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Post by vecna on Nov 9, 2017 18:25:58 GMT
For as long as I can remember i have had the dream of doing a UFC for the armed martial art world. Some kind of tournament, or whatever, that pits the various styles against each other, on an even playing field, with the purpose; to ascertain which style or combination of sytles is the superior. The UFC started with minimal rules, but now is full of rules who's main purpose is to extend the fighters carriers. In the armed world we have a lot more work to do trying to create anything like a unified minimal rule set, let alone an even playing field. First is the question of armor. There are plenty of guys already beating it out in armor, where you can indeed do a full early UFC and disregard rules altogether . But I ask myself what are we really watching here? Are we watching the skill of the swordsmen or the technology of the armor? And how can we regulate that properly? Do we test each piece for titanium content pre-bout? Its going to be like steroids in the UFC, a bloody nightmare. Then if we say f##k it, just do non armored duel styles ( cut out the complication) we are basically giving the field to the fencers. We don't emerge from fencing territory till fighters start wearing rapier/eppe resistant body/head armor. Then there is also the need to wear extra armoring to avoid searius injury , yet somehow still having to decide what an legitimate ( armor penetrating) hit is.Technonogy should be able to help out with force transducers either on the sword or protective armor and that's something I'm actively persuing. The whole picture is complicated further by shields, they are a nuclear missile on a dueling ground, and its no wonder they normally have their own section in most tournaments, I'm a pretty good swordsman and every time I've tangled with a good sword/shield bloke have had my ass handed to me. Even given the katana's extra reach and speed. So you can't really put a shield Guy against a non shield Guy, and what are we saying with that? " watch the sword/shield tournament, cos they are the top of the pyramid, all the other catagories are battling for a very distant second " ? At least shields would be easier to regulate for fairness, but still a royal pain. Second the weapon. Obviously equal lenghts in different catagories, but what about weight, ballance point, design? I am inclined to say just regulate length, leave the rest to the fighters. Eg. Lighter varients of same sword are faster but take more wielding to penetrate a given armor, etc etc it should all work itself out? Third the fighters Do we have weight catagories, as in Ufc and most real combat forms? May not count so much in raw skill with the blade, but will make a massive difference grappling, plus huge guys with gorrila arms have a stupid reach advantage that absolutely will make a difference in the sword play.
These are some of my thoughts on the subject, I think HEMA have done a great job trying to bring all these diverse questions together, I am reading and re-reading their judging rules, but they only cover their sport, likewise Kendo. I don't pretend to have any complete answer and don't know if my dream is just the ravings of a madman, but if anyone has any bright ideas please chime in: )
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Post by Cosmoline on Nov 9, 2017 18:52:01 GMT
Yeah it's a real pickle. Even within HEMA nobody agrees on the best approach. There may not be a best approach. Swordfish was beset this year with criticism of judges, so now there's a serious proposal to start judging judges. Which will no doubt give rise to a demand that we judge the judges who are judging judges. Objectivity is really impossible in the end.
What I can say is my own best experiences have been in events where subjectivity is embraced. So for example at the Berlin bouts we have hundreds of slow-play engagements where nobody is officially scored. Everyone just scores themselves. The advantage of this system is that it makes the event far less expensive and allows a lot more fighting than a traditional tournament. And in the end there's very little question who the best fencers in the room are. I'd be interested in taking the same approach in full kit, but the idea that an event must be judged is really deeply ingrained in the modern mind.
On top of that we have major culture clash anytime different disciplines meet. Kendo or kenjutsu vs. longsword for example, where equipment and rules are very different. Or even bohurt and armored HEMA. Bohurt is pretty intense but disallows thrusts. armored HEMA is based around thrusts. So who's rules do you use?
Ultimately, the folks who want a "UFC" experience with swords will probably need to need Nike's advice and just do it. Even if it's in a backyard. And each participant has to make his or her own mind up about the results.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 9, 2017 23:54:38 GMT
I've been vacillating over the idea of competition. I really don't want to hurt anybody unless there is a damn good reason, so I'm most likely to either lose out from holding back or disqualified for violating the ruleset.
