June 15th, 2025 session – due to it being Father’s Day we only had 3 students, so Ashley and I decided to use it as a “Stump the Instructors” day – an opportunity to take a focused dive into things people find challenging, and a great way of testing the instructor’s knowledge. Two of the topics that were brought up were:

• • “Sweeps” from RDL – How does Meyer implement/use them?
  • How to deal with an opponent who is significantly taller when we are when in Brechfenster?

“Sweep”/Streichen from RDL (Ringeck Danzig Lew) – How does Meyer implement/use them?

The term “Sweep” is shown as “Streichen” in the original German in both Meyer and in many earlier sources. Described as a “slash” from below, it would be likened to an Unterhau, but using the short edge instead of the long edge.

In Meyer’s writings, he uses these in 2 ways; the first as part of a Provoking sequence, and the second as one of his 7 defined types of parrying.

As a provoking:

One usually starts in a low posture such as Wechsel (the Change) or Nebenhut (“Side guard”) and slashes upward along the Zorn line and bringing the point up and into the opponent’s field of vision and close enough to their face make them pay attention to the potential threat before bringing it back down into the initial low posture. Meyer then instructs us to do this 2 more times, but has us change the behavior on the 3rd time.  The working theory of why he has us do it twice and then change on the 3rd is to allow our opponent to get a feel for our timing and motions, which encourages them to predict what our next move is. When we change our action on the 3rd and our opponent acts on their prediction, they frequently give us an opening they’d didn’t plan on.

The example we used was the provoking portion of the “Wechsel #1” stuck from Chapter 11 in Meyer’s 1570 book (1.42r.2), where he has us start in Right Wechsel, slash upwards, over their sword to their face twice, then slash under their sword on the 3rd. This slashing under prompts them to bring their sword downwards, and gives us a larger opening to execute the Zwerchhau/Prellhau to their Left Ear that’s next in that sequence.

As a Parry:

In Chapter 7 of the Rapier in his 1570 book (2.70v.1), Meyer describes “Taking out with the Short Edge” (Außnehmen mit halber Schneid).  Put simply, it’s using the Außnemen (“Taking Out”) parry using the short edge from below. Executed as a quick but powerful rising short-edge cut from Left Wechsel to knock the opponent’s blade away. We practiced this pretty much as written (varied some of the incoming attacks), but using Longswords instead of Rapiers, and it worked quite well against a variety of attacks.

How to deal with an opponent who is significantly taller when we’re in Brechfenster? – an intro into Übergrieffen

A common question we get, particularly from people who are of shorter to average stature, is how to deal with the “height advantage” a significantly taller opponent may seem to have, particularly when bound close in Brechfenster (“Break-Window”) where the opponents are at very close range, blades bound, and their arms raised high enough that they can see their opponent under their arms. Commonly the taller opponent will have an easier time in winding and landing a blow to the top of the shorter opponent’s head, while the shorter opponent struggles to land the same blow. One of Meyer’s handworks, Übergieffen (“Gripping over”) can help with this.

Described in Chapter 5 of the Longsword in Meyer’s 1570 book (1.22v.3), it essentially has you shift your lead hand’s grip in such a way that your thumb stays on the grip-side of your quillons, but your fingers now grip your Schilt instead, shifting the fulcrum of the lever your sword is acting as forward. He then has us push the pommel up, which drives the point downward behind the opponent’s sword and towards their head.

The biggest challenge to doing this while in a bind is maintaining the existing bind pressure to ensure the opponent does not get enough information through Fuhlen to figure out what’s happening and try to counter. If you go soft in the bind while changing your grip, your opponent will likely feel it and use that opportinity to displace your sword and land a blow. One of the best methods I’ve found to do this is to apply pressure on your grip with the thumb of your lead hand while pivoting your palm and hooking your fingers over your Schilt. By correctly maintaining this pressure, the opponent receives very little information via Fuhlen, and sets you up for pushing your pommel upwards to strike at their head behind their blade.

Another challenge with this technique comes down to the bulk and mobility limitations of many HEMA heavy/Longsword style gloves. Because this is more complex a motion than simply shifting from “Hammer” grip to “Thumb” grip or to “Handshake” grip, people with heavier and more protective gloves like the “Lobster” style often have more of a challenge than people wearing something like the Sparring Gloves 5-finger glove, Gabriel gloves, or lighter gloves that have more mobility but less protection. With this, it’s a matter of “Train with the gear you fight in”, and learning the limitations/restrictions and how to adapt/overcome them to be able to execute the technique.