Didn't want to fill the Anime thread with fencing stuff so I started a new thread for it. What weapon are they doing? On shoulder, blade backwards is completely legit in some systems such as German longsword, master Meyer for instance has this guard known as 'zornhut' which is the 'wrath guard'. I think the Italian longsword term is 'posta di donna' or "the guard of the lady". It's the ubiquitous baseball guard although the sword is never used as a club, that would be the wrong mechanic for employing it. It's just that this is a good invite as it looks defenseless with the sword out of line and all but you can forcefully attack with great reach in right tempo. It just requires you to know what you're doing. Personally I like Fabris's rapier a lot more than I do longsword but I practice actively with both. Rapier has this whole thing of keeping the sword in line at all times and with the notion that the tip moves faster through the linear route towards opponent than taking a long detour and once the tip has been sunk 10" to your opponent the sword is a steel beam supported by both ends - to which the opponent's cut lands so you're not only parrying it but his strike is making your tip wound himself further the stronger he strikes. And the sword is always in line - except when it's not. Even in Fabris's rapier you will do things that don't seem to make sense. Sometimes these carry a special function such as freeing your sword and the rest of the time they tend to be invites and traps. Invite as a term is literally "look, here is an opening" while you are prepared to do the exact counter move to any attack being launched at that specific opening. As opposed to having to figure out what the opponent will attack and how which is a lot harder. Lardaltef, did they say what sources they are studying? SCA tends to range from people who do essentially HEMA for all intents and purposes to people who fall in between in various shades all the way to people who just make stuff up. What's funny is that many of the people who make stuff up end up over 20+ years with techniques that are the same as those described in various sources, convergence because those are the limited ways that you can do sensible things with a sword. Only, it is unfortunate that they have to waste so much time reinventing the wheel - if they had picked up a source to start from they would have had that much more time to master all of the techniques from the start instead of being lost for so long. This is what I love practicing the most, Fabris, as demonstrated by Chicago Swordplay Guild The notion of "just run at him with a sword" is obviously not God's truth but a joke, with a hint of truth about it.
Not sure what "sword" (they carry swords) but for the fighting it's more of a rod that has the balance and weight of a sword. And since they use a shield as well it's not a two handed sword. I've neve seen a source but they list it as "heavy fighting" on the schedule and they wear full plate. I haven't watched any of the other stuff like rapier or archery. Or actually ever seen the horse stuff (I guess people have died during the horse stuff). Basically the swords don't look long enough for a long sword nor short enough to be a short sword. Most people don't seem to have a hilt long enough to put two hands on. Participants may choose a wide range of weapons, the striking surfaces of which are made of rattan[6] and may use leather, foam, and duct tape in their construction.[7]Non-striking surfaces (such as quillons and basket hilts) may be made of rigid materials like metal, rubber, or plastic. For safety rattan is used for most striking weapons, staffs, poles, and handles because when it is damaged forms flexible fibers. This is unlike most types of wood that may form dangerous sharp splinters when it breaks.[4]
Apparently some wiki idiot has decided that the long sword is characterized by having a two handed handle, of course this is entirely wrong but I don't care enough to fix it. Basically a sword that can be wielded in one hand with a blade length slightly less than 3-4 feet. Short swords roughly 1-2 feet, and 'broadswords' (or arming swords, basket swords, back swords and any number of other common sword types) hang about in the sweet spot between 2-3 feet. I'd imagine it's right around that length, the extra foot of length on a longsword doesn't always make up for the extra weight and loss in speed (and incidental increase in the internal radius of weakness). Which is generally why two handed varieties and bastard swords became more popular, but single handed long swords are still long swords which is why the wiki is wrong. Not everyone wanted to be able to switch to a two handed carry if they lost their shield or other weapon.
Yeah. I think is in the 2-3 foot range. They (fighters) are about arms length apart. For the most part. Didn't most end up with a hand and a half so they could use two hands just easily as use it 1 handed?
