Until something like 1500-1550 the (western) European martial arts was a combat system where the use of different weapons and grappling was learned… and for use to kill the enemy.
From then on it split into a military system and civilian system.
The system degraded into the civilian system where you no longer learn to use military weapons or factore in the use of armour. but it focus on the use of the rapier and related weapons for deals ind fights in backstreet.
It is a very advanced system, but still simpler since the number of different types of weapons gets lower and armor is no longer a factor.
This then degraded to the use of the small sword in highly ritualized duels… often to first blood.
Where with this, the many on many fights is gone. grappling is gone… the System is now not made to kill the enemy is the best way possible, but to fight a duel in the correct way.
And then it degraded into into a sport where you can’t even circle the “enemy”
Oh No a cutting sword fan boy. If it is painful to you the read, then don’t read it.
I didn’t address you, or did i.
This is an opinion and also a matter of taste. So it’s not wrong or right. Or should i now state what is an opinion and what a real fact?
no it is not a matter of taste. It is a matter of facts.
I like sword and buckler better than the longsword. that is a matter of taste.
You might like rapier or small sword better than the longsword. that is a matter of taste.
You wrote: “The fencing with the rapier and dagger or buckler and later the use of the small sword, was the highest point in development of european sword fighting schools.”
That is states as a fact. and that is simply not correct.
And the fact is that post medieval martial arts first got simpler, since the number of different factors got smaller.
Then turned into a ritualized system for duels and then later is turned into a sport.
So “the highest point in development” was sometime during the medieval period.
No, it’s painful because of the sheer and utter cluelessness.
Thomas more or less touched on it. However I’ll also add that rapier fencing was NOT a martial art, as rapiers were NEVER battlefield weapons (the broad-bladed baskethilts such as the backsword, schiavona and Claymore were the contemporary martial swords). They were civil defense weapons. PERIOD.
And of the three forms of modern sport fencing, the ONLY one with actual martial origins is sabre (coincidentally, that’s also the one that uses cutting attacks).
Put a modern epee fencer up against someone who practices Liechtenauer and give them both live steel, and I guarantee you you’ll be looking at one dead epee fencer.
There is a reason, in a development, why the weapons have changed. (besides gunpowder)
Understand the reason and will know, why i have stated it.
@Ambaryerno
First of all i don’t use the term martial arts, in this connection.
Second. Martial arts does not have necessary the connection to the military. I have searched the standard dictionaries through.
Third: Military use of weapons and fighting, is different than duelling. Also stabbing is much more deadlier, than cutting.
Fourth: Do you even know why the saber has evolved and retained its use?
Honest. Is this your niveau of argumentation? Like: Hulk beat Superman. LOL
Come that is below anyone. Except: Someone who doesn’t understand martial arts.
Both types of attacks can hurt an opponent, but for a stab to be fatal it has to hit something vital, the best targets being one of the organs (heart, lungs, brain, etc.). There’s a LOT more that a cut can do to disable or kill an opponent. Cuts to the back of the knee will collapse the leg as the tendons are severed. Slice the underside of the wrist and you’re severing the tendons allowing the balling of a fist (which generally means the opponent isn’t going to be holding anything in that hand. Get his sword hand and he’s done). Cut the femoral artery, (one of the main targets in German longsword, incidentally) and that fight’s done.
The advantage of the thrust is primarily in its speed, and that because it’s usually coming directly in it can be harder to judge distance. However its fight stopping potential is being DRASTICALLY overstated (I have read of numerous duels where one or both fighters suffered multiple thrust wounds and the fight continued).
George Silver went into GREAT detail about thrust vs. cut (and why NEITHER should be neglected, which works strongly against the rapier–which btw, still was used for light harassing cuts–vs. the backsword and other similar broadsword and baskethilt designs more balanced between the cut and the thrust) in Paradoxes of Defense.
As for the sabre:
That is an evolution of the Polish szabla, (specifically the hussar szabla of the 17th century) used by Polish light cavalry units. Its curved blade facilitated slicing blows with less risk of the blade getting stuck, particularly by mounted troops against infantry. By the mid-19th century it was being seen as increasingly outdated against firearms, and by the American Civil War was only infrequently used in combat, with cavalry turning primarily to revolvers and carbines, and frequently serving as mounted light infantry, IE Buford’s action at Gettysburg.
In other words, someone such as yourself who has tried to claim that the fechtbuchen are wrong with what they teach?
From what I can see in this thread, this is a discussion between people referencing historical sources and using personal experience to substantiate their claims, and you.
And by you I mean a guy who simply throws around his opinion as being superior to historical sources and personal experience, with no further evidence.
I seriously hope you are just trolling, for your sake. You’ve failed ‘‘Arguments 101’’ class for pre-schoolers.
@TREYSCEUSEC
To Leonardo Da Vinci:
The flaws in his designs, have more a character of a personal trait of Leonardo. There is a lot of speculation about it, perhaps this are riddles, perhaps he wanted to render this designs unpracticable, if someone should try to build it, as a form of copy rights or else. I don’t know. But he has nearly always delivered what he has promised. Therefore, i do not recognise him as a con man. There are at least one exception, where he did not painted a painting, which he has promised. Most of the inventions both practical and impractical were in his journal’s (nowadays the parts are Codex Madrid and Codex Atlantico) that were never shown to anyone else (in his life time). Also he wanted to hide the secrets, in his book by a writing style, which he and only some pupil could read. He wanted to publish them, but there was so much work necessary to publish that, so he gave up. But they would have had a great impact on the world if they were published. So this necessary aspect of being a con man was not shown by me: to take money from people, and nothing deliver.
Only in a certain aspect i think, that he could have been deliberately a conman, and that is about the war gear and machines, and the promise that he has made in the letter to Ludovico il Moro.
But because he did not get this ‘work place’ so is very difficult to say, if he was or was not a con man. And his work for the Borgias, did also not produce this kind of weapons that he promissed to Ludovico.
I also doubt that they would have been practicable on the battlefield.
To Thalhoffer:
And what i do, is only to question the things that i have seen in the Thalhoffers book, because the physics presented there, does not add up. His machines are interpretation by a modern people, that interprets more than ‘history channel’ about the bible. To invent a good machine one should at least know something about functional principles, the governing physical laws and material Science.
None of this is supported in the history of Thalhoffer. (in opposition to Leonardo Da Vinci)
To his fencing style things:
Some of the levers executed shown in the book, don’t work in reality. The misuse of weapon is not a sign of creative fighting, but a sign of lack of technical basics and precision in its exercise. So many depictions are just oddly wrong (from that what i have seen) in the execution. (even in opposition to Ludwig II von Eyb manual)
Perhaps he had just hired a bad artist, perhaps they have only showed bad examples, perhaps he shows a duel / melee with dull swords (as i have already mentioned). But i have no other plausible explanation for the depiction.
I will look at Ms.Chart.A.558, Ms.XIX.17-3, Ms.Thott.290.2º, Cod.icon. 394a and even Ms. KK5342. Perhaps i will find a explanation there.
And one thing is that i say is, that you don’t grab a sharp blade with a bare hand, because you can cut yourself in your hand. Yes a blade has to cut, especially a Longsword, there is only one other function and that is to pierce. I don’t even understand, how can anyone say the opposite.
You can test it any time with a simple but good sharp knife. Grab the blade with your bare hand and full strength all around the blade, the hand touching the sharp edge, and then tear it out of your hand, with the other hand.
Then you will see how good it is, to grab the blade your or your enemies of a sharp sword with the bare hand.
Here some accidents with swords: http://www.tsuki-kage.com/darwin.html
Accident [October 3rd or 4th, 2003. St. Paul Minneapolis, MN. USA] :
Catching a sword in mid air is technicaly the same as grabbing in terms of the physics.
Accident [August 26, 1990 Los Angeles, California] :
He has cut clean through the Saya (wood) and perhaps the Sageo (band or kordell) and naturally his thumb.
In nihon a friend has watched for nearly 20 minuts the videos of iaido accidents. Sadly he passed away three years ago so i cannot get the accidents, that he has even filmed in Iaido presentations.
The next post from me will be the answers to all the things that has been posted here and the lack of knowledge in simple physics and history in this posts.
That’s not part of the technique and the reasoning you use is somewhat flawed and could be applied to modern day firearms; “It’s dangerous to run with a handgun with the safety disengaged and a round chambered therefore infantry in the second would war did not run with rifles or other firearms, but walked instead”
EDIT: You know what here is a video of two people doing it, maybe this will convince you
Wrong! Brittle has something more to do with the hardening and the annealing process afterward. It has something to do with the martensites and ferrites or simpler the cristalisation of the iron / carbon in a blade by the hardening process.
To the death of the german sword fighting, i will write something in conjunction to the rapier.
This does not function, in a certain way it has something to do with the impact forces of blows overcoming the friction.
I believe the whole time that the blades are dull or that they are using special chain gloves. And they try to stab each other and not cut or chop.
Oil alone may be not the killer but sweating and oil together certainly is. The building up of the micelles on the top of the blade it will reduce the friction to zero.
