Discussing the outer takings

[KeithFarrell]

(Cross posted from the HEMA Alliance forum, where I expect a bit more discussion will take place: http://hemaalliance.com/discussion/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3970)


From the "Hende Trucken (Pressing the Hands) / Schneiden (slicing)" thread:

This is annoying similar to the section at the end of Nachreissen in PvD. In fact, PvD has a seemingly inordinate number of solutions for the problem of someone falling on your low guard.

The outer-taking is different from the abschneiden, because in the outer-taking the opponent is the one whose blade is on bottom (he's coming up with the short edge to 'oh shit!' parry your nachreisan). You don't need to slice off his blade, because your are the one with dominant position.

The outer-taking is different from the abschneiden, because in the outer-taking the opponent is the one whose blade is on bottom (he's coming up with the short edge to 'oh shit!' parry your nachreisan). You don't need to slice off his blade, because your are the one with dominant position.

Different but still the same because the same proprioceptive trick still works

Yeah, the difference is that in the outer-taking you don't need to slice your blade out from a less-dominant position. I agree that the outer-taking works best when you hold firm against him while you cut him with crossed-arm Zwerchau.

I have to admit, I don't have a good interpretation of the outer takings. Usually I just ignore them and get on with what I do understand and am trying to improve, figuring that I will find some time to spend on them at some point later. Since the matter has come up, and it sounds like Dustin has some ideas about these, do you mind sharing? I'm quite intrigued to see how other people understand these rather cryptic techniques!

[KeithFarrell]

About the outer takings.

Two outer takings.
Thereafter you shall start your work.
And test the movements,
if they are weak or strong.

Glosa The two outer takings are two followings-after with the sword. When he cuts in front of you, travel after him. If he defends himself against this, and you are left with your sword against his, feel to see if he is weak or strong in the bind. If he then strongly lifts your sword up and away with it, reach your sword to the outside over his and thrust in against the lower openings.

The other outer taking.

When you fence against him with Underhau or with other techniques that come against him from below, if he overpowers you and winds from above against your sword before you can come up with, you are left with your sword under his and so hold strongly against it. If he winds and threatens your upper opening, so follow after with the sword and catch the weak of his sword with the long edge and push downwards, and thrust into his face.

This section comes immediately after the section "about Nachraisen", which follows immediately after "some techniques against the displacements". The section also comes immediately before the section "about Fühlen and the word Indes", which comes immediately before another section "about Nachraisen".

[KeithFarrell]

This technique described hereafter is called the Outside Taking:

Mark, when he hews and you Travel-after him with the hew to the opening, if he then drives up quickly with the sword and comes below you on your sword, then remain strong thereon. If he then heaves fast over you with the sword, then spring with the left foot behind his right and strike him with the Thwart or otherwise to his head on his right side, and work quickly again around to his left side with the Doubling or otherwise with other techniques thereafter as you find if he is soft or hard on the sword.

Item. Another technique

When he strikes before you and you strike him in the After, then bind directly upon his sword against his left side. If he then quickly attempts to leave the parrying with the Thwart-hew to your right side, then Simultaneously preempt him with the Thwart-hew below his sword against his left side upon his neck or spring with the left foot to his right side and cut past his strike to the right side or execute the Slice over his arm to the head.

The first quote is found in all the common occurrences of this gloss; the second quote is in the codices Lew and Speyer, but is not in Codex Danzig or the Goliath.

The outer taking section(s) occur immediately after a section on Nachraisen, which comes immediately after a section about the "Vier Ansetzen". The section comes immediately before another section about Nachraisen from the Underhaw, which comes immediately before the section about Fühlen and Indes.

[KeithFarrell]

There does not appear to be any text about the outer takings in the Codex Döbringer - at least, not that I found easily or swiftly!

[KeithFarrell]

We can split these into stepwise progressions to analyse the similarities and differences.

Ringeck:

A0 - The two outer takings are two followings-after with the sword.
A1 - When he cuts in front of you,
A2 - travel after him.
A3 - If he defends himself against this,
A4 - and you are left with your sword against his,
A5 - feel to see if he is weak or strong in the bind.
A6 - If he then strongly lifts your sword up and away with it,
A7 - reach your sword to the outside over his and thrust in against the lower openings.

B0 - The other outer taking.
B1 - When you fence against him with Underhau or with other techniques that come against him from below,
B2 - if he overpowers you and winds from above against your sword before you can come up with,
B3 - you are left with your sword under his and so hold strongly against it.
B4 - If he winds and threatens your upper opening,
B5 - so follow after with the sword and catch the weak of his sword with the long edge and push downwards, and thrust into his face.


ps-Danzig:

C0 - This technique described hereafter is called the Outside Taking:
C1 - Mark, when he hews and
C2 - you Travel-after him with the hew to the opening,
C3 - if he then drives up quickly with the sword and comes below you on your sword,
C4 - then remain strong thereon.
C5 - If he then heaves fast over you with the sword,
C6 - then spring with the left foot behind his right and strike him with the Thwart or otherwise to his head on his right side,
C7 - and work quickly again around to his left side with the Doubling or otherwise with other techniques thereafter as you find if he is soft or hard on the sword.

