A Wonderful Struggle: The 16th Century Art of Civic Combat, Part 2
The procession arrives at the square. Publicans erects their tents and tap their barrels. Musicians collect into bands, and other performers wander…
Meyer’s Four Types of Fencers: How we conceive of them and ourselves
And the first are those who, as soon as they can reach the opponent in the Onset, at once cut and thrust in with violence. The second are somewhat…
A Wonderful Struggle: The 16th Century Art of Civic Combat, Part 1
There is a particular tension at play in the modern Historical European Martial Arts community regarding the the early and later period expressions…
On The Five Words and Withdrawal
Mark, this is that before all things you shall rightly undertake and understand these two things, which are the Before and the After, and thereafter…
Basic Meyer Quarterstaff Techniques 02: Schnappen & Zucken
This video was recorded by the MFFG at the 4th Meyer Symposium in Iowa, USA, 2016 and is yet another small sidetrack from the series. It shows…
Basic Meyer Quarterstaff Techniques 01: Ruck & Truck
This video was recorded by the MFFG at the 4th Meyer Symposium in Iowa, USA, 2016. It is a small sidetrack from the series and shows two basic…
Basic Meyer Quarterstaff 02: Long & short edge
This second video in the Basic Meyer Quarterstaff series brings up a few topics: First of all the stance and angles of the legs, which has been…
Basic Meyer Quarterstaff series
For the last seven years I have dedicated myself to the study of Joachim Meyer's combat arts, and his quarterstaff in particular. In this I have had…
Meyer Pilgrimage Part 2 – Basel
Almost exactly a year ago I was lucky enough to be taken on a small journey that has been a long time dream of mine; walking in the footsteps of 16th…
The Ringen of Joachim Meyer
This article shall group Joachim Meyer's Ringen into collections of similar throws. Hopefully this will better aid the modern student in learning…
A key to Meyer’s mechanics & footwork – part 1
Here is a rough diagram that tries to explain the core mechanics that go through all of Meyers fencing and which are the foundation for the…
Meyerozzo: The influences of the Bolognese method in German Rappier
There are many reasons why I devote much of my time and my energies on what Joachim Meyer has exhibited in his treatises. But the main reason I…
Introduction to Joachim Meyer’s quarterstaff
Long overdue I've finally posted my booklet on the Meyer quarterstaff, a weapon also used to train spear and halberd. It is tied to the workshops I…
System vs Syllabus: Meyer’s 1560 and 1570 sidesword texts
As a professional educator as well as a long-time amateur martial arts instructor, one of the issues that fascinates me about the historical fighting…
The Onion – Basics of European Longsword: Part 10
For practitioners of German longsword it is fairly commonly known that with some stances and cuts we should put our thumb against the flat of the…
Extensive article on basic Meyer dusack added
I have just added a 28 page article based on my dusack workshop. It is entitled Meyer dusack - the dusack in motion. It is a simple introduction to…
The Onion – Basics of European Longsword: Part 9
This time I will speak rather briefly about stances and the ideas behind them. This does not just apply to the longsword, but is applicable to…
Meyer Pilgrimage Part 1 – Straßburg
We all share the same love for our personal and shared discoveries of a forgotten European martial arts tradition and studying it we all learn to…
The Onion – Basics of European Longsword: Part 8
Although not originally planned to be included in this series, I decided to add an article on a topic that deserves special treatment, since to…
Meyer quarterstaff workshop in Florence, Italy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1Envup5Ah8 Here's the workshop on Joachim Meyer's quarterstaff held by me and my fellow GHFS member Mattias Moberg…
Free Fencing exercises
In our Meyer staff class we have been forced to develop methods that meet the simple fact that in staff fencing you are actually training with the…
Teaching progressions in Meyer’s longsword 1: the attacking skill tree
Over the last five years, I’ve given several workshops in both South Africa and Europe focused on sequencing the teaching of techniques from…
The Onion – Basics of European Longsword: Part 7
This week we will be taking advantage of one of the greatest benefits from reading somewhat later masters, like Joachim Meyer and George…
The Onion – Basics of European Longsword: Part 6
Throughout history going all the way back from at least medieval times up until modern military bayonet training a diagram typically depicting four…
The Onion – Basics of European Longsword: Part 5
This week's article will be talking about the topic of various ways of counterstriking against an attack. Different masters and traditions handle…
The Onion – Basics of European Longsword: Part 4
This time we will start moving into somewhat more unexplored and unmapped territory, working with various clues gathered from different places, to…
The Onion – Basics of European Longsword: Part 3
Time for part 3 in the Onion Article Series, this time taking a closer look at the parts of the weapon and how it relates to handling of distance and…
The Onion – Basics of European Longsword: Part 2
Continuing with part 2 in the Onion series of articles we will now focus on the topic of controlling the fight, or lack thereof and regaining it. In…
The Onion: Basics of European Longsword: Part 1
For the last year or so I have been working on a group of primarily longsword exercises based on studying fechtmeister Joachim Meyer's…
Joachim Meyer’s dagger system
Note: This is a working document and will continuously be updated as we work with our interpretations of Joachim Meyer's dagger…
Meyer freeflow exercises
To begin with, just for clarification, this is not a typical article per se, but rather a text sorted under the Meyer Research Project, thus a more…
Meyer’s masters
On this day, 443 years ago, Fechtmeister Joachim Meyer published his magnificent fencing treatise 'Gründliche Beschreibung der Freyen Ritterlichen…
Meyer and Marozzo dagger comparison
It has been debated regarding to what extent Meyer was inspired by the Italians, the Napolitans and the Bolognese fighting systems and…
Doing what we are told or what we are taught?
Here's an old but still always relevant question for us HEMA practitioners to ask ourselves: When we read the old fencing treatises, should we only…
The history of Joachim Meyer’s fencing treatise to Otto von Solms.
The Joachim Meyer fechtbuch named MS A.4°.2, a beautiful hand-written and watercolour-illustrated fencing treatise dedicated to Herrn Otto von…
The tools for the job
To understand the body mechanics involved in a technique we not only have to train our bodies so we are strong and agile enough, we also need to use…
Joachim Meÿer Halben Stangen techniques
The Guards https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2cG-U1mLfI Here are the main guards of Joachim Meÿer's Halben Stangen: 1. Oberhut (left) 2. Gerader…
Strengthening exercises
Here are some very crude video clips we shot today of the strengthening exercises we have begun working with in the Meÿer Halben Stangen class at…
Meyer quarterstaff – A lesson plan
I thought it might interest some to see how a typical lesson plan for our Meÿer staff class in GHFS looks like. This is of course too…
Spinning around Hollywood Style?
Never ever turn your back against your opponent sounds like a good, solid advice, but is it always so? What do you do for instance, when you face…
