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...

This post is heavily inspired (stolen?) from Jeff Tsay of Forte Swordplay. Check out his videos on his YouTube channel (which I've...

This has been developed for an 8 week beginners course on longsword that I am teaching. It is designed to introduce a beginner to the...

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

The lateral strike is made usually with a thumb grip, i.e. with thumb on the flat of the blade. It is made from the right shoulder, and...

The Zornhau is described as a 'peasant's strike', and in Meyer is described as a diagonal Oberhau from the right to the left ear of the...

Joachim Meyer called them the 'Master strikes' and this is how they are mostly known in modern parlance. However, in the LL glosses they...

The bind is simply when fencer A's and fencer B's blades are touching, likely because Fencer A has parried Fencer B, or vice versa. The...

In simple terms, the Nach means 'after' and refers to the defensive actions. It also designates the status of the fencer who is being...

Vor means 'before'. In my last post I talked about exactly what this means, but in summary it refers to attacking actions. It can...

The five words describe, in a nutshell, good fencing in the LL system. They are: Vor, Nach, Weak, Strong, and Indes. The RDL Glosses do...

Parries in LL system can be broken down into: Common parries: not used if you can help it, but probably necessary to train against in...

Basic attacks Attacks can be divided into thrusts, cuts and slices, depending on how close the opponent is. Thrusts are made with the...

'Guards' is such a poor name for these. They are better described as 'noteworthy positions'. You will use the guards a lot, but really...

These are the core elements of LL's system. To test myself, this was mostly written from memory, but I have referred to the Zettel and...

I've been studying Meyer's longsword on and off for about 2 years, and I've moved on to Liechtenauer's longsword (LL for short) recently....