The sources rarely if ever mention something like longsword or rapier etc. For example Sigmund ain Ringeck merely has "short sword" and "long sword" covered by his treatise. Some may talk about one handed or two handed swords and they may further depict one handed use for the two handed sword. One handed or short sword, typical blade length around 30" Castille Armory's Type XV 'Arming Sword', 31.5" blade, marketed for practicing I.33 (sword and buckler) Longsword can be gripped comfortably by two hands and can have a blade length of 36" to over 40", handle can be so short that you can barely grip it with two hands or as long as 2:5 as long as the blade Albion's 'The Dane' Type XVIIIe longsword, overall 58", 42" blade and 16" grip with the pommel, weight 4 lbs 10 oz (2.1kg), a real heavyweight beast among longswords Regenyei manufactured Federschwert - 'feather sword' based on training swords used in medieval times The last one, the Feder as they are called has all the mass removed from the blade to reduce the impact force to a minimum for safer training and is used for full speed sparring. They feel and handle very close to sharp swords but they also have been designed to bend in the thrust for safety. The 'schilt' or the shield above the crossguard helps create a secondary crossguard for the protection of fingers. Most one handed swords tend to be around 30" to 36" because after that point they become ridiculously unwieldy. Most two handed swords don't go below 36" because you're already losing some reach from it being two handed and to also compound that with a short blade where you could manage a longer one is quirky AF. The primary exception are rapiers which are one handed swords that start from about 36" and can be as tall as 46", they ranged from swords that were reasonably good at both cutting and thrusting to ones that were poor at cutting. My Castille Armory rapier is 42" and weighs 1300g. Wiki is not a great source for medieval weapons. They occasionally call all swords rapiers and they constantly use pike and halberd interchangeably. In general most historians really didn't seem to care much for the weapons and also the sources themselves mostly talk about "this is how you use a sword", they didn't exactly care that much about international classifications, categorizations and standardization. How a weapon is dimensioned will affect how it can be best used. Something like an executioner's sword will not be a good choice for fencing. It will handle very badly, it will be too slow and you're going to just get yourself killed: 16th century German executioner's sword blade with an 18th century handle
Ah, it is the SCA 'Heavy Combat' aka Armoured Combat thing. Please note that you can't cut through a mail armor with a sword. In general it sounds like this rule system would encourage improper use of swords as clubs but they reason that you are trying to cut through a mail with a hewing strike with a sword. Not that this matters, they will still reach the ability to parry, to utilize the tempo and gauge distance to their opponent, many of the things that are good fencing and they do this with their own ideas of simulating more of a battlefield duel than self defense on the street or being challenged to a duel - many duels were in fact fought without any armor. If there was a SCA group here I would frequently visit them too when I had the time from my normal training. I've heard some arguments that our high emphasis on proper technique and form and the 'art' etc. somehow makes the HEMA sparring 'tippy toe' and 'tappy' in contrast. My bruises beg to differ! I left out my wrist guard yesterday because it is extra weight on my arm and I got cut across both my wrists so that my right hand went numb for a while. In any case this is what our typical sparring looks like, this one from yesterday: Whereas in SCA heavy the context is armored combat in this clip above the context is blossfechten duel; a formal duel with longswords without any armor. Armored combat would be harnischfechten and would feature a suit of plate armor.
Haven't gotten around the watching any of the rapier combat. I know they have them. I think there is a pretty big (I think a week long event) in either sweden or finland. http://www.drachenwald.sca.org/groups/ Websites and areas for various groups in europe. And yes people make personas with a different name.
There's nothing within ~4 hour drive, unfortunately. The closest thing to SCA would be a Viking re-enactment group, one of their leaders does HEMA with us but they (his words) do show fighting and my personal interests are ultimately in real historical martial arts, periodic clothing and character etc would be fun fluff from time to time on top of it. I hear from my HEMA friends who've fenced with them that SCA has some seriously good rapierists. It was also in SCA rapier where some of the folks had developed fighting styles over 20 years that had moves that were directly from Giganti etc. - reinventing the wheel but at the same time developing fantastic skills. Giganti is largely the same as Fabris, during the day Gigangi just took Fabris's fencing book, copied all of the images and much of the text rather directly. Like Porath who simply translated whole pages.
