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Post by alvin on Jun 17, 2009 23:54:45 GMT
.....the best defense being a god offense...... I agree 100%.
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Post by Tom K. (ianflaer) on Jun 18, 2009 1:09:12 GMT
good, god, well I guess "god" is better than "good" I have a heck of a time getting double letters typed on this keyboard for some reason. must be my abysmal typing skills.
OK I've watched the video. and I DIG IT! MIke, I was slightly dissapointed that you didn't tackle tatami but you gotta start somewhere. my thoughts:
as far as the cutting goes it was as great as expected of you Mike. your edge alignment, blade speed, and body mechanics while cutting are superb. from a swordsmanship point of view, which I see as including fighting skills not just cutting I think I have some advice.
you are doing exactly what 99.999999% of all people who set out to learn two swords do early on: your hands and arms tend to drift upwards and apart leaving you in a very wide-armed open stance with exposed body and openings to attack all over the place. sadly, if you watch my videos where I use two swords ("two sword cutting samurai vs. knight, and the rematch with Hiroshi) I tend to do this a lot right now too. it's lack of form and practice. what you want is to keep you fists in close to your centerline. I would advise against allowing your hands to be outside of your shoulders at any time, and you want to keep your elbow generally under your hands and tucked in close. of course there are cuts and actions where you must allow your elbows to go outside but this should only happen for the duration of the technique requiring it and then they should tuck back in close to your sides. spreading your arms wide feels comfortable and helps keep the swords off each other which is good but it is a weak body position that robs you of leverage and makes you a large target. think about what the sword that isn't cutting is doing as much, or more than, the sword that is cutting. if you are attacked durring a cut or imediately after a cut you only have that one sword to respond with. if your sword is low and out-stretched in front of you then you have mostly static block or slightly sweeping parries available, if your sword is held high or held back in a cocked position you have mostly batting, swatting, fast-sweeping blocks and parries available so you have to keep in mind what tools you have available and leave yourself the right things to work with for the situation. if you ever find that your non-cutting sword is behind you (your body being between it and your opponent) then you have left yourself wide open to death. feignts become very interesting with two sword. suddenly you have so many options as to boggle the mind. I like to attack hard at the face of my enemy with my first sword, pulling it back early when he reacts, and then cutting in behind his defense that was set up with my opposite sword.
try not to ever cut exactly in the same path with both swords in succession. you do this once or twice. if the first sword hits you don't need the second one to attack, and if the first one fails or is thwarted then the second sword is doomed to suffer the same fate and our effort is wasted.
ok to summ up, your foot work, body mechanics, edge alignment, and speed are all great and I can't help you there. what you ned to do, I think, is tighten up your stance so that your non cutting sword is ready for defence or follow up attacks at all times. stand more flat or square to your opponent since both sides of your body have equal attack and defense potential. turning sideways or diagonal pushes one side to the fore focusing on that sword and creating vulnerabilities uncoverable by the other sword. Keep your hands in closer to your center line. and continue to know that you are FULLY AWESOME!
this was a seriously fun watch Mike, thank you. +1
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Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2009 2:24:35 GMT
Mike that was beautiful! Every time I see something new from you, I think "I wanna try that". Great looking form. I loved it. You have a gift for very fluid movement. I loved that little pause at the end Tom's comments are very interesting. I think the best way to explore them would be with a moving living opponent. You need to invite Tsafa back out ;D (after you heal up, of course). I am so sorry to hear about your rotator cuff. That is a tough injury, I hope you have a good PT near you. Listen to your caregivers and heal up soon A big +1 from me Debbie
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Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2009 3:03:57 GMT
Awesome video! I'd probably cut my hands off. I like those swords!!
