Edge on Flat: The Proper Way to Parry?

Hans Talhoffer, Württemberg Treatise plate no. 39

    

    We currently live in a martial arts renaissance for medieval European swords. Since the 1990's modern humans have been seeking the teachings of the once forgotten medieval sword masters so that we may once again understand how real people fought with swords in an age where swords ruled the land.  Most of the early work of this period of rediscovery was searching for an understanding of the sword itself- and how it synergized with our bodies. Practitioners of this stage were more concerned with obtaining authentic knowledge of the weapon rather than discovering the best strategies to employ in modernized fencing tournaments (the era I was raised in). 

    I was always curious of the time when sword training was a niche practice even amongst other sword enthusiast circles. I often imagine the time period of using the early internet to discuss the topic on forums on the fringes of cyber space. Mysterious names such as Liechtenauer or Talhoffer pointing you in the direction of untranslated manuscripts and esoteric illustrations. In an attempt to immerse myself in the times, I sought out old medieval martial arts training videos and websites to get a feel for how swordsmanship was understood at that time. 

    What I mostly found was the blueprint for how swordsmanship would be passed down to us today, without the notions of applying "what works" within abstract tournament settings. Practitioners in this original era of study treated their chosen art as a traditional martial art and not as a "sport". 

    

Hanwei, Practical Bastard Sword

     A main difference I saw in the way they trained back in those days was that they taught that you should often parry blows with the flat of your blade as opposed to using your edge. This teaching stuck out to me as I don't recall this practice ever being taken into consideration with many (sport) practitioners or instructors today. Edge on edge parries are much more common these days and not much thought is put into them. I continued studying from these old practioners who would give their reasoning as to why parries should be made with the flat of the sword and not the edge. 

    The reasoning they gave is edge on edge parries would damage the blades had the blades been sharpened. In those days, they were training under the assumption that their blades would be sharpened in their sword plays (of course they still trained with blunt swords). In their minds, a competent swordsman would be capable of maintaining the quality of their blade throughout a series of battles. When swords clash edge on edge, the will cut into each other (this is known as "biting"). In the worst cases, the swords would seem to stick to each other by their edges if the cut was deep enough. Plays were written by the medieval masters to work around this "biting", but the result would be the same- your blade is now damaged. 

    If your edge is bitten into over and over again, eventually it would render the blade useless to you. Thus, there had to be some other solution to parrying. Surely the medieval masters weren't just running through blades constantly. The early researchers into the medieval martial arts came to the conclusion that parries were instead made with the flat of the blade more often than the edge to prevent biting. A technique like the schielhau is an edge on flat parrying technique for example. 

    

    In the case of sharpened sword play, edge on flat also manifest binds where one sword slides around the bind. Sliding binds are far more common today as we practice with unsharpened weapons, even on the edges the blades will slide given the right placement. This is yet another example how misinformation in sparring could lead to bad habits in practical combat. If a fighter is used to edge on edge parries because they believe sliding binds come easy due to the unsharpened practice swords, they would be in for a rude awakening in a live duel.