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I was sick this day, but my class got a nice round of cutting with German longswords in before Longpoint 2014 (the largest WMA tournament in the US) next week. Someone decided to add a GoPro to the equation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFPHCevPb50
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Jul 13, 2014 18:12
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Dirty Job posted:I was sick this day, but my class got a nice round of cutting with German longswords in before Longpoint 2014 (the largest WMA tournament in the US) next week. Someone decided to add a GoPro to the equation. Come to Germany and hang out with us, we'll give you a pike. (When I bought contact lenses I told them I "needed them for martial arts.")
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Jul 13, 2014 18:17
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HEY GAL posted:Come to Germany and hang out with us, we'll give you a pike. (When I bought contact lenses I told them I "needed them for martial arts.") I've always wanted to practice pike and pollaxe. That would be so rad. If you're ever in New York City, feel free to stop by our school!
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Jul 13, 2014 18:31
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Dirty Job posted:I've always wanted to practice pike and pollaxe. That would be so rad. Honestly, the biggest thing to get used to is that you now have up to (depending on how you are holding it) an 18' clearance when you do literally everything. Going places becomes interesting, as a thought experiment. You expect that it'll be heavy--and ours are heavier than the originals, they're thicker so they don't snap. (If theirs snapped, someone else wrote the check for another one. If ours snap, turns out finding 18' long, perfectly straight lengths of ash is difficult and very expensive.) You don't expect that tree branches, road signs, lights, overhangs, bridges, vaulted plazas, passageways into fortresses, and low overhanging second stories of buildings are now a problem. Edit: Ash has a wiggle to it, but there's also sort of a delay of transmission. So, you do something and then your point does that. The half-pike is a much faster thing. Edit 2: Also, I'm not going to speak like an authority because I have only begun. I still suck, a lot. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Jul 13, 2014 |
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Jul 13, 2014 19:04
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Transporting a 1,80cm bow sucks. How do you do that with a poleaxe or a pike?
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Jul 13, 2014 20:28
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JaucheCharly posted:Transporting a 1,80cm bow sucks. How do you do that with a poleaxe or a pike? Here's a link with pictures: please ignore that the example is fat and British: http://www.marquisofwinchesters.co.uk/Roles-Pikeman-Pike-Drill.html (I shouldn't actually say that; they do more of this than Germans do and they're better at it. The Czechs are also really fond of reenacting and really good at it. On average.) HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 01:30 on Jul 14, 2014 |
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Jul 13, 2014 20:36
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I'm not sure if this is going further back than medieval history for the most part, but I saw a youtube video of an archer who claimed that modern archery techniques are not the ones use historically, and that in reality many archers from ancient times up to medieval times used various techniques such as holding multiple arrows in hand and not drawing their bows to the full draw weight in order to shoot far more arrows than had previously considered possible. I wonder if any knowledgeable folks could have a watch of this and tell me what they think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zGnxeSbb3g I'm curious to know if there is any validity to his claims, both of the potential truth of the argument, as well as whether the claim that historical texts which said archers had to fire a certain number of arrows in a period of time are or have been considered to be false or impossible or exaggerated.
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Jul 14, 2014 23:42
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Isn't he only using a 20lb bow or something, totally useless on the battlefield.
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Jul 15, 2014 06:26
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Rabhadh posted:Isn't he only using a 20lb bow or something, totally useless on the battlefield. It made sense for them because enemies were at most wearing a loincloth and the arrowheads were dipped in feces. An arrowhit (even from a light bow) is enough to bring the target to a disadvantage in the following melee, and the feces ensure a relatively high effectivity in the long run if the target has no access to antibiotics. Edit: vvvv I'm not. Im just saying that if you use some form of poison, you don't necessarily need to shoot an arrow through somebody (shooting it into somebody is enough). Nektu fucked around with this message at 08:03 on Jul 15, 2014 |
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Jul 15, 2014 07:12
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That's all fine and dandy but are you arguing for people intentionally keeping their bows weakened to aid speed shooting? There is an anecdote about early colonists of North America where they were taunting some native to shoot an arrow at a target they had made, the guy was able to drive his arrow several inches into the oak block the colonists had set up, from range. Stone arrowhead too. edit: You're totally correct of course, I suppose a lot of cultures have different solutions to these problems. Modern Africans don't seem to use very powerful bows. Rabhadh fucked around with this message at 08:28 on Jul 15, 2014 |
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Jul 15, 2014 07:19
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I recently read "pillars of the earth" it was kind of terrible. Is their any other good historical fiction dealing with the middle ages?
