How to use a two-handed sword

[robloxpnr]

step one CUT HIM >:)

[Dannefan84]

How about deleting missinforming videos? People just troll on them anyway.

"Hi, I'm holding the longest sword man will ever use in battle, and you know what? I'm gonna shorten it by half so I can do a pommel strike, 'cause that's a good idea" No you're not, cause that would be stupid.

[dizelcsiga]

It might have been told already but, could you tell me exactly what these swords are made of? The one that I use seems too rigid, though it shouldn t be (mine is made of r-70 springsteel)

[Radge397]

Techniques he is showing is for the longsword NOT the two-hander. Longswords had dull but still effective cutting edges that can be grasped. As Two-handers where used to break into pike formations they were fully sharp. A side sword such as a Katzbalger would be carried for use against enemy swordsmen.

[feralwrath]

This looks like 1,5h sword, not 2h:).

[Protherium]

0:17

"chisel sharp, not razor sharp"

A common misunderstanding; swords need not to be as sharp as a razor blade, a properly honed edge bevel of 20-30° will cut paper and shave hair with ease.

No chisel bevels are found on antiques, only modern wallhangers and mass repros do have a chisel edge. Proof:

-- ht*tp:/*/ww*w.swordforum.c*om/­forums/showthread.p*hp?105673-­Debunking-European-Sword-Myths­.&p=1160259#post1160259 (Remove stars)

[ThaDudesAvlogger]

The person with the helmet is doing it wrong. They (presumably) have their strong hand underneath the cross guard of the sword, but their opposite hand is right beneath their strong hand. That's wrong. You put your opposite hand right above the pommel. This way you allow for more leverage.

[Nijaparyman]

That two handed type of sword is called flemberge. AND ITS EPIC

[sonnetxi]

@Nijaparyman Zweihänder. its lacking the 'flem' appearance

[Nijaparyman]

@sonnetxi yeah I relized that an hour after i posted it. Oops!

[soleil1326]

Using mordschlag was mainly in harnischfechten, i.e. fighting in armor. Also, holding the sword with good gloves, even if it is really sharp. won't cut you.

[jamesjiao]

Is that a claymore?

[mojothemigo]

@jamesjiao Claymores are specificaly of Scotland and a tiny bit different. This looks much more like a Zweihander of Germany. The wikipedia artcle for Zweihander has a picture that looks much more like this then does a claymore.

[AcAwSk8Vids]

fake and gay

[DiabolusIgnis]

@AcAwSk8Vids Like you, I presume.

[jason200912]

if you poke someone with a pummel than the edge would only slide through your hands

[biometal28]

in those times the blade was not as sharp because of the lack of technology Although, one could get a razor sharp blade by using a charcoal powder and leather, none the less the pommel is still part of the sword, AND IT HURTS.

[dunebuggybeaners]

that fat shit couldn't be his own dick.

[MrAlvinor]

Lol at people who are calling this stupid.

The greatsword was much more akin to polearms in technique than one handed swords. A greatsword isn't a simple oversized version of the slashing one handed sword, so it's used in a completely diferent way.

Educate yourself before you go calling the video stupid, all I'm saying.

[Canis1969Lupus]

"How to show your stupidity in public "

[NeBoFoRiOn]

i have a few chisels and ma man they are sharper thant a wet monkey no wayu could grabe the blade one slip even a small one and gloves and all will slice.but they probaly did what ever they hade to back in the day wish i was there.

[spleegulence]

@NeBoFoRiOn A sword blade isn't that sharp, With resonable gloves its fairly safe to grab the blade like that, i wouldn't have thought so either but i have done it. You would be surprised how dull a sword can be and still be a highly effective weapon

[TheGarcia350]

thank god for people who still know what a 2-hander even is.

[alastairfk13]

Good to see Stirling castle again, I pass it every day on the way to work. I've seen this demo a while back on one of their free days, very informative talk, this guy knows what he's talking about. I think some of the comments are a bit uninformed, seems to me people spend more time watching hollywood sword fights. In a real sword fight you literally battered, hacked and stabbed your opponent to death.

[ozzyfan1995]

Love the scottisch accent

[Del249]

holding a sword by the blade is pointless and retarded. it would be impossible to grab the weapon properly (resulting in inability to use full body power and increased risk of getting accidentally disarmed) and unless the blade was absolutely blunt your palms would get sliced the moment you hit something.

[BadMartini]

@Del249 Ever heard of bloody gloves? Or a ricasso for that matter? If you take 5 minutes to infrom yourself instead of making wild assumptions it might actually seem like you know something.

And for further reference lok up halfswording. It's a widely used set of techniques of the mediavel times.

[temmy9]

@Del249 Halfswording was very common. If you want to kill a man in plate with a longsword, you employed halfswording almost exclusively in order to give you the extra power and accuracy needed to stab the blade into the seams of the armour or to smash the face with the weapons hilt.

