Learn to fight with the Greatsword! A tutorial on Figueyredo's simple rules 1-16
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 มิ.ย. 2024
- A year ago, I went out to Teylingen castle in 32 degrees of heat, to record all of Figueyredo's simple rules for the montante. My reasoning? I absolutely love greatsword, and even though I'm more into the German varietals, Figueyredo's fight book was a huge help when getting started. There's already a few (better) interpretations up on YT, but I often hear people would like to see multiple angles and slow motion, so I hope this video is somewhat useful. Finally, this is still a work in progress, so if you'd like me to dive a bit deeper into a particular sequence, let me know!
If you'd be interested in supporting the channel or are looking for extra content in general, have a look at Patreon: www.patreon.com/virtualfechts...
0:00 Intro
1:53 Rule 1 Cuts from below
2:52 Rule 2 Cuts from above
3:47 Rule 3 Double cuts from above
4:46 Rule 4 Double cuts and thrust
5:40 Rule 5 Cuts and thrusts
6:39 Rule 6 Fighting against another greatsword
7:22 Rule 7 Fighting in a wide street
7:54 Rule 8 Fighting against shieldmen
8:50 Rule 9 Fighting in a narrow alley
9:48 Rule 10 Guarding a VIP
10:37 Rule 11 Fighting on a galley gangplank
11:38 Rule 12 Fighting enemies in front and behind
12:23 Rule 13 Guarding a cloak
12:52 Rule 14 Fighting against javelins or two-handed hafted weapons
13:22 Rule 15 Separating people who are fighting
14:13 Rule 16 Fighting
14:45 Closing remarks
Music courtesy of epidemicsound.com
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Thanks for the video. I love seeing people demonstrate sword techniques!
I've just started working with my Montante, but while doing rule 1 at my club today, and explaining the movement to a fellow member, we decided to try it against someone with a polearm. We found it was was very natural to do th false edge cut on the second after essentially parrying their weapon out of the way with the first cut on the true edge.
Seemed like it made the movement as a whole feel more founded.
That's kinda cool, but makes a lot of sense to me. Really cool to hear you're experimenting and playing with these techniques! :D
It's super sick see more big boi footage and it's clear the sheer amount of time and sweat you've put into your interpretation. Very well done you.
Thank you! :)
Stellar work as always! This is really helping my own learning, thank you for the hard work (doing that in that heat is no joke).
Nice work and very informative video! you should do a video on rule 10 and 13, the greatsword is so good at defending and offending.
Thanks, and that sounds cool. I've been itching to try those rules with allies and opponents. :D
ah, a fellow struggler
Even the biggest baddest greatsword, the Zweihander was around 4kg at the heavier end. Those swords were supposed to be wielded with two hands as the name suggests. And often the handle/blade split from the cross guard, was around 50cm of handle and 130cm of blade. Ofc it varied. And then you have the blunt bit between the parrying spikes and the cross guard, that you can also use as an extended handle.
So really because of the insane almost halberd style leverage you get, contrary to popular belief, you do not have to be a hulking titan of a man to use one. Obviously size and big muscles helps you swing the thing around.
I don't know why I love watching these videos. I've never been into this type of thing. I did play a lot of Age Of Empires when I was a kid as well so maybe thats where it comes from 😂.
Hehehe, maybe? ;)
I love me some greatswords and I've always wanted to do HEMA but the nearest one is 2 hours away (yikes). So I've been slowly going through each of the forms with my Larp greatsword. Been 2 months and I think I got the first 2 sorted 😊
This is an awesome project
Thank you!
Dude man! Your strength is incredible that it almost feel like the normal speed is sped up
Hehehe, thanks. It at least felt pretty quick doing the first few rules indeed. :D
This is really cool!
i wish i still had the mobility that you have, all those years fighting SCA heavy and jousting blew out my shoulders
I'm sorry to hear that. :( There's of course alway ways to move around injuries, but still having the mobility is definitely easier.
@@VirtualFechtschuleno joke to be 30 again or even 40 or 50 LOL
This will be the perfect training for my larp character 💪
Excellent!
I bought the Doppelsoldner from Calimacil so I could fight people with it and I must say learning this from the manuscripts is kinda tuff. Thank you for making this imformative video so I can improve upon beating up my friends lmao :)
This video is incredible, thank you for the effort!
Thanks! :D
So cool !
Thanks!
I'm probably going to be that odd one out. I own a Kvetun Two Handed, and despite practising both on equal amounts I find the true edge "cross armed" rising reves to be far easier than the false edge.
I'm convinced that it could be the positioning of my left hand and my form, but the entirety of the motion from the end of the Taljo to the start of the upwards false edge Reves, always seem to put far more strain on my right arm, than if I were to do it with the true edge instead.
The True Edge rising reves, at least to me, feels like I'm using both my arms and shoulders in equal amount.
It may be just how your body works! We all move slightly differently and that may mean that some advice from fight books doesn't apply to you. That said, the long edge revez could also feel easier if you have a lighter sword, or if you keep your arms closer. And finally, the short edge revez definitely becomes more of a necessity when you wear armour, as the armholes on a breastplate usually don't allow you to cross your arms too much.
@@VirtualFechtschule Thanks! You make some excellent points! I may try using a plastic chest protector to see if it works as a simulation for a breastplate.
I also noticed that I have yet to commit to full speed, and that could also affect how the false edge rising reves would behave.
I'll continue to explore and experiment with my approaches, maybe one day I'll find the method that works for me! The Greatsword seem to get more mysterious the more you practise!
