Interesting. Have you had any formal training? I'm asking because I am not fully familiar with Western style swordsmanship (HEMA) and I don't know of any teachers in my area. It's a lucky day if you can find somebody to teach technique and to spar with.
Actually no I have not had any formal training in hema, fencing, or with a spear or anything like that. I have practiced alot of cutting with trial and error. Cutting came kinda naturally. I kinda just swing a sword kinda like I do a sledgehammer. Lots of experience with sledgehammers and axes from the work I used to do, and I learned how to cut the water gallon multiple times like that by just doing what felt right. My technique probably is still rough, but I can make super accurate cuts with the technique u see in the video.
I did kendo for a month when I was a kid but that's the extent of my training with anything like a sword. And kendo was extremely difficult for me as a kid. I liked it but it was very technical and there were so many people in the kendo classes, I eventually stopped going.
Only formal training I have in martial arts is mainly grappling, jui jitsu, judo and wrestling, wrestled in high school. Went to a amazing jui jitsu school in maryland from 2009-2014. I did occasionally train striking and do very little sparring with striking. I love boxing and jui jitsu are the 2 that I really caught on with and have the most fun with. some boxing in jui jitsu, but not as much as I'd like but I'm not done with them either. I try to learn as much boxing and swordfighting as I can because I love both and I feel like they go hand in hand. I love boxing and swordfighting and in my opinion, if you love one, then naturally you should love the other.
I'm an avid boxing fan, and boxing reminds me alot of sword fighting and vice versa. I watch boxing every night, I watch swordfish tournaments, and longpoint tournaments. I love watching axel Peterson, and anders linnard in swordfish tournaments ever since I first watched them fight in 2010 swordfish finals, great swordfight. Watching them fight reminded me so much of boxing with how they feinted strikes, switched guards, switched stances, parry thrusts like parrying a jab. To me, Watching anders vs axel was like watching a boxing match. My passion for swordfighting grows deeper then more I watch boxing and my passion for boxing grows deeper the more I watch swordfighting.
I also watch these german longsword tutorials on youtube, bastard sword workouts and zweihander tutorials, but it is very hard to learn without a teacher and a sparring partner. Longsword is super technical and very difficult. Especially german longsword. It's very hard, damm near impossible to learn even the most basic moves without a teacher and a partner
I have to 100 percent agree with what you said about finding a school and a sparring partner. I am lucky to find anyone to spar with these days, and it's nearly impossible for me to find someone to teach me where I live in maryland. It sucks because it is something I love and really really want to do. I did spar with my friend almost everyday in my house in 2017&2018 but neither of us knew much about sword fighting. Plus we were totally idiotic and out of our minds and wore no gear sparring with these super dangerous and very painful cold steel polypropylene sparring swords. Those things hurt like hell. We constantly hurt our fingers, hit our heads, stabbed each others faces. I go back and watch these videos and I'm shocked at our stupidity . It was brutal. We went full speed with sword and buckler. We had 2 types of falchions, a diamond shaped cross section chinese Jian, and these big cold steel hand and a half polypropylene swords. So dangerous , we did double sword, and heavy hand and a half longsword fighting, we even did longsword and buckler. When we got the cold steel training buckler, we really went hard. We mainly did sword and buckler since the buckler was our only protection most of the time, and we could go harder when using the bucklers
The bucklers are awesome, and you can use them to your advantage. I'm huge fan of sword and buckler. After hurting our fingers so much though, and after my best friend nearly pushed my eyeball into my skull with a cold steel polypropylene hand and a half sword, I refused to spar without any headgear and finger protection. Thay sword going into my eye hurt soooooo baddd. I gotta say though, even after almost losing my eye, it was some of the most fun I've had in my life sparring my friend inside my house. My ceiling is all marked up from our polypropylene training swords lol I have to repaint part of my ceiling.
But yeah that's the extent of my training. No real training. Just trying to learn and teach myself and sparring with my friend alot.
I kinda learned how to spin a spear by just spinning things at work all the time since I was 18. I always would spin pipes, rebar, brooms, rakes,shovels etc. Once I finally got a spear. I started spinning a spear for like a few hours a day. I spun the spear with the sheathe on for a couple weeks before I felt comfortable enough to remove the sheathe. I have no formal training with a spear or spinning a spear, but I love doing it, even if I'm not doing it completely right, it's still very fun and very dangerous, and very cool looking lol I stopped spinning spear in September 2018, but I picked it up again last month and have actually been practicing with the spear alot for the last month or so. I love the spear. I practice with zweihander alot too, just trying to get these couple moves down that I learned on YouTube zweihander seminar. I like to practice footwork with bastard sword,kriegsmesser and fencing techniques one handed saber but I'm not that good at all with any of them yet
I bought red dragon armory sparring gloves, i bought a helmet/mask, but the mask isnt the proper fencing mask. The holes in the protective cage for the face are too big and a pointy sword will easily slip between the holes, I need a better fencing mask. I got protective hema padding for arms and elbows, and a very effective dirtbike suit, but I didnt buy extra for my friend because that stuff is expensive, and I guess he expected me to buy it for him, so we havent even sparred in 14 months now because he never bought gear. I do have my cousin and my beay friend that will spar with me, I just need more gear and need to find some longsword enthusiasts near me, and hopefully I can start some sort of formal training in the next 6 months-a year.
Until then, I will keep doing what I'm doing, read historical manuals, spar with my idiot friends, do lots of backyard cutting, lots of spear spinning,zweihander,bastard sword, and of course watching lots of longsword fighting, and boxing lol thanks for watching man, I appreciate you responding to this thread