Meyer's staff techniques - Ambiguities

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Meyer's staff techniques - Ambiguities

Post by Roger N » Sat Jan 29, 2011 10:34 am

Hi everyone!

For quite some time I together with the rest of the GHFS polearms study group have been focusing on Joachim Meyer's Halber Stangen techniques, as you can see from our Training Diary here.
I think we have pretty good interpretations of all techniques in his 1570 book by now, but there are a few very basic questions that remain unanswered and I would very much appreciate your comments here.

Please also give some reasons why you think how you think and on what grounds you base your arguments.

Here are the questions:

1. Is there a right Oberhut and if so, how should it be done? With the left hand leading or with the right?

2. How do you do the second Nebenhut? It is never described in the section on Halber Stangen.

3. Should you ever change which hand that leads with the staff?

4. Is the guard system symmetric in the sense that you should do all guards on both sides? Note the choice of words here.

5. Since you need to read the whole book to fully understand how things connect, do you think it is OK to transfer concepts from the langen spiess and hellbarten sections to the halberstangen? Things are clearly different, both due to the difference in weapons, but also with regards to how guards with the same name are done depending on the weapon...

Finally, I would also like to encourange everyone to discuss openly any questions you may have regarding Meyers staff section.

Thank you for any assistance you can give here!
Roger Norling

Quarterstaff instructor
Gothenburg Free Fencers Guild

Member of MFFG
http://www.freifechter.com

Member of HEMAC
http://www.hemac.org

Chief editor HROARR
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Kevin Maurer
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Re: Meyer's staff techniques - Ambiguities

Post by Kevin Maurer » Sat Jan 29, 2011 7:24 pm

Roger, great questions, I've been away from this Forum for Too long.

1. There is a right High guard, in the Halberd, plate G, which Meyer omits from the description, but it can only be from plate G, the upper rightmost little figure, We end up in this guard when we strike from lower let to upper right. Left hand leads. I believe that Meyer's teachings are all intertwined, within and across each weapon. So that knowledge of one weapon's use, is meant to be adapted to the other weapons. Its a fighting system. IMO

2. "The Middle Guard is the Straight Parrying before the opponent, from which one mostly fights." This is the FeldHut, the Plow, the Schnitt, the straight parrying,
if you are referring to the Middle guard that is depicted by the right hand fencer in plate A, foreground, than i would say this is a little understood guard, and yet one which is used to depict staff fencing in many different fechtschulen images. IMO

3. I havent found where Meyer advocates this, while Mair, definitely does. I do this when i spar, it feels natural and helps in deception, or hand hunting. Also, the left hand grip is different than Mairs' and others, in that Meyer seems to favor the grip with the thumb forward, as opposed to an "overgrip" where the thumb is facing towards the butt of your staff. There is a device in the Halberd, where you start with a big enormous undercut from lower left to upper right and this is preceded by a lifting of the left leg and stomping it down as you switch grips, to the thumb facing the butt of the staff, this is demonstrated in Plate H with the Halberd Fencer on the right, in the foreground. IMO
4. I think yes, they should be done on both sides, when it is possible. I think to limit ourselves is contrary to his teachings, in other words, his comprehensive system of fighting, is not based on only using certain techniques for certain weapons, even though that is included in all of his weapons. But rather, the crossing over into each weapon, with principles of use. the Halberd has been a shining example of this; The guards for the Halberd come from the Staff, yet there are new ones introduced in the Halberd. I use these halberd guards when playing with staff, and vice versa. Similar to his precept that whatever can be done with the Longsword can be done with the Dussack, which is a training tool for the Rappier! So it all leads to one road and that road is a Fighting system. IMO
Certain things were canon to his methods and techniques, but I think it should be, whatever works for you the fencer.
5. see 4. IMHO

I look forward to hearing others' take on these 5 questions as well.
Fechtergruß
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Re: Meyer's staff techniques - Ambiguities

Post by Roger N » Sat Jan 29, 2011 8:02 pm

Hi Kev! Good to see you here again! :)

Thanks for taking the time to make such a clear response! I think we have a pretty good picture of the whole staff section, but it is slightly confusing to have such basic questions unanswered still. And worse, there is possibly no proper way of finding an answer in the 1570 book. Perhaps there are other sources outside of this book that are similar enough to Meyer's teachings though... :)
Kev wrote:Roger, great questions, I've been away from this Forum for Too long.

1. There is a right High guard, in the Halberd, plate G, which Meyer omits from the description, but it can only be from plate G, the upper rightmost little figure, We end up in this guard when we strike from lower let to upper right. Left hand leads. I believe that Meyer's teachings are all intertwined, within and across each weapon. So that knowledge of one weapon's use, is meant to be adapted to the other weapons. Its a fighting system. IMO
Well this is a bit tricky isn't it? There are quite a few sentences that could be interpreted as suggesting that the techniques for different weapons are intertwined . But at the same time, some guards for pike are done quite differently with the staff despite sharing the same name.

I agree that the guard in plate G is how the High Guard is to be done on the right. It is how we do it as well. It is also in picture EF although as a thrust and the thrust is described in a Stuck that I can't remember the number of right now. It is the one I had a disagreement over with Francesco, the one where Meyer refers to Image E and I think he refers to EF.