I m a native Spanish speaker and I did study modern ITalian and Portuguese....and it is a challenge for me at times too lol
Yeah. Frustratingly, the Iberian ones are among the few fight books where I have to almost fully rely on translations. It's pretty hard and I've had a lot of people in my local community struggle with it. So that's where the idea for this came from. :D
This is a great summary!
Do you know if there's any video of how these rotational cuts workout when they meet with another weapon?
That's a really good question. I haven't seen many videos about montante to begin with, and none come to mind where actual weapon on weapon contact is discussed. I may pick that up in the future though. :)
@VirtualFechtschule I think that would be an excellent video that would get a lot of viewership because there's nothing else out there on the subject.
I could try to do it myself on my channel, but I don't think I would do justice to the form. If I turned out to be not successful, people would just say that I'm doing it wrong.
The impression that I have gotten is that one of the things that makes this form effective is people historically did not expect it. Today with modern sparring that may not be the case. So if this form does not work it is because we are not able to recreate the proper mindset for the people that it is being used against.
AoE3 playing the Germans with their Landsknechts and Prussian Needle Gunners haha
Man of Culture
I like your mustache
When I grow up I want to learn how to fight with a greatsword too! This video will be an interesting and easy to understand starting point. Thanks!
Question though: Since you're interpreting a Portoguese fencing master and swords like these were common in the late-medieval/early-renaissance Holy Roman Empire - primarily by the fascinating Doppelsöldner, what sources would they have used during training? Same as Figueyredo's or other sources?
That's a really interesting question! Short answer: we don't really know. Longer answer: we don't know, but we have a lot of longsword sources that show pretty big longsword from around 1500-1550. Especially Paurenfeyndt and Goliath are interesting. Especially the former doesn't explain mechanics in the way Figueyredo does, but similar mechanics really work well for that source. Goliath is just regular RDL longsword, but the illustrations show accomodations to be able to do this with greatswords. My approach is therefore to combine mechanics from Iberian sources with stücke from German ones and recreate something of a system.
@@VirtualFechtschule combining sources into your own system is a really good idea, especially if the German sources tend to be let's say, scarce to say the least.
That does make me wonder though; if greatswords were common in the German lands at that time and fightbook sources specifically about those weapons were scarce, might fighting with them simply have been more common knowledge?
Perhaps if we were to consider that longsword fighting was quite prominent, and in some ways these swords are not quite dissimilar, I do wonder if the step from longsword to greatsword wasn't that big and therefore it might not have required further understandings in fightbooks...
Pure speculation of course, who knows what's true about that.
@@TheDutchGame That is pretty much what I suspect to be the case as well. :)
How insane is it to add this kind of voice-over commentary to your massive Leckuchner video?
A bit insane. I mostly don't feel like those interpretations are worth working further with anymore, so I'd have to redo most of those. I have a video planned on all the Hauptstücke and their functions though. :)
@@VirtualFechtschule That would be a mighty sexy video collection.
I got question what's your advice on handeling a greatsword that's rather long but with a short hilt? I'm talking about 30 centimeter hilt (that's including pommel) with a 140 centimeter blade for a total of 1,74 meters of sword. Kinda diden't fully relise that the hilt would be that damn short when ordering it. 😅
Oof! 😅 It's not totally ridiculous, but you'd have about 10cm grip turned into blade. Of course, putting one hand on the ricasso solves some problems. Other than that, treating the sword like a macebell is an idea. Using flows for that sort of gym equipment can give you a feeling for how it should handle.
@@VirtualFechtschule I bassicly right now tend to use it like a polearm longsword hybrid. Sow I hold it like a long sword and use longsword guerd, but I mostly cut and trust like it's a partisan. It has a really big onion pommel on it sow that helps balance it a bit... it doesn't have a real recaso or parry hooks, it's more of scotische style greatsword. My probleem is mostly related to the fact that it's sow damn long and unwieldy not neccesarly weight cause I'm still able to handel that. My interpetation of it is that it's some kind of bodyguards sword mostly intended to scare the sh*t out of people not sow much for fighting.
I have a question, I've seen two-handed swords in pictures with very short blades (about the length of one-handed swords). Did these really exist? How and where were these used?
Yes, they existed. Mostly these were earlier greatswords, with such shorter blades. They're pretty cool, but used in very similar way to other greatswords
@@VirtualFechtschule
Ah interesting, I saw one of these swords in a museum in Solothurn and had it in my hand. rather short blade but a two-handed handle, crossguard and payrring hooks. I saw the other example in a woodcut (Basel) from the Battle of Dornach in 1499. More of a "war-sword" guard and the sword is carried as a secondary weapon
Ah yeah. Not the one I had in mind, but I know which one you're referring to now. Basically, blades got significantly longer during the 16th century. But around 1500, twohanders were still quite modest.
@@VirtualFechtschule I find the sword design in the woodcut really interesting. Very stable, strong and short design. Seems made for fighting in confined spaces (Gewalthaufen) against heavy weapons (polearms).
Exactly how do you do the cross-arm thing...just askin' for a friend.
What cross-arm thing are you referring to? The explanation of rule 1?
In some of your movements , you appear to be crossingyour arms to move the sword.;@@VirtualFechtschule
Are you doing firgure 8's with the blade ?@@VirtualFechtschule
Me on my way to fight the home invader
(I have a hard foam sword)
Me: "I should continue with my Tutorials for Figueiredos simple rules for the Montante, to help people to learn it...."
*sees Video*
Me:" Seems like someone did it already 😂"
Well Done, Oskar! Fluent and sexy👍🫡
Thanks! But you should totally continue your tutorials. They're good and to be honest, more greatsword content is more better! :D