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All right, time to take care of some dirty business.
and I'm wearing my pirate shirt, so you know ***'s gonna get real.
but setting aside the weird random
joking and everything... A while ago, in fact quite a while buy now, I made a
video where i said that in sword fighting you do not want to parry with
the edge and instead only with the flat.
And I have to correct that based on a bit more research.
And i know somebody who won't be happy about my change of heart...
Hi Demoman. But it just needs to be said
You know, as a content creator I feel the responsibility to make sure that I'm not
spreading misinformation.
So if I said something
where I find out later it was not quite right, I need to correct that.
Okay, so let's bring out Cara for support in demonstrating
some of the issues associated with, you know
parrying with the flat versus edge. And by the way, where I
got the idea that flat parry is preferable from
is for one certain messer techniques that actually do that...
and let's just swap weapons real quick.
There are techniques where you do
intercept an incoming cut, let's say a 45 angle
Zornhau cut you actually parry that by
turning it around so that the edge of the messer faces upward
and then you parry with the flat like this and then you
you go from there. But that seems to be more of an exception than a rule
actually.
And the other thing was that you know John Clements
from our ARMA is also an avid defender of the
flat parry only kind of approach. And
he does seem like he knows his stuff but I am
actually kind of confused as to how he reaches that conclusion because if you
look at a lot of the
historical manuals it doesn't seem like you could get away with
flat Parry in a lot of the cases. Like, let's just take one example...
If I have an incoming Zornhau
so a 45 degree downward cut
and I want to displace it with a Zornhau of my own
what I have to do is this. I basically just
strike right to the head
and that closes that line of attack so I'm safe here
while attacking to the head. And if you
look what happens since this one is at a 45 degree cut angle
and this one is also at a 45 degree cut,
both downward cuts, this is just how they end up colliding.
You can't really avoid that for this technique. If I were to deliberately try
to
parry with the flat instead... I mean, I can still do it, it turns into something
else
But look at the problem here, we just flip the entire thing around so
people can see...
I lose the protection that the crossguard offers.
Inless I have one with additional rings, which I
prefer anyway, but you can't rely on that because not
every long sword had those rings. But you know, that's the problem...
if I do this
my fingers will be sliced off basically, and
that's not acceptable. Even if I manage to
to split my opponent's skull in half I don't want to lose my thumb.
So that's not a good alternative. Okay, different camera angle...
If I'm using the Krumphau, or crooked strike, to
parry an incoming 45 degree cut... same thing.
As you see right here the edges connect
and then it slides down to my guard which protects me then.
If if I were to do it with the
that I would have to parry like this which is
just not a good idea, especially also since the bind
may completely fail because against the flat it slides much more.
If you have the two sharp edges kind of bite against (into) each other
it sticks a bit more if you will.
Whereas right here it could slide right down and
cut my fingers right here if I don't have the right guard to deal with that.
So it seems more desirable to do something like this
especially since this way
my guard is actually kind of trapping the blade, like this.
Then there is the issue of biomechanics. Just
the way the wrist works you don't have that much
range of motion up and down in this way... down a bit more,
up not so much. The wrist can only bend so far
so there's a bit more resistance here
then if you bend this way.
Since the range of motion is greater you basically have to
if you want to resist pressure in
this direction you have to
use more muscle power, whereas
if you resist basically in line with the forearm, against the forearm
you can use more of the bone structure actually and you don't have to use as
much
of your muscles alone. Okay, let's demonstrate this...
If we end up here, with both edges
contacting one another, you try to push against my sword...
I hold against it, we're both pushing
as hard as we can... we're pretty good here.
It's pretty stable. So if I do it the other way, if I
parry with the flat and now you push against it...
And there, you already saw it kind of
came down because with the flat
this is just less resistance. Again you will see that
I'm having a lot of trouble
holding it.
Then of course is the issue of the structural
aspect of the sword. In this direction it flexes
in the other direction it does not. So if you insist on
parrying with the edge you're basically making things harder for yourself.
And then there is also the issue that
edge damage cannot be avoided, as unfortunate as it is
and you know, the typical argument which I've also used against
parrying in with the edge is well as soon as you edge is damaged
it will be kind of useless because you need it to be
sharp and even and everything. Every nick
in the in the edge reduces its ability to cut because it drags
in the cut. But you just won't be able to avoid that.
If I strike a shield or an armor
or anything, or if my opponent strikes
against it... there is just no way to
100 percent avoid edge damage. Okay now before some people start thinking
that you should never
every use your flat... that kind of doesn't work
either. It would be wrong to completely discarded one parrying method
at all. As usual it comes down to use whatever
works in the situation. Exactly. The point of this video is not "do not parry
with the flat". With some techniques it works
at some angles, in some situations... in others not so much.
but you know, you've seen
the general problems with parrying with the flat, you need to be aware of that. You don't
have as much strength
sideways and the blade has some give
and you know, several different aspects.
So you need to be aware that when using it. And finally just to mention that
there shouldn't be too much
emphasis on this kind of parry. There are many different ways of responding to
an attack.
The ideal way of responding to an attack is to be elsewhere.
You know, if I get a cut and I go over here
and cut, out of the way of the blade, that's the best way
you can do it. But you can't always. And for some defenses
you actually make contact with your edge to your opponent's
flat. If a vertical strike comes in
I deflect it like this, or parry, whatever, then
my edge is hitting their flat.
So that works just fine. It might still damage
the edge over time but not as much as edge to edge.
So, well, a sword is a tool, you have to
maintain every tool and every weapon
so edge damage will be unavoidable, you just have to deal with it
basically. Yeah, so I hope I cleared this up,
corrected my screw-up, and
thanks for watching.