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Post by zabazagobo on Apr 5, 2019 6:04:29 GMT
Hey all, thanks to a heads up from fellow forum member elbrittania38, I just nabbed a Kingston Arms sidesword off Kult of Athena after awaiting the opportunity to buy one for roughly two years now (how they are always out of stock when I look is incredible, but luck finally found me). Suffice to say, I'm the most excited about a sword purchase I've been in years, and hope that KoA's shipping is as speedy as many have mentioned.
Now of course, being giddy as I am to finally get to play around with a sidesword I'm hoping that folk here have some advice on good texts and manuals (or even videos) on the sidesword and how to go about using it. Of course, any mention of particular schools or groups are also appreciated. Any and all suggestions and recommendations are welcome, as are general ideas, thoughts and discussion of sidesword; it's design, implementation and associated techniques.
Cheers!
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Post by leviathansteak on Apr 5, 2019 6:50:48 GMT
I really love the sidesword for its marvellous blend of versatility, aesthetics and the various accompanying weapons it can be used with
There are numerous resources on the fb group giovanni dal'agocchie. I hope i spelt that right...
I personally like the anonimo bolognese treatise for describing the various ways to act when in and against certain guard positions and very interesting tactical advice.
Meyers 1570 work is also clear and easy to follow, and works well for the unaccompanied sword.
Giovanni dal'agocchie may a be a bit wordy. But has a nice section on how to prepare for a duel in 30 days, so i.e. a crash course.
Marozzo and manciolino of course have huge sections on the sidesword but most of the material includes an accompanying weapon of some sort, with the unaccompanied sword section being rather short. Id reccomend studying the unaccompanied sword from the other treatises i mentioned before exploring accompanied weapons.
Id be happy to share any info i have if you have specific questions on techniques or terminology
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Post by leviathansteak on Apr 5, 2019 6:58:33 GMT
For videos, check out youtube for:
Illka hartikainen Ken harding Chicago swordplay Robert rutherfoord Acadamie duello Achille marozzo
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Post by zabazagobo on Apr 5, 2019 20:07:53 GMT
I really love the sidesword for its marvellous blend of versatility, aesthetics and the various accompanying weapons it can be used with There are numerous resources on the fb group giovanni dal'agocchie. I hope i spelt that right... I personally like the anonimo bolognese treatise for describing the various ways to act when in and against certain guard positions and very interesting tactical advice. Meyers 1570 work is also clear and easy to follow, and works well for the unaccompanied sword. Giovanni dal'agocchie may a be a bit wordy. But has a nice section on how to prepare for a duel in 30 days, so i.e. a crash course. Marozzo and manciolino of course have huge sections on the sidesword but most of the material includes an accompanying weapon of some sort, with the unaccompanied sword section being rather short. Id reccomend studying the unaccompanied sword from the other treatises i mentioned before exploring accompanied weapons. Id be happy to share any info i have if you have specific questions on techniques or terminology Great suggestions, thanks! Part of why I'm particularly enthused about the incoming sidesword is that I finally have a weapon that is more or less optimized for techniques Meyer describes.
I'll begin to look into Giovanni Dall'Agocchie, from a cursory scan seems exactly what I'm looking for. And yep, I want to start with just sidesword before I start getting creative with weapon pairings, both creative and historical. Part of me is very intrigued by the pair up of sidesword with either sabre or katana, but that one is delightfully ahistoric.
Thanks again for the offer to share more info; as I learn more I'll definitely shoot questions your way. Also thanks for the video recommendations, I'll be watching those soon.
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Post by elbrittania39 on Apr 8, 2019 17:35:28 GMT
I second the Illka Hartikainen suggestion if you need something more visual.
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Post by elliem on Apr 13, 2019 14:01:37 GMT
Apologies if this falls more on the obvious side of advice... When I was looking into sidesword technique, I was looking up Bolognese techniques in particular. that led me to this fabulous site. wiktenauer.com/wiki/Masters#16th_Century_MastersFigured I'd post just to make sure people were aware of Wiktenauer.
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Post by zabazagobo on Apr 13, 2019 23:34:22 GMT
Wiktenauer's such a great site. There's so much good stuff to read there
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Post by elliem on May 22, 2019 12:36:03 GMT
Circling back on this, what did you end up trying? And how did you like the sidesword?