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Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2009 7:04:49 GMT
I did not mean that I don't fight aggressively, oh no. I certainly understand the idea of the best defense being a god offense. HOWEVER it is unavoidable that defense will be needed. also, I always fight with the idea that if I lose I die. makes for some different decisions. I'm waiting for the clip to finish downloading now. once it is done I'm gonna watch it probably like 100 times but I'll respond with my first impressions right away. Mike, PM incoming. Hehe, well I find that with two weapons, if your mind has to go from offense to defense...your just about to die. That said, I'm not saying one should give openings without cause or your should ignore your covers or any such things....it's just that your midset has to be different. Almost to the point where you have to not care if you lose if you don't want to lose. I generally rely on small movements to provide covers (it's almost an after thought really) as needed and just move to keep pressure on the other guy. If you can keep them very busy with your two swords, then you have a shot...course the SCA doesn't allow for shield bashing so you have a slight advantage in SCA combat over real combat. Anyways, I find this style of fighting to be quite fun to play round with. At one point I went out to a war with two 52" great swords and two wrist attached bucklers. It was a hoot getting into the pike line with that setup ;D (not the best setup if you wanna live I grant you...). Oh and the double follow up shot does have a use in wars...if the first one hits, the second one can hit the guy getting pushed up to take his place...I found it happens quite often in tight pike formations like in a bridge battle quite often. Course, it's usually a death sentence for you as both weapons will be out of position for a guard unless your quite good at dodging incoming pikes...and some people are (or learn to be to avoid terrible headaches hehe). In anycase, getting a double kill in such a fast succession makes for a good breach point for your line...even if you do die in the process (it's for the greater good and some such ).
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Post by Tom K. (ianflaer) on Jun 18, 2009 14:37:51 GMT
HA! yeah Cold, you have a point but I found that in the center of the formation was always a bad place for me with two swords. I like being a flanker. if I can get to the side of the shield wall I can take out the far edge guy allowing my wall to wrap around them a little gaining us the advantage but the real fun is when I get past the end shield guy and fly into their back ranks of spears and poles. I'm like a fox in a hen house at that point. yeah two sword can be weak against the thrust but in order to thrust at me they really have to get their big long war-stick out of position and their own guys foul up their strike too. once they are trying to kill me, I don't even have to kill them, just stay alive. so long as they are trying to kill me they are NOT killing my shield wall. having an enemy two-sworder in the back ranks tend to make pole guys hyper nervous. what typically happens is in their rush to kill me and get me out of there they pull two, three, or more pole-armers away from the main fight in order to kill me. at that point I don't even try to kill them, I go totally defensive and try to lure them away from the formation. anyone who follows me is functionally dead to their team. if I kill one guy on my way around the edge and lure two or three guys out of formation I have "killed" three to four guys all by my self with most of them being in key positions. any way you do the math that's a large advantage for my guys. keeping pressure on is great but a decent fighter will not be intimidated by a flurry of blows no matter how fast they are. no, the good fighter steps into the flurry hard in order to break its momentum and them kills you through the slop breaking your rythem caused. I prefer to fight a little more methodically. I use a medium pace set of attacks (which still feels fast because I have two) and pull and lure my enemy into bad places for them where I kill them. also, not going full speed tends to make my enemy think that is my top speed since most two sworders simply go quisanart and hope something gets through. once they think they have my speed figured out they are more likely to commit to a risky move, which is when I kick in the speed and take them by surprise. I play mind games with my opponents. if you watch my match with Hiroshi you'll see at one point that I'm crossing tips with him and doing the whole kendo tap-tap try to control the center-line game but instead of useing one sword I kept switching between my two swords. the idea there was to get him to constantly have to shift and adjust and reset. it didn't have a huge effect but you never know when something like that will cause a guy to crack and loose concentration. two sword is fun and offers you a lot of options you wouldn't have otherwise.
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Post by brotherbanzai on Jun 18, 2009 16:16:43 GMT
Nice! Take care of that ligament. I would suggest spending a good bit of time practicing with two wasters to get a feel for it. In the two sword stuff that I've seen, a person often ends up with one arm across their body rather than with both arms open wide, which can feel very unsettling if you're not used to having a sharp blade moving around your own body parts. I would think that getting out of your own way without leaving yourself open takes a good bit of practice. Nice job being able to cut at all with your off hand I think I'd feel safer with two single edged swords, or as others have mentioned, two shorted swords. Sure looks fun though!
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Post by Tom K. (ianflaer) on Jun 18, 2009 16:28:01 GMT
Bonzai, that sounds like escrima, which is certainly a valid application. Escrima can be SCARY! I'm not a fan of that arm across the body but then I haven't trained in it. I don't feel like I'm going to hurt myself that way but I feel like the sword held is pretty much trapped and locked in to only a few options which I don't like. but like I said, I haven't trained in escrima or anything like it so I'm sure there's stuff I'm missing. I may move through that position in certain situations though but not as a starting guard. I'd like to see someone with lots and lots of escrima training go at it with two shortswords, that would be a thing to see I bet.
