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Post by bob77 on Jun 13, 2020 16:14:18 GMT
Hello,
As a left hander longsword user I have real issue with my cuts coming from my left side.
I still don't realy understand if the power (blow) must be send with my non-dominant hand near he pommel or my dominant hand near the guard. I perform the cuts from my right side without any problem with my non-dominant hand, but I'm not sure what hand must provide the power for cuts from the left side.m M aybe there are some left-handers here who could give me some help about that?
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Post by leviathansteak on Jun 14, 2020 8:38:53 GMT
Im right handed but perhaps i can give some advice. I won't use left and right to refer to the hands to avoid confusion.
For a more powerful cut, I'll use both arms more or less equally. However, your natural tendency will be to use your dominant hand more. This means that you should train to really utilise the non dominant hand or youre missing out on all that structure and power.
To train yourself to use your non dominant hand, try cutting while barely holding on with the dominant hand (hand practically open). You will notice that the non dominant hand starts to play a greater role in your cutting. Your non dominant elbow should be straight when the sword hits the target, and still straight at the end of your cut. The wrist should also be locked.
I do however use my dominant hand more when delivering quick 'sniping' cuts to hands and such.
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Post by Timo Nieminen on Jun 14, 2020 9:26:29 GMT
For a more powerful cut, I'll use both arms more or less equally. However, your natural tendency will be to use your dominant hand more. This means that you should train to really utilise the non dominant hand or youre missing out on all that structure and power. To add to this: A powerful cut isn't from your arm muscles. Much of the arm motion is from the shoulder, and uses the muscles in your torso (back, lats, chest). You're not doing a push-and-pull with your two hands on the hilt - both hands are moving the sword in the same direction. In addition, you get extra oomph from your hips. For upward and downward cuts, you'll have a fair bit of motion from the shoulder. For horizontal cuts, much of the motion will come from your hips. You should be able to cut reasonably effectively horizontally starting and finishing with both hands in front of your body, with almost all the rotation coming from your hips. For example, here you can see that the hands move downward during a Zornhau, but have very little left-right movement relative to the body. The horizontal motion comes from the hip rotation. With the Mittelhau, which doesn't have the big up-down motion, the motion is almost all from the hip: Another video to look at for up-down motion of the hands and left-right motion relative to the body. Again you will see that the horizontal motion mainly comes from the hips: If your body is happy with your hips rotating each way, there should be very little difference in your motion between cutting left-to-right and right-to-left. One way, your wrists will be crossed, and the other way they won't be. But this doesn't significantly affect your motion during the cut. (Assuming you are cutting with the front edge.) If your hips don't like to rotate the same each way, get a stick, and hold it in both hands, with one hand holding the other, like you would holding a one-handed sword in two hands: Hold the stick pointing forwards, and a little tip-up. Now turn the tip to the right, keeping your hands straight in front of your body. Now "cut" to your left, keeping your hands straight in front of your body. All of the motion should be from your hips. Now turn the tip to your left, and "cut" right. You can also do this making contact with a suitable target. Two-handed grip on jian photo from www.kungfumagazine.com/index.php?p=article&article=1052
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