Introduction:
If you are like me, when you saw that someone wrote a book on one technique in the KdF tradition, your first thought was—holy shit, really? How could somebody write an entire book on one technique? But, it happened and after reading the book, I interviewed Alexander and we talked about it. A quick note about the podcast, you’ll periodically hear bells, and a break in the conversation. Unfortunately, due to a miscommunication with my family, we kept getting interrupted—often for long spells—so I decided to just put breaks where there wasn’t a concise flow back into the conversation after the interruption had subsided.
Before we go any further, for full disclosure, Alexander sent me a copy of the book to review. That has in no way colored by perception of the book.
The Schielhau In Detail Review:
First of all, I do the Shielhau the same way as Alexander, so I don’t disagree with his interpretation—though many of you may—and that’s okay. Before we get in to that, when I first started reading this book, I thought we were going to get a fairly detailed textual analysis, comparing a number of different sources, etymology, images, and some wild scholastic digression that could extend the discussion of an individual technique to 186 pages. That’s not what this is.
What the Schielhau in Detail represents—to me—is coaching on how to perform the shielhau structurally and tactically from a fairly experienced instructor. This book is not overly textual; the chapter discussing the historical texts is only 13 pages long, it’s not overly historical; in that it doesn't discuss the context or history of the period or authors in detail, and for all intents and purposes it’s not even about the shielhau specifically—as Alexander states, “(f)eel free to use your preferred term every time ‘Shielhau’ is mentioned or simply call it the ‘Alexander’s Strike’.”
For some, that might be the end of your interest in this book, but I would encourage you to hold your reservations, and hear me out. This is a good book. Foremost, the design and layout of the book is fantastic, but you can’t judge a book by it’s cover, so let’s talk about what’s in this book that’s worth your time and your money.
I’ve already stated that I do the Shielhau the same way as Alexander, the description of how to perform the technique against a number of different guards—notably pflug and longpoint—makes up the first third of the book (56 pgs). The next section is all about structure. From a coaching standpoint, I agree with almost everything that Alexander is putting down here. His discussion of structure and body mechanics, are really important, and much needed in secondary source HEMA literature (25 pgs). The subsequent 16 pages—chapter 5—discuss follow-up actions; from the vaunted zwerchau to grappling actions, and the final third of the book is about tactics.
What I kept thinking while I was reading this book was—where was this thing seven or eight years ago when I was a year or two in and looking for great supplemental works to improve my fencing. To me, that’s the target audience for this book. If you’re 1-5 years into HEMA—buy this book. If you’re training on your own—buy this book. It will do wonders for your fencing. For the old diehards and greybeards, you might find a number of things to disagree with, but I still think you should read it, because there’s always a chance that you might learn something, and even if you don’t it will challenge you to revisit your interpretation for the shielhau in order to form arguments against Alexander’s interpretation. That’s a healthy thing to do.
Do I think this is the most comprehensive work on the Shielhau ever written—the end all be all? No, probably not. Is it worth your time and money? Absolutely. Alexander is a clear and concise writer, and I personally found his images and descriptions of the techniques—agree or disagree—very clear and easy to follow. His section on structure is a must read. I would’ve liked to have seen more discussion on the glosses, and more references to the source text in the justification of the techniques being demonstrated, but I also understand that doing so would make the descriptions of the techniques more confusing and less clear. That’s just the nerd in me, but this book isn’t targeted at nerds, it’s targeted at HEMA practitioners, and that’s where it will find most of its traction.
Overall I would give the Shielhau in Detail:
7/10
You can find the book on Amazon, it’s available in every country, so you can search ‘The Shielhau in Detail by Alexander Fürgut”, or if you’re in the US you can follow this LINK.
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