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Post by Deleted on May 28, 2016 11:31:13 GMT
EXACTLY! That's what I am trying to imply above in my theory. Check out the links in the experiment, and go to pages 5 AND 6. So, do we know for a fact that each page contains ONE technique or is the technique stringed together?
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Scott
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Post by Scott on May 28, 2016 12:22:19 GMT
Thanks for doing this. Interesting that you conclude that it could be used as a genuine technique. Didn't think of it before but there's a slight parallel with McBanes advice to throw sand in your opponents eyes. Actually what he says is along the lines of 'if your opponent is not a gentleman he may try to throw sand in your eyes. So carry a handful of sand in your pocket to throw in his eyes first...' I have no intention of carrying a pocket full of sand and unless I am at a construction site finding any is doubtful. At one time I carried shurikens for that purpose, or at least for a diversion. My primary weapon in the streets is a cane. I do carry at the same time CS’s Inferno that should impede, to say the least, one’s vision swinging the action more in my favour. Up to date the cane alone has worked fine though. At times at night I do carry a small ultra bright torch that fits neatly in my pocket for the same purpose. The advantage with the torch is that I don’t have to worry about the wind factor. Given he was writing in the seventeenth century torches weren't an option. I'm not sure anyone would have done this as a matter of course, or if it was more for when you were on your way to an arranged duel.
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Scott
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Post by Scott on May 28, 2016 12:33:30 GMT
Is it a joke though? Do we have any other examples of joke techniques? Consider that we have evidence of people showing up at the salle and going "I have to fight a duel in a week. What do I do?" Given you might be fighting someone as clueless and hesitant as you, something like this almost makes sense. Bounce your pommel off his forehead then finish it while he's trying to work out what's going on. Of course the other option is its the teachers way of saying "you're screwed, but this might work..." I may be wrong! I'm not aware of a single surviving 15th Century sword with a threaded construction, even among the more outlandish dueling swords which do survive. But AFAIK, iron or steel threads are first documented in the mid-15th Century, so it's possible that some fancy purpose-built state-of-the-art dueling swords at this time might have had threaded tangs and screwed-on pommels (possibly with an additional safety nut). And it's possible that such a pommel could be screwed off in a hurry - threading by hand would have been a massive pain, especially on the pommel and/or nut, so I'd expect such threads to be fairly steep and/or short - and if you could do that, then you could certainly toss the pommel as a distraction. But it just seems like a ludicrous amount of hassle to go to. If you're going to drop your shield in order to draw and dismantle your sword and throw the pommel... why not just throw the shield? It's right there in your hand already, and would be a much bigger distraction, too! (I mean, it would actually weigh over half a kilo, for one.) I'm not aware of any swords with threaded construction either. Perhaps this is like some of the devices in Talhoffer, in theory it could have been done but never was. This may be it, considering we have no evidence of swords with threaded construction, we have no known cases where this technique was used, and no other manuals mention it.
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Post by themagicalmark on May 28, 2016 23:02:42 GMT
Very impressive, thanks for doing this.
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Post by Marthor on May 29, 2016 0:56:24 GMT
Were pommels filled with sand as a counterwieght ballast?
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Post by legacyofthesword on May 29, 2016 3:20:55 GMT
Two thoughts come to mind (these are just random thoughts; I haven't studied this enough to offer a true opinion). First, could the manuscript itself be a forgery? Perhaps not a modern one, but maybe one that was created in the 1600-1700s - or whenever threaded pommels came in vogue. Forgeries are a large problem with historical studies, and, while I'm certainly no expert, forgeries have been made that are extremely hard to discern from actually documents. My second thought was that perhaps the document was actually created in the 15th century, but the author actually didn't know as much about combat as he let on. Something like a modern "Street Fighting Expert" who writes a book filled with "secret techniques", with the aim of simply selling a lot of copies (like what Jon Frances says here: sbg-sword-forum.forums.net/thread/47793/rightly-pommel-throwing-gladitoria-kk5013?page=2). Maybe this technique was something he thought up real quick to fill up a few blank pages. Just throwing those out there for consideration; I've got no experience in HEMA, and not much more in historical fighting manuals.
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Post by Beowulf on May 29, 2016 6:36:06 GMT
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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2016 6:49:05 GMT
Thanks for the kind words Beowulf !
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Post by MOK on May 29, 2016 12:04:51 GMT
Two thoughts come to mind (these are just random thoughts; I haven't studied this enough to offer a true opinion). First, could the manuscript itself be a forgery? Perhaps not a modern one, but maybe one that was created in the 1600-1700s - or whenever threaded pommels came in vogue. Forgeries are a large problem with historical studies, and, while I'm certainly no expert, forgeries have been made that are extremely hard to discern from actually documents. There are several different versions of the work dated to the fifteenth century - see here - and most of them include this plate. No, it's not a later clueless forgery. There is indeed an element of personal marketing to most of these treatises, but the audience for them was quite different from that of modern McDojos, and generally much better informed. A lot of fechtbucher did go to some length to present clever tricks (like the advice on robbing peasants in Codex Wallerstein ) and showcase the author's superior expertise, but pure nonsense wouldn't take you very far with people for whom wars, duels and self defense were very real and not entirely uncommon things (hence the need for your services in the first place). Typically the work was also either commissioned by or dedicated to a specific patron, usually an existing or potential employer, rather than published for the general audience; "selling a lot of copies" basically meant that someone else wanted a copy, too - and each copy would be produced by hand, remember, more or less painstakingly reproducing the text and illustrations of the original, often with some revisions, annotations and additions and generally tailored to the patron's needs and preferences.
