Komme aber mit deinem linken Fuß vor und führe dein Hellebarde wie zuvor in der Oberhut zur linken Seite. Von dort haue mit der Schärfe des Blatts neben deiner linken Seite von unten gegen seine rechte Seite, übersich überort durch sein Gesicht. Mit solchem Unterhau fahre mit beiden Armen hoch, so dass du nach Ende des Haus deine Hellebarde mit beiden Händen zur rechten Seiten hoch neben deinem Kopf hälst und die Spitze dem Mann gegen sein Gesicht steht.
Hiermit wende dich wohl auff deine rechte Seite, also das du ihm den halben Teil deines Rückens zukehrst. Und reiße alsbald neben deiner Rechten von unten diagonal überort übersich gegen seine linke Seite durch sein Gesicht. So dass deine Hellebarde nach Ende des Reissens hinter deiner linken Schulter aussehe, so stehst du also bereit zu einem gezuckten Oberhau.
Von dort wende die scharfe Schneide deines Blatts wieder neben oder hinter deiner lincken Seite undersich und haue abermals neben deiner Lincken von unten diagonal übersich gegen seiner Rechten überort zu seinem Gesicht durch. Und wende dich mit solchem Unterhau abermals wohl gegen deine rechte Seite, auf dass du wieder wie zuvor mit dem Haken deiner Hellebarde neben deiner rechten Seite von unten auf übersich gegen seiner Linken durch sein Gesicht reißen kannst.
Now come with your left foot forward and use your halberd as before in the Oberhut (Upper Guard) to the left side. From there, strike with the edge of your halberd from below along 
your left side to his right side, above and over the point through his face. With such Unterhau (strike from below) get high with both arms so that at the end of the strike you have your halberd with both hands high at the right side next to your head and the point is against the man’s face.
With that you turn your right side, so you present him half of your back. And tear immediately along your right from below over the point diagonally to his left side to his face. So after the tearing your halberd will be behind your left shoulder, and you find yourself ready for a twitched Oberhau.
From there, turn the sharp edge of your blade again below and beside or behind your left side and cut again from the bottom next to your left diagonally to his right over the point to his face. And turn forward with such Unterhau again towards your right side, so that you can tear the same again with the hook of your halberd beside your right hand side of from the bottom to his left side to his face.
Explanation
For the Explanation of the terms see “Joachim Meyer: Kreutzhauw in der Hellenparten von oben”
Interpretation
Meyer starts this thing in the Left Oberhut again. This is the same starting position as the first Kreuzhau. The left foot steps in front and slightly to the side in the first strike.
Again, the target is the face. The strike from below is not trying to hit in the hip or leg. This is important, it brings weapon significantly in front of yourself and thus provides some protection from the enemy’s actions. A spatially coverage.
It start’s with a axe strike from below. So the first thing we have to do: is to bring the halberds head down. This is done by a rotation of the hook backward. But very early in that half circle we have to turn the axe blade in position for the strike, so that the blade is running forward. With that we strike into the right ox position again. Please note, that this is done with moreor less elongated arms. Do not let your arms get short.
From the right Ox you twist your body to the right side and strike again from below. But this time with the hook. Use a rotating motion to bring the axe blade to your back and when your axe is looking to the ground again, turn the halberd, so that the hook is showing to your opponent. From below do a backhand tearing/striking movement while you align your body again. It is a mixture between playing golf and shoveling heavy sand.
Get your hook up again so that is showing to the opponents face and then up so that the axe blade is showing to the opponent and the halberd is ready for a fast strike from your left shoulder. You should be back in the left Oberhut and start all over again.
Conclusion
So in both “Kreuzhau” you strike with the blade, rotate your halberd and tear with your hook. In the first you strike from above from both sides, in the second “Kreuzhau” you strike from below. This differs from the both “Treiben” that will follow the both “Kreuzhau”.
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Note: The original text is a printed one, so it is readable for everybody. Therefore I do transcribe the texts fluently and freely to a readable more modern German, without changing the meaning of the original text. To keep the text readable I do not mark any changes or additions done by me. The translation is based on the modern German text and translates the special “Meyer” language of the Fencing manual.
Remarks: the translation of “Zucken” to “twitching” is not exactly matching. It is a small backward or forward movement with the blade. There is no perfect translation to that word. On one hand it means “withdrawing” the blade a bit, on the other hand it means to threaten with the weapon.
This is a not proofread, uncorrected version. My first draft. If you have any recommendations, corrections, or annotations that will improve the content on this page, please help me by commenting. You will find the original of this transcription here: Meyer, Joachim: Gründtliche Beschreibung des Fechtens, Straßburg, 1570 [VD16 M 5087]
See the Glossary of translated terms for more information.
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Hans Talhoffer 
It is so great to see that you are working with this! As you may know I have been spending quite a lot of time working on this particlar section of Meyer’s treatise of 1570. So, I am glad to see that more people are picking this up!
Here is our interpretation of the Kreutzhauw from above. From below you simply reverse it.
We’ll shoot a nicer clip soon, but for now it will have to do. 🙂
Roger, as far as I can see this fits nearly my interpretation. But the movement of the “swing” backwards after the left Oberhau looks very unhappy. It is good for sweeping the floor but is too slow to bring the halberd in front again. Perhaps you try to resemble the position in the upper right corner of the Plate G “Fechten mit der Helleparten” XXXVIIb, but this is showing something different.
Because of the constant threat of thrusts each millisecond where the halberd is in your back is really dangerous. So this is to avoid.
Try to change it that way: Cross your extended arms in front of you while you move your right side backwards. That seams strange, but is a very common thing in the Long Sword, so we should not be afraid of it. You see this cross armed position in the Plate D “Fechten mit der halben Stange” XXVIII:
Using the cross arms you must turn the halberd two times along the shaft axis. Once after the strike has passed the face, second if you move it into the right Ox. The right Ox is a the clue element of the Kreuzhau because it is the only position where you can stab in it.
