How to Fight with a Longsword 12 - Langort, Alber and Schaitelhaw

[@JonathanWestwood]

Thank you

[@ebflagg]

I found this video when looking for a way to deal with fighters who sit in Alber a lot. It led me to your excellent series, which I am now going through in its entirety. But I still have questions. Regarding the Schielhau vs Alber, what happens if the Coach makes a retreating step with a false edge cut upwards to the Trainee’s hands? That seems to be a common response from Alber. Can the crossguard be oriented in such a way as to protect the Trainee’s hands? Alternately, if the Coach uses a Streichen from Alber, how does the low Schielhau fair? Will it get displaced like an Oberhau might? Finally, students at my club usually do Alber with the point and hands a little to their left side, as though they had just cut downward with an Oberhau. If the Coach was in such a position, rather than a central Alber as shown in the video, how would the Trainee’s Schielhau need to be different? Thanks for your effort on this video series!

[@LIERHEMA]

@ebflagg Thank you and a good question. Let's try to break this down and see if there is something we can do. First the step back and cut to the hands case. For this there are two things which are important. Distance and intent. If your opponent is in Alber they have only one option when it comes to attacking. They need to bring their hands and the sword up. Let's only concentrate on the case in which this is done roughly in front of them. If they decide to bring the sword up at their side or behind them there is no threat to us and we can ignore the sword. In the case where the sword is brought up roughly between you and your opponent you want to get your sword down and block your opponents sword and arms. If they can't bring the sword up it will reduce the things they can do. I would see this as cutting a Schielhaw rather low so that you have your point pointing at their lower stomach/pelvis area. I would recommend lower stomach in training as it is safer. This will keep you opponent's hands and sword low enough that their targets are limited to your hands and thrusting very low, basically yor thighs. If you can get your sword this low it is very difficult for your opponent to land any meaningful cut to your hands. Especially if you have the point of your sword thrust to their lower stomach. The point tends to stay there and prevent your opponent from rising their arms (especially true with a sharp sword). When you cut a Schielhaw you want to have the sword more or less in line with your non-dominant shoulder and step to your dominant side. The end result would be you controlling the center line and leaving only your hands as a target. You want to make this cut with proper intent. No hesitation and use a strong cut. Generally this will cause the opponent to go for a parry instead of trying to trade. Just having intent won't work if your opponent thinks they can safely get out of distance and hit your hands. From this we get to distance. If your opponent is in Alber and you are in Vom Tag prepared to cut a Schielhaw you can get very close. If your opponent decides to start attacking when you are closing in you can just immediately cut the Schielhaw at their wrists and then continue with a thrust by stepping forwards. I have found this to be rather effective in practice. When you get close enough so that you think that your opponent can't backstep out of distance go for the Schielhaw with proper intention. Remember that generally it is slower to step backwards than it is forwards and you can generally also step much further forwards. If at this point you opponent decides to be suicidal and trade anyways there is not much you can do but hope. In my experience Schielhaw makes it less likely to get hit to the hands than if I'd use an Oberhaw but I have not found a sure-fire way to not get hit if your opponent ignores protecting themselves. In my opinion you need to have the cross pointing more or less down anyways for the cut to be effective and trying to re-orient it some other direction doesn't really help. From this we get to knowing that your opponent will try to cut at your hands regardless of whether they get hit or not. If you know this is the case feint with the Schielhaw and when your opponent goes for the hands cut turn the attack to a parry and then riposte. If you have the reflexes for it this will also work in case you notice the cut coming after already starting your Schielhaw with the intention of landing the attack. This has the negative that if you fail the parry you get hit and your opponent doesn't but that is the game you need to play with suicidal opponents. Feint to trigger the attack, parry it and riposte. If your opponent stands in Alber so that their point is more to your dominant side you are pretty much out of luck with the Schielhaw. In this case your opponent's sword would end up on the inside in any case so I would not suggest using the Schielhaw. You can do a Schielhaw like Krumphaw but I would rather use a thrust which closes the line. Note: I have very little experience of using Schielhaw against Streichen (or getting Streichen used against me in general). When it comes to Streichen if it is done from your dominant side (your opponent's non-dominant side in case you are both same handed) both Oberhaw and Schielhaw work equally badly. When it comes to Streichen from your non-dominant side they work differently and I wouldn't call one better than the other. Schielhaw has a bit higher chance of getting cut to the hands if the Streichen is more horizontal and low. If the Streichen is high or more vertical there is a good chance that it will miss the sword as Schielhaw goes rather directly very low. Then it is up to distance if you get hit or not. Oberhaw tends to get caught up in the Streichen pretty consistently and it is up to the structure of the cuts for what happens.