I’ve been spending a lot of time lately reworking my interpretation of Meyer’s guards. One of the things I just noticed is that it is much better to walk into a guard than to assume a guard.

Assuming a guard is rather fiddly. I’ve got to rotate my right foot to 90 degrees, step forward with the left, rotate it slightly, realize I’m too narrow and increase my pace, check the knees, rotate the left foot again, and all the while my upper body is flopping around.

By contrast, walking into guard is trivial. Step with the left foot, then the right, and then left again into ochs, pflug, vom tag, or alber. And we’re done. Every time I do it that way I land exactly how I want to be. My feet naturally land in a comfortable position, my ankles and knees are as neigh perfect, even my back and shoulders, which are always a problem, cooperate. And the sword just falls into position, as if there were no other place it could possible be.