Our particular club is primarily working from the material in Joachim Meyer's "The Art of Combat", originally published in 1570, as seen through the lens of a worldwide HEMA community which has spent the last 30 years or so interpreting the text and testing out those interpretations via sparring, comparison with other historical sources, and other methods.
OK, since you asked. I only watched a little of the Longsword because I'm not a longsword type guy, my experience with these weapons, past several seminar classes, is actually more in 19th C. sporting Quarterstaff systems. What I saw there looked good. German, style, not Italian, right? Your circling and off-lining footwork looked pretty good but you neglected opportunities for the thrust. I don't blame you, actually.
I loved the fact that you used your sword to cover and close distance to bring your off-hand to capture your opponents weapon. It's greatly a neglected in HEMA. FMA influence? But it worked so well for you that you focused on it when you could have brought other tools into play. Surprisingly, your footwork wasn't as good for the sidesword assaulting as in the longsword. Not sure why, possibly because it's closer and more compressed in both time and distance. But you should use more circling, side-stepping, and x-stepping in your sidesword, kinda like what you did for Longsword. You didn't thrust as much as you should. Your opponent had better thrusting and it took you by surprise a couple of times. A x-step or side-step with an inverted parry would have kept you safe, but that's easier said than done. I don't know if you're studying an integrated system from longsword and sidesword (Meyer maybe? Edit: I see that, yes, it is Meyer) but I think you have room to use exactly the same footwork in sidesword that you used in longsword and I think that would have surprised the heck out of your training partner; circle-step with a cutting attack to threaten and force a guard, then thrust under/over the guard. Sure, it's dual tempo attack but it works really well and I don't think your training partner would have been prepared for it. He also used very linear footwork. Is he an ex-sport fencer or an ex-karateka/TKD stylist? He just has kinda that "feel" to his movements. Offline footwork, force a ward, and thrust past it.
Uh... I don't longsword or sidesword.
I am mostly a low level British military saber/Scottish broadsword guy so I really don't have much to add.
Iām much newer to the side sword (technically what Iām using is a Meyer style rapier, which is essentially a side sword on the first steps of evolving to what most people would think of as a rapier.) Our group focuses mostly on longsword and I only got my own side sword a couple of weeks ago. (I traded private BJJ lessons for it.)
Yeah, the techniques exist in Meyer, but my FMA and grappling background make them more instinctive for me.
Heās been taking modern Olympic fencing on the side for a while now in addition to the HEMA. Heās not super advanced or anything, but he is training 4 days per week at our local fencing gym which just produced an Olympic medalist, so heās got better muscle memory for the thrusts than I do. Heās also annoyingly good at disengaging when I want to bind.
Iām not sure exactly how long Dustin has been doing HEMA, but itās longer than I have. Heās also trains modern Olympic fencing, is a Marine, and is about 30 years younger than me. However I have a few decades more martial arts experience in general and some of that carries over to the swords.
Hey, you could absolutely use saber or broadsword techniques with the side sword. Plus youāve got way more FMA and general weapons sparring experience than I do, so I bet you could offer some insights into things that I could do better from a general sparring with blades perspective.Uh... I don't longsword or sidesword.
I read Meyer once (like a hundred years ago or something). IIRC, his footwork for the Rapier is the same as for the Longsword so he wants you to apply the same footwork, just with a shorter, one-handed, sword; pretend it's a Longsword with less reach.
I went ahead and watched all the Longsword bout. Every time you circle or cross-stepped you hit. When you used the footwork, your ability to hit your opponent was boringly reliable, and you did it a LOT in the Longsword bout.
It exists but HEMA people don't seem to know how to do it. The Broadsword guys like to talk about "The Turkish Disarm," but 90% of them can't actually do it, probably because they misinterpreted the manual and didn't have some other base to draw from to tell them why their interpretation was wrong.
Meyer's Rapier is like 30% broadsword/saber anyway. He even has moulinets.Uh... I don't longsword or sidesword.
He does have some good thrust applications, but due to my prior background I'm still catching up my thrust skill to my cutting skill. It took about 3-4 months of practice before I started landing thrusts regularly and even now I'm not as good with them. I just rewatched one of my other matches where I had some success with thrusts and counted 8 cuts landed compared to 2 thrusts. Clearly I have a lot of work to do in that department.
One nice thing about Meyer is that it's really a unified system. His longsword, rapier, dussack, and polearm are all built around the same principles.
Thrusts to the face are legal, an important part of the art, and pretty safe. The grade of mask I wear is rated to handle 350 Newtons of force to the bib and 600+ Newtons to the mesh. It is important to wear a good gorget underneath the bib for additional throat protection. Iāve taken at least one thrust to the throat where I was very, very glad that I had a good gorget.