With respect, I completely disagree here. Crossing your arms with the polearms is rarely done in Meyer, even if he does so in that particular image. However, that is a rather particular technique where you shoot your backend over the opponent’s staff to control it, so you can strike him on the head. He does this to both sides, both from an inside and an outside bind.
Crossing your arms with a longsword and with a halberd is very different and although it works well in striking with the former, it is problematic with the latter.
To be able to do the kreutzhauw at full speed and power with a proper steel halberd I sincerely believe you need to use the mechanics we show in our video. It is the only way really to do a fast and powerful kreutzhauw. I have a good halberd which I have tried it with.
It is really not a slow motion, but actually quite fast and powerful and the clever thing about it is that you can cut back and change direction at will, something which is near impossible if you cross your arms. This makes it more dynamic than the interpretation with crossed arms.
Using the pattern you see in our clip you can actually use all guards passing from/through: Nebenhut – Steürhut – Oberhut Rechte – “Wechselhut” – Unterhut – Mittelhut – Oberhut Lincke – Nebenhut.
“Wechselhut” is not a guard that Meyer names for the halberd/staff, but it is used with the longsword and dussack and as you mentioned, we see something similar in the illustrations. Meyer doesn’t really describe how we should let the staff pass by our right side in the Kreutzhauw, but he mentions turning our back halfway, but it seems logical to me to work with this particular stance. And again, it is the only stance we have found to work properly. It is also a “mirror” of the Nebenhut stance and as such I believe it “completes” the whole body mechanics.
I’ll see if we can record something that shows the dynamics a bit better. 🙂
Roger, I do really understand your disagreement with that crossing arms. Because I had the same discussion with another guy who did staff fighting for some years in his own interpretation. He tried the movement I showed him in a video and this is his next response:
“I managed to test your interpretation today, I’m pleasantly surprised. I would change a bit on the finer points (which is surely the fact that my halberd was 220cm long and somewhat top-heavy than the timber simulator you used in the video), but basically I am struck by the movement and proximity to the source.”
Doing the Kreutzhau most people generate the power from the acceleration of the weapon to be fast. But this is entirely wrong because you have to be able to generate the power in some “dead points” in the halberd. There is no running through in that weapon like in the staff. It has blade and hook. So every block or parade pattern will result in a dead stopped weapon. If you rely on power generation from the impetus of your former movement, you loose.
Power results from the muscles and the sinews. In your interpretation you rely mostly on the muscles to gain power and you need a big body movement, rotating hip etc. I can walk wherever I want while doing any Kreuzhau while being faster than you in my hau. Check out the forum I named you, I presented some videos there to discuss the movement.
It’s only a staff and that changes things a bit, but the basic pattern is similar:
Of course with a halberd you also use your axe head to “shovel” the opponent’s weapon away, using the kreutzhauw.
Yes, we have some similar patterns in the staff, but Meyer did not made a special halberd chapter in his book, if it is similar. He only teaches us the differences in that chapter, so if you do something completely similar, you do something wrong.
Even the “ander Treiben” that is nearly the same as the “Treiben” in the staff has some different aspects.
I’ll try to respond more properly later but I find it very interesting that we argue the same advantages, more dynamics, speed, control etc but with two very different interpretations. I really believe that our interpretation is more in line with what we see in Meyer. The body mechanics with the twisting of feet, hips and shoulders and turning your back against your opponent is used in the dussack and the longsword as well. Doing it like that makes it easy and less complicated doing the kreutzhauw with the halberd, while retaining full control so you can stop or change the motion into something else. Parrying or thrusting is easy, which I don’t see in using crossed arms.
We originally thought the same, but we found it too complicated and too little dynamic. Also, I don’t see any proper examples of crossing your arms when moving around in Meyer’s polearms section.
I disagree that there is no running through with the halberd. You can use both the axehead like a cross and the point to parry, if you aim right. Also, and correct me if I am wrong since I am short on time and can’t check it properly, he describes the kreutzhauw as striking against the opponent’s body. Later he describes how to parry and bind with the axehead in various ways, and I think this is part of first striking with the kreutzhauw and if you miss and he thrusts, you learn how to quickly parry. This I think is very hard to do properly with crossed arms.
I will take a look at your forum again though, but I do not agree with all of the video interpretations I have seen, although I know there is one that was quite similar. 🙂
Also, the Kreutzhauw should not be regarded in isolation. You would of course rarely strike continuous Kreutzhauw neither with the staff nor with the halberd. It is designed to teach us how to be dynamic in working with the guards. That is why all guards can be included in it. It is part of attacking, failing and being counter-attacked. Crossing your arms will inevitably give you less control to change your motion into a parry or counterattack. At least this is our experience after having tried both versions.
Roger, I do not wish to dive deeper in this. Not because I disagree with your findings. I see them well thought and good founded. To work cross armed is not easy because it is nothing we are used to do.
But I do not have the time for a descent discussion.
Let us hope, that we meet some day, so we compare hands on. And that I will find the time to fill this blog up with the rest of the halberd, so that we have a complete picture of my interpretation.
I completely understand and respect that! I know very well how time-consuming and distracting these things can get. I am just glad to see other very serious people taking on the challenge of understanding Meyer and his polearms in particular, since it is what I have dedicated myself to for the last few years. 🙂
I look forward to following your interpretations and perhaps exchanging ideas and videos in the future. And I too hope we can get to meet at some event soon,
Roger, as I told you in Facebook, I corrected my interpretation that what flawed because I overlooked a word in the text while transcribing it. So thanks for your posting that had made me aware of that mistake.