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Jul 15, 2014 08:02
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Those old shooting techniques don't have any schools like the swordfighting guys have. It's pretty much in development. There's schools in Turkey that are putting stuff together, like the guys and girls from Tirendaz. Another guy is Metin Aksoy, who also does alot of stuff, but he's somewhere in the hinterlands and doing god knows what with alot less profile online. The Hungarians are doing their horse archer thing, and Lajos Kassai has some schools, though I don't know how accurate and well researched his stuff is. So, everything is kinda new, and there's lots of snake oil. Like this guy http://bogen-daumenring.de/ Fun fact, he's putting on a great act, but can't shoot for poo poo and makes up stuff why there is no anchor point, etc. Which is abstruse ofc. I'm more invested in making composite bows (so that was also my focus when I dug for literature), but it's probably based on "Saracen Archery" by Taybugha. http://pgmagirlscouts.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/saracen_archery.pdf On a quick look, I didn't find the requirements of what the archer's supposed to be able to do in the text, but they're mentioned in a modern interpretation of a book that I own. (Swoboda Adam (2011): The art of shooting a short reflexed bow with a thumbring). It is quite instructive and well thought out, but it's not scientific literature with appropriate quoting, so, while the stuff about technique is solid, the historical references need to be taken with a grain of salt. About technique of shooting, there are articles in the Journal of the Society of Archer Antiquities (good luck accessing these), one by McEwen about 2 persian archery manuscripts. These are also discussed in "An Analysis of a Persian Archery manuscript written by Kapur Čand" by Bede Dwyer and Manouchehr Moshtagh Khorasani, which is avaiable online. Though there is no mention of speed shooting. Another possible source about requirements of the archer is Klopsteg P.E. (1947): Turkish archery and the composite bow, though this one is more invested in flight archery, if I recall that correctly, which is quite different, but maybe there are comments on target archery too. One of the main sources of this book is the Telhis-i resa'il ür-rümât by Mustafa Kani from 1847, which Sultan Mahmud II (?) ordered to be written, so that the declining art of bowmaking shall be conserved (There is a german translation of the old arabic script). There is very little written on military archery, which is understandable, as this was guarded as a military secret. On the other hand, once you try to learn archery by a book, you will very soon hit the limits of what can be communicated by written word, instead of instruction by a master. The same probably goes for any other martial art. You cannot effectively learn that from a book alone, so why write it down? The archers of the Ottoman Empire were organized and licensed in clubs, called "Tekke", which I'm not 100% sure what it means, as these clubs were also occupied with other kinds of training, probably like a Zurkaneh. There is most likely literature available on that, but in turkish. Reconstructing these techniques is difficult, as there are no works like Fechtbücher with their images. Some illustrations are solid, examples of that are to be seen in the text by Dwyer & Khorasani. There are at least 2 sources that I find credible: This one is an instructive video by Adam Swoboda (I asked him for one, and also alot of other people it seems) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejiU3ncUomg The other one is from Dr. Özveri https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lnv9Pr3AWSw To get back to the original video, it infuriates me. It's horseshit. That guy is shooting a light bow, without proper technique and a ring. And then the claim that he can pierce mail with that joke of a bow. Another guy on youtube does a how to. What the hell is that supposed to be? You cannot do that with a warbow. I repeat, you cannot do that. The shoulder is sensible, you need perfect technique to shoot a heavy bow safely, and even more if you want to do it fast. Like that, you end up with surgery, very soon. Also, a ring is an absolute requirement for a heavy bow. If you shoot mediterranean, you need a glove or a tab. Barehand? Nope. Shooting from the chest like that? gently caress off. It's like some jackass on youtube tells you that you properly box by crossing your hands or that it doesn't matter to get hit on the neck or in the balls. Of course you can shoot them like that from a kid's bow. I'd rant more, but I have to go. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 09:12 on Jul 15, 2014 |
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Jul 15, 2014 09:10
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Rabhadh posted:That's all fine and dandy but are you arguing for people intentionally keeping their bows weakened to aid speed shooting? There is an anecdote about early colonists of North America where they were taunting some native to shoot an arrow at a target they had made, the guy was able to drive his arrow several inches into the oak block the colonists had set up, from range. Stone arrowhead too. There is a story in one of the bowyer's bibles that Saxton Pope tells about how he joked with a local while being on safari. To Pope's surprise guy outshot him easily, until Pope got the heaviest bow that he had, and then only beat him by a few meters. The guy was shooting with regular heavy hunting arrows. Speaking of which, the book about the Grayson collection is quite interesting and got reprinted recently. http://www.amazon.com/Traditional-A...yson+collection You guys in the states are very lucky, there are quite a few museums that also have persian and mughal archery tackle. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 13:13 on Jul 15, 2014 |