I think I'm over trying to show off how cool I think I am, and am directing the energy into trying to get a handle on understanding my system.
It would be awesome to scrap the freeplay and baggage that comes with it and start competing in terms of executing source material, judging pairs in terms of who can demonstrate and perform clean, clear material and elevate the art form, but that doesn't sell signature gloves and jackets.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 13, 2017 4:10:07 GMT
For as long as I can remember i have had the dream of doing a UFC for the armed martial art world. Some kind of tournament, or whatever, that pits the various styles against each other, on an even playing field, with the purpose; to ascertain which style or combination of sytles is the superior. The UFC started with minimal rules, but now is full of rules who's main purpose is to extend the fighters carriers. In the armed world we have a lot more work to do trying to create anything like a unified minimal rule set, let alone an even playing field. First is the question of armor. There are plenty of guys already beating it out in armor, where you can indeed do a full early UFC and disregard rules altogether . But I ask myself what are we really watching here? Are we watching the skill of the swordsmen or the technology of the armor? And how can we regulate that properly? Do we test each piece for titanium content pre-bout? Its going to be like steroids in the UFC, a bloody nightmare. Then if we say f##k it, just do non armored duel styles ( cut out the complication) we are basically giving the field to the fencers. We don't emerge from fencing territory till fighters start wearing rapier/eppe resistant body/head armor. Then there is also the need to wear extra armoring to avoid searius injury , yet somehow still having to decide what an legitimate ( armor penetrating) hit is.Technonogy should be able to help out with force transducers either on the sword or protective armor and that's something I'm actively persuing. The whole picture is complicated further by shields, they are a nuclear missile on a dueling ground, and its no wonder they normally have their own section in most tournaments, I'm a pretty good swordsman and every time I've tangled with a good sword/shield bloke have had my ass handed to me. Even given the katana's extra reach and speed. So you can't really put a shield Guy against a non shield Guy, and what are we saying with that? " watch the sword/shield tournament, cos they are the top of the pyramid, all the other catagories are battling for a very distant second " ? At least shields would be easier to regulate for fairness, but still a royal pain. Second the weapon. Obviously equal lenghts in different catagories, but what about weight, ballance point, design? I am inclined to say just regulate length, leave the rest to the fighters. Eg. Lighter varients of same sword are faster but take more wielding to penetrate a given armor, etc etc it should all work itself out? Third the fighters Do we have weight catagories, as in Ufc and most real combat forms? May not count so much in raw skill with the blade, but will make a massive difference grappling, plus huge guys with gorrila arms have a stupid reach advantage that absolutely will make a difference in the sword play. These are some of my thoughts on the subject, I think HEMA have done a great job trying to bring all these diverse questions together, I am reading and re-reading their judging rules, but they only cover their sport, likewise Kendo. I don't pretend to have any complete answer and don't know if my dream is just the ravings of a madman, but if anyone has any bright ideas please chime in: ) I have also thought of these tournaments. I might make a rule set one day... BTW, I don’t like them too much, but you do know about the dog brothers right? 🐶👬
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Post by Lukas MG (chenessfan) on Nov 13, 2017 16:57:55 GMT
I've been vacillating over the idea of competition. I really don't want to hurt anybody unless there is a damn good reason, so I'm most likely to either lose out from holding back or disqualified for violating the ruleset. I think I'm over trying to show off how cool I think I am, and am directing the energy into trying to get a handle on understanding my system. It would be awesome to scrap the freeplay and baggage that comes with it and start competing in terms of executing source material, judging pairs in terms of who can demonstrate and perform clean, clear material and elevate the art form, but that doesn't sell signature gloves and jackets.I also doesn't really prove anything. Paired technique drills, solo forms, etc all can be a valuable asset to training but ultimately the purpose of martial arts training is to better your odds in an actual fight, no? And freeplay is the closest we have to it that can be done on a friendly and sportive basis. So it's no wonder it's what competitions are mostly about. Though there are some competitions that include several disciplines, including technique demonstrations. That's not a bad idea. But it should never be valued more than actually testing skills against an uncooperative opponent, i.e. freeplay. Side note... I never bought the notion that some martial arts are so dangerous, they cannot be applied to sparring or competition. Certain aspects or specific techniques may have to be changed or left out but there should still be more than enough to allow for competetive testing in a sparring situation, especially with the use of modern protective equipment. Techniques don't have to rely on pain or hurting the opponent, if one thinks one can't do well in a competition because one must either hold back or be disqualified for doing it "for realz" that usually doesn't speak for the system or the fighter. Just my opinion.
