In the Lichtenauer Glosses we frequently see instructions such as “when you bind”*, indicating that the “bind” is a prerequisite for the movement to follow. What it doesn’t do a very good job of is telling us what the “bind” is. (I’m done with quotation marks now.)
You don’t, on the other hand, see instructions to establish a bind*, or that the bind is a good thing to be in. Read it again and check for yourself.
Before we dive into why my ideas are brilliant, I’ll get the disclaimers out of the way. I am very sure there isn’t enough information available to determine what they actually meant by bind. In fact, I think you would have a hard enough time proving that it isn’t context dependent. So rather than split hairs I am doing the following:
- Finding something that fits the text (which is not so difficult).
- Figuring out the definition that does the best job of informing how we should train and fight.
And point #2 is where we will start.
Why Aren’t They Binding?
Anyone who is familiar with sour grapes internet bitching about tournament finals will probably have heard someone admonish the fighters for not binding enough. As the bind is the flag by which we can use to distinguish the posers from practitioners of the True Art™. Which is interesting given that we have a lot of tools for punishing people who leave the bind. None of these tools which seem to be good at forcing people to bind.
In the above diagram, we see 2 all the time. We have been trying for a decade to make #3 happen better (which, in theory, would strongly discourage #2), and haven’t seen an earth-shattering change. But, what if it is actually a poor understanding of #1 which is causing the underlying issues?
The most common description of the bind I see is “the two swords are touching”. And based on what I am seeing in practice (bind devices having a poor track record of execution) I think that we could probably stand to think about what a bind is a little bit more. What if the failure to execute binds techniques is that we are trying to do them when we don’t actually have a bind?
(There is also the “we suck” explanation. While I whole heartedly believe we all suck, the degree to which we have been able to lower the overall level of suck in everything else suggests there is more than that going on.)
Citation Needed?
There are places where it does say “if they parry or if they bind”. That certainly does suggest that a parry isn’t automatically assumed to be a bind, even though it is a sword touching. While far from conclusive the sources do support “a bind is not just swords touching” more than “a bind is swords touching”.
Which is about all the help we are going to get without summoning the ghost of Lichtenauer. So back to modern analysis.
Attack Outcomes
When you attack someone you have three broad categories of outcome:
- You hit them
- You don’t hit, but they aren’t threatening you.
- You don’t hit, but they are threatening you.
Now, this could mean that they just stepped back without making any blade contact, but I think that we will agree that that doesn’t factor into anyone’s definition of the bind. #1 also doesn’t interest us a ton, because we hit them directly. If we are doing a sparring match we stop, if we want to be sure that they are dead we double tap. (Or more, if you’re a Dobbringer fan.)
In the case where they are able to parry our blade, but offer no threat, instructions are pretty clear. Keep your blade free of theirs and keep going. Outer taking, changing through, zwercopter to the four openings – these are all examples of what to do when not threatened. Things that we see all the time from beginner to high level tournament fencers.
The interesting case is when they parry, but you are threatened. By virtue of this threat, you can’t just take your sword away, or else you would be in severe danger of being hit. And there is a corollary: if you kept your sword free and weren’t hit you (probably) weren’t really threatened by their defence.
And Thus, I Present The Bind
Using this definition I propose that the bind is the state where you are both threatening the other, and you can not remove the sword safely. And remember, if you removed the sword and hit you were probably safe to do so – note that I’m assuming we are going with a reasonable definition of safe that doesn’t include “I was only safe from doubling by a hair’s breadth.”
This is a little bit of a tautological definition. But let’s look at a real tautology: “the bind is the place in which the bind techniques work”. And I propose that my definition of bind satisfies this statement way better than “whenever the swords are touching”.
Bind Identification Guide
One thing my method does not do is present an easy identification as to what is, and isn’t, a bind. Which is kind of by design. I’ve previously written about our desire to classify techniques with simple this-beats-that mechanics (Video Game Conception of Martial Arts). So if you ask “does doing a point up parry vs a zornhau produce a bind”, the answer is always “it depends”. What angles are the blades meeting at? Which direction is each person pushing? You can, and will, have identical techniques on paper that produce radically different interactions.
To understand if something is, or is not, a bind you must picture what the individual parties are set up to do, how much threat is being generated by each. …Threat over and above the fact that two people are standing in close proximity with swords and intent to hit each other.
| Clues that it is a bind | Clues that it isn’t a bind |
| If one person relaxed their sword their opponent’s edge would continue forward and drive a slice. | One party removes their sword to cut around or disengage, and they don’t get hit. |
| One person is chambered to deliver a strike through the space the other sword occupies. | You are both focused on feeling, not attacking. |
| A person is pushing in a way that would drive their point online if not for the other sword. | You are both doing Fiore, because bind is a German martial arts term. |
Picture example:
In the left picture the fencer doing the zwerhau can freely cut to the other opening. In the picture on the right they can not simply abandon contact and cut around, they must work on the blade somehow first – such as shoving the blade off with the crossguard to facilitate the cut around.
Conclusion
This is where I say something snarky to marginalize everyone who disagrees with me, and make their views seem worthy of ridicule. Enjoy!
Bonus Section!
I made a nice flowchart.
* I lie, it happens once. In the Krumphau section there is an instruction to bind.