Attacks from Ochs and how Girls are better at Longsword than Tigers

“What do you mean, a girl can’t do longsword?  I know girls who could kick your butt any day of the week.”

I expected the voice announcing this declaration in the ongoing HEMA gender wars to belong to Eliot (my best friend and a girl) but it was Master Raske, frowning down on the newest—and least favourite—longsword recruit.

‘There’s nothing to stop a woman, or girl, being good at longsword,‘ he says.

“Oh yeah?’ John, who is apparently known as ‘the tiger’ though I haven’t heard anyone except himself actually call him that, sneers back.  ‘Girl like that couldn’t even lift a decent sword, let alone use one.’

‘A decent sword?’ Master Raske asks, in the mild voice all of his students have learnt to dread. ‘What would you call a decent sword, John? One of these?’

‘I dunno,’ “the tiger” picks up the largest of the training swords and I’m quite impressed when he manages not to drop it because it’s the badly balanced one an old student left behind. ‘Something like this, with a bit of weight in it.’

‘Mmm,’ is Master Raske’s only verbal response though I catch him smiling when one of the other students makes a comment about overcompensation. ‘And you think you could take anyone down with that sword?’

‘Oh yeah,’ the tiger says. ‘Maybe not you, he adds, though it’s clear he thinks he could. ‘You’ve done this for years, but any of these kids for sure.’ He looks over to where Eliot and I are gearing up for some free-play. ‘Like him.’ He puts a very unrealistic smile on his face. ‘If he’s up to fighting a real man that is, instead of a girl.’

I’m about to point out that Eliot is more of a real man than he’ll ever be—which now I come to think of it might make her even madder than she is now—when Master Raske intervenes.

‘I don’t think we could let you do that,’ he says. ‘Oliver’s still on probation. You can fight Eliot.’

‘Her,’ John looks like someone suggested gelding him. ‘She’s a girl.’

‘First thing you got right all day,’ says Eliot. ‘She lifts her sword in an ironic salute. So put up or shut up, mister.’

Jeanne “the axe”- who saved her town by picking up an axe and driving the attackers from the ramparts

Eliot brings her sword up into Ochs. It’s the coolest of all the four guards (though my personal favourite remains Vom tag) with the sword held out from your left (or right) ear pointing straight at your opponents face. Eliot’s expression is still and focused but I recognise the look in her eyes. John ‘the tiger’ has bright red hair atop vampire white skin and doesn’t look at all like Eliot’s dark haired, dark skinned father but they obviously share the same ‘My dick makes me superior’ attitude.

Eliot does not like this attitude.

Neither do I

“The tiger” moves his sword into lightsaber guard and makes an ineffective unterhau.

Eliot stabs him in the face (or mask because unfortunately Master Raske made him put one on).

Rachel Burchett, one of our local sphynxes, fighting in a tourney

He says he wasn’t ready and then tries for the other side

She stabs him in the face again.

He starts to lose it and does a wild swing for her left side. This is a mistake because Eliot is in right Ochs and does a hanging parry before hitting him in the back. Hard.

I mean it’s still a controlled blow and all, because Master Raske is really big on keeping control regardless of the provocation, but it’s clean and fast and “the tiger” is going to have a bruise tomorrow.

Eva from GLECA Victoria, competing. In Hello Kitty Socks. 🙂

He doesn’t like that. Or the cheers that show we’re all on Eliot’s side. So he comes in hard and fast and he doesn’t have the control to swing his sword like that but Eliot parry’s once and twice and brings the sword up into left Ochs. And as he rushes her she slides in, controlling the blade till she has her pommel across the back of his neck and can pull him down over her hip and John “the tiger” hits the floor.

And when he looks up he’s got Eliot’s sword at his thought and Master Raske’s looking down.

‘What do you mean,’ he says. ‘That girls can’t do longsword?’