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Post by Cosmoline on Nov 13, 2017 18:28:49 GMT
"Too deadly for the dojo" is an old excuse, for sure. But we are talking about swords here. And there's no doubt whatsoever that full on sword fighting is way too deadly for any ring. So we have to take steps to prevent it from being lethal. That can be done by altering gear or limiting actions. The problem comes when one tradition has chosen a different set of protocols. We'd all have to agree on a single set of rules and gear in order to get meaningful sparring. Otherwise you end up with a longsword guy trying and failing to use kendo gear and rules or visa versa.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 13, 2017 20:21:07 GMT
I've been vacillating over the idea of competition. I really don't want to hurt anybody unless there is a damn good reason, so I'm most likely to either lose out from holding back or disqualified for violating the ruleset. I think I'm over trying to show off how cool I think I am, and am directing the energy into trying to get a handle on understanding my system. It would be awesome to scrap the freeplay and baggage that comes with it and start competing in terms of executing source material, judging pairs in terms of who can demonstrate and perform clean, clear material and elevate the art form, but that doesn't sell signature gloves and jackets.I also doesn't really prove anything. Paired technique drills, solo forms, etc all can be a valuable asset to training but ultimately the purpose of martial arts training is to better your odds in an actual fight, no? And freeplay is the closest we have to it that can be done on a friendly and sportive basis. So it's no wonder it's what competitions are mostly about. Though there are some competitions that include several disciplines, including technique demonstrations. That's not a bad idea. But it should never be valued more than actually testing skills against an uncooperative opponent, i.e. freeplay. Side note... I never bought the notion that some martial arts are so dangerous, they cannot be applied to sparring or competition. Certain aspects or specific techniques may have to be changed or left out but there should still be more than enough to allow for competetive testing in a sparring situation, especially with the use of modern protective equipment. Techniques don't have to rely on pain or hurting the opponent, if one thinks one can't do well in a competition because one must either hold back or be disqualified for doing it "for realz" that usually doesn't speak for the system or the fighter. Just my opinion. An opponent who wants to uncooperatively test a full power mordschlag or quillon strike to the face is an opponent who is not going to reset and go back to his corner after "point!" or whatever is called. Actively resisting the wrong joint lock is going to earn a dislocation, and possibly a compound fracture. It isn't about bragging or feeling like a tough guy, I really don't want to see what someone else's bones look like just to get a referee to hold up the right color flag, I'm sorry.
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Post by Timo Nieminen on Nov 13, 2017 20:39:41 GMT
An opponent who wants to uncooperatively test a full power mordschlag or quillon strike to the face is an opponent who is not going to reset and go back to his corner after "point!" or whatever is called. 1. You don't have to allow all techniques. One can choose things like not allowing Mordschlag. One can use a combination of sufficient armour and suitable weapon simulator to protect against it. 2. There are many rules choices other than point-and-reset. Actively resisting the wrong joint lock is going to earn a dislocation, and possibly a compound fracture. And yet people do it, regularly, and usually without dislocation or fracture, in unarmed fighting. Competition rules distort fighting. In many ways, non-competition freeplay/sparring can be a much, much better training tool than competition. Competition adds one key element: a level of stress not usually present in non-competition freeplay.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 13, 2017 21:16:54 GMT
You can allow or disallow anything you want. I'm just not really concerned with it, so I'd most likely get clowned on by someone else while holding back because I have no idea what they can take, or get disqualified if I decide enough's enough and let fly.