Dueling Etiquette From A Gentleman's Guide To Duelling by Vinenctio Saviolo from around 1590's In essence, he who is given the lie has to challenge the other to a duel of armes to defend his honor. The person giving the lie has to defend his notion lest he be seen as a common liar who's words carry no weight. The challenger's choice is the choice between trial by armes or court. The defender's choice is the weapon to be used. No man who is obviously of a lower social rank can challenge one that is above. Exhaustive lists are provided for the relative ranks of dukes, barons etc. and the standing between gentlemen, commoners and so forth and all the way to kings who answer to emperors, free kings who answer to none and so forth. During 16th and 17th centuries the primary weapon for a duel was the rapier or the rapier and dagger. These duels were often fought to death and it was not uncommon for both parties to die or be wounded. Sometimes it was possible depending on context for the challenger to announce that his honor was satisfied such as from the wounding of the defender. To refuse a challenge required that everyone could see the merit of the dismissal - otherwise one carried the risk of being seen as a coward. It was not socially acceptable to associate with liars, rebels and thieves or men of no honor. It was seen that merely to associate with such persons would lower one's own honor and cast doubts about his personal character and trustworthiness. At the end of day it all boils down to who could you trust in those days when there were no means of running background checks on the spot. A man comes and says to you that he needs something or offers you an opportunity. It would be so easy to deceive someone - they cannot possibly know if what is said is true. They can however know the reputation of the person in question and if he is of impeccable honor then it can be trusted that he will keep his word - that he is a man of his word. And that was worth more than life itself to men of honor, to any gentleman or higher up. Mere doubt over the honor and trustworthiness of a person was the worst insult there could be. Hence giving the lie immediately resulted in a duel being arranged to settle the matter. As such it was not wise to accuse others of lies and it was always a better way to instead say something along the lines of "it is possible that unknownst to him that the thing he speaks of could have changed without him receiving the word for it". Of matters regarding the person himself it was seen that no other could be of higher authority to speak than the person himself. Thus it was not possible to imply that a person could be wrong about something he said about himself - this would amount to giving the lie, for no man can accidentally claim he has done things he has not by accident.
And a number of Darwin's evolution theories were proven every time two idiots murdered themselves for a slight.
There was the Duel Des Mignons Only Balzac got off with a mere scratch on his arm. For fuck sakes. I was going to quote this real thing with all seriousness but I just can't. GODDAMNIT! Only Balzac got off with a mere scratch on his arm. I mean you can't make this stuff up... Ok... Ok..
I think I've finally settled for a mask pattern. Vertically divide to sides, black and white with smaller opposite color rhombus (diamond) for each eye and similarly contrast colored laughing mouth. Harlequin. Diamond/rhombus is also the icon of our province so it is fitting. And I always laugh while I fence, when struck and when hitting because it's so fun. It's about one of the funniest things in the world, really. The laughing swordsman.
In fact the left side of face will be black with a white heart for the eye and the white side will have a black diamond. Battlecry (from 0:40 onwards):
I hope you guys don't mind if I post these things? Here is a beautiful parry riposte by Antti who I have instructed for more than a year now: I try to shoot the point in with one hand but he sees it, voids with the body and parries on the very last moment and then uses the wide opening to thrust me on the throat with both hands. With a real weapon he would have been able to lunge forward and push the sword through without any resistance it's entire length and punch me on the throat with the crossguard while closing his body against my body so that even if I managed to swing my sword back in line he would be too close for me to hit him back with it and he could take me down using the forceful strike on the throat and then start wrestling me with great advantage to ensure that I cannot wound him. Nicely executed from him. Mind that the real sword will be razor sharp and especially in thrust there will be no feeling of any resistance, a sword just glides through meat as if a shaft through cotton candy. It's the hewing cuts that are harder to master and especially with two bladed longswords. Curved single edged blades that utilize a long slicing cut and that have the tip act as a rudder, they're quite a lot easier to learn to use. Now, a two bladed sword of thin profile and of springsteel is far less stable and can do some wobbling and it provides no feedback or self orienting mechanics to help you get the edge alignment right - you have to do it all by yourself and you will primarily cut at the opponent with hewing and not slicing motion.
it's even better when you realize his name is actually Charles de Balzac, or, as English would have it, Charles -THE- Balzac. Of course nicknames give us one more amusing usage, Chucky de Balzac. Maybe if his Riberac wasn't quite so holey he'd have been spared the indignity of being Chuck, the Balzac.
