How to fight single combat with the viking shield | 4 - Offense

How to fight single combat with the viking shield

If you are a beginner and still struggle to handle the shield, have a look at my recent exercise-video:

If you are interested how sparring in the combat reconstruction system does look like, here you go:

For a brief overview on archaeological finds of viking age scandinavian roundshields:

[dutifulanglo]

This was excellent! I really appreciated the use of the "first person" camera for techniques which were difficult to see from the normal camera. Thanks for this great series!

[maihem]

Great video, I especially liked how when you attacked the leading leg you used your shield to protect your head from the obvious counter attack.

[oddthearcher]

Excellent well worth the wait, looking forward to utilising this in my training sessions and working on analysing openings on the fly I usually see an opening but am not great at reacting to new openings that that creates when they block

[sabinekaiser]

I love your channel and content, what sword for practice did you use here or do you recommended?

[jdjdjdjd]

Nice video!
Only thing I disagree with is that you need to shield your head.
I believe most helmet are more than enough protection for most bladed attacks.

[Tsurukiri]

Nice location you have there! And I think the video quality is just fine.

Attacking first is a big tactical problem in sword and shield. Any safe attack requires that your opponent is unable to simultaneously attack you. This is difficult to achieve when opponent has a shield and is holding the sword back where you cannot reach it.

Also, this is a good display of the issues with having the shield held up and to the side (in A frame). As shown, you will have problems in parrying thrusts and your lower legs from this position. Interestingly, you both sometimes drop out of that stance to a more closed form where shield is held at waist level and the boss is facing the opponent. To me this seems to work better for you in parrying the opponent’s strikes but what do you think?

There are a few nice shield punch blocks in this video. This is when you punch with the shield boss to the direction of the incoming sword hand. The only point I’d say that those may work better with shield foot forward in the starting position. And you need to get closer to hit the opponents sword hand with the shield boss, to get strong control of it. Then step to the right and get the leg or head depending what is open.

Punch blocking is great in that you can catch all strikes and thrusts and even the feints with a simple move (just punch for opponent’s sword hand) and it also sets you up for your counterstrike or thrust.

Looking forward to the next Episode!