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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2009 20:40:54 GMT
What is the training required to use a sword as described in the "Tactical Sword Attributes" thread?
My intention is to figure out what's really needed and what is not. My assumptions include the presence of functional firearms, body armor, knives and so forth.
What I don't want to do is to spend a decade in training only to find out I just needed to be able to handle the weapon without hacking off my knee.
Physical fitness requirements would be good too, since many of us are overweight and/or not physically fit.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2009 21:49:00 GMT
As my Marine DI would say, "GET ON YER FACE!" There is an outstanding overview of modern thought on the continuum of range in combat over on page 10 of the Survival Sword thread, courtesy of... oh wait, you, Crebral. Again, we're talking pure tactical, battlefield weapon here, not a survival weapon, so in the context of this question the training and weapon can be more specialized. That said, you yourself made the case in that thread for why swords have gone by the wayside, appearing only rarely among special operators such as entry team members. The consensus, as I understand it, is that most modern soldiers feel that if they are in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy, they've done something wrong. The general doctrine is to attack with overwhelming force and aggressiveness if one is to attack at all, leaving no time or opportunity for protracted hand-to-hand struggle. That's not to say that hand-to-hand or knife/bayonet fights don't happen (Fallujah), but they are brief and harsh affairs. Someone who is training to use a tactical sword is actually training more generally for infantry or paramilitary combat. This is rigorous business, to say the least. The physical requirements for aviation are bad enough, and the "door busters" put it to shame. If you aren't doing a hundred pushups per day, you aren't even doing maintenance work. (You can spread 'em out if you like, though.) For skill training, firearms and tactics are going to be your chief focus. If you can't use a firearm, and use it well, you are at a disadvantage in the modern world, because the vast majority of your opponents are going to be focused on staying out of your reach and putting as many holes in you as they can. To defeat this strategy, you pretty much have to do it better. You have to be quick and accurate, with a rifle first, then with a pistol. A sword will come into play exactly as you describe, in the few instances where the guy is OH CRAP RIGHT THERE! and he has his hand on the muzzle of your carbine already. You have other dudes to deal with, so you don't want to get into a protracted grappling session with you. You sacrifice your off hand to grab your sword and slash him open and then you frickin' kick him away, shoot him once or twice, and then resume shooting all the other badguys. So yeah, if guns are a readily available feature of the battlefield, the sword isn't going to see much use that requires extensive fencing skill. Rather, your going to want to practice with it the way you practice with your knife (which would have served pretty much the same role in that scenario): Quick deployment and the delivery of rapid, devastating combination attacks. The only anecdote I've read of a tactical sword being used in combat was the one that inspired the verbage on the A-Trim Tactical web page, in which a breaching-team member had his M4 run dry at the exact moment that his target's AK jammed up. They were indoors, at very close range, and while his opponent struggled to switch firearms, the soldier in question closed the gap and cut him down with an Angus Trim katana-style blade, if I recall correctly. It was easily accessible and simple and quick to deploy. He then reloaded his carbine and resumed shooting people, of course. Integral to this sort of use are a few major factors: Physical strength, in that you have to be able to wield your weapons easily and overpower or outpace your enemy, and you have to do it even if you're already weary and stressed from an ongoing day of fighting. Focused aggression, in that you have to have the right training and attitude to make a positive decision in zero time flat and then execute it without any hesitation, even if it means charging straight at a man with a gun. (These guys do NOT fight the way civilians are taught to defend themselves at home. I, defending myself with a handgun in the civilian world, am under no obligation have not the training to assume the higher risk of charging or pinning down an enemy. My training focuses on lateral or backward movement, using cover and withdrawing from the firefight as quickly as possible as soon as the element of surprise is lost.) Finally, technique, not in high-level maneuvers, disarms, etc., but in executing one or two basic strokes with perfect aim and perfect form. You will have time for maybe one slash and one follow-up thrust. They'd better get the job done. Do a lot of cutting and thrusting practice, and practice against a variety of targets. Tatami mats are great, but wrap the whole thing in old jeans and then balance it upright rather than affixing it so. See if you can still cut through it before it can fall over. That's what comes initially to mind, anyway. As they say, you should always bring a gun to a knife fight, and a bigger gun to a gun fight, so you should always bring the biggest gun you can bring. One might extrapolate that every fight is therefore actually a gunfight, and if you are using your sword, then you have brought a knife to a gunfight. Act accordingly.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2009 22:01:00 GMT
well said sir.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2009 22:07:21 GMT
Yeah. What Ancient said. This is not to say that I won't carry a sword when and if I get deployed (because if I can convince my chain of command to let me, I will) but IF it ever sees use. That'll pretty much be how and when. Chances are I'll only be allowed a BIG knife in place of a sword. Which is perfectly acceptable, in that situation.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2009 22:09:36 GMT
Take what you can get, right? Every soldier does. Even superhero jet jocks (yo ho!).
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2009 2:28:43 GMT
Good Kukhri I say slash the first thing that presents itself often its hand and fingers which is good
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2009 11:58:16 GMT
Yes, this is what I was thinking of when I made the post.
RE: Actually training with the sword
Next, I want to get into the details of actually training under an instructor.
I'm more into short seminars rather than long contracts. Are there any traveling trainers? I can go to Larry Lindenman and Tom Sotis for knife and stick, but they don't do swords.
First, of course, is safety. Where should I get sword safety training? I don't want to hack my own leg open. Unfortunately, the NRA does not offer an "NRA Basic Swordsmanship" course. Many of the gun and knife guys run seminars around the country.
I'm thinking of the comment I read here where the Sensei said that the best martial art is the one closest to your house. There is a Kumdo dojo close by.
So does Kumdo teach these basic techniques? In watching some sparring, it seemed like all they did was hold the sword over their heads and smack the tops of their helmets. I also noticed they used the practice tools in sparring and nothing solid. I understand the reasons for this; there'd be very few students left.
Obviously, when I buy a blade, I will actually buy two. One will be sharp and the other will be a practice sword. Once I get my hands on them, I will also build a wooden sword that is similar to the live blade.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2009 12:33:57 GMT
Depending on the type of sword you are looking to use I would suggest ninjitsu or kenjutsu for japanese swordsmanship, european martial arts best option is to pick up some good books, but if you are looking for practical combat applications filipino martial arts, specifically pekiti tirsia. For tactical applications I think pekiti tirsia will serve you best, if it works for filipino special forces it should work for you. Why do you specifically want to learn to use a sword in a tactical situation? Unless you already know how to use your hands and feet for practical application, you are better off learning how to use what you have and what is most unexpected. Although frankly if the guy has a hand on the barrel, I'd want a front draw kerambit, fast and deadly and unexpected.
Swords are fairly impractical, great fun to learn to use but more of a liability in a combat situation I would imagine. I've never been in a combat situation but have done knife against gun training and unarmed against gun as well, I think a sword is unwieldy in that situation and a sword needs a certain amount of room to use effective, even long bladed knives. In a close in situation you really need a short blade killing knife, slice through the muscle cluster under the dominant weapon arm whilst stepping offline, standing side on slice the blade across the carotid artery and with the last step plunge the blade into the kidneys or the back of the neck and twist.
I'm not sure that kumdo would be a good option for practical application.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2009 13:02:59 GMT
Based upon what I've seen, kumdo is probably not the way to go. But...the sensei may be interested in doing some "custom" classes.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2009 13:28:13 GMT
The following video should give you some ideas.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2009 13:58:11 GMT
[Initiate controversial mode.]
All martial arts lead to the same place: there is only one right way to execute any technique--for a given person. The different arts simply teach different sets of techniques and use different methods of education to approach individual perfection. Ultimately, whether you start as a boxer in Chicago or a monk in China, if you study the straight punch, strong arm, from a strong foot back, you'll end up with the same punch either way, because there's only one optimum way that your body, with your mind and temperament, can deliver that fist from that starting point to that ending point, with maximum speed and power. The differences come, again, from sets of techniques, which are largely derived from the combat environment and rules of engagement for which the given art specialized.
Given this, your old saw about the best martial art being the one closest to home is probably correct. Any sword art, be it Filipino or German, is going to teach basic one-handed strokes eerily similar to any other. If it has two-handed strokes for larger weapons, those will be very like what other styles teach as well. They will all have a footwork fetish, and again, moving from one to another and asking about footwork will ultimately result a distinct sense of deja vu.
Sure, the details may seem different at first, but you'll notice a distinct commonality of themes and fundamentals, and eventually, given enough time, each school will bring you around to the same place: the perfect place for you.
So, go to the school you can go to. Better that than no school at all. And when you get there, focus on the fundamentals, like you were supposed to be doing anyway. Don't get bored with the twelve basic strikes (or however many your chosen school enumerates) or hung up on the fancy disarming techniques. Take those basic strikes and drill your heart out. Make them perfect. Make it so that even if you were reciting Shakespeare from memory, in the middle of a football field during an ongoing game, with your eyes closed, you could still on command execute any one of them with perfect form, balance, and precision, at full speed.
The rest, the details of a particular style, designed for a particular (and probably anachronistic) scenario (like the battlefields of Feudal Japan or the country roads to market of medieval Denmark) you can think of as academic gravy, a fun and fascinating hobby.
And like any academic hobby, even that portion of your training will not be without its benefits. Just because a boxer trains for gloves, rings, rules, and only two fists doesn't mean your average sucker can best him in a bar-fight. As we said above, the boxer gains an ideal punching technique for his personal style, which applies both in and out of the ring. But in training for the ring, he also gains physical conditioning, highly tuned reflexes and coordination, balance and coolness under pressure, and a hardened, aggressive mindset necessary to do battle.
You, in your local whatever-fencing-school, will gain a lot of knowledge likely applicable only to that art's arena. But you will also learn fundamentals of swordsmanship that are useful in or out of the arena, on any continent, with any blade or even with a good, stout stick or baseball bat, in a pinch. And finally, in their arena, you will gain (or continue, if you already have some martial training) the fine-tuning of certain assets that can only be tuned in combat.
The key, if there is one, is to think for yourself, but not to be "smarter by half." You must be an independent analyst of everything you learn, not simply adopting a sensei and becoming his apologist or evangelist, but actively taking what he teaches you, breaking it down, understanding it, assimilating it, and using it to build your perfect style, in and out of the show ring. Everything he teaches you, you should subsequently reteach to yourself, explaining to your own satisfaction not only the how but the why and the when and everything else. At the same time, though, you must be humble. In his house you do it his way, and exactly his way. You learn what he teaches you perfectly. If you wish to modify something or interpret it differently, you talk to him about it, and if he says "No," then you file it away until you're the sensei and leave it at that in the meantime. Let him teach you, learn what he teaches you, and never, ever, ever "outgrow" the fundamentals.
Finally, while seminars are great for expanding your technique set or learning new interpretations or fine adjustments to your existing techniques, they are no substitute for a regular master, a craggy old face to watch over you year in and year out and keep you honest, who can perceive a gradual untoward shift or degradation in your technique of which you might be unaware, and who can play devil's advocate to all your "bright ideas."
Ideally, in this way, you can study any martial art, as your life permits, and always be furthering your overall martial competence and mastery of self.
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Post by kaijinbutsu on Aug 24, 2009 20:45:35 GMT
You are very enlightened Ancient!!! Thanks for sharing!!!!
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2009 20:50:12 GMT
HAR! Must be all the Dungeons & Dragons... Thanks, Kaijin. Glad you liked it.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 25, 2009 18:35:43 GMT
Sorry have to disagree with you ancient mate. While there are only so many ways to execute a punch or a kick there are other techniques and series of techniques that are unique to their own arts. Also I would suggest splitting the arts into which arts are designed for sports and which are directed at practical application. There are many arts that have been reduced and watered down so that they are safe for sport, there are some arts that art lethal one on one that I would put in the "practical in certain situations" box and then there are the arts that are just plain practical. Also some arts are killing and pure effectiveness based, there is nothing flashy in them, they are straight to the point.
I do however agree with ancient as to the importance of a teacher and not just any teacher someone who is worthy of the title Sensei and not just because he self styled himself so. There is no substitute for a Sensei that cares about his students and his teachings are above reproach, what I call the Mr Miagi Sensei.
I also agree about the necessity of humility. As a very wise man once told me, if you go in thinking you know everything how can you learn anything? If you go in knowing you know nothing you can learn everything. Humility is also less likely to get you decked by your Sensei because of a smart arse remark.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 25, 2009 20:11:34 GMT
While I respect your right to disagree with me, Wraith, I don't think you actually have. And that's fortunate for you, because I'm always right! *drum sting* No, but seriously folks, Wraith is absolutely correct. And this is what I mean by "sets" of techniques. (Forgive me if I talk in mathematical terms, sometimes. I'm a programmer by training.) You will gain benefits from any martial art, as I described above, but that's not to say you won't gain more benefit for your purposes from studying a martial art designed for your purposes. (It seems obvious when I put it like that, but it's worth noting.) The more show-ring-oriented your local art is (look into the -do vs -jutsu/-jitsu suffixes in Japanese names, for instance), the more filtering and active analysis you will have to do to extract and adapt the practical elements. If I recall correctly, someone in one of these threads referred to a Kendo sensei who championed the inclusion of cutting exercises in his Kendo training for exactly this reason; he feared that the wooden-stick, point-sparring focus of Kendo as it was developing was giving rise to a set of techniques in which more and more members (--of the set, I mean. More math talk.) were suitable for winning a contest and fewer and fewer were techniques suitable for steel swords and killing. If your local art is very stylized, you will have to do some extracurricular work to extract the practical kernels from it. As a basic rule of thumb, if your school does not give you some kind of practice at full, killing force, some situation where you are required not to pull your punches, then you will have to make some additions. Just remember all that other stuff about being humble and working with your sensei. (If he won't work with you, he probably ain't the sensei for you. Either way, when you're in his house, you have to respect his law. That's just how civilized society works.)
At the opposite extreme is the local Krav Maga joint, which teaches stuff that looks really awesome and is really awesome, but is more of a "self defense system" than a "martial art." An expert in one of these systems learns a... a kind of hieroglyphic language, comprised of moves and sequences of moves (like hieroglyphs representing words and sequences of words) that can be used to respond to almost any situation. The vocabulary they teach can be used to construct some very effective street rhetoric (to continue to the metaphor). Statement: face-to-face choke! Rebuttal: punch, elbow, wrist-lock, arm break! Brutal, effective, practical, and easy to teach. But it's not a martial art.
A martial art is more like an alphabetic language. With a hieroglyphic language, your vocabulary and structure will ultimately be limited as the number of symbols required becomes impractical. It's easy to teach and it works within it's scope, but it has limits. An alphabetic art on the other hand can craft anything from a mathematical analysis to a Shakespearean soliloquy with a mere twenty-six characters. It's harder to teach, can take longer to learn, and may seem inefficient in its methods, but in the hands of a master it can work miracles of both effectiveness and efficiency. Esoteric soft styles like Tai Chi and Aikido are the greatest exemplars of this. They take a lifetime to master, and it's often hard to figure out exactly how they work (the consensus of Western reductionist science is that they utilize a wide combination of subtle physiological and psychological effects treated holistically by the practitioners under the monkier "chi" or "ki."), but the demonstrations are there and available. True masters of karate, fencing, and other harder arts often seem similarly magical when they fight, albeit in a less obvious way. (Perfect zanshin, for instance. The idea of a complete, dominating awareness of your opponent stemming from a total emptiness in your own mind takes a good long while to discuss in detail, much less learn.)
Krav Maga is not going to worry about that crap. Krav Maga is going to show you how to kill people today. If you want that esoteric stuff (and that is NOT really the subject of this thread, as "tactical" training must be practical and also relatively brief), then once again, you'll have to do some extracurricular work.
Summary: Wraith and I are in agreement. Every art is going to teach a different set of skills and techniques, and those sets are going to vary in terms of what portion of their members are suitable to any given purpose. To the extent that your local school does not overlap with your needs, you will have to work on your own, extracurricularly (literally, outside the curriculum), to adapt what you have to what you need and fill the gap. Obviously, you find the best match you can within the limits of accessibility, and then you do what you have to do to make it work.
In searching for this school, you'll find that various styles differ along a number of different axes as discussed above. They differ in terms of whether they're dedicated to show and competition or to actual, real-world battle (the -do vs. -jutsu comparison). They also differ in terms of whether they're dedicated to rapid, practical education or deeper, more long-term education. The former will be an easily grasped, fill-in-the-blank pictogram language of moves. The latter will be a much more challenging and subtle language based on esoteric principles that the sensei himself may have trouble putting into words. (As an aside, do you know why wizards speak in riddles? There are two excellent and equally true answers: A) to get you to stop asking stupid questions, and B) because wizards have poor communication skills.)
If you are very lucky, you may find a school that offers some balance on these various continua. I had the privilege for a little while to live near a little hole-in-the-wall (actually it was rent-the-local-gym-for-an-hour) school of Small-Circle Jujitsu, in which the instructor (a salty ex-Russian-army enlisted man turned American E.R. doctor and gun lover) was himself a studier of both practical training (with a vocabulary of patterned techniques very similar to any Krav Maga primer) and ki manipulation. Part of his personal process was to take what he learned from his more esoteric training and apply it to the practical work. "Here is an arm bar with correct placement. Here is the same arm bar with perfect placement, so as to pinch this nerve, strike this pressure point, and block chi flow here." It was awesome. And then, like, six months later, I had to move again.
That's life. Life is rarely perfect. You have to whittle a spear out of a stick. Look at what you have, make the best choice, then carve it and hammer it the rest of the way to what you need or want.
(My goal would be to gain twenty pounds of muscle, become lithe and acrobatic, master Tai Chi and fencing, learn a full Krav Maga lexicon including knife play, and be an expert marksman and wing shot. Also, fly fighter jets. I think at that point I'll be satisfied, as far as my martial skills-set goes.)
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Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2009 1:24:39 GMT
I'm more into the "Grrr..SMASH!" now. I figure I can learn the safety stuff and then in two days have what I need.
Sounds like Sonny Puzikas.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2009 2:31:13 GMT
Aye, in which case if you have a local Jiujitsu or self defense school, that's probably your best bet for someone who knows emptyhand or knife. For swords etc., I'd find a kali/escrima teacher. (Filipino stick fighting.). Those skills are very practical, and they cross over to long knives, one-hand swords, and also improvised weapons. Ask the local police/state troopers whom they go to. The Russian I mentioned would occaisionally get cops, but they didn't last long usually, 'cause Mr. Bystritski felt that before you learned a pressure point, you should feel it first. Good times
Anyway, even if you go with a local "practical school," stick with it and with one sensei. You learn better that way.
... Yeah, Kali to supplement hand to hand. I've noticed overlap between those skills and a lot of other fighting, especially knives, but even up to longswords. For instance, disarms found in German longsword manuals can also be found in Kali. Did I mention all martial arts are the same?.
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