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Post by zabazagobo on May 22, 2019 22:36:01 GMT
Circling back on this, what did you end up trying? And how did you like the sidesword? At this point, saving up for a nice Del Tin (early 16th century something or other, most likely the 'Early Spanish rapier'). The Kingston Arms fell through (Kult of Athena oversold so I didn't get one), so I'm just exploring other (arguably better) options on the market, hence Del Tin.
As far as texts go, since I lack the instrument haven't been reading up yet. I like to read techniques and practice them concurrently. Have considered just taking Timo's advice and practicing with jian, which would be a perfectly fine substitute, but haven't as of yet due to other constraints.
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Post by zabazagobo on Oct 18, 2019 8:15:21 GMT
"Meyer-ist", fun...the field is so niche it is comforting to hear differentiation in such terms. Thank you for the suggestion, will investigate further (geez, sounds like my avatar, no?)
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Post by zabazagobo on Oct 19, 2019 0:13:05 GMT
Whoa, these are excellent resources! Thank you
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Post by Cosmoline on Oct 21, 2019 18:10:47 GMT
"Meyer-ist", fun...the field is so niche it is comforting to hear differentiation in such terms. Thank you for the suggestion, will investigate further (geez, sounds like my avatar, no?) Meyer really is alot different than more traditional KDF /Liechtenauer (Ringeck, PvD, and Dobringer). He seems to have an Italian influence especially in the sidesword, and dagger stuff. Im not sure how into the German sword arts you are but Roger Norling is a die hard Meyerist and has some very good articles on Joachim Meyers influences. That's the prevailing idea, but I'm not sure it's entirely correct. The theory has been that Meyer represents a late-period version of KDF that was not focused on "battlefield realities" but rather on teaching the Renaissance middle classes how to fight like the knights of old. And that the wide stances and big movements of his system, along with the alleged prohibition on thrusting, were part of a trend away from combat-based fighting styles. They'd be used--if at all--in duels to the bloom.
But the more I'm seeing about the chronology of the earlier texts (ie 3227a being half a century younger than we thought) and the more the systems are being explored in fighting, the more I'm thinking there may not be such a big gulf between the original texts and Meyer. It may be that Meyer's work is just much, much better presented with full, detailed perspective drawings and a better understanding on Meyer's part of how to convey complex forms to the reader through the text and illustrations. So it may not be that he changed it so much as he was the first one to convey it clearly.
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Post by Cosmoline on Oct 21, 2019 21:11:09 GMT
Yeah there are a lot of unknowns. Chidester was talking about how there are still no primary source descriptions of the KDF from outside the texts. So for example we don't have anyone writing about how so-and-so lord is hiring someone from the school. Or what the purpose of the training actually was in the larger context.
I started out learning longsword under the older approach to 3227a, back when it was thought to be the earliest source and even 14th century. The notion of bind-based battles, upright stances and conservative footwork was central. Now I'm wondering if the dynamic and even explosive approach of Meyer was actually a shift. It may have always been part of blossfetchen, and we simply didn't understand the more primitive art and cryptic language of the 15th century texts. With Meyer we see things clearly for the first time. Spaces are precisely shown. Body postures are modeled exactly. Sword and hand positions are easy to visualize. The guards are clarified as positions of movement through space. I've come to the conclusion that we should really be *starting* with his work.
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Post by Cosmoline on Oct 21, 2019 23:23:02 GMT
I don't know if he's defined that way currently. His work at times almost seems like proto-HEMA. Or maybe the five-finger death moves at the back of Bud K LOL. I love him though.
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Post by Cosmoline on Oct 22, 2019 18:11:59 GMT
I suspect some of these questions may turn out to be unanswerable. But from my own and others' experiences, the stiffer approach to early KDF just isn't bearing much fruit in practice. Wild swinging can often beat it. That isn't to say that winden and fulen aren't part of the process. Just that we're missing some key pieces to that early art. Which isn't surprising since it's demonstrably incomplete and poorly visualized in the sources. And it's *intentionally cryptic* in places. If we take KDF as a whole, including Meyer, then just by the quality of material Meyer is where we should be starting. Then we can alter things to go *back* to earlier sources by, for example, removing certain moves/concepts that simply don't seem to have existed in the 15th. Or at least weren't named. But I'm fairly certain that the upright, conservative movements that came from focusing on 3227a and early illustrated texts are just fundamentally off. And that blossfetchen has always included fast sweeps, aggressive leaps and even the deep postures we see in Meyer. Because ultimately this stuff works in blossfetchen. Not so much in harness, of course.