[tina6581]

Good simple explanation of the full use of a sword of this type. I have never done it with a real steal only with the wooden training swords. It very quickly becomes so natural to use the weapon in this way. I soon wound that I needed to stop myself from turning my epee round a bashing my opulent over the head with it. :-)

[spliffslider]

fire the camera man

[shizengenshou]

Well when you swing your sword down at her sword... he sword is more inclined to slice at your knee/thigh in order to counter that bash downward xd

[yiblon]

I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest.

[pirotess2]

This move only for knight with steel glove, not for barehand. With steel glove a knight can hold the sharp of a claymore v.v...

[Ranziel1]

@pirotess2 You can hold a sharp sword with a bare hand, look at this vid:

watch?v=7rqP1F36EMY

[LadyArwenUndomiel7]

@MGIBlaze That makes sense. I have no sword training myself, so I'm just guessing at things here. :)

[playerjosh14]

this was used mainly by European knights during armour v armour combat. you also have to remember that if in a armour v armour fight the blade snaps because he was slashing plate mail with it, lighter foes will kill him with ease

[sinh1992]

Lol, as sharp as it is... why would you hold it by the blade? as much as for gripping, the harder you grip the harder it will cut your hand.

[LadyArwenUndomiel7]

I forget if it's in this video or the other one that I have, where he mentions that this particular blade is only chisel-sharp, not razor-sharp...

[sinh1992]

But still, as sharp as paper... it still cut. The friction to the skin... i doubt he'll have trouble stabbing someone with a sharp tip... not to mention, there is a handle on the tip now. Other wise, i think the next weapon to look up to is a pole.

[darthmongoose2]

these are mostly techniques used against armoured opponents

you'd be wearing leather gloves at the very least anyway

[MGlBlaze]

@LadyArwenUndomiel7 He mentions that it's only chisel-sharp in that video, but I'd still be adverse to gripping the blade, personally. If he had to exert a lot of force, I could imagine he'd still be able to slice into his own hands.

[Aresftfun]

@LadyArwenUndomiel7 it's this one.

[MrNicho0123]

@LadyArwenUndomiel7 dude, chisels are extremely sharp, at least modern ones are.

[Frostmoor]

@LadyArwenUndomiel7

Well important thing to understand is that the power you deliver with a single swing is large and even though blade isn't sharp (especially in the low parts of the blade, handgrip, some of two handers have even a second handgrip, look over flameberg) it can easily wipe a head from shoulders. Thing depends on the brute strenght (I wouldn't be able to swing such sword around me) and aim on vital points.

[bearincamo]

@LadyArwenUndomiel7 .. I believe you are correct. As this was an anti-armor weapon it was better to have a strong edge than a sharp one. Also the use of maille-lined gauntlets(gloves) allowed a solid grip of even a sharp blade. Another facet was that sometimes only the end 1/3 of the blade was razor sharp and the middle 1/3 was chisel sharp and the bottom 1/3 was not sharpened at all. That way they could grip along the blade to utilize the sword as a TOTAL weapon and therefore be more affective.

[halfassedfart]

@bearincamo I'm quite sure gauntlets were never lined with mail. For one, it's damn near fucking impossible to get a good grip on a weapon.

[bearincamo]

@halfassedfart .. Actually if you look it up you'll see they had leather with the maille rings embedded between two layers of leather. Check out gauntlets in Google images. These types were not common because of cost. However as the video uploader says; the blades were chisel-sharp, not razor-sharp.

[halfassedfart]

@bearincamo Errr, what? Pony up a source, because that's quite an extraordinary claim. It'd better not be some LARP or re-enactment store either.

As far as I know maille was never used on the inside of the hand, and with damn good reason.

[bearincamo]

@halfassedfart .. After reading your last comment I decided to look it up again. I found that the source I thought was legit, is in fact, not. (I won't post so nobody else is misinformed) So I stand corrected and recant the part of my comments that had to do with gauntlets having maille linings on the inside of the hand. Maille backed gloves were common, but never inside the hand. Naturally, I don't like admitting I'm wrong but I don't want any misinformation.

[halfassedfart]

@bearincamo Right. I thought that sounded suspicious. Thanks for admitting it in good grace, most people end up in a pissing contest.

[bearincamo]

@halfassedfart Haha, yeah most people do. I just try to have some self respect and honor even in the anonymity of the internet. And History deserves to be treated with care. Those who lived before us have fantastic stories to tell and misinformation only blots their story and honor.

[bearincamo]

@halfassedfart ..Thanks for correcting me.

[MarrowChiller]

@LadyArwenUndomiel7 He says it at 0:30.

[MoonLancer]

@sinh1992 tell you what sinh we should both armor up. I will use half swording techniques (as seen in the video) and you can use the sword however you feel like. We see who could land a fetal blow. 95% of the time it would like be me who delivers the fatal blow. Why? I would have much more control getting between the plates of armor. Armor worked... well. The only way to defeat it is to attack the gaps.

