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Post by Gakuseinozen on Jan 8, 2015 21:32:31 GMT
*I posted this on Facebook and have gotten some good answers, but as things tend to do on Facebook, the discussion seems to have gotten sidetracked a bit. Posting here in hopes of getting some more detailed and thought out answers.
I'm curious what drew each of you to this hobby.
As an addendum or aside, why do you think that out of all historical weaponry, swords were/are held in such high regard and capture our fascination more than any others?
I'm speaking mainly of mainly ancient/medieval (or feudal in the case of Japan) periods since that's when the sword had its heyday, although I know many of you enjoy collecting Renaissance and even more modern pieces.
During these times there were many other weapons that were more common, and also more widely used than swords. As an average foot soldier, it's more likely that your main weapon would have been some kind of spear or polearm instead of a sword. Why then do we not revere the spear or polearm in the same way that we do the sword?
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Post by DigsFossils-n-Knives on Jan 8, 2015 21:42:22 GMT
Good one. I guess for me it's the influence of TV and movies. Although when I was a little kid I loved halberds and would draw my own designs (my parents thought I was a bit odd - - Why not draw a house with trees, grass, and a yellow sun?).
Over time it changed to medieval swords and then to Japanese swords. I don't even admire guns the same way admire a well built sword or a historical piece. If fact I started this hobby of knife and sword making because I know I can't afford to buy all the different designs I'd like to own. So I plan to build them for myself.
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Post by Gakuseinozen on Jan 8, 2015 21:44:35 GMT
My (short) story:
What drew me to swords was a combination of video games and literature and a friend of mine who was heavily into them before introducing me to the hobby.
Pretty much my entire late childhood (high school) was spent playing Everquest, a high fantasy online role playing game, in which swords featured prominently as essential equipment for dispatching evil creatures. During this time I also read the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogy, which of course has swords which are important enough to have names and deeds of their own.
During college I lived with a friend of mine who was very into samurai culture and swords in general. He loaned me his copy of The Book of 5 Rings, and introduced me to Sword Forum International. It wasn't long after that that I bought my first sword, an Atrim, from the classifieds section on the forum. My friend purchased a Migration Era from Albion around the same time and we tried our hand at cutting tatami. Our inexperience made for a fun but somewhat disappointing experience. After that I took a several year hiatus from swords, but last year my interest was rekindled and I think it's here to stay.
As far as why I think swords are more interesting/fascinating than other weapons... I guess I'd have to say it's a combination of things. Back then, swords started out as something only nobility or the highest of the warrior class could hope to wield in combat; they were prestige weapons. I think for a long time (and even still) this idea and mentality carried through, even when swords stopped being the most effective weapon on the battlefield. A sword is also more of a personal thing; a spear or polearm is standard issue equipment and all of them are basically the same, but a sword can be made to fit the owner and their own personal preference. I think this personal nature led them to become objects of reverence; something that can be a trusty guardian and your last line of defense when all else fails. This in turn has led swords to be portrayed in media as having special, and often magical, qualities. I think this is helped also by a sword's construction and materials - the first use of metal, and steel, in particular was an amazing technological feat and I don't think our reverence of it has worn off with time. Sure, the important part of a spear (or other weapon) is metal, but with a sword it is the foundation and the core at the heart of the weapon. Imagination can easily take over and those magical/mysterious qualities can be seen as being imbued in the steel (or other fanciful material... meteorite sword, anyone?).
Anyway, I'm curious what you all think. Cheers.
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Post by Arthur Dayne on Jan 8, 2015 21:44:53 GMT
*I posted this on Facebook and have gotten some good answers, but as things tend to do on Facebook, the discussion seems to have gotten sidetracked a bit. Posting here in hopes of getting some more detailed and thought out answers.I'm curious what drew each of you to this hobby. As an addendum or aside, why do you think that out of all historical weaponry, swords were/are held in such high regard and capture our fascination more than any others? I'm speaking mainly of mainly ancient/medieval (or feudal in the case of Japan) periods since that's when the sword had its heyday, although I know many of you enjoy collecting Renaissance and even more modern pieces. During these times there were many other weapons that were more common, and also more widely used than swords. As an average foot soldier, it's more likely that your main weapon would have been some kind of spear or polearm instead of a sword. Why then do we not revere the spear or polearm in the same way that we do the sword? I prefer swords because for the amount of minutes in my hour and the number of hours I have per day to devote to fitness, a sword is more practical strength/reflex/hand to eye/depth perception/spatial relations training than merely using weights or a static machine. To increase resistance I use progressively heavier and heavier blades. For example 1. 2 pound two hander 2. 2.5 pound 3. 3.0 pound 4. 3.5 pound 5. 4.0 pound etc etc to for example 8 pound. To focus the muscle, tendon and joint endurance and flexibility I will perform many cutting and thrusting reps one handed using progressively heavier swords and increase the speed to a point where I may lose control of the weapon or break something. Then I stop and switch hands, allowing the other to rest. There's more to it like target practice setups sort of like how shooting requires accuracy first and you keep your groupings consistently small, swordplay for me exercising accurate thrusts at small target groupings and making sure cuts fall within a tight range. It is a repetitive but amusing process. There really isn't an end result I'm seeking but it's nice to have a fitness system that is easy to store away in a closet or a shelf. For lower body I recommend jumping jacks, running (cardio and breathing), stretching since it helps speed up the footwork and endurance needed for using a sword properly.