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Post by Cosmoline on Jun 1, 2016 18:18:22 GMT
Thank you so much for this! It appears one would not want to get hit with a pommel after all. And as far as the impracticality of it, I suspect the answer lies in a detailed reconstruction of the ENTIRE treatise. Because there are a number of plates showing similar seemingly impractical stances. There's more going on here than meets the eye--which may be the point. What appears to be an awkward stance holding spear and sword together may be a pretty good defensive position in harness.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 3, 2016 14:49:47 GMT
Thank you so much for this! It appears one would not want to get hit with a pommel after all. And as far as the impracticality of it, I suspect the answer lies in a detailed reconstruction of the ENTIRE treatise. Because there are a number of plates showing similar seemingly impractical stances. There's more going on here than meets the eye--which may be the point. What appears to be an awkward stance holding spear and sword together may be a pretty good defensive position in harness. The defensive position mentioned in the manual is a steamin' pile of h**** s***! No offense. But my friend who was throwing, had assumed this position and it made it harder for him to balance and unscrew(I mentioned staff in the experiment!)
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Post by Cosmoline on Jun 6, 2016 17:50:46 GMT
That would mean the entire manual is garbage. Which it may well be. Or it may be that we're misunderstanding something about it. Possibly how far away it was done from the opponent. If as some suggest this is a way of satisfying the "you have to throw something first" rule we see in some HRE duels, then this might have been done at the edge of the ring and would be a way of keeping your best weapon--the spear.
Remember when modern people first saw the HEMA manuals, their initial reaction was that something was really wrong with the techniques. They thought I.33 was for crippled people and believed that inverted swords had to be dull. So usually when it seems totally wrong, it just means we haven't figured out what it's telling us yet. Or it could be a bunch of bs five fingers of death nonsense to sell books.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 6, 2016 19:18:02 GMT
It has value as a historical document. It has almost no value as a martial technique because it doesn't provide any useful context. I'm well aware that people tend to be too quick to discard anything they aren't immediately familiar with, but the slightest critical thinking shows that this particular example is nonsense. You have to strain the parameters to get something even remotely feasible as our friend Asad tried to demonstrate.
If you have a sword with a removable pommel, and if you can remove it before the opponent closes distance, and if you can throw it accurately enough to hit him in the head, and if you can throw it hard enough, you might be able to momentarily give yourself an opportunity to run in and finish him off with your spear?
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Post by Cosmoline on Jun 6, 2016 22:17:11 GMT
Well for example, the longsword wielded as a longsword has very little if any value in harness fighting. It has to be used as a mace, inverted, or as a demi-spear in halfsword. So it may be that by turning part of it into a missile weapon, the manual is trying to find more utility from it. And it may be that the admittedly weird stance would give rise to a nice counter if the attacker chose to close before the pommel was unscrewed.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 6, 2016 23:23:25 GMT
The longsword has a ton of value - if all you want to do is cut or stab then it gets limiting, but it aids immensely in grappling, for example. You might not be able to cut through plate, but you can certainly drop someone on their head. And yes, you can smash with the pommel or crossguard, or try to drive the point through, or practically unlimited other options.
What you cannot do is remove a pommel, and then chamber and accurately throw in less time than it takes an opponent to close distance. If someone believes otherwise, I've got a car and a waster and I'm happy to play it out. If you want to use steel, that's ok too.
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Post by themagicalmark on Jun 6, 2016 23:36:45 GMT
It has value as a historical document. It has almost no value as a martial technique It does have some martial value, theres some youtube videos demonstrating the manuals techniques. Manuals alone are never enough for learning any martial art however.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 7, 2016 0:27:34 GMT
It has value as a historical document. It has almost no value as a martial technique It does have some martial value, theres some youtube videos demonstrating the manuals techniques. Manuals alone are never enough for learning any martial art however. I've seen plenty of videos of people talking about throwing the pommel but nothing demonstrating it being done. Apparently the only video evidence died with Asad's poor camera. If there's a demo I'd enjoy watching it. Saying "take off your pommel and hit the other guy" is not useful information. It ranks along with "don't get cut!" and "pointy end goes in the other guy". It does no good. Those things are true, and funny to some degree, but not helpful at all.
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Post by themagicalmark on Jun 7, 2016 1:22:13 GMT
Oh i don't disagree with the pommel throwing. At least its good for a chuckle. a "CHUCKle" yuk yuk
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Post by Cosmoline on Jun 7, 2016 17:32:28 GMT
Yes, but not wielded as a longsword in blossfetchen. You need to invert it or use it in half-sword. This changes the nature of the fight in various fundamental ways. So any testing must be done in harness with harness techniques. For example, if I stood there with my longsword in my left hand and a spear in the crook of my elbow in plain clothes, unscrewing a pommel, I'd be dead in a second when the sword cleaved my head. But in armor I have a measure of safety against such attacks. That may be why I'm able to do this.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 7, 2016 19:33:23 GMT
Since we're at the selective quoting portion of the thread... With who, where, and when? I'm sorry but I don't believe you. Can you present any evidence as to successfully utilizing this maneuver?
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