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Jul 15, 2014 09:21
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JaucheCharly posted:So, everything is kinda new, and there's lots of snake oil. Like this guy http://bogen-daumenring.de/ Fun fact, he's putting on a great act, but can't shoot for poo poo and makes up stuff why there is no anchor point, etc. Which is abstruse ofc. What we are doing is somewhat abstruse, but his statements are absurd. Well, what we're doing is esoteric, I wouldn't call it particularly difficult to understand. The pointy end goes that way, try not to set your own gunpowder on fire, etc. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 13:24 on Jul 15, 2014 |
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Jul 15, 2014 13:16
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Otto Von Jizzmark posted:I recently read "pillars of the earth" it was kind of terrible. Is their any other good historical fiction dealing with the middle ages? Hmmm, I remember Pillars of the Earth being alright, at least on the 'historical' part of historical fiction, although I haven't read it in a while. The Name of the Rose is pretty good, although it's extremely tedious at times. Also, it isn't great for historical accuracy if that's your thing, but I recently read Frans Bengtsson's The Long Ships and enjoyed it a lot. I think it does a good job of capturing the essence of Viking Age Scandinavia.
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Jul 15, 2014 15:03
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HEY GAL posted:Absurd. Abstruse = difficult to understand, esoteric, recondite. Maybe in your weird language, but not in mine, and this is what I wanted to say: http://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/abstrus foolish, silly, quixotic, confused, cloudy, incomprehensible Like: A: "Warum tragen wir diese abstrus langen Piken mit uns herum?" B: "Was fragst du mich? Ich bin ein Pferd."  QED
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Jul 15, 2014 16:13
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JaucheCharly posted:Maybe in your weird language, but not in mine, and this is what I wanted to say: I wonder how the same word ended up different in our languages? Both of them mean "cloudy and incomprehensible," but "abstruse" means confusing and "abstrus" means confused. Edit: They are a hilarious weapon, though. In every situation on earth but two, they are the most awkward thing, so out of place they're almost pathetic. Those situations are: fighting, but only in large groups, and: you can tie a bunch of them together and drape some fabric over them, and you've got yourself a tent. But still! I mean, one guy with a musket is still an armed person. One guy with a pike is embarrassing. Edit 2: I thought it was spelled Pique though? I've only ever seen Pique. (Or Spieß, of course.) HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Jul 15, 2014 |
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Jul 15, 2014 16:38
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Words flip like that all the time. It's called a causative/inchoative alternation. Or anticausative prominence. (Jesus linguists love ten-dollar words.) See also that "sensitive" = "sensibel". This has been Semantic Drift and You with Xiahou Dun.
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Jul 15, 2014 17:48
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Spieß is like a blanket word for any kind of wooden shaft that's used to stab something, and ofc it makes for some great, yet meaningful sentences like: "Für Fleischspießchen benutze ich einfach ein Cocktailspießchen um das Fleisch auf dem Spieß aufzuspießen.". The old meaning is usable for any kind of spear, or really, any wooden stick. See, you probably didn't realize what you were in for when you decided to learn german and come to this great country of beer, sausage and Hitler. "Etwas von der Pike auf lernen", you surely heard that before. I think Pike formations are a pretty smart thing. Did you know that the Turks detested polearms? There was one Orta that specialized in halberts, if you end up there, you're too stupid and incompetent for anything else. I've never been to Germany. Btw, I will build this, and it's going to be awesome: http://atarn.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2365&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
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Jul 15, 2014 18:04
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JaucheCharly posted:Spieß is like a blanket word for any kind of wooden shaft that's used to stab something, and ofc it makes for some great, yet meaningful sentences like: "Für Fleischspießchen benutze ich einfach ein Cocktailspießchen um das Fleisch auf dem Spieß aufzuspießen.". The old meaning is usable for any kind of spear, or really, any wooden stick. quote:"Etwas von der Pike auf lernen", you surely heard that before. quote:I think Pike formations are a pretty smart thing. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Jul 15, 2014 |
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Jul 15, 2014 18:24
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Hush! We'll summon him if we speak about m.a.i.l.l.e.