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Post by randomnobody on Jan 8, 2015 21:50:42 GMT
Personally, I just like sharp things. I've had knives as long as I can remember, and as I got bigger so did my knives. I hit the sword stage in my teens and have gone back and forth since. Still have way more knives than swords, and am now wanting a pole weapon or two. Because sharp things are neat. Since you're wanting a deeper answer, though, I came to be drawn to the sheer artistry of the craft. Taking some raw material you dug up in a hole, sticking it in a fire of some absurd heat, whacking it with a heavy, blunt object against another heavy, blunt object until it's shaped the way you want it, then quenching it, grinding it, and ultimately putting it into the hands of somebody who has trained for the better part of their lives in a vast array of techniques centered around getting the pointy end into the other guy...the whole process is just fascinating. When it's taken even further, it becomes even more so. A sword is just a sharp piece of steel with a handle on it. That's all well and good, but some of the swords history has given us, and some of the swords people are making today, are genuinely pieces of art in their own regard. They're more than a tool to make one thing two or more part-things, some barbaric instrument of human destruction, they're examples of the intricacy of the craft, and the tastes of the people who used them. What really gets me is, despite all swords sharing the same function: Disable or kill the other guy, every culture in the world has come up with its own unique design(s) with which to do so. From the various Oakeshott typologies to the evolution of the Japanese sword, even the Chinese swords that gave birth to it, particularly the swords from the Arabic and/or "Middle Eastern" world, the numerous ways we have devised with which to undo each other is astonishing, and somewhere in the morbid, gruesome capabilities of these tools there is a beauty to it all that can't really be put into words. Mostly, though, I just think they're cool. Especially ones that have been around a while. I have six antiques, two wakizashi, a small flyssa, one each of a big and small "Khyber Knife," and a bayonet. One wakizashi could very well be 700 years old (I doubt it, not my luck) and the bayonet and flyssa are still over 100 years old, the former inscribed with a date of manufacture of 1879. To hold these in my hand, to think that these have come from all around the world (Japan, Afghanistan, Algeria, France...) and to wonder what they've seen, it's just plain fun. One of my waks started its life as a pole arm. That in and of itself is cool. A spear (arguably more like a halberd or glaive) turned into a sword? Okay, sure. But yeah, sharp stuff. As for the rest of the world, well...swords were largely a status symbol for the better part of their use. Nobles used them, peasants and the like were lucky if they got a spear. Axes, clubs, various farming tools...these were what the typical fighting man had to hand for most of history. Those of higher class, though, could afford swords. Thus, they gained a level of envy and romance. A lowly commoner could gain quick notoriety if he managed to take down a knight. Nobody cared how many foot soldiers a knight took out. Edit: Yikes, I took a long time to type that. Nobody else had posted when I started.
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Post by Adrian Jordan on Jan 8, 2015 21:50:41 GMT
I'm not sure. When I look at the 1969 Mustang Mach 1, it just looks right to me. I think "That's what they should look like. That's right." It's similar with swords and knives. I just love them. There's just something about them that makes them seem right to me.
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Post by Bob B on Jan 8, 2015 22:04:18 GMT
As a kid it was ninja turtles, samurai movies. Always had a attraction to the sword/martial arts. It kind of dropped off in my teenage years when interests to hot chicks/beer took preference. I enlisted in the Air Force and interest in weapons and things military fired back up. When I take a step back and consider how soldiers of old faced each other in more personal/real fashion I gained a real respect for that. Swords and other related weapons take on an aspect interesting to me.
Bob
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Post by Timo Nieminen on Jan 8, 2015 22:16:35 GMT
During these times there were many other weapons that were more common, and also more widely used than swords. As an average foot soldier, it's more likely that your main weapon would have been some kind of spear or polearm instead of a sword. Why then do we not revere the spear or polearm in the same way that we do the sword? Because everybody had them, while (good) swords were more expensive and rare? Toyota Corolla vs Ferrari. These days, movie heroes use swords rather than spears, so this attitude is still around. There are practical considerations for modern collectors. There are some lovely spear/polearm replicas out there. Alas, the good ones tend to be expensive, and there is less choice than with swords. Spears/polearms can present some storage problems, too. But for practical battlefield fighting, there's no question: spear is better than sword.
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Post by Vincent Dolan on Jan 8, 2015 22:36:02 GMT
I've always liked swords and knives; I can't even really point to one single influence, but if I had to pick specific examples, there'd be movies like Highlander, Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, snippets of Conan the Barbaiarian, etc. However, I do know that, in movies where the hero found himself in a treasure hoard, there'd always be at least one jeweled sword or dagger sticking up (probably just to break the monotony of boring piles of gold) and I always thought to myself that that'd be what I'd grab first. Once I started to really read novels (that were often supposed to be way too complex for me), I found myself enjoying sword & sorcery style fantasy the most, so I guess I was really exposed to the sword as a weapon. Then I became vaguely aware of the functional sword market (this was before SBG had even been founded and long before I was even aware of it) and began ogling some of the swords; at the time, I was big into the katana, likely due to my influence of anime & movies, but more likely because of how Hollywood portrayed Euros as being heavy, dull clunkers, but even then I practically drooled over the Albion Berserkr long before I even knew what Albion was. As time passed, my interest broadened into weapons of all kinds and, well, the rest is history.