@THOMASAAGAARD
Duells were always ritualised and had its own rules (conditions). No matter which times they have been made. To prevent such things like that:
The sport did first appear as the deadly accidents have been effectively stopped. The same thing happened to the japanese sword fighting and Kendo.
But i think i finally know, why we have a different opinion:
Some people don’t know the difference, between military fighting and weapons and duelling fighting and weapons.
As a example for military weapons and fighting i would never use a sword against an armored (gothic plate) opponent. In a war situation, i would certainly take a horseman pick or an axe or awl-pike.In a duell it is highly possible that it would not be allowed to take such weapons. To the rapier fencing i will write something in a later time.
@AMBARYERNO
About Stabing vs Cutting:
What you have forgotten to state, is that all major blood vessel are hidden or are positioned towards the body, therefore it is more difficult to cut them, than to stab into them or into a vital body part. And all other cuts that you have stated can be also exceptionally well performed by a rapier.
But i will tell you why a stab is more dangerous then a cut. This has to do with the blood agglutination and the necessary pressure for it. If you cut through blood vessels, then you will cut also the surrounding tissue, this will result that the venes or arteries can foold in and the blood agglutination can prevent from bleeding out. Or a long cut can be graft on by blood. You can walk away, with a arm cut off, like the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. But stabbing prevents this, making a bleeding out highly possible.
I know this, because i have been cut and stabbed with a knife.
Nearly all that you have written about the sabre is wrong. Look up the 1796 cavalry saber and the last cavalry charge or the polish russian war. This are common misconceptions that you have stated, therefore i also assume that you have only the common knowledge about such things. Here something to learn about saber and also why this has something to do with the french fencing school:
Now last but not least:
I will say to something, that a real martial artist says, to such a stupid question who would win. Learn it and think about this. The Answer is: The better fighter would win.
To make this more accessible:
Neither Kung-fu, Karate or Taekwondo is better. Who wins depends on on the martial artists that fight against each other. On the higher levels, the borders disintegrate between the arts, this also applies to the sword fighting.
@Dushin
It is not about the technique, but about the result that derives from certain behavior. To the technique of cutting and why something cuts i will write later. Also to p = mv, and what it means in a sword fight, if one should grab barehanded a sharp edge of the sword blade.
The Video convinces me that they fight like dummies. Certainly they should not fight against me it would be their death. (Or at least a great embarrassment for them.)
Their footwork is shit. Their feint attacks are dull. Their sword attacks … is an embarressment for them. Honest they should at least do some Ju - Jutsu, or any real martial arts.
They don’t know how to fight or anything.
Take a look at this and try to see what is happening there:
What you described with the pulling the knife away with the other hand would indeed result in a cut in your hand because you basically make a drawing cut. The idea with the half swording is that your hand on the hilt and the hand halfway the blade do not move away from each other. As long as your hand does not slide over the blade you would not cut yourself.
Now regarding the video. First off the fighting is done at 3/4 speed because it would be to dangerous to do it at full speed. A full force/speed mordhau (hilt/pommel to the head) could cause something like a minor concussion or a skull puncture.
Now their footwork is not that shitty. If you halfsword you can really only shuffle with the right feet always behind the left feet (this should be pretty self-explansionary) unless you commit to attack in which case you will step forward with your right leg. Their feints might appear a little slow yes but what about their sword attacks?
Here is another video that illustrates some techniques at 1:54 into the video, the earliest bit is also interesting.
Now regarding Kendo and Ju - Jutsu which I assume you practice. Now I don’t know an awful lot about the history of both but I doubt a wooden stick used in Kendo would go through plate armor and I don’t know what sword fighting it is based on so I can’t judge how well it would fare against those guys in the video.
[quote=“Dushin, post:52, topic:16147”]
What you described with the pulling the knife away with the other hand would indeed result in a cut in your hand because you basically make a drawing cut. The idea with the half swording is that your hand on the hilt and the hand halfway the blade do not move away from each other. As long as your hand does not slide over the blade you would not cut yourself.
[/quote] Yes neary correct. But do you know why this results in a better cut?
Also there is a another way, to cut or better said: to chop. And this has also a loot of to do with p = mv. Think about this ultimative conserving momentum law.
This video is very good. I like it a lot, but also it demonstrates why you should not grab with a bare hand the sword.There are some techniques in it that would result in a sliding of the hand along the sword. Especially if the enemies collide.
Le combat en armure:
2) Exec… 2:08 - 2:18 danger of sliding.
3) Passer en force 2:36 if he would not let the sword slip he would have slided.
But a good technique, if it was not dependent for the falling of the enemy, it would give you some room for a sword action.
4) Lütter … The enemy does not go down this way, you have to lift him. But this is simply done wrong, by the fighters, the technique might work superb.