It is a little odd though, that Meyer says to do the Oberhut on the right as it is done on the left and here we have something that resembles the Ochs... Not quite sure what to make of that. It would be strange if this position wasn't used at all though. It comes natural both in parrying, and striking from below, and thrusting from above.
Kev wrote: 2. "The Middle Guard is the Straight Parrying before the opponent, from which one mostly fights." This is the FeldHut, the Plow, the Schnitt, the straight parrying, if you are referring to the Middle guard that is depicted by the right hand fencer in plate A, foreground, than i would say this is a little understood guard, and yet one which is used to depict staff fencing in many different fechtschulen images. IMO
I was a bit unclear here, or rather Meyer himself... I was thinking of the Middle Guard, although we have chosen to call it Nebenhut, since Meyer seems a little confused here himself. We use Mittelhut for the Gerade Versetzung. The Nebenhut shown on the right in Image A is described as being possible to do in two ways, and I can see a logical second stance, but I would like to hear everyone's opinion.
Kev wrote: 3. I havent found where Meyer advocates this, while Mair, definitely does. I do this when i spar, it feels natural and helps in deception, or hand hunting. Also, the left hand grip is different than Mairs' and others, in that Meyer seems to favor the grip with the thumb forward, as opposed to an "overgrip" where the thumb is facing towards the butt of your staff. There is a device in the Halberd, where you start with a big enormous undercut from lower left to upper right and this is preceded by a lifting of the left leg and stomping it down as you switch grips, to the thumb facing the butt of the staff, this is demonstrated in Plate H with the Halberd Fencer on the right, in the foreground. IMO
The text is ambiguous to say the least. He quite often says something along the lines of "if you have the left hand leading..." But, this could also refer to the lefties that should fight with the right hand leading and mirror all techniques.
Kev wrote: 4. I think yes, they should be done on both sides, when it is possible. I think to limit ourselves is contrary to his teachings, in other words, his comprehensive system of fighting, is not based on only using certain techniques for certain weapons, even though that is included in all of his weapons. But rather, the crossing over into each weapon, with principles of use. the Halberd has been a shining example of this; The guards for the Halberd come from the Staff, yet there are new ones introduced in the Halberd. I use these halberd guards when playing with staff, and vice versa. Similar to his precept that whatever can be done with the Longsword can be done with the Dussack, which is a training tool for the Rappier! So it all leads to one road and that road is a Fighting system. IMO
Certain things were canon to his methods and techniques, but I think it should be, whatever works for you the fencer.
I can certainly see an advantage in being able to change hands, but I can also see that with a longsword. Yet, few masters advocate training longswords on both sides. Likewise, I don't see this in the staff section or the pike, perhaps because it is often awkward and takes too much time. Of course you sometimes strike, thrust and wrench with the back end, but it remains that, the back end, throughout the technique.

Your comments on how things overlap are very interesting, but I still find it odd that he teaches different guards for different weapons. Why not show all staff guards in the staff sections and then skip teaching guards in the halberd section, unless the new guards are designed specifically for the halberd?
Roger Norling

Quarterstaff instructor
Gothenburg Free Fencers Guild

Member of MFFG
http://www.freifechter.com

Member of HEMAC
http://www.hemac.org

Chief editor HROARR
http://www.hroarr.com
Francesco Lanza
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Re: Meyer's staff techniques - Ambiguities

Post by Francesco Lanza » Thu Mar 31, 2011 7:38 am

Ok, I come by here really late, but now I'm going to pick the staff up again after having to focus on the longsword for a while :D I think I'll need some time to readjust!
The biggest problem with the polearm section is that it isn't as well organized as previous books. It is quite content-heavy, but we lack a lot of context, correlation, precepts. The author probably would have liked to get back to it some day, but you know how it goes, one day you are happily zornhauing, the next you are six feet under the frozen soil :D

1. I think M. tried to simplify his teaching to the max, but changed idea mid-course. This has at least a precedent, in the longsword section he suddendly speaks about a mittelhut and the corresponding technique, the Rosen. This isn't mentioned anywhere else, and he himself says he didn't want to present this way but "had no choice". I think that in the staff section ochs-like and lower pflug-like huten were put aside while planning out the chapters in the same way, but slowly crept back. We have to remember that in this system any position is either the start of, the end of or a transition between blows and techniques. We all end up in ochs or pflug with a staff in our hands, therefore I think they should be covered even if only cursorily mentioned

2. At the moment I'm not all that fresh on this material... I'll be better after a couple of weeks of practice and study :D. I'm sorry my mind is the usual colander-like self. I seem to remember that I thought there were in fact 2 nebenhuten, the first one the Text nebenhut, the second one the Table nebenhut. The first one is with the staff pointed backwards, the second one is the dramatic fully twisted backwards stance you see in the picture.

3. I'm with Kev there. It seems to be implied that you can or even should do it, but I think you can live all your life without ever doing it at all. The staff is quite a "free" weapon, I think it aids your understanding to wield it both like a longsword or like a polearm.

4. I think that you could, not should. I also think that you have to use halberd stuff with the staff and vice-versa. I thought it was an incremental system built on the staff, but now I'm quite sure this is the same skill used in slightly different ways to tune it to a particular tool. Also, given the "Rosen incident", I don't trust implicitly Meyer's skill for organizing his teaching :).
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