nddave
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Post by nddave on Apr 25, 2015 3:31:13 GMT
Hi everybody,
So I was bored and browsing around today and saw something quite interesting, a link to MMA sword duels from Russian MMA promoter M-1. It seems that this is becoming quite popular in Russia and is something many of their professional MMA fighters are into. I don't know how imbedded it is in traditional Western Martial and Weapon arts or to modern outfits like HEMA but it looks interesting and is real rather than the usual staged or over the top sword clashing stuff you usually see. They use real (but blunted) swords, shields and armor. There is a point system much like other competitive fighting sports, for example a proper shield strike or sword slash is worth 2-1 points respectively. It seems pretty legit and maybe something to watch as I know many of you are fans of traditional MMA and seeing how the fighters themselves are actual MMA fighters who are either into or training in WMA this might be something to support. Anyway here is a link to the fight I watched, its not too bad and I like how the fighters do more than swing their swords by using the shields, gauntlets and even their knees to fight. It even goes to the ground a few times. Hope you enjoy and please discuss both pros and negatives of this new form of MMA.
Thanks, David
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nddave
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Post by nddave on Apr 25, 2015 3:49:47 GMT
Also Brownie points to whoever can tell what swords the fighters are using regarding maker and model. ;)
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Post by L Driggers (fallen) on Apr 25, 2015 4:41:10 GMT
They don't use their shields proper leaving themselves open to attack.
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nddave
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Post by nddave on Apr 25, 2015 15:59:40 GMT
They don't use their shields proper leaving themselves open to attack. The one with the kite shield you could definitely see didn't know how to properly use that type. The other guy with the smaller Viking shield seemed to use his pretty well especially regarding the shield strikes as he used it quite effectively and landed some solid blows. I'm sure the more they do this the more they'll train and get more effective with their techniques. They are professional fighters after all and technique and strategy is a big deal to professional fighters. Another thing is seeing how they went to the ground and how they adapted to being in that position in armor, something I'm sure happened on the real battlefield. It also helped show just how maneuverable men were in armor and that they weren't slow cumbersome tin suits like most think.
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Post by L Driggers (fallen) on Apr 25, 2015 16:14:40 GMT
Well I didn't watch the video posted was going by anotner video I saw of it two guys with rounds shields. The 2 guys in it didn't use the shields to defend just attack.
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nddave
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Post by nddave on Apr 25, 2015 16:31:51 GMT
Well I didn't watch the video posted was going by anotner video I saw of it two guys with rounds shields. The 2 guys in it didn't use the shields to defend just attack. Ok. I personally haven't watched all the posted fights yet just two. Check the one I posted out, it's quite impressive. I'd like to see longswords used at some point.
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Post by Lukas MG (chenessfan) on Apr 25, 2015 16:48:41 GMT
Yeah, about as much historical accuracy as in a Hollywood fight. Just what you'd expect if you give two mma fighters with no background in an actual sword martial art two swords and tell them to go hit the other guy. Stupid, mindless bashing.
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nddave
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Post by nddave on Apr 25, 2015 17:38:24 GMT
Yeah, about as much historical accuracy as in a Hollywood fight. Just what you'd expect if you give two mma fighters with no background in an actual sword martial art two swords and tell them to go hit the other guy. Stupid, mindless bashing. You know it's funny you say that but when I watch any HEMA type duels it doesn't look any different regarding sword and shield duels. Lots of bashing and bumping around. Obviously a big factor taken out is thrusting which pretty much halfs any by the book techniques anyway. I agree it's not the most eloquent display but comparing it to Hollywood is a little harsh. Much like on the real battlefield I'd like to see just how the snobs think they'd match up against these guys. I know a lot of potbellied JSA and JMA practitioners that like to talk down on most MMA fighters but put them in the ring with them and their tone changes. ;)
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Post by Lukas MG (chenessfan) on Apr 25, 2015 20:26:03 GMT
There really aren't many comparable HEMA style duels, if any at all (I mean armored up with sword and shield) so I'm not sure what kind of videos you mean. If you mean sword and buckler, there's lots and the good stuff is worlds apart from this here. Look for Hammaborg's and Roland Warzecha's videos.
The question is what do you want to test? If you put a JSA (or HEMA) guy in that armor and in the ring against a mma fighter and have them fight to the rules of mma combat, sure they most likely have problems. Same thing with BotN stuff. But neither medieval mma nor BotN have much in common with historical fighting and it's nothing a HEMA or JSA fighter trains for. It's simple, really. A general rule of thumb for full speed sparring is: Either you do historical techniques OR you use historical equipment. If you do both, you very quickly get historically accurate dead people. In other words: If you're fighting with intent (and these guys do, gotta admit that) while wearing approximately what they wore back then (which they do) but you're NOT getting dead people (which they don't), you're doing something seriously wrong (which they do).
The medieval mma stuff is somewhat historically accurate armor with mainly inaccurate techniques. Trading sword blows in armor is absolutely stupid, it doesn't do anything. You need to either thrust or get the other guy on the ground to put you dagger where it hurts the most. So the wrestling part at least was pretty decent. The rest? Forget about it.
