which is, if you remember, the part of the staff between the hands).
• The moment the staves knock together you make a double movement: the right hand is drawn to you and the left hand sinks towards the left side of your body, together with the tip. The motion has to be performed in such a way that the enemy staff is forced to your left and off your figure. If it is quick enough, that’s what will happen.The tip has to sink under his staff. I’d be tempted to say “and no more”, but up to this point, it has not proved necessary to be surgically precise. What matters most is 1. You have pushed off his staff 2. You have changed sides under it with the tip.
• As happened on the third device from High Guard, with these motions you have passed through a Rudder stance and also “cocked” your next blow, which is (unsurprisingly) a vicious thrust. The point will be exceptionally low, and clear of his staff. All you have to do is PUSH your right hand down your chest while rising the point. The enemy will be hit on his solar plexus. Meyer insist that you perform the thrust with good form, letting the staff slide inside your arm. You will discover that you are pretty near to the opponent, so you simply won’t need to, unless you are planning to rummage in your sparring partner’s inner pipings. I’ll let you do the math: how much can you hurt somebody hitting with all your weight on his sternum or abdomen with a wooden dowel? A lot. Yet, this low thrust could leave you open. Hitting viciously may be your best ticket for safety, because it does unbalance the opponent pretty severely.
• Once you hit, spring and fall on his staff again. It depends on your relative positions, but probably you will be better off with a circular counterclockwise motion coming up from your right and landing you in Straight Parrying.

In all this, step “as the market teaches you”. Some opponents will try to run away, some others will stand and try to block your staff, and so forth and so on.

Notes: hitting you onna head with one hand? How is that even possible? Outrageous!
I tried to answer that question, and found some answers in the devices. There are a couple or so of one-handed straight down attacks, which are some of the most vicious “vorschlag” techniques of the treatise. We’ll se the inverted hand attack on a later date. Basically, though, you can always attack with one hand with a circular attack or simply letting go with the left hand after a good push in the oberhauen. The circular attack is best, since it uses the staff’s own momentum. They are not very safe in term of recovery, as should be obvious, but they have quite a good range. The main point here is using the staff as a very long dusack... But still, they have some very big drawbacks this device teaches how to exploit: the long range can be dramatically shortened by a very determined opponent that walks into and against the blow, the staff is “spent” and useless until you recover it with the other hand, and can be easily pushed away, and you can’t protect your body well anyway.

I personally love the “shovel” motion that Meyer seems to pepper his devices with. This is the second device employing it, but you soon pick it up and start to put it where it is most useful: in the deep of the fray, each time you slip under a bind from Field Guard to Rudder and back to Field, thrusting in a blink. Of course, there is the other, “canonical” way of passing under. That’s a “cavazione” for us rapierists, a simple movement under his tip, which we visualize as circular but the “straighter” it is, the better. It’s just a matter of choosing the right tool for the job at hand.

Another - how you shall strike out his thrust, and counterthrust 3.19v.1

This is the second device that starts from the Right Low Guard.

At the beginning, you are again asked to lower your stance as deep as it gets, and hang your body forward. The moment your opponent lunges forward with his thrust, you spring up into the Field Guard bashing his staff away. A thrust follows, and you step well off-line with a spring while hitting.

Notes: it is my belief that the most efficient motion to bash a staff away is a very narrow circular motion. You have to cover yourself well, don’t just raise your staff in a straight upward line, you risk missing it. Meyer doesn’t speak about stepping while striking out, yet he speaks of “not striking your staff further than Straight Parrying”. I take that he is asking you to rise into a higher stance to add power (probably the reason of sinking down on the first place?). And since you are going to follow with a thrust, you can also gather your feet either forwards or backwards to add your legs' muscles to the mix. As always, you need to judge your measure well, since there is a staff coming for your face.
The kind of blow you want is a dry, sudden tap. An opponent caught while on a thrust is very vulnerable to this.

The device is deceptively simple, and easy to perform in a successful way even with a lot of “mistakes” and contingent variations. In fact it is easier to do this than its High Guard variant, since the staff is nearer to the attack line.

The Kreutzhau, and why practice is better than the Art

The kreutzhau is a constant in Meyer’s work. In any of his weapons it is a sequence studied for “frequens motus”, continuous motion which covers and hits all four openings, one after the other. It can be either a suppression mechanism to smack down the enemy weapon and striking, or a defence mechanism to break the measure while doing something fast and dangerous to keep the opponent at bay.

Kreutzhau means cross strike, and it isn’t described in the staff section, but it can be taken from the halberd section. I originally thought that it wouldn’t be as useful with a plain stange. The halberd is in fact marvelously suited for such a sequence: a spiky long shafted axe can hook, cut, suppress and defend with a vengeance while being swung forcefully, but, hey! So can a staff, if you are fast, trained and smart.

To be completely honest, the first time we tried this in the field I felt completely outsmarted. A dead German knew perfectly well what this would be good for, and without a weapon in my hand I simply couldn’t figure it out. When we tried out against a mildly resisting opponent (really, more of a target than a live fencer), it came out as this:

Understanding rose from the practice like Venus from the waves.
In fact, this kind of blow is mostly mentioned as being a defense. Yet, once you have its motions ingrained in your muscle memory, you can start sectioning it, modding it, making it flexible and useful in a particular situation.

For example here the kreutzhau is used as a straight on attack from high guard. The enemy responds by parrying in the Rudder, and you are already moving to intercept it coming up from the Wechselhut and ending it with a left Oberhau that stops its motion in the Right High Guard (Ochs-like variant). It is not a canonical Kreutz, then: it adds to the mix the left Oberhau, but it works.

Then the Kreutz keeps its shape, but still gets modified slightly: Martina, the fencer in black, slashes downward and steps to the sides, hitting me over my Rudder with spread hands with a second Oberhau, this time from the right.

We can get faster, meaner, fitter, lower on our knees, savvier with our handwork. We need to learn to cover well while striking. We can in fact train more: we are just starting out after all. Yet we can see what Joachim Meyer wanted to tell us in his pages, and that’s terribly cool.