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Jul 15, 2014 19:09
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Could you call a formation a 'Fit of Pike' I wonder
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Jul 16, 2014 06:06
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A murder of pikes.
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Jul 16, 2014 06:17
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NLJP posted:Could you call a formation a 'Fit of Pike' I wonder inb4 "this really piqued my interest"
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Jul 16, 2014 10:45
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I don't understand what you mean.
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Jul 16, 2014 12:00
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Not sure I get the point of all this.
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Jul 16, 2014 13:18
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In lieu of another pike/pique joke, heres a video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAtPmTPAVZ8 Nice to see someone calling out John Clements for his silly videos, namely this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtNZQBc4RpE I like the faceless mystery woman in the first video, though I'm pretty sure its his wife and I can't blame her not wanting the internet leering at her.
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Jul 16, 2014 14:41
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I like Matt Easton, but I believe he is mis-characterizing the aforementioned video. I don't believe any serious practitioner is going to believe in or endorse parrying as a valid tactic due namely to the huge wealth of sources that specifically caution against parrying. Mr. Easton's premise that its stupid to receive a blow to the flat via a parry is a flawed assumption on those grounds. In most cases, one should endeavor to intercepting a cut with one's own cut (or mastercut in this case), and I believe John is calling out the fact that oblique angled edges clash and fall either on one or the other's flat. In the latter half of Mr. Easton's video he talks about turning an edge in, but even in that case its an edge at an angle, and not a direct edge-to-edge strike. Seems like a misunderstanding to me. The last time John Clements personally showed me his thoughts on edge to flat clashing as called out by Matt, it was exactly like the latter portions of Matt's video (with a small amount of edge turned in to allow a descending blade to get caught on the cross or flanges).
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Jul 16, 2014 16:19
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DandyLion posted:The last time John Clements personally showed me his thoughts on edge to flat clashing as called out by Matt, it was exactly like the latter portions of Matt's video (with a small amount of edge turned in to allow a descending blade to get caught on the cross or flanges). The problem with John's stuff is he shows it off by having a student pull the punch every single time while he yells. Half of his stances could result in exactly what matt is describing if it was a full force blow, and not a stopped motion. Also the fact that I summoned you to this thread in moments after you had not posted in here forever is kinda funny.
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Jul 16, 2014 16:45
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From DandyLion's post history he's most likely John Clements himself
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Jul 16, 2014 16:48
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I've been had! Surely SA will keep-safe my identity. In all seriousness you make a fair point about pulling the shots early for demonstration purposes. I think he's showing it pulled merely to more clearly see the interaction, since the faster stuff gets lost on his low res videos. When attending his workshops he's very emphatic about striking at him with intent to connect as a demo partner. I've seen plenty even from Matt that are pulled so he can describe the interaction at the moment of contact. My question to those perhaps with additional knowledge on historical sword finds (like those at Crecy and Visby), but if edge to edge parrying/clashing/bashing was a frequent occurrence, would we find a disproportionate amount of relics with chipped/notched edges denoting such use? I seem to recall a viking saga that made mention of their swords being useless as weapons once they had acquired chips/notches in the blade, and my own experience generally mirrors that sentiment (especially for cuts). It would stand to reason there is value in preserving your edge on the sword as long as possible, one that doesn't necessarily jive with an edge-to-edge focus.
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Jul 16, 2014 18:44
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rock rock posted:
Slavery definitely existed in Anglo-Saxon Britain. It kind of shocked the Normans when they took over. Check out this for example - http://www.buildinghistory.org/bristol/saxonslaves.shtml - and you know if William I of all people is all 'this poo poo's hosed up' then poo poo was definitely hosed up. (The English version of jarl is 'earl', incidentally...)
