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Slicing Off : The meaning of this term is far from clear. Meyer’s description is the most detailed, and would appear to be a parry that deflects the incoming attack with a slicing motion of the blade; he refers the reader to his sections on other weapons.

Binding; Remaining; Feeling

A state of engagement with the opponent’s sword, usually brought about when one combatant has attacked and the other has parried. Once in the bind position, the combatant can remain with blades in contact, called remaining; here he can take the opportunity to sense his opponent’s intentions through the nature of the pressure on his blade, called feeling. There are 4 types of binds, high and low, each on the right and left

side The characteristic position in the bind is Longpoint.

Meyer also seems to use Remaining to mean a form of remise, following up a parried long-edge attack around the opponent’s blade with a short edge attack [17v]. Egenolph uses the term in the same sense [6v].

Much of the heart of longsword technique lies in the ability to sense quickly and accurately the opponent’s intent in a bind. A combatant can be either hard or soft in the bind, i.e. he can bind with pressure and commitment, or without it. The general rule is to be soft against a hard bind, and hard against a soft one [Döbringer 21v ff., 37v-38r]. Thus

if your opponent is hard in the bind, you might pull [Ringeck 19v; Starhemberg 31v], double [Starhemberg 16r-v], strike around [Ringeck 19v, 28r], or wind through with the pommel [Meyer 50r.1]; an alternative is to use winding (particularly by lifting your hilt) to gain leverage over his blade to allow you to cut or thrust [Ringeck 19v-20r; Meyer 51r; cf. Wallerstein 4r-v]. If your opponent is soft, you might pursue, slice, transmute, wind your way in to the opening with a thrust or short-edge cut, or wrench his blade to the side.

Hanging :

This term can refer to a number of actions executed with the blade at an incline (mostly downward to the point). One of its most frequent manifestations is a technique in which the blade slopes downward over an opponent’s guard to attack him. This is called the High Hanging and is more or less a version of the Ox Guard The Low Hanging in the early sources is essentially a version of the Plow used for an equivalent attack from below.

In Meyer, the High Hanging is still in use, but the Low Hanging has become a technique in which the blade, hanging downward, comes underneath the opponent’s incoming attack to catch it. The move is executed mostly from the Plow and other low guards; it is often a prelude to winding, and is closely related to sliding.

Sliding:

This is essentially a version of hanging executed from the Wrath Guard by sliding the sword under the opponent’s incoming attack.

Crown:

There appear to be two forms of this parry. One involves holding the sword in the half-sword position and catching the incoming attack with it. This is how the term is used by Mair and in Jörg Wilhalm, and would appear to be the sense in Starhemberg, which appears to describe the position as having the point and one quillon up. In Meyer, the Crown seems to be a form of catching in which the incoming attack is caught on the combatant’s quillons, which are held horizontal above the combatant’s head.

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