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Post by Timo Nieminen on Nov 13, 2017 23:02:49 GMT
So? Your earlier comment that you don't want to compete doesn't need any further comment. It's a perfectly reasonable sentiment. I'm just saying that many people cope fine with competition, and have the self-control to compete effectively without using techniques prohibited by the rules. It can work. Joint locks in competition, too. It's fine to not want to do it, but that doesn't mean that it can't work. As for It would be awesome to scrap the freeplay and baggage that comes with it and start competing in terms of executing source material, judging pairs in terms of who can demonstrate and perform clean, clear material and elevate the art form, but that doesn't sell signature gloves and jackets. it's already done. Very common in tournaments focussing on Asian martial arts. Some people think it's awesome, and love to compete in it. Modern competition wushu forms (solo and paired), XMA forms, etc.
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Post by Cosmoline on Nov 13, 2017 23:22:28 GMT
You can allow or disallow anything you want. I'm just not really concerned with it, so I'd most likely get clowned on by someone else while holding back because I have no idea what they can take, or get disqualified if I decide enough's enough and let fly. We're not just talking about paper rules, but the physical tools and protection being used. There are ways to do a simulated fight were you can hit as hard as you want to. But the swords are modified into feders and gear is bulked up. The question is whether the costs of having that padding on outweighs the benefit of being able to go all out. Thinking about it, the solution might be to do a tournament involving a variety of approaches. So that to win you'd have to be able to do full intent sparring, wrestling without sword, slow play judged for form, and so on.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 13, 2017 23:31:32 GMT
So nothing, I was responding to you and to Lukas. Isn't it kind of obvious that a lot of people do fine with competitive sparring, what with a huge number of national and international tournaments?
There's plenty of opportunity to compete without having to spar. I think we all know about target cutting, as one example. I think it's a bit unfortunate that the kind of paired work or demonstration of technique isn't held in a similar esteem by large.
It's kind of funny/sad that the "real stuff", the actual historical material that doesn't require distortion, arbitrary rule sets, several hundreds of dollars of accouterments, and so forth, should be sidelined in favor of freeplay. If anything, I'd love to see that valued more than what seems to be the de facto centerpiece of most events, but that's not likely to happen.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 13, 2017 23:34:46 GMT
You can allow or disallow anything you want. I'm just not really concerned with it, so I'd most likely get clowned on by someone else while holding back because I have no idea what they can take, or get disqualified if I decide enough's enough and let fly. We're not just talking about paper rules, but the physical tools and protection being used. There are ways to do a simulated fight were you can hit as hard as you want to. But the swords are modified into feders and gear is bulked up. The question is whether the costs of having that padding on outweighs the benefit of being able to go all out. Thinking about it, the solution might be to do a tournament involving a variety of approaches. So that to win you'd have to be able to do full intent sparring, wrestling without sword, slow play judged for form, and so on. That would be interesting. I looked into some events, forget which one but it had a kind of "tri-athlon" approach of selecting individuals that stood out in different areas but then it turned out to be something like "Target Cutting", "Sparring with Weapon 1", "Sparring with Weapon 2", and "Sparring with Weapon 3". It would be neat to see a similar approach without such a heavy emphasis on a particular aspect, but I really don't know if enough people would even care.
