Uploaded March 2022 | Updated September 2026, 21 hours ago
3 attacking principles for fighting with Sword and Shield. Achille Marozzo is one of the few historical sources that teaches to fight with the sword and a big shield. While his "Imbracciatura" (= strapped shield) seems fairly special, the techniques he shows us can easily applied to a wide array of earlier shields as well.
So if you want to fight with a pavise, a kite shield or a knightly triangle shield, this text could give you some historical (although later) context and some interesting exercises and insights.
00:00 Intro
00:29 Attacking around the Shield
02:42 Provoke your Opponent to move
03:47 Use your Shield offensively
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patreon.com/SchildwachePotsdam
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Music: The Witcher 3 - OST
Music Created By: Marcin Przybyłowicz, Mikolai Stroinski and Percival ♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪
3 attacking principles for fighting with Sword and Shield. Achille Marozzo is one of the few historical sources that teaches to fight with the sword and a big shield. While his "Imbracciatura" (= strapped shield) seems fairly special, the techniques he shows us can easily applied to a wide array of earlier shields as well.
So if you want to fight with a pavise, a kite shield or a knightly triangle shield, this text could give you some historical (although later) context and some interesting exercises and insights.
00:00 Intro
00:29 Attacking around the Shield
02:42 Provoke your Opponent to move
03:47 Use your Shield offensively
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you would like to support us, visit our patreon:
patreon.com/SchildwachePotsdam
Follow us on instagram:
instagram.com/schildwachepotsdam
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪
Music: The Witcher 3 - OST
Music Created By: Marcin Przybyłowicz, Mikolai Stroinski and Percival ♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪
![Learn Sidesword - #4 Defenses & Counters vs. Cuts [Full Lesson]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/PmqDnESDxD0/mqdefault.jpg "Learn Sidesword - #4 Defenses & Counters vs. Cuts [Full Lesson]
In this series we learn how to fight with a sword - or a sidesword to be precise. The modern term Sidesword is usually referring to transitional weapons between the medieval arming sword and the renaissance rapier - in their time, they were most often called spada (= sword), which is a one handed sword that could take any shape depending on its context. This is our current interpretation of Giovanni dallAgocchies defenses & counters for the single sword. Its based on the current translation of Jherek Swanger (an older one can be found on Wiktenauer, see down below).
This a part out of fifth principal heading (out of six in total), Giovanni dallAgocchie used to teach fighting with a sword.
Free Lesson Plan #1 (pdf):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cmje5yt3r6xn91v/Sidesword_Lessons.pdf?dl=0
Future lessons (videos) will be:
- Defenses & Counters (vs. Thrusts)
- Voids vs. Parries
- Different starting guards
- Historical defense & counters drill
- Provocations (multiple lessons)
- Strette (close play, multiple lessons)
- Tempi, moments to attack (Already did that! :D https://youtu.be/QhnEJ025Duo)
We used a Malleus Martialis, a Regenyei and a Kvetun Sidesword to film these.
Image & Media sources:
https://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Achille_Marozzo (images)
https://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Giovanni_dall%27Agocchie (you find the old translation here)
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:57 How to form coda lunga
03:13 Against a mandritto to the head
05:29 Advice on drilling
06:36 FOOTWORK!
10:28 Varying the attacks
11:33 Against a riverso to the head
12:54 MORE FOOTWORK!
14:25 Decision Drills
16:50 Against strikes to the front leg
18:45 Transitioning to sparring
20:24 Final words
If you would like to support us, visit our patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/SchildwachePotsdam
Follow us on instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/schildwachepotsdam/
♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪
Music Provided: Mediacharger - https://www.youtube.com/user/MediaCharger
Music Created By: Random Mind
Song Title: The Old Tower Inn
Credit link: https://goo.gl/cN3oi3
Creative Commons: Attribution
Music: The Witcher 3 - OST
Music Created By: Marcin Przybyłowicz, Mikolai Stroinski and Percival ♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪")