French do make some times really good things.
Harnischfechten Video:
They are trying to use the sword like in the Thalhoffer book, like a hammer and like a hook, therefore i called it an embarressement, not even one good strike and it clearly shows that this kind of techniques does not function well at all. From 0:08 to 0:10
This show fight, does not good displays their fighting skills, perhaps it is for a film or so.
Especially the feint at 0:04, was not used properly, for a following action.
The whole action since 0:07 is really bad display of martial arts, it remembers me of my childhood fights on the street. None of them attacked the hand, or pointed towards the open face, or made any pressure on the enemy.
At 0.09 the right one had such an open field for attacks, to even execute a good slash to the open legs.
At 0:10 he slides with his hand along the enemies sword edge. If the enemy would have taken a step back and pulled this sword with a short fast momentum, the hand would be useless. But thankfully, they are not fighting with sharp swords.
But take a look at this:
As long as they do not try to grab the sword it is ok. Besides the typical weaknesses of footwork and etc of the executing people.
Kendo is a let us say development of sword fighting with the Daito. So one could say, that it is a Longsword fighting, from japan. Where the longsword fighting style survived the centuries. In opposite to european fighting styles, it has a ongoing history, development and constant improvement. You can fight it naturally with sticks.
I know only one incident where a japanese sword master has killed an other sword master with just a stick, while the other had one sword. This was the greatest sword master of all times. It was Musashi Miyamoto and his opponent was Sasaki Kojirō.
Look how the Daito behaves as it is going through the ice:
Ju-Jutsu is an unarmed Asian / European self defence style.
the technique Exec at 2:08 - 2:18 is meant to be used when the opponent is also in armor and halfswording. If both people were unarmored they would not use the technique since cuts and actually longsword fencing work better in that situation. If the opponent is in armor and you are not you would not use that specific technique of locking swords in that manner because you would indeed risk getting your hand cut up.
Regarding Passer en Force, what is wrong with it depending on the falling of the enemy? The idea is that you 'Use overwhelming force".
I agree with you on the grappling move, it seems the opponent just fell down to help his friend
I content that it did work, not only have they found a lot of swords with cross guards designed for this, we also have multiple art sources depicting it.
here is a video demonstrating it real slow and you see that if the enemy is somewhat unprepared it might just catch him off guard.
They both back off and as you see the distance is a bit to big for a following action. He should indeed have closed in faster, don’t know why he didn’t.
Maybe I am watching a different video but I see a leg encased in steel. I admit they aren’t wearing voiders or mail skirts like they would have in battle but
And once again we see you attacking the work of a guy who not only made his living teaching this stuff 500+ years ago, but probably actually USED it at some point.
The other thing to keep in mind is that there has been no continuous tradition of study of the longsword since the Middle Ages, because the Western practice has always been to move on to the next fashion or fad (simplifying, but: the rapier became fashionable, so the longsword was abandoned. The rapier fell out of favor to the smallsword, so it in its turn was cast aside as well). Modern scholars are attempting to reconstruct an art from at times vague or dense text across a language barrier, (Medieval German is NOT the same as modern German! Not just in its spelling or pronunciation, but in its vocabulary and even the meanings of words as well. We see this in English even over such small time scales as 25-50 years; words today may have had different meanings 50 years ago) and many of the images in the books are at best stylized artists’ impressions. What most students and practitioners have now are MODERN INTERPRETATIONS of what the guys who wrote the books were teaching. That there’s a disconnect between what the masters intended and how it’s being interpreted half a millennium later is inevitable.
THAT DOES NOT MEAN WHAT WAS BEING TAUGHT IN TALHOFFER’S DAY WAS WRONG.
Furthermore, the artist drawing the techniques may not have seen clearly what was being done. Or maybe it was deliberately fudged so someone who wasn’t authorized to use the manuscript couldn’t learn from it without paying for lessons from the master (IE: it wasn’t until Ringeck’s manuscript surfaced that Liechtenauer’s code poems could be fully deciphered, because Liechtenauer used that code to keep anyone who wasn’t one of his students to be able to use what he was teaching).
Apparently you’re assuming ignoring the hands or face when the guy isn’t wearing any protection there wasn’t just a courtesy. ESPECIALLY when bouting with steel. I took a crack on the thumb from aluminum wasters once when I wasn’t wearing my gauntlets, and I’m damn lucky it wasn’t broken and only @#$%ing HURT. I most definitely would NOT want to have my hands targeted when bouting with steel without some sort of hand protection. To say nothing of attacks to the head or face.
