In part 1 I looked at 'block' parries, which work primarily by crossing the strong of our blade over the cutting direction of our opponent's sword and blocking it, like a tree falling over a train track.
In part 2 I looked at 'straight parrying', which is where we keep our sword fairly straight out in front of us, initially pointing at the opponent, but as their cut comes in from left or right, we turn our body into the cut and form an overbind on their sword. This invariably takes our point offline, but makes us 'hard in the bind'.
Point online parries (POPs) are often lauded as the preferred way to parry, as they both parry and threaten the opponent with the point of our sword. They form the basis of parries in 'German longsword' (more specifically in the tradition of Johannes Liechtenauer, and later Joachim Meyer), but the way they work can be a little unintuitive.
The four POPs
There are commonly thought to be four POPs, although some systems emphasise two (a left and right version but with the point higher or lower as needed). In longsword, these four parries correspond to the 'four hangings' of left ox, left plough, right plough and right ox; that is, with the point at the opponent's chest or throat, move the hilt of your sword to a position of top left, bottom left, bottom right and top right, keeping your arms straight.
It is hard to show this on our 2d cutting diagram, but this is sort of what it looks like from our perspective. The cross guard is being held near to the person parrying, and the point of the sword is well out in front pointing at the opponent (or even sticking into the attacker's chest!).
However, in terms of how the parry functions, I prefer to draw them on the diagram like this, which illustrates that the active parts of the sword used for the parry itself are the cross guard and the first few inches of blade:
In reality, with a longsword, they look like this:
From above, they look something like this (from left to right: top left POP, bottom left POP, bottom right POP, top right POP):
As you can see, the sword is not held centrally 'on the line'. Either the the hilt has crossed the line (and so sits outside our 'box of safety'), or our hilt is on the line and we have stepped off, so our body is no longer in the danger zone:
But wait! These look similar to straight parries, so what's the difference? Look at this sequence below. Blue has attacked to Orange's left. Orange parries using a straight parry by turning into the strike. Then Orange 'winds' out the hilt of the sword into a 'plough' position and then up into an 'ox' position. In doing so, Orange's strong remains on Blue's weak, and the point of Orange's sword is directed back online.
A POP can therefore start as a straight parry and then turn into a POP during the parry. By making the straight parry portion only as short as needed to 'capture' the opponent's sword and gain a slight overbind, we can wind out the hilt in order to get our point back online very quickly. The two 'parries' can even be done more or less simultaneously.
This 'winding' effect works because, when we straight parry, our arms are pointing slightly down, and our blade is pointing slightly up, but with point offline at 10 o'clock. When we wind out the hilt, we rotate the sword in a clockwise or anticlockwise motion, which brings the point of the sword back to centre (or 12 o'clock).
We could, of course, get rid of the straight parrying step altogether, and we do this by catching their strike or thrust on our strong or even on the cross guard directly.
So how does it work?
POPs are primarily used against thrusts, or against diagonal strikes. They are ineffective against horizontal and vertical strikes by themselves. I think I will make a separate post on parrying thrusts, so I will focus on diagonal strikes from above and below.
In essence, you are primarily catching the attack on the 'L' of where your cross guard and blade meet:
However, depending on how you have positioned your blade, your hilt and whether you are incorporating an element of straight parrying or blocking into the overall parry, the rest of your blade may also provide a 'funnelling' effect, where their blade slides into to your cross guard:
This funnelling effect usually requires some straight parrying in order to maintain a hard bind, otherwise their attack will 'blow through' your defence.
Defending from different attacks
POPs work best as a counter-attack. When you are close to the opponent (i.e. thrusting them!) and in a POP, your hilt will be more in line with their attack, and your blade will have more of a funnelling effect. The act of having the point on your opponent's chest and then directing the hilt towards wherever their strike is coming from also adds structure and strength to your parry. The opponent basically gets caught up in our cross guard, and we don't really need to 'aim' for their sword, we just move our hilt into the general direction from which they are attacking us from (top left, top right, etc.); I suspect there is some 'geometrical magic' taking place where the opponent's sword and our sword are sliding into each other into a stable position.
Defending above
If parrying a strike from above, you can do this with a low parry or a high parry. For the low parry, this looks like this:
For the high parry, you want your hilt high (above your head) to protect your head, and your point at their chest or throat. This also gets your hands behind the 'shadow' of your cross guard, meaning your hands are better protected.
Defending below
EDIT: I doubted myself on this one. There are several videos on YouTube that suggest you can parry a rising strike with a downwards, point online strike (e.g. unterhau vs. Plough). They always do it slowly, and the rising strike is made at a shallow angle. I thought it was nonsense and in my original version of this post said so. I then changed it to agree with the videos. Now I'm changing it back!
It's nonsense. If someone makes a rising strike at you, unless it is very shallow (more like a 'mittelhau' or middle strike), you cannot parry this with a 'low' POP (like a Plough type guard). You either need to get the point way offline (in which case it is not a POP), or they will strike your hands, and I have the cut to prove it. Instead you use a strike I to a 'high' POP but with the point low (perhaps at th ground) and the hilt high. This gets your hands above your cross guard so your cross guard can catch their strike. This is basically a 'blocking parry', but you can now easily get the point online. Another way to think of it is you counter an Unterhau with an Unterhau.
Horizontal strikes
You should use a straight parry or a blocking parry for this, and then transition into a thrust. You could attack down onto the strike (with point offline) and then redirect the point.
Cross guard positioning
This is very important: the POP relies on your cross guard to protect the hands. Generally, it is advised that the cross guard is angled in the same direction as the corner that your POP is in. I.e., if you are in a top left POP, your cross guard should be pointing diagonally top left. If you are in a bottom right POP, the cross guard should be pointing diagonally bottom right.
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