Historical European Martial Arts has a curious habit of making everyone feel like they have just stepped into a manuscript, right up until they realise their beautifully dramatic strike has left them wide open and about to be tapped smartly on the mask.
The best HEMA techniques are not always the flashiest. They are the movements and ideas that appear again and again in the old treatises, from Johannes Liechtenauer and Joachim Meyer to Fiore dei Liberi and Ridolfo Capo Ferro. They are the techniques that survive first contact with a resisting opponent, and the ones that separate a fencer who merely knows the names from a fencer who actually understands what they are doing.
Below are the core techniques every HEMA practitioner should know, whether you study German longsword, Italian swordsmanship, rapier, sabre, or sword and buckler.
The Guards: Where Every Fight Begins
Every HEMA system begins with guard positions. These are not static poses designed to look impressive for a photograph. They are active positions that threaten, protect, and prepare.
German longsword has the famous four principal guards:
- Vom Tag, held high and ready to strike
- Ochs, with the point threatening forward near the head
- Pflug, a lower guard ideal for thrusts
- Alber, deceptively low and often used to tempt an attack
The Italian tradition uses guards such as Posta di Donna, Posta Longa, and Posta Breve. Fiore’s guards flow into one another with a kind of quiet menace, as though every position is already halfway to the next attack.
A beginner often treats guards like checkpoints. Stand here. Pause. Move there. The historical masters did not see them that way. Guards were transitional. If you remain frozen in one for too long, your opponent begins to look at you the way a hungry cat looks at a pigeon.
Oberhau: The Classic Descending Cut
The Oberhau, or descending cut, is perhaps the most recognisable attack in German longsword. Delivered from a high guard, it cuts diagonally downward toward the opponent’s head or shoulder.
The movement seems simple. In reality, a good Oberhau depends on:
- Proper edge alignment
- Rotation of the hips and shoulders
- Controlling the centre line
- Recovering into a safe position after the strike
Too many beginners swing with their arms alone and produce something resembling an angry windmill. The manuscripts are clear that power comes from the whole body.
A strong Oberhau is not simply a strike. It is a declaration of intent. It says, politely but firmly, that the centre of the fight belongs to you.
Unterhau: The Rising Cut Nobody Respects Enough
The Unterhau, or ascending cut, rarely gets the same attention as the dramatic descending strikes. That is a shame, because it is one of the most useful attacks in HEMA.
Thrown from below, the Unterhau can:
- Attack the hands or arms
- Catch an opponent who is holding a high guard
- Break the rhythm of a more predictable exchange
- Transition smoothly into a thrust or bind
A rising cut can be particularly nasty in close play. There is something faintly insulting about being caught by a strike you barely noticed until it was already on its way.
Zwerchau: The Horizontal Troublemaker
The Zwerchau, often translated as the thwart cut, is one of the famous Meisterhäue, or master cuts, of the Liechtenauer tradition.
It travels horizontally, usually aimed at the opponent’s head, and is especially effective against someone attacking from above.
The beauty of the Zwerchau is that it does several things at once:
- Deflects an incoming attack
- Closes the line
- Threatens the opponent immediately
- Forces them to react rather than continue their own attack
When done well, it feels almost unfair. When done badly, it tends to feel like you have attempted to swat a wasp with a curtain pole.
Thrusting: The Fastest Way to End a Fight
HEMA students often begin with cuts because they feel more dramatic. Yet the old masters repeatedly stress the importance of the thrust.
A thrust is direct, efficient, and difficult to stop once properly launched. German longsword uses the stich. Italian systems call it the punta. Rapier fencing, of course, turns the thrust into something close to an obsession.
The thrust succeeds because it travels in the shortest possible line. A cut must travel in an arc. A thrust goes straight to the target.
Key principles include:
- Keeping the point aligned with the target
- Extending at the right moment
- Using footwork to maintain distance
- Recovering immediately if the attack misses
Many students discover the value of the thrust after spending months enthusiastically throwing cuts, only to be defeated by someone who simply extended their point calmly and efficiently. It is a humbling experience. HEMA provides many of those.
Winden: Winning the Fight in the Bind
Winden, or winding, is one of the most important and least understood techniques in German longsword.
It happens after the blades make contact. Rather than simply pushing harder, the fencer rotates the sword around the bind to gain a stronger position and threaten a thrust.