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Post by Elrikk on Jan 8, 2015 22:49:30 GMT
They cut things.
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Post by Bryan Heff on Jan 8, 2015 23:05:21 GMT
Good question, hard to answer. For me I like the history aspect, but it's definitely more than that. There is something about the lines and ratios and dimensions of a sword ( Euro swords for me) that just hits a certain button for me. I am not into any other weapons. Not a gun guy...I mean I know the basics, used to kinda like knives when I was younger, but always it was the medieval sword for me. Just love them. Regal, simple, symbolic, powerful.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2015 2:17:20 GMT
The history, the technology, the practical martial arts aspect, and of least importance to me but I can still appreciate the aesthetics.
Timo, I do collect spears and polearms for those reasons too, high ceilings do help though!
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Post by MOK on Jan 9, 2015 2:35:07 GMT
I'm not sure. When I look at the 1969 Mustang Mach 1, it just looks right to me. I think "That's what they should look like. That's right." It's similar with swords and knives. I just love them. There's just something about them that makes them seem right to me. Yeah. I think, at least for me, it's the perfect marriage of form and function, aesthetics and performance, that gives me the shivers. I can see it in things like classic cars and old guns, too, but for me a fine sword is the very image of that symbiosis.
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Post by justin520 on Jan 9, 2015 7:16:18 GMT
Anime and movies got me into them, but nowadays it's good workout and recreational cutting is fun
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Post by Germanic on Jan 9, 2015 17:33:16 GMT
I've always been fascinated by them, even as a toddler.
I think they are an amalgamation of Form and Function.
They represent History.
I feel power when I hold one, similar to when I am out hunting and have my rifle with me.
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Post by Robert in California on Jan 9, 2015 22:20:28 GMT
I liked knives and swords since a kid. But especially Japanese swords. The lowly raw materials used, the skill and technical outcome despite the low technology available? I mean, we have all this modern technology, but still unable to create a blade like the old Bizen koto blades..... And the history of them. And especially the oddness of a sword being a conceptually simple device yet the skilled wielding of such requiring so much practice and having so much subtle complexity. That said, I still see mono steel swords as kind of boring....lacking complexity. Guess that says, that as a small child, I soon got bored with a baloon. I mean, what all can one do with a balloon? Maybe it is an intellect thing? After all, I knew a neighborhood dog that was endlessly excited to chase and retrieve a thrown stick. Nice dog...nobody said it was particularly bright though. RinC p.s. best kenjutsu (illustrated) book I have know was F.Lovret's Kenjutsu Shodan. Still have not found my copy. But used are $125usa plus on Ebay...am too much a Scott to pay that.
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Post by Robert in California on Jan 9, 2015 22:22:48 GMT
p.s. Quiz: Q: is a katana or a wakizashi the better choice for a home defense sword for someone living in a small apartment?
(an 8 foot yari (spear) you say?....)
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Post by svante on Jan 9, 2015 22:27:49 GMT
They take care of problems.
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Post by ineffableone on Jan 9, 2015 23:01:06 GMT
Personally, I just like sharp things. I've had knives as long as I can remember, and as I got bigger so did my knives. I hit the sword stage in my teens and have gone back and forth since. Still have way more knives than swords, and am now wanting a pole weapon or two. Because sharp things are neat. Yep this is pretty much my answer, I just tend to like sharp and pointy things. Be them knives, swords, arrows, spears, or what ever. I find a beauty in simple functional sharp and point stuff. Generally I don't like overly decorative blades, it is the functionality of design that makes the beauty for me. And while there are some cool looking guns and other modern weapons, the mechanical stuff just doesn't have the elegance of a blade. Not to mention after seeing Highlander I figured I better have a sword incase I was "the one"
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Post by LG Martial Arts on Jan 10, 2015 1:40:53 GMT
For me, it's been a combination of things. I grew up on a working farm, and my grandfather taught me the importance and respect for bladed and other tools/weapons. I grew to appreciate a good knife and good guns since I was a wee beastie (around 4), being around them on a constant basis. I grew to respect them since I saw what they were capable of when butchering one of our livestock. Later in life, I was fascinated with knive/swords because of tv (who remembers "The Master" tv show with Lee Van Cleef?) and other movies. Excalibur, The Sword and The Sorcerer, Conan, and Highlander the movie (there can be only one movie) and the tv show made a HUGE impact on me as well. Still later in life, I studied English literature, focussing on medieval/Arthurian tales, which again whetted my appetite for bladed weapons, which was made into reality when a great martial artist moves to the city next to mine over 10 years ago, prompting me to start taking Eishin Ryu Iaido. The rest, as they say, is history.
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