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Jul 16, 2014 19:33
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WoodrowSkillson posted:In lieu of another pike/pique joke, heres a video. The argument from the crossguard being where it is does seem sensible but it doesn't then actually talk about WHY it's there in the first place. I've no experience but it seems an argument based on wrist strength and stability would make sense. The flat of the blade, if struck directly, would surely send the force across the wrist rather than into it, where it is harder to resist rotation and, in general, the wrist is weaker. Unless you deliberately change the orientation of the sword in your grip first, I guess but that seems silly in terms of reaction speed and time it would take to shift. This is just me trying to think of the direction of force, mind you so I have no idea if I'm on the right track here.
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Jul 16, 2014 22:06
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NLJP posted:The argument from the crossguard being where it is does seem sensible but it doesn't then actually talk about WHY it's there in the first place. The crossguard is where it is because you need a way to protect yourself from the attacking blade. Nektu fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Jul 16, 2014 |
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Jul 16, 2014 22:27
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Of all the things in the world to base a cult of personality around, you pick reenactors.
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Jul 16, 2014 22:46
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HEY GAL posted:Of all the things in the world to base a cult of personality around, you pick reenactors. Clements came up a while back in the thread so I happened to look around online and found some of his detractors, who seem to be mostly people who used to work with him and then resigned because of him. The read I got on it from them is that he carries himself less like a scholar or reenactor and more like a martial arts "sensei", which makes a lot of sense. A lot of those guys wind up turning their classes into cults. The really wild thing on this particular topic is that the "edge on edge contact is a myth!" argument about parrying with the flat has been going on for years and years even though there are evidently stacks of primary sources that speak directly to parrying with the edge.
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Jul 17, 2014 00:28
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Nektu posted:See the first technique (and again at 26 and 43 seconds) in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ln94E9AGYTc I was merely criticising that first video in the post I quoted for using 'well the crossguard is there so welp this is how it was done' as prima facie evidence. That's all well and good and sure, might have been the obvious way to use a sword but it made no attempt to explain WHY. It was no argument, really. it was statement. edit: e.g why couldn't you have the crossguard perpendicular to the traditional position and solve the problem of parrying with the flat. All he says is: 'this is what they actually did.' That's fine but I think some of us would like to know why as well as just the pure 'this is what was done'. Mind you I'm probably being real dim here. NLJP fucked around with this message at 01:18 on Jul 17, 2014 |
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Jul 17, 2014 00:58
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How do we know how old certain stories and stuff are? Many times I'll see someone say that, while the earliest known written copy of a story or poem may be from some specific century, the actual story itself is actually older. But how do they know, if all they have is that copy?
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Jul 17, 2014 05:19
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EvanSchenck posted:Clements came up a while back in the thread so I happened to look around online and found some of his detractors, who seem to be mostly people who used to work with him and then resigned because of him. The read I got on it from them is that he carries himself less like a scholar or reenactor and more like a martial arts "sensei", which makes a lot of sense. A lot of those guys wind up turning their classes into cults. The really wild thing on this particular topic is that the "edge on edge contact is a myth!" argument about parrying with the flat has been going on for years and years even though there are evidently stacks of primary sources that speak directly to parrying with the edge. Hahaha, this is a pretty accurate description. What made it even more galling was that his presentation (I would not call it a lecture) spent a great deal of time ridiculing eastern martial arts for, among other things, being too prone to sensei-ism.
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Jul 17, 2014 05:20
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NLJP posted:I was merely criticising that first video in the post I quoted for using 'well the crossguard is there so welp this is how it was done' as prima facie evidence. That's all well and good and sure, might have been the obvious way to use a sword but it made no attempt to explain WHY. If having the crossguard perpendicular to the edge would have provided any advantage, our ancestors would have killed people with perpendicular crossguards. Look back at the first technique in the video I posted: its really simple, really effective and would not be possible with a perpendicular crossguard. NLJP posted:That's fine but I think some of us would like to know why as well as just the pure 'this is what was done'. Mind you I'm probably being real dim here. Or course this also means that it is really easy to develop incorrect reconstructions - there is no longer a natural selection going on that could easily separate the wheat from the chaff. Look at modern sport fencing to see the difference: technique still develops in that because people are still using it in earnest (according to its rules). Nektu fucked around with this message at 07:25 on Jul 17, 2014 |
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Jul 17, 2014 07:14
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