Jessica Finley and Märta-Sofie Geijer, longsword champions at SwordFish 2012

If you’re interested in finding out more about the women in HEMA, check out Esfinges. You can also friend them on Facebook. 

Ochs

Our second high guard is Ochs, which you can see below. You can hold it on either side of your head. I’ve already talked a bit about how to hold it when we first discussed the four guards. And because Ochs can be tricky, we added a bit more detail about hand position here. The big thing to remember is to make sure your wrists align properly with the sword so that you’re creating a strong structure.

The Guard Ochs

Close up of the proper grip in Right Ochs. Note the ‘unbroken’ line through the wrist.

Attacks from Ochs

Ochs is primarily a defensive guard, but it sets you up well for a follow up attack. It’s primary attack is a direct thrust. So when you’re in Ochs, make sure you menace your opponent with the point. This is the most difficult thrust to deliver with a longsword because of the position of your arms. It can skew off-target very naturally. When you do it, point your front foot directly at the target, and make sure your hips are directed forward. If your feet or hips are skewed off to the side, then that’s where the sword is going to go too.

Then there’s the thrust into longpoint. This has even more range than the direct thrust, and it changes the angle of attack from the one your opponent is expecting, so it can really catch them off guard. Get powerfully behind your sword.

http://youtu.be/oa4-hE4vm9c

Finally, there’s oberhau and unterhau. In Ochs you are “wound” up like a coil, and that makes it easy to cut strongly. We can see this in the first picture of Ochs above. However, we can only ‘unwind’ only in one direction, making it very natural to attack with a cut on the side you are holding Ochs, but attacking to the other side feels weird. Don’t take my word for it – try it out! Anyway, this is important because if you’re facing an opponent in Ochs, you know they’re much more likely to attack one side than the other.

Hanging or Hangentort, again from Meyer

You can still cut to the opposite side, but you will need to roll through a ‘hanging’ position like is illustrated above. This takes the cut in a circle. Remember for all of your cuts – don’t cut too widely, try to keep them as tight and direct as possible.

Finally, you can follow up your thrusts with a cut. Like we’ve just discussed, this is easier to do if your opponent parries you across their body way rather than away from it. So if you’re thrusting from right Ochs, and they parry across, the right oberhau follows very quickly. You can try to set this up and earn a nice cut to their head with it. And when you’re defending against Ochs, try not to parry across your body.

Defences

This is where Ochs really rocks. It naturally closes off one of the high lines of attack so that if your opponent is stupid enough to attack there, they are going to run onto your sword and be stabbed in the face. This is really useful against Vom Tag, because it shuts them down and makes them attack you indirectly. It learnt this when Eliot did it to me at the last tourney.

The most likely attack is underneath your guard, like is illustrated below. It can work well if you time it properly by drawing them up a high and then cutting underneath. But there’s lots of ways to deal with it.

Cutting under the Ochs, from Talhoffer’s fechtbuch, 1467

Against a cut underneath we can drop our sword into Pflug, and stab them in the face or neck. A step a little to the side helps to capture their blade. And remember to use the thumb grip if you’re dropping into left Pflug, or they’ll hit you in the fingers. We can use this if they cut underneath (unterhau) to either side. Just use the other pflug!

Using a lower hanger, again from Talhoffer

We could also use a lower hanging, like we can see illustrated above, by the big guy on the right. This holds them out and puts a thrust into their belly.

If they cut to the other side with an oberhau, you can easily transition into the other Ochs, and stab them in the face while controlling their sword. This is easy to do because they are taking an indirect path and you’re taking a direct one. Straight to their face. 🙂 If you want to be clever, make sure the way to that opening is clear, inviting them to strike there. Then, splat!

The other defence we can use from Ochs is a hanging parry, where you defend with Hangentort (see the pic above), and circle round with the sword to strike them from above. Or hit them with the pommel. Or wrestle. Like you can see in the video below. 😀

That’s all for this week! Hope you enjoy it!