Counter Network

[LS 12] states the aggregate claim: "four are the Versetzen that sorely hurt the four guards" — displacement in this system is an attack on a position, not a block. But the verse never says which hew hurts which guard; that mapping is the glossators', stated uniformly across the tradition. One of the four, however, is in the verse itself:

The fifth hew stands outside the square: the Zornhau breaks the Oberhau — the common attack, not a guard — "whoever hews at you from above, the Zornhau's point threatens him" ([LS 4], verse). The five hews thus cover the whole opening position-space: the four guards plus the raw descending blow.

The breakers are not apex predators; each has its named answer, and one chain is written out in full:

• Scheitelhau ← Kron ← Schnitt ← Hendtrucken — the Zettel's only complete four-step chain, all in [LS 10] and [LS 20]: the parting-hew is taken off by the Crown ("what comes from him, the Kron takes off"), the Crown is broken by the slice ("cut through the Kron, so you break it hard and fair"), and the slice converts to the pressing of hands. Verse, end to end.
• Krumphau ← the Krieg — "krump [on him] who irritates you: the noble Krieg will confuse him, so that he truly does not know where he is without danger" ([LS 7], verse): against the harassing crooked hew, enter the winding war; the krumper's bent line leaves him behind in the winding contest.
• Zornhau ← the bind cycle — the Zornhau paragraph itself narrates its answer: "if he becomes aware of it, take off above" — and the taking-off is answered by "be strong in return; wind, thrust" ([LS 4]). No node wins here; the exchange falls into the Krieg, where Fühlen decides.
• Twerhau, Schielhau ← (gloss only) — the verse names no counter to either; the gloss tradition counters the Twer with the slice from below onto the arms as he springs, and meets the Schielhau with reach and point-work. Marked honestly: these edges are not in the poem.

The Zettel's favorite edge-type: a named bad habit and the piece that farms it. All of these are verse:

Note the asymmetry: guards are broken by hews, but vices are broken by chief pieces. The first ring is about positions; this ring is about people.

Once blades touch, the graph stops being a hierarchy and becomes a loop with one decision variable:

• a hard bind is broken above by Duplieren, below by Mutieren ([LS 6]);
• a soft bind is driven straight through — Ansetzen ([LS 12]);
• staying honestly in the bind is punished by Zucken ([LS 17]);
• leaving it is punished by the Sprechfenster strike and Nachreisen ([LS 22], [LS 13]);
• strength in the bind is punished by Durchlaufen and Abschneiden ([LS 18], [LS 19]).

Every option the opponent has is someone's prey, including doing nothing. That is why the conclusion ([LS 23]) reduces the whole close fight to the eight windings tested "for no more than soft or hard": the cycle cannot be memorized as sequences, only navigated by Fühlen and Indes.

The same architecture, compressed (Mounted and Dismounted Dueling translation):

• all meetings ← the Schütten, which "precedes all meetings, hews and thrusts" ([D 3], [F 7]);
• the grapple attempt ← the sheep-grip ([D 4], [F 15]);
• the sun-showing throw ← the over-grip; and every grip ← the fore-grip, "it breaks his strength from then on" ([D 8]);
• the chase ← halt, turn about, arm-catch ([D 6]);
• the successful ward in the duel ← Zucken ([D 9]);
• the strength-grip at the half-sword ← the Schiessen ([D 13]).

Twice the Zettel says "no man protects himself without danger" ([LS 6], [LS 22]) — and the warning is symmetric: it is a promise when you attack the openings and a caveat when you stand in them. Every winner in the network is somewhere else's prey: Durchwechseln farms binders and short-fencers and is farmed by the Schielhau and by close hewing; the Twer takes the king of guards and exposes itself in the spring; the Kron stops the longest hew and dies to a slice underneath. The graph has no terminal node — deliberately. What sits above the network is not a technique: it is the Vor (fight on your terms, [LS 1]), the four openings (attack the man, not the counter-game, [LS 5]), and Fühlen/Indes (decide inside his action, [LS 13]). The counter network explains why the Zettel's first teaching is initiative rather than any of the pieces that populate it.