Training Curriculum

IV. Langenschwert (Longsword)

Against Winden

We’re told that if someone winds from the bind then you are to grasp your blade in your left hand and thrust over his blade into his groin.

Figure 1 Figure 2
Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 1: fol. 11r from Codex Wallerstein.

Figure 2: we see that once again Christina has wound her strong onto Hugh’s weak in order to thrust at him.


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Figure 3 Figure 4
Figure 3 Figure 4 Hugh Indes (immediately) slides his sword back and to his left simultaneously; the important thing is to get his point over Christina’s blade, as we see in Figure 3.

Note that by doing so Hugh’s sword naturally moves onto the weak of Christina’s sword, thus preventing her thrust from landing.

Figure 4: Hugh then, releasing the grip of his left hand, lifts his pommel with his right hand and passes forward and to his left with his left foot, regrabbing his blade Halbschwert with his left hand while remaining am Schwert. He finishes this motion with a thrust to the groin.

Video of complete move:
Note that this play must be done in one smooth, fast motion with no hesitation or pause at any point since our experiments showed that any pause would give Christina time to Durchwechseln.

NB: While the original plate shows both of the defender’s hands above the attacker’s sword, in practice we found this to be much weaker than having a hand on either side of the attacker’s sword and could find no advantage for doing it that way. We therefore concluded this must be an error on the artist’s part.