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Post by shadowhowler on Jun 18, 2009 18:43:02 GMT
Bonzai, that sounds like escrima, which is certainly a valid application. Escrima can be SCARY! I'm not a fan of that arm across the body but then I haven't trained in it. I don't feel like I'm going to hurt myself that way but I feel like the sword held is pretty much trapped and locked in to only a few options which I don't like. but like I said, I haven't trained in escrima or anything like it so I'm sure there's stuff I'm missing. I may move through that position in certain situations though but not as a starting guard. I'd like to see someone with lots and lots of escrima training go at it with two shortswords, that would be a thing to see I bet. It's not as awesome as you think... I have a lot of Escrima training, it's the weapon I'm most comfortable with. I have tried to translate it to two sword styles... but there are some major diffrences. As you pointed out, there are positions and postures in escrima that are not quite safe with two blades. Also my movement with two swords is drasticly slower, because with escrima you do not have to fear your weapons proximity to one another enarly as much... the sticks are very light and 'bouncy'... some techniques even require you to make contact with your own weapon... but this would be NO good with swords. So far, I have not been able to transfer my comfort with two weapons from escrima into two sword styles.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2009 19:54:06 GMT
Yea, the trick is to NOT cut your own head off. I wish I could see that video, tho.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2009 21:43:47 GMT
Wow I just noticed this thread great work with the two swords.I have had a pair of matching short swords for years and havent been brave enough to use them at the same time. I'd probably cut my head off by mistake.I was at a cutting party 4 or 5 years ago at David Stokes and somebody had the gumption to try two swords at once and they cut like lasers and he had all his digets left when he was done. Kind of makes me want to try them but I can bairly cut a single . total length 23.5 inchs blade 14inchs 1 7/8 thk
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Post by Deleted on Jun 19, 2009 3:38:06 GMT
Hehe Tom, if I try to do mind games with two swords, I'd be toast in about 2 seconds. The trouble is that because your defense is so lacking, any really decent fighter will just stab you if you try to do mind games or stay back. Changing rythm is good though. I do switch from fast flurry to slower more paced attacks to keep people on their toes. The main thing is you can't let them remember that your defense is lacking! However with a longsword or sword and shield, I become quite a bit more methodical in my fighting. And yeah if you can get into the pikeline, they do panic a lot...but less so in the west since many pikemen carry a side arm (mace or a sword usually) and they just use the pike as a full body cover and just peg you with their side arm(a knight I know use to always carry a dagger so we could disposition you with both arms on the pike for great leverage, then he would flip the dagger up and give you a nice hug o death)...which is why I tried that utterly bad idea of using 2 great swords and two bucklers (hey two weapons with greater reach then their side arms...can't go wrong ). I must admit, it did put the fear of god into the new fighters...the knights just kinda smirked at me and was surprised I did as well as I did.
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Post by Tom K. (ianflaer) on Jun 19, 2009 4:53:40 GMT
I hear you CN, I hear you loud and clear. I also agree that the fighting I've seen in the west (well Caid, not THE West) was very good indeed. two swords was much harder to survive in the west-ern kingdoms at least in one-on-one fighting. I reserved my two-sword mostly for melees out there and did well with them in that. but tourney fighting I did sword and board almost to exclusion. it is also true that mind games only really work on an opponent who is already thinking too much. but I don't often pass the chance when offered. there are advantages and disadvantages all around. you gotta do what works for you.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 19, 2009 5:14:54 GMT
Hehe, not to sound like we're bragging, but you ain't seen nothing yet . Seeing uther, jade or ragnor fight is bloody amazing. Hey since your in antir, you should be able to see some westie fighting in the next west/antir war.
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Post by Tom K. (ianflaer) on Jun 19, 2009 12:44:26 GMT
yup, I have to get my armor fixed up but I plan to do a little fighting as soon as I can. don't know if I'll be able to make a war or not. the ship rules my life's schedule. time will tel.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 20, 2009 3:57:57 GMT
Yeah, I know how that goes. I work in catering so getting weekends off to go to events isn't something that happens very often .
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