D0 - Item. Another technique.
D1 - When he strikes before you and
D2 - you strike him in the After, then bind directly upon his sword against his left side.
D3 - If he then quickly attempts to leave the parrying with the Thwart-hew to your right side,
D4 - then Simultaneously preempt him with the Thwart-hew below his sword against his left side upon his neck
D5 - or spring with the left foot to his right side and cut past his strike to the right side or execute the Slice over his arm to the head.

Sequences A, C and D definitely put the performance of the outer taking into the Nach, in a "normal" travelling after fashion. Sequence B looks like as if you attack and he then does stuff to you, but you travel after his sword in the bind to do the final thing.

To compare sequences A and C:

0 - the introductions agree on the name of the technique.
1 - A and C agree that he cuts at you.
2 - A and C agree that you follow after him; A does not specify with what, but C specifies a cut.
3 - A and C agree that he then defends himself. A does not specify how, but C specifies that he comes up below your sword.
4 - A and C agree that you remain on his sword. A does not specify how, but C specifies that you should remain strong against him.
5 - Here the two sequences diverge. A says that you should feel if he is strong or weak, C assumes that the other guy strikes at you and leaves the bind.
6 - In A, he is strong in the bind and lifts your sword upwards, but is probably still in the bind. In C, you respond to his strike with a crossed-wrist Zwerhaw to his right side of his head (left side as you see it).
7 - In A, because he is still in the bind, you can wind over his sword to the outside and thrust down into his lower openings; very reminiscent of Mutieren. In C, after you hit him with the Zwerhaw, you keep going with Duplieren or other techniques and keep threatening him.

To compare sequences B and D:

0 - the introductions agree that this is another outer taking.
1 - the sequences diverge here. In B, you go on the offensive with an Underhaw, but in D he has struck at you.

It is maybe not so helpful to compare these two sequences.

So then, if we compare sequences A and B:

- in A, he attacks you, but then you travel after and attack him; in B, you attack him.
- in A, he defends and goes up with his sword without threatening you; in B, he defends and comes down onto your sword and threatens to thrust you.
- in A, you wind out around his sword to the outside and thrust in low; in B, you push up with your sword to defend against his thrust, but then he continues to wind against you towards your upper openings - you need to somehow bring your long edge on top of his sword at his weak, so that you can press downwards and thrust him in the face.

And if we compare sequences C and D:

- in both C and D, he attacks you, but then you travel after and attack him.
- in C, he comes up from below to parry; in D, your travelling after strike creates a bind against his sword (so you are striking with opposition), and he doesn't necessarily do much to defend.
- in C, he tries to "heave over swiftly", so he tries to cut away from the bind and hit you; in D, he leaves the bind and tries to hit you with a Zwerhaw.
- in C, you strike into his opening with a Zwerhaw, and then continue to hit him with other stuff; in D, you strike into his opening with a Zwerhaw of your own, or execute "the Slice" over his arm to the head.

It looks like Ringeck's outer taking is a winding kind of action, whereas the ps-Danzig outer taking is a striking-into-an-opening kind of action.

[KeithFarrell]

For sequence A, I suggest the following interpretation:

- he comes from Vom Tag and cuts at you.
- you void, making sure he cannot hit you, then cut from your right shoulder at his head.
- he comes up with his sword to defend himself. He does not do this by making Absetzen into a right lower hanger, because then your sword would be on the wrong side of his to do the later actions; he probably comes up into a left upper hanger, with his blade underneath yours.
- you stay on his sword to see what is happening.
- he tries to push upwards from this point-down position to go into a point-up position, to push your point up and away into a less threatening place.
- you perform Mutieren over his sword and stab him down low.

For sequence B, I suggest the following interpretation:

- you begin in the right Nebenhut and cut an Underhaw up towards him with your long edge.*
- he comes down onto your blade and tries to wind his point towards you from this position; perhaps he tries something like a Krumphaw to stifle your cut, and then winds his point towards you from this bind.
- you are currently in a left upper hanger, although your blade is quite low. You need to push up with your sword, so you try to muscle up into a higher, more Ochs-like position, in an attempt to push his point up and away.
- he adjusts his winding thrust and now targets your face with his point.
- you can adjust your left upper hanger that is below his blade to become a right upper hanger that is above his blade by winding across your body and letting your sword rotate from below to right of to above his blade, with your strong controlling his weak, and your long edge down touching his blade.
- you then push down with the strong of your long edge, ensuring your safety from his thrust, so perhaps you push down into a right lower hanger on top of his sword, leaving your point towards his face so that you can then stab him easily.

