One of my ongoing projects for my study of the dussack is to pry out every simple combat precept that Joachim Meyer lays out in his Kunst des Fechtens. I’ve always been a big fan of taking a basic principle and wedding it to a technique or a series of techniques rather than metaphorically “super glue” a precept onto an already learned set of moves. I feel that this allows students to grasp at the core of the principle immediately, rather than practice a technique without fully understanding its context. With that in mind, I was quite happy a while ago when I discovered one of Joachim Meyer’s general fighting precepts buried at the tail end of his section covering the guard of Steer (Stier) in his dussack section.

“Now if your opponent will not cut in at you, and positions himself before you such that you cannot blithely cut in at his opening, you will need to know how to counter all postures and how to drive him out of them, namely thus: if your opponent positions himself in whatever guard he will, then thrust straight from the Longpoint in his face; from whichever side he then strikes out your thrust, cut in at him on the same side. This is something I will frequently discuss later.”

This precept takes advantage of two things:

1.) The natural flinch response that any person experiences when a threatening object approaches their face, usually causing them to wildly swat at whatever is approaching.

2.) The momentum the opponent will give your blade once that flinch response is given.

In this sense, the cut arising from the thrust bears a striking resemblance to the mechanics of the Prellhauw leading to a Zwerchhauw described in Meyer’s longsword section.

“…Pull it back around your head in the impetus of the rebound;…thus it is done.”

Using your opponent’s flinch responses against them is always beneficial, especially if they bat your sword away with force; in a way they have cut themselves, seeing as they gave your sword the necessary momentum to cut well, you just guided it.

This precept was very easy to drill and understand in class. We started with beats to the sides only, and when the dussack was deflected to the opponent’s left it became very easy to cut using a Zornhauw while simultaneously using a compass step to void the center-line and put some distance between you and your opponent. Similarly, when the dussack was batted to the right it was quite easy to respond with another Zornhauw from the left (cut #2) using an angular passing step. This more or less proved true for beats that were up or down, and even those that were more angular.

One important aspect of this precept is that you always want to turn your long edge (Lange Schneide) toward the side your opponent’s blade will likely come from in response. This will be familiar as a cut in opposition, making sure you are not open to counterattack. Meyer mentions this explicitly earlier in this section (though it refers to slightly different tactics):

“…thrust straight before you in his face, and meanwhile also turn the long edge against the place from which you see that he will cut back in; thus you are parried.”

So, what do you do if the other fencer uses a more relaxed, subtle parry instead of a large, beating motion? In this case, I referred to the section on Durchwinden (Winding Through) in the longsword section.

“When you have bound with a Thwart Cut and (as I have said before) wound the short edge in at your oppnent’s head, then step through with your right foot between you and him, toward your opponent’s right side, and at the same time wind through with your haft under his blade to your left side, and send your pommel outside over his right arm. Step back with your right foot, and with this, wrench down on your right side, and strike with the long edge on his head. Thus have you not only wound through, but caught over with the pommel.”

So, the mechanics are certainly different with the longsword, but Meyer uses the same system for his longsword and dussack, and he makes the claim that what can be done with the longsword can be done with the dussack as well, so using Durchwinden seems more than applicable.

We found that this technique works very well, both because of the wrenching action after the wind, but also because you have the option to use the off-hand to restrain the opponent while striking. While not stated explicitly in the Durchwinden section, use of the off-hand is always helpful in weapons fighting. We also noted that the winding action provided the necessary opposition so that we could move through against our opponent. The footwork remained quite similar as compared to what we had used when responding to a beat against our dussack, so it was quite easy to simply insert the winding in this technique.

If you look at the central figures in this image, you can see what looks very similar to the Durchwinden we executed. The description of this technique is seen in Meyer’s section on the guard of Eber, the Boar.

“….catch his cut on your long edge. When the cut knocks or connects, then wind through with your hilt under his right arm up toward your left, as shown by the small figure on the left between the large figures in this image F, etc.”

The adventure continues. Cheers.