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Post by vecna on Nov 15, 2017 9:01:42 GMT
Sorry not been on this thread, been training, working and sleeping ( in that order) . In my opinion everything we do as swordsmen has 1 function, to kill the thing infront of us without taking life thretaning dammage in return. And I do mean kill, not wound, not prove a point, not bludgeon into submission, but kill. This I feel is simply forgotten in a lot of sword sports.( but by no means all ) I agree that the level of skill with a particular technique affects the use of that technique in real combat. Ie something that looks crap can work if executed well enough, yet it can be argued to concentrate your finite training effort into making known working techniques faster and more powerful rather than drilling exotic techniques that take years to master to the level to be useful. We fortunately have 20 years of the UFC and 30 years of MMA to draw valuable lessons from. The first 10 Ufc were pretty much open rules, anything goes. And pretty much all the pure discipline battled. Kick boxing, wrestling, bjj, karate, shoot fighting, sambo , etc, you name it, they tried it out. Several lessons emerged real quick. 1) Flashy stuff DOES NOT WORK in a real fight.( unless as mentioned you are real real real good at it, but this has not become clear until very recently when world class elite strikers started to take up mma) 2) Clever small joint locks DO NOT WORK IN A REAL FIGHT. 3) BJJ does work in a real fight ( bloody surprise that was!!) 4) Strength, conditioning, cardio, and the will to smash your opponent, all play a far bigger part than technique. 5) The small Guy with lots of technique WILL NOT beat the big Guy with less skill. Virtually all these points apply to us as sword fighters, with armor and shields complicating matters, but not running against the tide as it were. I spent a lot of time watching MMA and hanging out on the mma underground forums, and have to say these guys are total alpha male types, you cut their hand off, they will beat you to death with the bloody stump lol. I feel that fighting spirit is also lacking in some sword sports. HEMA with all its shortfallings I feel is the closest to producing something like what competition sword sparing should be, at least in form and function, if not yet sharpened.
So to Expand a little on my first post.in light of all the replies 1) I don't think any kind of demonstration, or dance sparring, should play a part in a tournament, that's for the dojo/gym . 2) Strict weight catagories for the fighters. 3) Seperate the competition into Dueling / Non Dueling. Dueling means no armor, no shield, same total length sword. In the dueling stream, for purposes of competition some padded armor is worn along with blunt weapons used. The armor should be carefully chose so that a strike to a location will produce a proportianat amount of pain, on a full power ( valid) strike. Ie if you get a clean well executed strike to a location it should cause the opponent enough pain to stop and conceded defeat. This is to simulate a location being actually destroyed by a cut. Hopefully this will even the playing field against eppe guys, they have the speed but will have to work much harder to get the finish due to lack of cutting power. The head, neck, groin, and other vital areas are special cases, they should be fully protected ( no pain under full powered blow ) but wired electronically to show a valid powered hit, and hence an instant win. For the non dueling stream, I don't have a clue, I'm dueling fighter lol, but I have already seen some real good scraps on you tube, I'm sure the full kit boys will work it out.
Just from this thread I think the desire for such a dream tournament is not mine alone, thanks to to all my fellow sword fighters, warms an old guys heart.
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Post by Jordan Williams on Nov 15, 2017 17:03:46 GMT
Sorry not been on this thread, been training, working and sleeping ( in that order) . In my opinion everything we do as swordsmen has 1 function, to kill the thing infront of us without taking life thretaning dammage in return. And I do mean kill, not wound, not prove a point, not bludgeon into submission, but kill.. 5) The small Guy with lots of technique WILL NOT beat the big Guy with less skill. I just wanted to argue these points, You don't need to kill someone to put them out of action. Cutting off a hand, disabling fingers, or rendering them incapable of fighting by otherwise causing them trauma is a perfectly suitable goal for sword fighting. In fact in the book the Swordsmen of the British Empire it's stated that one set of warriors would try to incapacitate through wounds so that the conflict would not become generational. As for the small guy argument, I'm 5 foot 10, And over the summer I sparred against someone well over my height, however he had never practiced any weapons based martial arts. When I used longsword technique, keeping at bay and was careful he wasn't able to touch me. Brute force can absolutely destroy technique, however the general "truth"of "small guy with skill < big guy no matter what" isn't a very provable and a pretty faulty thing to say.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2017 17:46:30 GMT
Swordsmanship isn't much of an art when the two major factors are who can push harder and twitch faster.
