There has been a lot of ink spilled about the meanings of Vor, Indes, Nach, and Gleich. Which I think is probably a good thing, it means people are thinking about how actions and time should be understood in HEMA and that’s clearly an issue people have. Now, there are arguments for keeping the terms untranslated or for translating them in certain ways. Language is a slippery thing at the best of times, so any opinion on what the terms mean or how they should be translated are equally slippery. This is not to say there aren’t good things to come out of this, several attempts at definitions I think are successful to varying degrees. I don’t know that my understanding will add anything, but here are my thoughts.
First, What is the Vor? Is it going first? It’s it initiative? tempo? An action that requires a reaction? Sure! I think these are all functional definitions and maybe as a group they work better than any single one by itself. Before I get to what I think it is, we have to understand what I think our goal is.
The core goal of any action in HEMA is to strike the opponent with good structure, while remaining unstruck ourselves. All of our actions can, and I believe should be, viewed through this lens. I have written in past papers about the psychology of acting in the Vor so I won’t get into that in depth here. I will say that there is a clear psychological and physiological edge in being the one acting versus the one reacting. Given that our goal is to strike the other person without being struck; clearly, at its base we must prefer to be the ones acting, not the ones reacting. Thus, we must seize the Vor.
So what do I think Vor means? I find I land on the English word “impetus” more than any other. Impetus is “the force that makes something happen” and has its roots in Latin and the idea of attacking. If we think about a bout, in the zufechten, fencers are facing each other, each fencer has the same goals. So in essence they are in a neutrally balanced system, some sort of unbalanced force needs to be added to the system in order to shift the balance one direction or the other and cause action. This could be in the nature of adding, in the form of an action, or in subtraction, in the form of provocation. When an unbalanced force has been introduced to the neutral system, there is impetus. Now it should be clear that once an imbalance in the system has been created in favor of one fencer over the other, that imbalance should be maintained and increased until the opponent is hit and the person striking has safely abzuged.
All right, you say, that makes a certain amount of sense, I guess; what about Indes Gleich and Nach? Let’s talk about Nach next. If the Vor is impetus, and unbalancing a system in one fencer’s favor, then acting in the Nach is the process of returning the system to neutrality. But wait! Isn’t that what Indes is? No. It’s not. Acting in the Nach requires adding or subtracting the force from the system until equality is realized again. This is very difficult and requires experience to do. As Myer says in the Nach “you cannot carry out your intention.” You are simply trying to rebalance. This is diffrent the Nachrisen, which is a whole other coversation that belongs more rightly in “Indes”. There are Fencers who fence in the Nach by desing, and though it’s not prefered in matters of life and death as noted abouve, in a sporting context like HEMA I think there are ample oppertunaties work on our skills in time of fight.
On to Indes! So if Vor is unbalancing a system and Nach is rebalancing that system, then what is Indes? It is the moment that a system becomes balanced again. The very instant! In that instant either fencer can unbalance the system in their favor again. As Meyer points out, this requires fülen! Fülen not just in the bind but in space as well. Indes is the knowledge and feeling of where and when to cause the next imbalance. For example, say you come to a bind with an opponent in the right Ochs, “Indes” you know the left Pfluge is the most open opening. There is no magic in this other than careful fencing, Fulen and Bliben. Ironically this means it’s essentially all magic. There is no cheat code with wich to develop the sense, its just work.
Finally on to the dreaded Gleich. Gleich is when both fencers act at once. In my terms it would be when both fencers add to the system at the same time thus it remains in balance-ish. Since neither one has established an imbalance but both have added energy to the system, this is when doubles happen. Gliech is when you both mess up, you fail to fence. Gleich why you are amped up at a tournament can be hard to avoid, we’ve all dubelled in our eagerness to “seize the Vor”. This is not to say that sometimes via structure or geometry you “win” but it’s a win that is no different then winning a game of rock paper scissors, it happens but its not to be celebrated, unless youre the type to gloat over a good guess.
“Okay, but so what?” You ask. That is an excellent question. Understanding times in a fight should help us organize our actions in a more rational fashion. One of the main issues I see in modern HEMA are people ignoring the proper time in the fight to execute their actions and just acting for the sake of acting.
For instance let’s say there are two fighters eager to seize the Vor. Fighter A has begun acting and caused an imbalance, fighter B doesn’t recognize the imbalance and instead of working in the Nach to try and rebalance, immediately tries to counter attack, thinking they are working Indes. But they haven’t properly balanced the system yet; their counter-attack at best causes a double because what they actually worked in was Gleich.
But wait! Aren’t there actions that we can use as counter attacks that work? Yes of course there are. There are many actions that fully bring the system into equilibrium and then, via Indes, capture the Vor. These surely should be studied and used in the proper time. There might even be a special neame for them, if yorue feeling clever.
The moral of the story is to wait your turn! If someone has seized the Vor and caused an imbalance, don’t be afraid to work in the Nach to regain the balance, then work Indes and reacquire the Vor. Rushing to attack while someone else is already attacking is irrational and the cause of most doubles. Since our goal is to strike our opponent while remaining unstruck, getting hit in any time of the fight is a failure.
If you think I’m wrong, Prove it with Iron.