Of course, this is just a theory. And then there is the possibility that the conservative footwork and stances of the 14th century sources were informed by the dominance of harness in almost all combat. Again, having outside perspectives on this training is critically important so hopefully more will be found.
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Post by Cosmoline on Oct 23, 2019 0:35:02 GMT
The pieces may be the result of modern HEMA trying to make sense of it all. Camps and dojos naturally evolve differently with different approaches, so the divisions between our groups start to impact how sources are viewed.
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Post by demented on Feb 10, 2020 8:25:25 GMT
Yeah there are a lot of unknowns. Chidester was talking about how there are still no primary source descriptions of the KDF from outside the texts. So for example we don't have anyone writing about how so-and-so lord is hiring someone from the school. Or what the purpose of the training actually was in the larger context. I started out learning longsword under the older approach to 3227a, back when it was thought to be the earliest source and even 14th century. The notion of bind-based battles, upright stances and conservative footwork was central. Now I'm wondering if the dynamic and even explosive approach of Meyer was actually a shift. It may have always been part of blossfetchen, and we simply didn't understand the more primitive art and cryptic language of the 15th century texts. With Meyer we see things clearly for the first time. Spaces are precisely shown. Body postures are modeled exactly. Sword and hand positions are easy to visualize. The guards are clarified as positions of movement through space. I've come to the conclusion that we should really be *starting* with his work. Most of the traditional KDF HEMA guys use Meyer to help fill in the gaps for the older stuff. Meyers work was detrimental in the process from what I've heard.
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Post by demented on Feb 10, 2020 12:20:00 GMT
Yeah there are a lot of unknowns. Chidester was talking about how there are still no primary source descriptions of the KDF from outside the texts. So for example we don't have anyone writing about how so-and-so lord is hiring someone from the school. Or what the purpose of the training actually was in the larger context. I started out learning longsword under the older approach to 3227a, back when it was thought to be the earliest source and even 14th century. The notion of bind-based battles, upright stances and conservative footwork was central. Now I'm wondering if the dynamic and even explosive approach of Meyer was actually a shift. It may have always been part of blossfetchen, and we simply didn't understand the more primitive art and cryptic language of the 15th century texts. With Meyer we see things clearly for the first time. Spaces are precisely shown. Body postures are modeled exactly. Sword and hand positions are easy to visualize. The guards are clarified as positions of movement through space. I've come to the conclusion that we should really be *starting* with his work. I get what you're saying and it makes sense but my opinion is slightly different. I feel they reinforce eachother. There was a similar discussion on reddit awhile back and one of the comments summed up how I feel on it: www.reddit.com/r/wma/comments/74ky4s/is_meyer_part_of_the_lichtenauer_tradition/"Meyer asserts his own lineage in Leichtenauer and it baffles me why some people assert Meyer as some sort of separate tradition. The fact that some Meyer guys utilize the older KDF treatise as part of their Meyer-centric system only lends to their benefit since Meyer himself was wholly familiar with the earlier KDF stuff. I would highly doubt that Meyer would have had students himself who were unfamiliar with the earlier forms of Liechtenauer. " (I cutout the last bit of that because I find the rest of this a little too presumptuous" I agree with what you're saying too though and feel anyone studying Ringeck/PPVD/Lew should use Meyer's work to fill the gaps. It's not really an either or , imo.
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Post by Cosmoline on Feb 10, 2020 17:54:34 GMT
I think it's better to use Meyer than try to use Silver, for example.
Our group has pretty much settled on messer these days, and given the extremely detailed and clear source material I wonder why so few use this as the primary training weapon instead of the longsword. Newbies seem to be able to learn messer far faster than kdf longsword.
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Post by kortoso on Mar 30, 2022 4:11:40 GMT
Going back to the original question on this thread (?): There are few books on Marozzo. Has anyone looked at the one by William Jherek Swanger? Is it worth the coin? Tom Leoni has a book on Manciolino; I understand that Tom has a good reputation in the HEMA community, but how is the bok Thanks!
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