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Post by Lukas MG (chenessfan) on Nov 15, 2017 17:48:44 GMT
Sorry not been on this thread, been training, working and sleeping ( in that order) . In my opinion everything we do as swordsmen has 1 function, to kill the thing infront of us without taking life thretaning dammage in return. And I do mean kill, not wound, not prove a point, not bludgeon into submission, but kill.This I feel is simply forgotten in a lot of sword sports.( but by no means all ) I agree that the level of skill with a particular technique affects the use of that technique in real combat. Ie something that looks crap can work if executed well enough, yet it can be argued to concentrate your finite training effort into making known working techniques faster and more powerful rather than drilling exotic techniques that take years to master to the level to be useful. We fortunately have 20 years of the UFC and 30 years of MMA to draw valuable lessons from. The first 10 Ufc were pretty much open rules, anything goes. And pretty much all the pure discipline battled. Kick boxing, wrestling, bjj, karate, shoot fighting, sambo , etc, you name it, they tried it out. Several lessons emerged real quick. 1) Flashy stuff DOES NOT WORK in a real fight.( unless as mentioned you are real real real good at it, but this has not become clear until very recently when world class elite strikers started to take up mma) 2) Clever small joint locks DO NOT WORK IN A REAL FIGHT. 3) BJJ does work in a real fight ( bloody surprise that was!!) 4) Strength, conditioning, cardio, and the will to smash your opponent, all play a far bigger part than technique. 5) The small Guy with lots of technique WILL NOT beat the big Guy with less skill. Virtually all these points apply to us as sword fighters, with armor and shields complicating matters, but not running against the tide as it were. I spent a lot of time watching MMA and hanging out on the mma underground forums, and have to say these guys are total alpha male types, you cut their hand off, they will beat you to death with the bloody stump lol. I feel that fighting spirit is also lacking in some sword sports. HEMA with all its shortfallings I feel is the closest to producing something like what competition sword sparing should be, at least in form and function, if not yet sharpened. So to Expand a little on my first post.in light of all the replies 1) I don't think any kind of demonstration, or dance sparring, should play a part in a tournament, that's for the dojo/gym . 2) Strict weight catagories for the fighters. 3) Seperate the competition into Dueling / Non Dueling. Dueling means no armor, no shield, same total length sword. In the dueling stream, for purposes of competition some padded armor is worn along with blunt weapons used. The armor should be carefully chose so that a strike to a location will produce a proportianat amount of pain, on a full power ( valid) strike. Ie if you get a clean well executed strike to a location it should cause the opponent enough pain to stop and conceded defeat. This is to simulate a location being actually destroyed by a cut.Hopefully this will even the playing field against eppe guys, they have the speed but will have to work much harder to get the finish due to lack of cutting power. The head, neck, groin, and other vital areas are special cases, they should be fully protected ( no pain under full powered blow ) but wired electronically to show a valid powered hit, and hence an instant win. For the non dueling stream, I don't have a clue, I'm dueling fighter lol, but I have already seen some real good scraps on you tube, I'm sure the full kit boys will work it out. Just from this thread I think the desire for such a dream tournament is not mine alone, thanks to to all my fellow sword fighters, warms an old guys heart. I disagree with the bold parts... Regarding the first: swordfighting is and was never just about killing. Not at all, and I can't stress that enough. In several period HEMA manuals this is explicitely discussed. Leckküchner has a very nice quote on it for example. "And as soon as the Messers spark together, go “simultaneously” to your left side around the head towards your right side with the Messer, and strike him to the neck. If you do not want to hurt him hard, strike to his arm. If it occurs at a “Fechtschul” tournament, strike to his stomach to his left side, roughly and peasantly, so that he feels it well." The skill of the swordsman is not only to execute the technique correctly but to chose the right for for the situaton (kill / injure lightly / just show dominance)! Far from every fight is to the death! In fact, it seems that most of the time the death of one combattant was very much not wanted because the victor/survivor would have to face the consequences of the law. Killing your neighbour in a tavern brawl or a duel could lead to you being hanged or otherwise severely punished. Joachim Meyer gives us another very clear instruction on this. He considered thrusting to be illegal in regular bouts (with sharps, we're not talking about blunts here), it was reserved for fighting foreigners (in war, supposedly). Because thrusts kill. Cuts can be done in a way that they do not yet still have the desired effect of ending a fight or showing dominance. The actual sharp fight to the death was a rare occurence in medieval times as far as combat in civilian context is concerned (and that is what most of the manuals deal with and consequently, what modern HEMA is concerned with). In military contexts it may have been different but even there submission (and ransom), etc was often preferable over killing an opponent. Concerning the second: with sharps, not much force is required to kill. That goes for cuts but even more for thrusts, the last requiring practically no effort to penetrate deeply. So pain (or impact sensors) aren't usable to decide whether a hit had a lethal effect or not.
