Since this post is about my alter ego Joseph’s defensive use of krumphau (which Master Raske says is MUCH BETTER than using it to hit temporarily unarmed bullies—and I could learn something here) and the awesome move by which he won competitors choice at the last tourney I thought it would be a good opportunity to tell you more about him.
A real Paladin. This is more my kind of thing.
Joseph is not me. For a start I have a Facebook page and he doesn’t (so who’s the real one here?). Joseph only uses the internet for gaming (and maybe homework because like me he’s a bit of a geek) and he has a steam account instead.
Also his favourite RPG character is a Battle-mage (armoured up Gandalf with extra fire-power) whereas I prefer playing a paladin (chivalric knight) so you can see we are nothing alike. (Catch Tilly—who writes this stuff down—says that is not a big distinction but I bet if Joseph’s Battle wizard was singing her eyebrows off, which he might do because unlike my Paladin he would not necessarily be chivalrous, she would see that the difference is quite significant).
A battle mage. Like this, except with more armour.
And I am an only child but Joseph has a younger sister and brother. Also his parents are completely awesome and totally support his interest in medieval fencing. This is not the case with me. My mother (who is normally okay) does not approve of martial arts and I haven’t seen my father since I was eight. (And considering what I remember of him before then this is a good thing too). So you can see that Joseph has done better than me in the family stakes.
And I think that’s why he’s a better fencer than me (though to be fair he’s been doing it for six months longer) because even when you are sixteen years old (like both if us) and completely independent family does make a difference.
But we both love longswords!!! Although my favourite guard is Vom Tag whereas Joseph prefers Ochs. And that is quite a significant difference as you will see when we start our series on Attacks and Defences from the Guards (and I finally find out just how much trouble I am in with the police) but for now it’s back to Joseph.
And the coolest move of the day!
Except that there really isn’t any such thing as “the middle feint” – Joseph just made that up because a cool sword fighting move needs an name. Master Raske says that it’s a “Failer”, like the “Von Danzig” manuscript describes below:
The Failer is a technique which many fencers plan and hit with as they wish, and strike those who like parrying and fence to the sword and not to the openings of the body.
So use the failer – and do not fail!
Nerd to Knight 