Old Man Yells at HEMA

— Dispatch —

Lets Wind

• Opinion

How and When to Wind

I am not the best fencer in the world. Of that I have no doubt. I was at one point a pretty decent competitive fencer until time and injury brought me low as it will to all of us eventually. That said, I’m still all right. What I’m best at is winding and working from binds. There is no secret to this part of fencing that I have found other than working at it, however I see very little written about this amongst modern practitioners. I am not going to sit here on my couch and say that what I’m about to talk about is unique, or that it will work for anyone other than me. However, it has been written about by the old masters and it does work for me and it’s something I teach with varied success. So take the following for what you will.

When you’re old and you can’t lunge much because your knee is garbage and maybe you’re packing around more groceries than you want, you realize that first intention attacks with no bind become extremely difficult.

In my youth I loved hanging out with blade a little extended, avoiding blade contact, provoking an opponent’s sword tip just enough off center to absolutely obliterate them with a lunge or cut to the face; and if done in just the right time, they simply couldn’t stop me. It was the best. Highly recommend.

However there are some flaws to this:

1. Your measure and timing must be impeccable. 2. You must be fast. 4. You can’t care if you get hit sometimes.

The good news is this is exactly what wins points in tournaments. And why not? It’s got an insanely high risk–reward ratio.

The problem with this becomes immediately apparent the first time you are standing opposite someone and you both have sharps in your hands. All of the sudden the fast perfectly timed first intention attacks we all rush to seem, well, suicidal.

This is where modern sport HEMA and the martial HEMA start to diverge in my opinion. But I have good news! Traditional martial HEMA is still viable, we just have to work at it.

Binding and Winding

Any careful reading of the historical texts tells us that one of the main ideas is: first we work to the sword, then the body, then the sword again. This is how, with few exceptions, the whole of the Liechtenauer tradition is written. Sword, body, sword. Doesn’t sound much like what I described above does it?

The Problem: Getting to a Bind

How do you get someone to bind? If the people you fence are like I was and they don’t want contact, how do you get contact? How do you get to a bind? They might be, very rightly, coming from schools where they deny any contact not of their own choosing. This creates some challenges.

The answer is measure. To be honest that’s almost always the answer but I’ll get to that in another space. Anyway, measure. I’m using measure to mean both how far you are away from your opponent and what angle you are from your opponent. Being five feet directly in front gives me different options than being five feet at a 20-degree angle from center does.

This is important. We need to always carefully control our measure and our angles so that:

- We are safe - We can parry calmly and softly without undue stress - We can attack into the *Krieg*

If you’re paying attention you realise I am talking about hanging out at the edge of the Zufechten and Krieg (in another entry I’ll talk about these as spaces as well as times in the fight, time is space right?). It is from this measure that we provoke a bind.

We can do this by inviting an attack or launching an attack:

  • Inviting: Give your opponent a time to act, then parry softly. You are not counter-cutting—you’re simply absorbing their attack.
  • Provoking: Your attack should land if they don’t parry. You should mean it to land, but you can’t need it to land. You are trying to provoke a defensive action, then stick to their blade.

Tada! You are in a bind!

Processing the Bind

Once blades make contact you must process two immediate things:

1. **Where you are in space**: low, middle, high, left, right—or some combination. 2. **Is your opponent hard or soft?**

Hard vs Soft

- **Hard** = structurally better position (controlling center, overbind, etc.), not just pressing hard (though it may feel that way). - **Soft** = structurally weaker position.

Someone will ask: what if they are structurally hard but with soft hands, or structurally soft but pressing hard? The answer: they’re trash fencers, don’t worry about it. Base your decisions on structure and geometry.

Now We Wind

Here’s the trick:

If they are **hard**, you must move around them. - In strikes this is *Ablaufen* or *Duplieren*. - In winding it means moving your sword and or body (don’t be lazy), shifting to their side or flank so they must abandon their structurally superior position. - Allowning them to extend in an attack from there better structure

Once they extend too far or lose structure, they are now soft. The instant (Indes) they are structurally compromised, you must become hard and drive your wind in.

In order for any wind to work, you must slow down, use Fühlen, and work calmly. Jerking around, slashing, and rushing won’t cut it here.

Seizing the Vor in this context means relaxing, taking time, and listening to your opponent. If you are in a worse position you must work in the Nach softly, until Indes the shift occurs—then seize the Vor brutally and drive forward with the wind. If they adapt, you adapt.

Final Thoughts

At the end of the day winding isn’t magic, it’s just work.

- Get to the bind. - Use *Fühlen* to sense hard or soft. - Act in *Indes* without hesitation.

That’s it. It’s not glamorous and it doesn’t always feel like tournament gold, but with sharps in hand it’s the safest, smartest way to fence.

So practice slowing down, practice sticking, and practice turning soft to hard when the moment opens. Do it long enough and you’ll see why the old masters wrote so much about it, and why winding is still worth all the effort.