* This is obviously a naive interpretation; perhaps a more tactically applicable interpretation would begin with an Oberhaw that he meets with Versetzen, then you leave the bind and strike an Underhaw from low right up into his hands, or something like that. For the purpose of creating a clean and simple explanation of this interpretation, however, let's just assume we start in Nebenhut and open with an Underhaw so that we can examine the following actions, even though we know that this is a dumb thing to do!

For sequence C, I suggest the following interpretation:

- he comes from Vom Tag and cuts at you.
- you void, making sure he cannot hit you, then cut from your right shoulder at his head.
- he comes up with his sword to defend himself. He does not do this by making Absetzen into a right lower hanger, because then your sword would be on the wrong side of his to do the later actions; he probably comes up into a left upper hanger, with his blade underneath yours.
- you remain strong against him, not letting him bring up his point into a threatening position.
- he decides to leave the bind and comes round with a Schnappen kind of action, out from his left upper hanger (a common move that we see quite regularly!) and strikes round at the right side of your head.
- you dive out to the left with your left foot and strike him with a cross-wrist long edge Zwerhaw to the head, that binds his Schnappen (providing opposition) and cuts him in the head.
- then you do Duplieren and/or other stuff and make sure that he is busy and occupied either dealing with your strikes (and not trying to hit you back) or becoming dead

For sequence D, I suggest the following interpretation:

- he comes from Vom Tag and cuts at you.
- you do not void, but instead make Versetzen with your sword, probably with something like a Zornhaw from your right shoulder.
- he tries to come round from this bind with a cross-wrist Zwerhaw to the right side of your head.
- then you drop your sword in a short edge Zwerhaw to his left side, coming underneath his Zwerhaw with yours, OR
- dive out to your left side with your left foot, ignore his sword, and go straight to his arm with a slice that carries through into the head [treib den snid Im über sein arm zum kopffe], controlling his arms and hurting his head.

[KeithFarrell]

Conclusions

Sequence A seems very similar to Mutieren:

Mutating.

When you bind against his sword with an Oberhau or something similar, so wind the short edge against his sword and go up in an orderly fashion with the arms; and hang your sword blade over his sword on the outside and thrust into him through the lower openings. This can be done on both sides.

Glosa The two outer takings are two followings-after with the sword. When he cuts in front of you, travel after him. If he defends himself against this, and you are left with your sword against his, feel to see if he is weak or strong in the bind. If he then strongly lifts your sword up and away with it, reach your sword to the outside over his and thrust in against the lower openings.

Sequence B doesn't really seem similar to any other plays. It does share the same idea as sequence A of going around the opponent's weak with your strong when he stands in an upper hanger in order to control his point and to give you an opportunity to go in with your own thrust.

Sequence C looks a bit like the kind of situation we see in sparring a lot at the moment, with someone defending against an Oberhaw by coming through a left upper hanger / hanging guard and then coming round with Schnappen. However, this is beaten by the Zwerhaw, in good "the Zwerhaw takes away all the comes from above" style.

Sequence D looks an awful lot like the counter to the Zwerhaw from the bind:

A counter against the upper Zwerchau.

When you bind against his sword from the right side with an Oberhau or similar attack, if he strikes round with the Zwerchau against your other side, do the same back to him, throw a Zwerchau under his sword against his neck.

Item. A break against a high Thwart-hew.
Bind upon his sword with a High-cut from your right side. If he he strikes around with the Thwart-hew, then Thwart-hew ahead of him under his sword upon his neck.

Item. Another technique [sequence D of the outer takings]

When he strikes before you and you strike him in the After, then bind directly upon his sword against his left side. If he then quickly attempts to leave the parrying with the Thwart-hew to your right side, then Simultaneously preempt him with the Thwart-hew below his sword against his left side upon his neck or spring with the left foot to his right side and cut past his strike to the right side or execute the Slice over his arm to the head.

Are there any conclusions we can draw from this investigation about the outer takings? They seem a little like a random set of techniques, without much order or pattern. They also seem to draw heavily on inspiration from elsewhere within the system, such as the Mutieren or the Zwerhaw slinging under the opponent's Zwerhaw. What makes these techniques stand out and warrant the name of "outer takings / eußern nÿm"?

I will stop posting for a little while now, and let people digest and think about this thread. Hopefully people will make a response, and in particular I hope Dustin says something, since it was his statements in the other thread that sparked my interest to start this discussion