Pflug
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Plough
15th Century
Pseudo von Danzig tells us to: "stand with your left foot before and hold your sword with crossed hands, with the pommel below you near your right side on your hip, so that the short edge is above and the point stands in against his face."
He tells us to do the same with uncrossed hands on the other side: "stand with your right foot before and hold your sword near your left side, with the pommel below you on your hip, so that the long edge is above and the point stands in against the face. That is the Plow on both sides."
The Ochs guard is one of the lower Hengen and is 'broken' by the Scheilhau as described in the Vier Versetzen.
The fencer on the left depicts an Ochs position in each of these images. Notice the retracted hand position which differentiates it from the later period guard of the same name.
16th Century
Longsword
A low guard with the point online. The left plough (pflug links) is performed with the right leg forward in a forward posture & the sword held with uncrossed hands to the left of the right leg, the pommel approximately in line with the left hip. The “right plow” (pflug rechts) has the left leg forward, hands crossed, pommel on the right.
The blade may be angled with the long edge down and away from the body at 45 degrees, or with the thumb on the blade/crossguard angling downward toward the body at 45 degrees. The choice depends on the needs of the fencer; a 45 degree up position, for example, is useful when winding through pflug as it affords better hand protection.
This can be an on point final position for a cut from above after it has transitioned through langenort and pulled back toward the body.
Pflug is also used to parry strikes to the lower openings which keeping the point online.
The pflug is one of the four principal guards.
Pflug
A low onpoint guard held to the left or right of the lead leg, threatening with the point, just as the longsword version does.
Meyer's recommendations for parrying from pflug are:
