Uhlan
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Posts: 3,121
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Post by Uhlan on Oct 13, 2013 21:38:12 GMT
Thank you!
It worked! With the setup Dave showed us at least. There is enough ,,give'' to get the blade out. I reckon I can clear up to 40" now. I will have to go Spanish. Dave's is a Spanish rig, no? Aww man, do I have to grow a moustache too?
Still, a static rig on a hip belt prohibits drawing over 36", at least in my case.
Again, thank you very much!
Edit: Yeeh, I got me an avatar.
Luristan Bronze Age axehead.
Modern art avant la lettre.
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Post by Beowulf on Oct 13, 2013 21:51:56 GMT
With my left hand at my hip I think I can clear about 54" in a draw, at least that is what the tape measure recorded. Too bad I do not have a rig here. I might just fiddle with this anyways with a broom handle for giggles.
I have looked high and low and I have not come up with much talking on this subject elsewhere online. I'll keep looking.
Besides how long of a blade you can free from a scabbard there is also the matter of the complex hilt. How do you hold it? and all that murmuring and controversy/debate. I just wish I had a rig and a video camera. These questions tend quickly through experimentation to be solved or furthered.
I like your rapier belt Dave. That looks good!
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Post by Dave Kelly on Oct 13, 2013 22:02:31 GMT
Pictures beat the written word again.
I have not been in front of a camera in 20 years. It shows. :shock: :lol: Anyway point made.
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Post by Dave Kelly on Oct 13, 2013 22:29:32 GMT
Baldrics seem more of a french habit. The hangers with the baldric are in this case spanish in style.
Lutel makes some nice stuff. And offers color options.
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Post by greypilgrim on Oct 14, 2013 0:48:55 GMT
Thanks Dave.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 14, 2013 1:15:10 GMT
Exactly, no matter what the blade length is, the importance is the subtlety of unsheathing it the right way.
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Post by KentsOkay on Oct 14, 2013 1:48:09 GMT
Dave just showed exactly what I was doing a poor job of describing. I'm 5' 7" on a good day and can clear almost 50"this way.
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Post by justin520 on Oct 14, 2013 2:55:50 GMT
Off topic:
They totally were, which is why the shoguns bakufu used them, French taught military science there.
On topic:
Is drawing not curriculum in western martial arts? I feel as though the draw is a crucial life and death moment, but this idea comes from katana use. Also what is standardized rapier length? A 45 inch single handed thrust sword sounds cumbersome and unweildly.
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Post by John P on Oct 14, 2013 4:22:30 GMT
The video covers the ground well. late period rapier did get very long because it lets you be safer in a fight especially against an inexpediented foe. In latter manuscripts there are depictions and illustrations of how to draw these long rapiers.   Top right  Most early manuals show drawing in to Prima. as far as the effectiveness of the rapier as a weapon it is a civil weapon rather than a weapon of war. George Silver complains that the rapier is an evil weapon that is only good for killing ones own country men. I explain it as a cowboys pistol rather than the rifle or shotgun. You wouldn't take you pistol to go fight the civil war or the Mexican army but isn't socially acceptable to cary your long arm around town. As for the cutting power of a true rapier the Italian masters only seem to show cuts to the head, face, neck, wrist and back of the knee. In Spanish there are more cuts but they are large wheeling cuts with the blade constrained in some way. |
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Uhlan
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Posts: 3,121
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Post by Uhlan on Oct 14, 2013 5:59:27 GMT
Dave, thanks for the video.
It explaines a lot.
I must get me a rig and train with it. Will check out Lutel and compaire those with the ones KOA has.
As you said: It's harder to get it back in again. I saw you guided the point with the flat between thumb and finger, kinda like katana, where one guides the blade by sliding the back of the blade over the finger.
Good to see the pictures also. I wonder why in two of them the men stand on one leg while sheating the blade?
All of this makes for a good ,, How to '' manual.
What I also learned is that the quillons and the basket seem to limit the length of the blade to a certain armlength. Go above this limit, 36" for me maybe 40" at most and the wrist and knuckles, in my exercices, get stuck in said hardware.
So, in Beowulf's case, the 54" he gets with the ruler, where the hand is free to move in any position, might be limited in reality to much less.
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Post by Dave Kelly on Oct 14, 2013 9:17:24 GMT
Geometry. Creating the longest, straightest line to extract the sword.
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Uhlan
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Posts: 3,121
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Post by Uhlan on Oct 14, 2013 15:10:18 GMT
I see.
Thank you very much.
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Post by John P on Oct 14, 2013 15:54:38 GMT
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Post by MOK on Oct 14, 2013 20:02:20 GMT
I'm 5'10" (178cm), with pretty much exactly average proportions for a Finn (and we're a fairly average nation, overall  ). My Darkwood trainer has a blade 42" long from the quillon block, or 39.5" from the end of the arms, and I have no problem at all drawing that. In fact, placing a tape measure along the blade and holding the end in my left hand where the mouth of my scabbard would be suggests I could draw anything up to around 50" without prohibitive difficulty... If you're having trouble, the first thing I'd suggest to try is to wear your scabbard lower - like an Old West gunslinger! - and to draw as straight up vertically as you can instead of diagonally to the side (IMO, this also places you in a much better defensive posture right from the draw). I wear mine with the mouth of the scabbard just about where my left palm is when I let my arms hang relaxed. |
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Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Oct 14, 2013 21:27:12 GMT
To John P.
I do not want to sound pedantic, but in Pic1-A the man is drawing? Seems to be a drawing sequence, whereas in Pic2- the man is looking down at the scabbard mouth. He does not look at his opponent, like the man in Pic1 who's looking straight ahead at his foo. The man in Pic2 concluded his business, no need keeping an eye on a dead person?
Thank you very much for the links and I am sure we all will enjoy what Mr. George Silver has to say. Right now I cannot go into the new material you so kindly offered, time to hit the sack for me.
To MOK:
Why didn't I think of this! Man, I am to mushy headed even to be let lose on this forum. Thanks! This Gun Slinger idea gives one a lot of extra drawing power.
I cannot go as far down as you, because I like to have an instand grip without looking down, so when I swing my right arm to the left across my body, I end somewhat higher up, but still gain a precious 20-25 cm.
Now I begin to understand what all those little straps on Dave's rig are all about: fine tuning! Placing the grip just where you need it to be, so you can draw with your eyes on your opponent. There seems to be much more to the combination rapier and rig, hanger, or what, than meets the eye. It's a fine tuned weapon system. Gun Slinger indeed!
Thank you very much.
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Post by MOK on Oct 14, 2013 21:50:50 GMT
It depends on your stance, too - getting into a fencing stance and leaning slightly forward at the hips puts my hand in the right spot, but you're right in that if I stand up straight, it does come short. (Whether you're using a belt or a baldric also makes a big difference, here.)
Absolutely! Hit the nail right on the head, there. There are good, practical reasons for all those little details.
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Uhlan
Member
Posts: 3,121
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Post by Uhlan on Oct 15, 2013 16:51:34 GMT
No. The ,,funny stance'', hopping around on one foot, is not my thing. Were I an Italian noble at that time, I would have my men nail Maestro X's ears to the church door were he so impertinent to suggest such an affront to my dignity. As to manuals, well, as far as I can see, they make for a kind of ritualistic form of exercise, like jogging, but practised in clubs, collectives. Since I am allergic to any form of collectivism and ritual fighting is far from the real thing were there is only one rule:,, I live, you die, and it does not matter how I get there as long as I get there, form be damned'' my attendance at said institutions would make for a very short but sort of spectacular time indeed. Contemplating this I remember the time I had a private boxing and karate teacher ( the above explaines why) who became a good friend over the years of practise. Untill, one day, I knocked him out cold. After that event I saw less and less of him. Pity. Now to go back on track: I think I will go after a Baldric. It seems to offer flexibility and to offer a lot of fun tweaking the thing. Next on my list comes the Windlass Pilsen. The hilt fits, as far as I can see, the transitional period, only the blade I would like to have a little wider at the guard. Why do Hanwei and Windlass put these narrow epee blades on their rapiers? Munich Town Guard is on the list also. Edit: Not long ago I fitted a Jian blade to the hilt of A Windlass Scottish cutlass. It works very well and could now be classified as a CaT a la Chinoise. That hilt, by the way, Windlass copied from this one I think:  I just might do this again with the Pilsen, though a long slender Euro blade with a width of about 1.5" to slightly under 2" must be out there somewhere? |
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Post by MOK on Oct 15, 2013 18:13:26 GMT
No, no, I meant something like this:  Say what? Does this include manuals like the Codex Wallerstein that contain detailed hints on how to rob peasants, or the rapier manuals featuring full weight kicks to the groin? For rapier I would recommend Guy Windsor's The Duelist's Companion. It's his interpretation of and instruction for training Ridolfo Capo Ferro's system of 17th Century Italian rapier fencing, and there's certainly nothing ritualistic about any of it. (Of course the exercises include lots of preset plays, but you absolutely need that kind of repetition in order to condition your reflexes. Ask any boxer.) It's also very accessible and explains everything, and the reasons for everything, from the ground up. I think the main flaw with the Pilsen would actually be blade length. It's too short for what it's supposed to be. And probably too thin, as well... The H/T Longsword, maybe? It's not much like a rapier blade, but would make an interesting sort of weapon on a complex hilt... |
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Post by Beowulf on Oct 15, 2013 19:18:57 GMT
Ulahn: Good god! I've been looking for something the Windlass Scotch cutlass is based on for a long time now. Out of nowhere, without fanfare, it quietly pops into existence. Thank you sir.
For earlier fightbooks (pre-rapier) I don't think of them as ritualized. They are all about the duel, therefore full of tricks and techniques, both good and desperate. For a battlefield you might try to apply these things, but mostly I see that stuff wiped away by the situation/distance to the foe/amount of foes, etc. So battle is a free-for-all out of necessity. Though even in period paintings you see fightbook stuff applied. My explanation of that was covered above: the combatant could in that situation, so he applied what he had learned.
The Pilsen as I see it is a "retro" rapier. Something with some appeal to someone based on that. Yes, it should have a stouter cutting blade, but does not.
It occurs to me that maybe it could offer some advantage in some way? Your foe thinks "this is a sidesword wielding opponent I am about to face" then the blade comes out and the opponent has to come to terms with a different fight entirely.
Just a thought. I still think it is trying to be novelty with that hilt on a much later blade.
P.S. I am still trying to find a Pilsen historical inspiration artifact.
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Post by Chris Holzman on Oct 15, 2013 19:38:12 GMT
It has been a while (a couple years) since I've looked at it, but I think the 'funny stance' of one footed standing is from Thibault, but it is one plate of a series, which illustrates how to draw the sword while stepping forward or backward - so it isn't just standing on one foot, its a practical method of drawing while moving.
Thibault gives a very detailed, step by step method, with a new illustration for pretty much every major movement, accompanied by text referring to the specific image, and usually there are several images per action. Thibault's system is sort of Spanish Destreza, but with a longer blade than typical for Destreza, though not an overly long sword. I'm about 5'9" or so, and IIRC I need something like a 39" blade measured from the quillions to point, for his system. Thibault is perhaps overly complicated and overwhelming at first glance, much as Fabris' book is simply huge, yet, if you're interested in a system, don't have access to good instruction, or if you're a 'draw me a picture' type of person, Thibault gives way, way more 'how to' information than almost any of the other books of the time, and is far more step-by-step.
Drawing a rapier really isn't any sort of magic. If you have a rapier such that the quillions/cross are at your navel, point on the ground, while you're standing with your feet together, you're pretty much in the ballpark for most Italian systems from 1600 to 1700, and what was shown in the video clip above should work out just fine.
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). My Darkwood trainer has a blade 42" long from the quillon block, or 39.5" from the end of the arms, and I have no problem at all drawing that. In fact, placing a tape measure along the blade and holding the end in my left hand where the mouth of my scabbard would be suggests I could draw anything up to around 50" without prohibitive difficulty...
