Lesson 1: from the Oberhaw

This is a simple lesson about how to strike with the Oberhaw, the cut from above, both offensively and defensively, and what to do afterwards as a follow-up to the initial cut.

Translation

Hereafter stand written the pieces with the buckler

The first piece with the buckler, from the Oberhaw: when you drive the Oberhaw to the man, set your sword with the pommel inside your buckler and at your thumb, and thrust in from below up to his face, and turn against his sword and let it snap-over. This goes to both sides.

Breaking it down

We can parse the sequence as follows:

• When you drive the Oberhaw to the man,
  • set your sword with the pommel inside your buckler and at your thumb,
  • and thrust in from below up to his face,
    • [and if he defends against this thrust]
      • turn against his sword
      • and let it snap-over.
• This goes to both sides.

I would understand this as trying to hit your opponent with the first blow.

If your opponent defends with distance, such as by stepping back, then you can follow the cut by pushing a thrust in your Long Point, with hands low, without doing anything else.

Finally, if your opponent defends against this thrust, then you can snap around to the other side and cut again to the head.

Putting it back together

Try to hit your opponent with the first blow, but make sure to keep the buckler close to your sword hand for protection. You don’t want to get your hand sniped on its way in, and you also want to have your buckler ready for pressing against your opponent’s arms in some fashion should that become a useful thing to do.

Pair drill – the Oberhaw

Step and cut at your partner. They make a choice:

1. they take the hit on the head,
2. or they step back and cut at your hand with a simple Oberhaw or Mittelhaw.

The first choice makes sure that you are making an honest attack.

The second choice makes sure that you are covering your hands properly on the attack!

If your opponent defends with distance as you cut, then you should chase with a simple and covered thrust. Doing anything else would open you up and would take more time – and it’s just not necessary if your opponent has not pushed your sword aside yet. If your opponent steps back and defends with distance, then chase with the point, allowing your hands to remain low and continue to utilise the protection of the buckler.

Pair drill – the thrust

Step and cut at your partner. They make a choice: either

1. they take the hit on the head,
2. or they step back and cut at your hand with a simple Oberhaw or Mittelhaw,
3. or they simply step backward by two or three steps but without making any parry.

The first two choices are the same as before, and so the attacker needs to be making honest attacks with proper cover.

The new, third choice is to represent defending with distance, so the attacker needs to be prepared to chase with the point to the face or throat or chest, without any hesitation and without leaving the well-covered Long Point position.

If the attacker does some form of Winden, or leaves that well-covered Long Point, then the defender should make the quick Oberhaw or Mittelhaw to the hands or forearms to remind the attacker that creating an opening like this is not clever.

If your opponent defends against this thrust, then you can snap around to the other side and cut again to the head. To generalise this a bit further, if at any time your opponent pushes your sword so far to the side that you can no longer push in a simple thrust, then there is no value in staying there. Whenever your sword is pushed to the side, you should snap around and re-engage on the other side where you might be able to gain a new advantage.

Pair drill – the snap-over

Step and cut at your partner. They make a choice: either

1. they take the hit on the head,
2. or they step back and cut at your hand with a simple Oberhaw or Mittelhaw,
3. or they simply step backward by two or three steps but without making any parry,
4. or at any time they may parry your sword by pushing it to the side.

The first three choices are the same as before.

The new, fourth choice is to represent defending with the blade, so the attacker should be prepared to cut around at any time when the appropriate stimulus is given. However, only some repetitions will need this response, so the original cut and thrust should be delivered as honestly as possible and should be the default plan for success.

It is often tempting to put the focus on the final action in a sequence. However, doing this means that the preceding actions usually suffer, and then the set-up is not as good as it needs to be for the final action to work well.

Make sure that part 1 (the cut) is as good as possible. Make sure that it flows neatly into part 2 (the thrust) without hesitation and without deviation. And finally, part 3 (the snap over) is the solution reserved only for moments when the opponent does a parry to the side.

And, of course, make sure to work on this from both sides, using the Oberhaw from both left and right shoulders!

One final development of this lesson is that the Oberhaw can be done defensively as a counter-cut against the opponent’s Oberhaw. This then makes the sequence virtually the same as Liechtenauer’s first play of the Zornhaw Ort.

Pair drill – the counter-cut

Step and cut at your partner. They make a choice: either

1. they take the hit on the head,
2. or they step back and cut at your hand with a simple Oberhaw or Mittelhaw,
3. or they simply step backward by two or three steps but without making any parry,
4. or at any time they may parry your sword by pushing it to the side,
5. or they step back and counter-cut onto your blade with an Oberhaw of their own, and proceed to do the whole sequence back at you!

The first four choices are the same as before.

The new, fifth choice is to represent defending with the blade with a counter-cut, so that the sequence can be used defensively as well as offensively.

Although a very simple sequence, achieving a high level of skill and familiarity with it can allow you to do it at will in your fencing. If you do not find yourself able to perform exactly this sequence at least once during any given bout of sparring, then this should be a sign that something is going wrong, either with your training or with how you set up your approach to the fight during your sparring.

It should not be difficult to apply this technique in your bouts if you pay attention to these drills and then try to set up opportunities to do this when you participate in sparring. Often, all you need to do is to slow down the sparring a little to give yourself a bit more thinking time, so that you can identify opportunities to attempt this sequence. You do not always need to be sparring at full speed during your training.