Basic Information

4 Openings (high/low)

Meyer differs slightly from earlier masters in his division of the human body. Whereas earlier masters divided the body into a simple four quarters (upper left, upper right, lower left, lower right) Meyer also divides the head into four quarters. One can speculate that this represents a focus on blows to the head in 16th century fechtschulen as a means of “scoring”, though it may simply be a natural extension of older terminology to provide more accuracy/precision in practice.

Parts of the weapon

Meyer divides the sword further than previous masters. As you can see in the image above, aside from the usual true/false edge, he divides the blade into four sections:

• The “bind” or “haft” which includes the pommel, crossguard etc.
• The strong - the second “quarter” of the sword.
• The middle - lying between the strong and the weak.
• The weak - the tip of the sword.