The old masters loved winding because it combines attack and defence in a single movement. A skilled fencer can:
- Control the opponent’s blade
- Create an opening
- Threaten the face or chest with the point
- Change lines without losing pressure
At first, Winden feels deeply unnatural. Most people respond to pressure by pushing back. Winding asks you to be clever rather than strong.
There is an important life lesson hidden in there somewhere, although admittedly it is one that arrives while wearing a fencing mask and being hit in the forearms.
Fühlen: Feeling Through the Blade
Fühlen, literally meaning “feeling”, is the ability to sense your opponent’s pressure and intention through blade contact.
This is one of the most sophisticated ideas in HEMA. You do not simply react to what you see. You react to what you feel.
If your opponent presses hard in the bind, you may yield and go around them. If they are weak, you may drive through.
A good fencer develops this sense gradually through sparring and drilling. There is no shortcut. The first few months often involve a great deal of confusion and the occasional moment of revelation.
Suddenly you feel the opponent overcommit. Suddenly you know exactly where the opening is. Then you miss entirely because your feet are in the wrong place. Progress in HEMA has a wonderfully cruel sense of humour.
Absetzen: Defence and Attack at the Same Time
Absetzen, often translated as setting aside, is another classic German technique.
Instead of parrying first and then attacking, Absetzen does both together. The sword intercepts the incoming attack while simultaneously driving the point into the opponent.
This technique matters because it reflects one of the central principles of historical fencing: do not waste time.
A proper Absetzen:
- Deflects the enemy blade off line
- Keeps your own point threatening throughout
- Uses the shortest movement possible
- Seizes initiative immediately
There is something wonderfully economical about it. Medieval fencing masters clearly had little patience for unnecessary flourishes, and frankly neither should we.
Parries and Counter-Parries
Parrying in HEMA is not about meeting force with force. The goal is usually to redirect the opponent’s attack while staying balanced and ready to respond.
A good parry should be:
- Small rather than exaggerated
- Timed precisely
- Followed immediately by a counterattack
- Supported by proper footwork
Counter-parries become important once both fencers start reacting quickly. One parry leads to another, then another, until the exchange resembles a rather violent conversation in a language only the two of you understand.
Italian rapier systems excel at this kind of intricate exchange, but it appears across many HEMA disciplines.
Footwork: The Technique Beneath Every Other Technique
If there is one truth every HEMA instructor repeats endlessly, it is this: your feet matter more than your sword.
Without proper footwork, even the finest technique collapses.
Important forms of footwork include:
- Passing steps
- Gathering steps
- Advancing and retreating
- Offline movement
- Lunges in rapier and sabre systems
Good footwork controls distance and angle. It lets you attack while staying safe. It creates openings that did not exist a moment before.
The frustrating part is that footwork is rarely glamorous. Nobody joins HEMA dreaming of spending twenty minutes practising stepping drills in a village hall. Yet after a few years, most fencers realise those drills mattered far more than the spectacular spinning cut they were so desperate to learn.
Which Technique Matters Most?
Every HEMA system has its own emphasis. German longsword values the bind and the master cuts. Italian longsword often places more emphasis on timing and fluid transitions. Rapier prioritises thrusts and measure. Sabre thrives on speed and angle.
Yet the same ideas appear again and again:
- Control the line
- Keep your balance
- Threaten while defending
- Move your feet before you move your ego
If I had to choose the single most important technique, I would probably say footwork, although that answer is admittedly much less exciting than claiming the secret lies in some devastating master cut hidden in a dusty manuscript.
Sadly, the old fencing masters were usually correct. The clever foundations win fights. The dramatic flourishes merely make for better stories afterwards.
Takeaway
HEMA is not really about collecting techniques like trading cards. It is about understanding how they connect.
The Oberhau leads into the bind. The bind leads into Winden. Winden depends on Fühlen. All of it fails if your footwork is poor. The techniques are pieces of a larger system, and that system only comes alive through practice.
The medieval masters often wrote as though their students already understood half of what they meant. Modern HEMA can therefore feel rather like trying to assemble a complicated piece of furniture with instructions translated from 15th century German and accompanied by a sketch that looks suspiciously like a turnip.
Even so, there is something deeply satisfying about it. Bit by bit, the old techniques stop being strange words in a manuscript and become real movements with real meaning. That is the point where HEMA stops being a hobby and starts feeling like a conversation across the centuries.
