A bind is where your sword touches (or very nearly touches) the sword of your opponent's. We could also consider it a bind if it touches your opponent's buckler, or vice versa.
A bind can be a voluntary 'touching of swords', i.e. if both opponents are in longpoint, but more often than not a bind is simply the result of an attack and a parry, or an attack against a counter-ward (which amounts to largely the same thing).
We can consider there to be four types of bind:
An inside bind, where your opponent's sword is on the left of yours.
An outside bind, where the opponent's sword is on the right of yours.
An overbind, where your sword is over the top of theirs.
An underbind, where your sword is underneath theirs.
We can also consider there to be three strengths of bind:
Neutral, where both yours and your opponent's sword occupy the 'centre', so that if you both thrust directly forwards you would both hit each other.
Hard, where your sword is occupying a position between yourself and your opponent's sword. You have a direct line to thrust them, but they don't have a direct line to thrust you.
Soft, where your opponent's sword occupies a position between yourself and your own sword. Your opponent has a direct line to thrust you, but you don't have a direct line to thrust them.
Lastly, we can also consider the relationship between our swords, namely whether you have the strong of your blade on the weak of theirs (you are strong in the bind, and therefore able to manipulate their blade with ease), or they have the strong of their blade on the weak of yours (you are weak in the bind, and are unable to manipulate their blade with yours, but they can manipulate your blade).
This is simply illustrated here, from Orange's perspective:
These binds do not all need to be in the longpoint position illustrated above. In fact, binds can occur in any counter ward. We don't really need to talk about Neutral binds, as the action happens in the others.
8.1 Inside binds
Here are some common inside binds:
High overbind: When you attack with an Oberhau or a Mittelhau from your right side and your opponent parries with Left Schutzen, or vice versa.
High underbind: When your opponent attacks to your left side with an Oberhau and you parry with Fiddlebow.
Low overbind: When you perform an Oberhau strongly over your opponent's sword towards the left. The image below has the Priest on the right strongly overbinding the student's sword. It looks like he is pressing the sword down to the ground, but this is probably just false perspective, and the swords are pointing somewhat towards the 'camera'.
Low underbind: Let's say your opponent has just thrust at you and you. With your blade hanging down, push their thrust off to the side with a Low Schutzen
8.2 Outside binds
Here are some common outside binds:
High overbind: If your opponent has cut an Oberhau to the right side of your head and you have parried with halpschilt, then you will be in a high outside bind.
Another high ovderbind: If you cut a mittelhau from your left at your opponent and they parry this with an overbind to their right, they will be in a high overbind.
Low overbind: This is where you have bound your opponent's sword off to the right side. In the image below, it is unclear if the swords are bound towards the ground or whether they are just pointing somewhat towards the 'camera'.
Low Underbind: If you cut an Unterhau from your left and they parry with Krucke, then you will be in a low underbind.
8.3 Hard or soft?
Thinking back to part 7, we explored how the timing of actions varied depending on who the initiator of the action is. For example, if you attack me and I parry then I may have a timing advantage allowing me to riposte quicker than you can remise.
A similar phenomenon occurs with binds. If you attack me and I parry this, I will usually be in a hard bind and you will be in a soft bind. And likewise, if I attack you and you parry me then I will be in a soft bind and you in a hard bind. Lastly, if you are in a counter ward and I attack (or bind) into the side your counter ward is defending, then I will be in a soft bind and you in a hard bind. The defender, therefore, usually ends up stronger in the bind, but not always, especially if the attacker attacks the 'weak' of your blade.
If we were in a neutral bind, then it is possible that you could perform the same actions from the bind (which I will call handworks) as I can. However, if I am hard in the bind then I will be able to perform a different set of actions than you, and likewise if I am soft in the bind I can perform a different set of actions than you.
In short, when we bind, regardless of how we got there, you can train a common set of 'handworks' can be used in different types of binds. This will be explored in part 9.
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