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Post by Cosmoline on Nov 15, 2017 18:01:21 GMT
The sword changes some of these outcomes. For one thing, size and strength can be neutralized by a sharp blade. So unlike unarmed MMA, a sword fight can end with the smaller person stabbing the larger one through the heart. Technique is also extremely important, and strength will not reliably overcome it. If it did I'd win most of the time since I'm bigger and stronger than most of my opponents. I learned early on in HEMA that if I just muscled my way into the center, I created a hard point around which a skilled opponent can maneuver to kill me with a thrust to the face or neck. This concept is present in all complete sword fighting systems. So you use *applied* strength and, where necessary, *applied* weakness. A classic example is a hanging parry or bogen where you let the blow skid past your sword then cut. Again this concept exists in all sword fighting systems. Much of the art comes in being able to gauge the level of strength in the opponent's attack and adjust accordingly. If he's too strong you go weak and flow around. If he's weak you apply enough strength to get a clear shot.
Likewise, joint locks that are largely ineffective with the hands can become extremely effective when you use a longsword or even rondel as a leveraging/cutting tool.
The art remains fundamentally about killing. There are alternative options in some texts to use less-than-lethal attacks, but this does not mean sword fighting in the treatises was about tournament play. Arguably if you look in some of the later period longsword texts the focus is removed from duels or battlefield combat, but even then the core concept remains getting yourself in a position where you COULD kill your opponent without getting killed yourself. If we start viewing the texts as abstractions about sword movement and forget they're drawn from a killing art, we start to merge over into Olympic fencing. We are trying to understand sword fighting from eras when swords were used in combat and personal defense. Not to turn the whole thing into a modern detoothed sport where everyone pretends nobody was ever dismembered and slaughtered with sharp steel.
For example, we should never be winning matches by touch. The attack needs to have good edge alignment and movement to do serious harm absent blunted blades and gear. And we're not doing matches based on who could throw the other person in a bag, though that would be fun.
Messer fighting in particular is incredibly dangerous and would likely have ended in death or dismemberment unless a superior opponent opted to use an alternate approach to merely humiliate. As the saying goes "Here they fight with messers. May God have mercy on them."
Meyer is very late period, when longswords had faded from battlefield use and the gun was on the path to ascendancy. He was teaching middle class germans and petty aristos how to use the knightly weapons. Judicial dueling was also well on its way out, so the context of the training had changed from the 14th century. But even then, the core of Meyer's teachings remain Liechtenauer's verse and are all about delivering what would be deadly attacks without getting hit yourself. The referenced prohibition on thrusting between German fighters is cryptic and may mean any number of things. What we can say with certainty is that swords were used to kill a whole lot of people, and if you hit someone in the head with a sharp using any of the verse's techniques at speed you should expect the opponent to be dead or very seriously wounded.
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Post by Lukas MG (chenessfan) on Nov 15, 2017 18:04:01 GMT
Swordsmanship isn't much of an art when the two major factors are who can push harder and twitch faster. I disagree. There is definitively something artful in a blindingly fast Zwerch coupled with an aethletic jump to the side. You might not like it but speed and strength remain the foundation of fighting. They require technique to really come together but technique also requires speed and strength to work. Also, why does swordsmanship even "have" to be art? I'm not saying it isn't, on the contrary. But in the end it's efficiency that matters above all. Efficiency in making it out of an encounter alive or uninjured. How that happens exactly is secondary, no?
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Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2017 18:14:32 GMT
Eh, deleted. Not worth it.
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