This has been developed for an 8 week beginners course on longsword that I am teaching. It is designed to introduce a beginner to the core aspects of longsword fencing using basic cuts and parries - nothing too complicated.
1. Introduction
This guide is intended for complete beginners. It covers German(ish) longsword in the general style's of Joachim Meyer and Johannes Liechtenauer. It is simplified and designed to teach the basics of fencing with the longsword.
The longsword is a two-handed weapon, and while there are some one-handed techniques in some systems, it is predominantly used in two hands.
This guide focuses on unarmoured fencing, therefore the techniques do not include half-swording (holding one hand on the grip, the other on the blade), which is used in armoured fencing.
This guide assumes you are a beginner, with little in the way of safety equipment, except for a fencing mask, protective gloves, and ideally a gorget. Check out my guide to equipment so that you know what equipment to get as you progress on your HEMA journey: Complete (beginners) guide to HEMA equipment and cost (hema101.com)
This guide does not teach thrusts. Thrusts are a large part of longsword (even though they aren't taught in Joachim Meyer's longsword treatises), but I haven't taught them here because they require decent safety equipment (jacket, gorget and plastron) to be done safely, even with synthetic swords. Saying that, some of the guard positions threaten a thrust. Students should treat the point as real so that they do not walk into another student's point, but likewise students shouldn't thrust out of safety concerns.
2. Safety
3. Parts of the sword
4. Getting a grip
5. Basic stance
6. Footwork
7. Guards
7.1 Roof guard (Vom Tag)
7.2 Ox guard (Ochs)
7.3 Plough guard (Pflug)
7.4 Fool's guard (Alber)
7.5 Longpoint
8. Moving through the guards
9. The four openings
10. Striking to the openings
11. Defending the four openings
12. Basic parries for the upper and lower openings
13. Distance
14. Ox and Hanging point parries
15. Parrying with Plough
16. Middle hew and Thwart cut
17. Parry-riposte
18. Before (Vor) and after (Nach) and Indes
19. Feints
20. Counter attacks
21. The Master Cuts
21.1 Thwart cut (Zwerchau)
21.2 Wrath cut (Zornhau)
21.3. Crooked cut (Krumphau)
21.4. Scalp cut (Scheitelhau)
21.5. Squinting cut (Scheilhau)
Well, that's it for now. This should give you a good starting point to begin fencing with the longsword. The next step up from this is to look at thrusts, and actions in the 'bind'. I might make an 'intermediate' guide to the longsword in future.
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