And this would do what good against the armor on the legs? Also, given that at 0:09 he had the hilt of his opponent’s sword coming at his head, it strikes me that, y’know, maybe he ought to get out of the way or otherwise defend that attack (which is what he did). Remember: Gravity doesn’t stop making that blow fall just because your opponent’s leg got chopped off (which wouldn’t have happened, anyway through the armor). Contrary to popular misconception, the German school DOES actually block (they just like to do it in a manner that sticks the pointy end in the other guy at the same time).
[quote=“Ambaryerno, post:55, topic:16147”]
(Medieval German is NOT the same as modern German! Not just in its spelling or pronunciation, but just in its meanings)
[/quote] My wife is a germanist. I know.
The video “Vorfechter Longsword Syllabus” depicts some techniques that the are also the same in asian sword fighting.I do not believe that european sword fighting was bad, quite the opposite. Europeans simply changed their styles and their weapons, too often to go deeper and develop it to the maximum. I think we can learn from both sword fighting styles. Kendo has developed to a good testing ground of sword fighting techniques, and there is a great opportunity for sword fighters to learn the footwork. And because the same principles apply to european fighting styles, we could good restaurate them.
[quote=“Ambaryerno, post:55, topic:16147”]
Furthermore, the artist drawing the techniques may not have seen clearly what was being done
[/quote] I also accuse the artist. Because two depictions in the Ludwig II von Eyb manual were simply on all level wrong, while other depicted very good the techniques, that are even in use today.
[quote=“Ambaryerno, post:55, topic:16147”]
Furthermore, the artist drawing the techniques may not have seen clearly what was being done. Or maybe it was deliberately fudged so someone who wasn’t authorized to use the manuscript couldn’t learn from it without paying for lessons from the master (IE: it wasn’t until Ringeck’s manuscript surfaced that Liechtenauer’s code poems could be fully deciphered, because Liechtenauer used that code to keep anyone who wasn’t one of his students to be able to use what he was teaching).
[/quote] Yes this could be a valid reason.
[quote=“Ambaryerno, post:55, topic:16147”]
Apparently you’re assuming ignoring the hands or face when the guy isn’t wearing any protection there wasn’t just a courtesy. ESPECIALLY when bouting with steel. I took a crack on the thumb from aluminum wasters once when I wasn’t wearing my gauntlets, and I’m damn lucky it wasn’t broken and only @#$%ing HURT. I most definitely would NOT want to have my hands targeted when bouting with steel without some sort of hand protection. To say nothing of attacks to the head or face.
[/quote] Even from a soft bambus stick Shinai a hit on the hand could be really painfull and a wood bokken can easily kill one (if one gets hit on the head) or break some bones. But they could at least hint towards face or hand. But i think that this was really only a show fight for ARMA? A real fight would look alot different, and would be more dangerous. Therefore anything they made is already excused.
[quote=“Ambaryerno, post:55, topic:16147”]
And this would do what good against the armor on the legs?
[/quote] His popliteal is open for a moment, to a left side attack. Even he would have hit the armor, this could be a very usefull attack at the balance of the enemy or his joint. Also he could let the attack pass while moving left and attacking or block with his right arm, while he is using the sword in the left arm, like he did, but he did not attack. But this is not the flaw of the fighting technique, this fighter simply didn’t made it.
GOD the R. Lee Ermey segment pissed me off. He’s a great character, but some of his “expertise” leaves a LOT to be desired.
Almost as bad as that Viking vs Samurai episode of Deadliest Warrior, where EVERYTHING was deliberately set up to give the Samurai a win (treating the shield as a weapon and judging its usefulness by how many “kills” it scored. Not to mention not even constructing the shield properly – Viking shields were designed so that even if the planks were broken, the shield itself was still usable. Giving the samurai a kanabo, which is VERY poorly attested outside mythology, and essentially the same as the Viking wielding @#$%ing MJOLNIR. Claiming that the Viking would DUAL WIELD SPEARS to throw them, rather than throwing one and saving the other for the first phase of melee. W…T…F?!) The worst part is that the scoring in the end was almost close enough to call it a draw, but they insisted the samurai “dominated” the fight.
To be honest I would generally say a samurai has a clear advantage over your average viking. But besides that I would like to tell you Deadliest Warrior is absolute and utter *********** Not just on medieval subjects but on ancient and later ones too. In one episode they have Napoleonic LINE INFANTRY taking cover, using suppressing fire and other stuff like they just landed on Omaha beach.
Deadliest Warrior really tried to appeal to the lowest common denominator and threw any kind of basis in reality out of the window. I dare say their most accurate episode was on Zombies vs. Vampires. Frankly I almost feel abused by having to type this, the show is beyond criticism because of how bad it is.