[NewZealfighter]

@sinh1992

I am going to take a guess.The incorrect ways of holding a sword like in the video would be in times your sword got locked up and you needed to free it and attack quickly instead of just standing there then you would resort to the incorrect manners of sword holding and attacking

if you ever fenced an experinced guy then you know how your blade can get locked up real fast

Personally I think the colins would be better used in half swording techniques,close work

[DistendedPerinium]

@sinh1992 Most of these swords were made primarily as piercing weapons, not slashing. The reason for this was they often went up against armor, against which slashing weapons perform poorly. The various striking points on these swords were sharp points or heavy and blunt (like the pommel) for piercing and smashing through armor. The edges of the blades were used mainly against "soft" (unarmored) targets. Also, most of the time, the wielders of these weapons would be wearing thick leather or mail

[gyramd]

@sinh1992 if you use it on the Battlefield you usley have a Armoured Gauntlet on with leather on you Palm

[JohnRaptor]

@sinh1992 Many swords may have only really been sharpened on the lower half to a third of the blade, making it safe to grab near the hilt. Also, cutting wounds require friction or impact. In other words, even if the blade is razor sharp, it's possible to grip it pretty firmly without cutting yourself, especially if you're wearing leather gloves. I've done it bare handed on a razor sharp two handed sword (not the smartest thing I ever tried but I didn't get cut).

[NeverwinterJunky]

@sinh1992 Imagine you are wearing leather/metal gauntlets. Also, when you grip a longsword by the blade to go into half blade, you are not wrapping your entire hand around the blade but instead gripping it between the tips of your fingers and your palm. We can assume that it is a valid fighting stance because it is validated in many historical manuscripts.

[LuciusTheFair]

@sinh1992

Halfswording was an extremely common technique, sometimes even with razor sharp swords. There are many ancient manuals on fighting that give specific techniques for how to handle the sword.

The most important things are actually to grip the sword tightly, pinch it in your hand, and DO NOT let your hand slip along the blade.

Halfswording was very useful when entering into krieg or for leveraging a sword into the chinks in someone's armor.

[SkodaMart]

@sinh1992

I agree. This looks like b.s. to me. should a spear be used as a quarter staff too?

[guitarwolf1]

@sinh1992 Normally they (the knights) used their sword with a glove, particularly a chain glove, so that their hands don't get cut.

[guitarwolf1]

@sinh1992 Normally they (the knights) used their sword with a glove, leather or particularly a chain glove, so that their hands don't get cut.

[tacticalmastermind]

@sinh1992 first, you would be using leather or chain gloves to protect yourself and secondly, like he said, it is only chisel sharp

[megadeth22885]

@tacticalmastermind well, this guys actually wrong.. swords back then were incredibly sharp... he would have sliced his fingers off trying to swing it by the blade with bare hands, its an idiot move they never did because once youve hooked the other guys weapon, whats stopping him from gripping the grip of yours and having both of them?.. i have manuals from germany and italy from the medieval and renaissanse periods, and none show moves as assinine and holywood as this one

[Mandolinpossum]

@megadeth22885 Not necessarily. Some swords, such as this one, would have performed better only somewhat sharp, as they were going against plate armour and maille. There's not much point in waving a razor blade at a steel plate or chain. What you really need is a sharp tip, or a smashing bit, such as the heavy pommel. The relative sharpness would still have been useful against fleshy targets. What is demonstrated here would no doubt be a last ditch effort, but it is indeed viable.

[bearincamo]

@megadeth22885 ,, I fully respect your knowledge, however, there was the use of weapons in this manor. Granted, it was only used with certain weapons. Such as the Zweihander. The term for the style was called "mit dem kurzen Schwert" which translates to "with the shortened sword."

[CraftingStars]

@sinh1992 Even sharpened swords can be gripped. You don't squeeze the bevel, you squeeze the flat. It's very common with longswords to "halfsword" (holding the hilt with one hand and blade with the other), or to "mordhau" (invert the sword and use it like a mace, as this vid demonstrated).

[imajerkable]

tats stupid

[yoyomasterbrad]

im pretty sure the germans invented that method of flipping the sword over and using the pommel. i dont remember wat it was in german, but translated it was called the "murder strike".

[LordofDonuts1]

mordhau, it would be.

[nightwalk15]

@yoyomasterbrad germans what?

[DaToCyLi]

Pfft, he knows nothing. You're supposed to launch it from the hip through their eye socket like in Monty Python, with comedy "SCHLICK!" sound.

[elgostine]

@DaToCyLi here HERE

[nomoreliesmaiden]

jeez, i had to fight against that guy once in a re enactment of wallace era battles, fuck he is fast, he literally took me sword out with one halberd swing and had me retreating while he pommelled me with the shaft, luckily i got my ass saved by another ally, he got me again later, ....cant remember his name, its on the tip of my tongue,...was part of historic saltire society

[Breaddemon]

This guy's a badass.

[TheOriginalEntz]

Even chisel sharp they can still do some damage if swung hard against no armor ! Great demonstration.

[ifm2181]

Good demo, people tend to forget why swords are designed in such a specific way, and why they rarely deviate.

[kokotenks]

true, theres way to many people these days that think the blade is the only part of a sword

[spleegulence]

@kokotenks thats is where in my opinion, the katana is a fail at a sword,