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nddave
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Post by nddave on Apr 25, 2015 21:24:12 GMT
There really aren't many comparable HEMA style duels, if any at all (I mean armored up with sword and shield) so I'm not sure what kind of videos you mean. If you mean sword and buckler, there's lots and the good stuff is worlds apart from this here. Look for Hammaborg's and Roland Warzecha's videos. The question is what do you want to test? If you put a JSA (or HEMA) guy in that armor and in the ring against a mma fighter and have them fight to the rules of mma combat, sure they most likely have problems. Same thing with BotN stuff. But neither medieval mma nor BotN have much in common with historical fighting and it's nothing a HEMA or JSA fighter trains for. It's simple, really. A general rule of thumb for full speed sparring is: Either you do historical techniques OR you use historical equipment. If you do both, you very quickly get historically accurate dead people. In other words: If you're fighting with intent (and these guys do, gotta admit that) while wearing approximately what they wore back then (which they do) but you're NOT getting dead people (which they don't), you're doing something seriously wrong (which they do). The medieval mma stuff is somewhat historically accurate armor with mainly inaccurate techniques. Trading sword blows in armor is absolutely stupid, it doesn't do anything. You need to either thrust or get the other guy on the ground to put you dagger where it hurts the most. So the wrestling part at least was pretty decent. The rest? Forget about it. That's what I mean though, what really construes as "real battlefield combat"? Is it some artsy display or a brutal bash and clash? Guess we'll never really know without time machines but from what has been literalized it seems the majority of melee conflicts resembled more brutality and lack of form than many like you would like to think to simply justify the civility of western martial arts or any martial art for that matter. Look at it from this perspective, does a real fight tend to resemble more of a match in a Tae Kwon Do tournament or more like a MMA match? Civility and drawn out techniques definitely loose their presence in life or death situations. So yes in the end regarding safe combat duels that aren't scripted you'll see more brashness and less finesse because what else are they going to do aside from bash each others armor!? It's no different than Kendo or even fencing. I think a lot of you need to lighten up on the subject of western martial arts and how they're represented in the mainstream. At least these guys are taking a more traditional stance to the dueling and not clashing swords or adding some fantasy theme to it right?
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Post by Timo Nieminen on Apr 25, 2015 21:51:07 GMT
What they're doing is much more like the TKD tournament than the MMA match. What's the difference between MMA and sport TKD? In the TKD tournament, many techniques are not allowed (grappling, throwing, striking below-the-belt). And there's plenty of protective gear for safety.
In this "Medieval MMA": no thrusting, no daggers. The main anti-armour techniques are not allowed. Grappling/throwing (very important in one-on-one, armoured) is, at least, but then you would want to stick that dagger through an eyeslot or up under that skirt, or somewhere else vulnerable.
It could be done. Give them pollaxes and daggers, maybe longswords. Provide excellent (modern) protection for the gaps. Give points (or wins) for sticking points hard enough into that gap protection. Might need electronic scoring with fancy modern sensors (to measure "hard enough"), but points for hitting hard enough with hammer or (blunted) spike of a pollaxe would be cute.
Would turn into a pretty authentic grapple-throw-dagger into face, most of the time.
Authentic for duelling, that is. Many-on-many on a battlefield does things to the desirability of grappling. Besides, then you'd have lots of missile weapons around.
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Post by Lukas MG (chenessfan) on Apr 25, 2015 22:31:09 GMT
There really aren't many comparable HEMA style duels, if any at all (I mean armored up with sword and shield) so I'm not sure what kind of videos you mean. If you mean sword and buckler, there's lots and the good stuff is worlds apart from this here. Look for Hammaborg's and Roland Warzecha's videos. The question is what do you want to test? If you put a JSA (or HEMA) guy in that armor and in the ring against a mma fighter and have them fight to the rules of mma combat, sure they most likely have problems. Same thing with BotN stuff. But neither medieval mma nor BotN have much in common with historical fighting and it's nothing a HEMA or JSA fighter trains for. It's simple, really. A general rule of thumb for full speed sparring is: Either you do historical techniques OR you use historical equipment. If you do both, you very quickly get historically accurate dead people. In other words: If you're fighting with intent (and these guys do, gotta admit that) while wearing approximately what they wore back then (which they do) but you're NOT getting dead people (which they don't), you're doing something seriously wrong (which they do). The medieval mma stuff is somewhat historically accurate armor with mainly inaccurate techniques. Trading sword blows in armor is absolutely stupid, it doesn't do anything. You need to either thrust or get the other guy on the ground to put you dagger where it hurts the most. So the wrestling part at least was pretty decent. The rest? Forget about it. That's what I mean though, what really construes as "real battlefield combat"? Is it some artsy display or a brutal bash and clash? Guess we'll never really know without time machines but from what has been literalized it seems the majority of melee conflicts resembled more brutality and lack of form than many like you would like to think to simply justify the civility of western martial arts or any martial art for that matter. Look at it from this perspective, does a real fight tend to resemble more of a match in a Tae Kwon Do tournament or more like a MMA match? Civility and drawn out techniques definitely loose their presence in life or death situations. So yes in the end regarding safe combat duels that aren't scripted you'll see more brashness and less finesse because what else are they going to do aside from bash each others armor!? It's no different than Kendo or even fencing. I think a lot of you need to lighten up on the subject of western martial arts and how they're represented in the mainstream. At least these guys are taking a more traditional stance to the dueling and not clashing swords or adding some fantasy theme to it right? They'll do everything BUT bash each other's armor! You are absolutely correct that as soon as the adrenaline is flowing, a lot of form and complexity goes right out of the window. Everybody who has fought in a tournament or even regular sparring knows that. More so I'd imagine for life and death combat. However, the basics still apply. After all, that's what you're training for, to have some basic skills you can fall back to that allow you to leave the field alive. If all training was useless, people wouldn't have done it back then, nor would they do it now. If the fancy stuff doesn't work, hopefully the basics will. And one of the absolute basics of armored combat is that if swords are used (far from ideal), you don't cut. As I said and Timo also pointed out, armored combat is mainly getting the other guy on the ground and/or thrusting in gaps. At least as long as no heavy impact weapons like pole axes are brought into the fight. With these blows start making sense but you're also not just standing there trading blows because now that does some real damage.
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