Francisco Pizarro's rapier, by master forger Mateo, 1539. Pizarro died a few years later, aged 65 or 70 (we don't know when he was born) as his rivals stormed his palace. Pizarro - an old man by now - still managed to kill two of the attackers and wound a third. His sword got stuck on his enemy's bones and one of the attackers managed to drive a dagger to his throat. Not bad for an old man. Spoiler: Portrait As for the previous discussion about duels, Saviolo who was a prominant author on the dueling etiquette of 16th and 17th centuries did indeed make the note in his time that some people really were - assholes - and that folks should try to avoid being assholes as much as they could because there was plenty enough to deal with just the regular unavoidable duels that would give rise even without the need of dying for some Stupid Stuff TM. One of his examples is of a captain and his brother - also a worthy soldier - just walking through Trieste as they spot a group of young gentlemen staring at them intently "in the face with something unseemly and discourteously". The captain walks to them and following ensues: Captain asking them in the most courteous manner if they had seen them before or knew each other. To which they answered: "No." Then the captain and his brother asked "Why then do you look so much upon us?" They answered, because they had eyes. The brother then said "that is the crows' fault, in that they have not picked them out." With a few more words, as Saviolo puts it "What the tongue had uttered the hand would maintain. A hot fight being commenced it could not be ended before the captain's brother was slain and two of the gentlemen hurt. One escaped with the rest, but the chiefest cutter of them all was hurt in the leg and so could not get away. He was taken, imprisoned and shortly after beheaded. He was well beloved in the city, yet he could not escape this end being brought by following his mad-brained conceits and being misled by evil company. The rest of this company was banished from their country. Now if these gentlemen had more courteously and wisely demeaned themselves, no more hurt would have followed that bad beginning. Every man therefore shall do well to have a great regard in this respect, lest like disorders be to their danger committed." The book on dueling etiquette itself has the author heavily, continuously emphasize the need for restraint, moderation and self-control and a sense of humility. For it is not noble or good of Christian to seek conflict, to act rashly and conduct poorly. As always, regardless of time and setting, some people always fall short and we are all flawed - and this leads to unnecessary confrontations. In the context of the era where honor and creditability are everything and life without them is like death or worse than death - it is not the dueling system itself which is at fault but the manner in which some persons conducted themselves. Who were - in fact, being asses or as Saviolo puts it, mad-brained and evil. There were some very good reasons to duel - it would not be a foolish person to fall victim to someone who would go out of his way to tarnish the reputation of another or his lord by saying lies publically to insult the honor and character of his victims. In such a case - for example - it would be only good that such a system existed that the person could be given the lie and then fought. This did - after all - to a great deal reduce the amount of mudslinging that would occur and made it absolutely necessary that anyone regarding himself as a gentleman was simply forced to weigh and consider his words in advance or face the risk of being challenged or forced to lose one's honor and credibility by taking back one's words and thus admitting that one did not himself hold his word in much worth. Putting it the other way round, imagine if today people would stand behind their words and be ready to risk their lives for what they had said. I would wager a lot on that people would talk in a different fashion then.
Indubitably, but it would also put those people who were gifted in the sword in a position to lie cheat and steal as long as their steel sang better than their tongue. In the end the intent behind the duel was corrupted by those who could abuse it to gain merit where there was none. Impugne thy honor at thy own risk. There is no perfect system, but any system by which an honest man can be killed simply for pointing a finger at a dishonest one is a system by which a world cannot run.
There are not that many known examples of people capable of abusing the system but 'professional' duelists existed. Also I've heard of great swordsmen being hired to go and create a scene with their target to give cause for a duel in which they were expected to prevail. Heck, Fabris, the father of the rapier style I practice was hired to kill a king. They had this swordplay thing with real swords - and someone figured that he'd hire a fricking fencing grandmaster to 'accidentally' skewer the king during the games. The king was tipped off and experienced a major case of "cough cough, not feeling so good, cough cough - best we skip the game today!" The main problem with trying to abuse the dueling system is this - even many of the best fencers might get accidentally killed by a complete amateur when the amateur did something foolish such as not realizing he was being attacked and attacked himsef at the same time to the opening created by the better fencer's attack which amounts to 'suicidal double' as we have termed it - the good fencer sees an opening and attacks it but instead of trying to defend himself the opponent also attacks an opening. Many skilled fencers were wounded by amateurs in their day. It is known as 'the paradoxes of defense' in some of the sources. You have to attack the opponent or you will lose. Whole fencing systems are built around how the opponent reacts to his life being threatened. This doesn't mean that amateur fencers can reliably be expected to defeat good fencers or that the skills of good fencers are rubbish. What it means is that no fencer can ever challenge another fencer to a fight to the death with perfect certainty that they're going to win. There's always risk. This is why the fencing masters themselves don't just talk about fencing and the techniques to defeat your opponents - they also often touch upon the nature of a good fencer as being a person who understands that fencing is by essence a chaotic thing and hence a good fencer is a man of gentle spirit who does not seek conflict but would avoid it when possible. Fabris also starts his book with the notion that he presents his art to the world:
