If you keep eating thrusts when you are in Plough and don't know why, then read on. "Your Pflug is open!" Huh? If someone says this to you, no, the Velcro on your breeches hasn't come undone - again... It means your plough (plow for my American friends) is crappy. Plough - Posta Breva, whatever you want to call it - is one of the best guards in Longsword. When your hands are safely tucked in, it is one of the few guards that doesn't expose your hands to a hand snipe, gets yo

This is my current approach to using 15th-century German fencing theory. You may have a different interpretation—and indeed, the...

One of the hardest things to do as a new HEMA practitioner is to understand when to use the techniques you've learned. You spend time in...

This week I taught a lesson on double hits, which saw a big improvement in the quality of fencing from the students. Whether this is long...

I recently wrote an article about tempo: Using tempo/timing to fence better (hema101.com). This article is a continuation of that. I...

Fencing has often been compared to chess, and in fact I've included a copy-paste of what Microsoft Co-pilot AI has to say on the subject...

In part 1 I looked at 'block' parries, which work primarily by crossing the strong of our blade over the cutting direction of our...

In part 1 I introduced the basics of parrying, namely that for two swords to interact their blades need to cross. One way of doing this...

This is the first part in my Fencing from first principles (FFFP) series, where I explore a general topic in depth to truly understand...