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10 Beers posted:Can you link to the HEMA thread? https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3871356
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Nov 20, 2018 15:22
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So I did my first water bottle cutting today, with the longsword and with my gladius machete for reference since it is an easy cutter. It’s interesting how when I gently caress up with the longsword it hits like a baseball bat. It’s really unforgiving, I assume both because I am so new to it and also since it is more of a piercing blade, or so I’ve read (similar to a XVa I think?) I’ve cut fruits and melons and stuff but these water bottles really expose my issues. I did start getting it right, or at least the cutting angle which was my goal since it’s hard to tell if I am doing that right when practicing in the air like I have been just listening for the sword sound. The oberhau is coming the most naturally since I’ve been working on it the most but my horizontal cuts are really not good. I eventually got my cell phone to record it in slow motion and looking back on it was helpful to see what was going on. Anyway, I have a question. What’s the cheapest/simplest thing to get or make to put things on when cutting? I had been using the box from the gladius machete since it put things at a good height (it was a long rectangle) but the water from the bottles had made that useless now. Should I just get more long boxes, or what do you all use? I’ve seen all sorts of ghetto setups on YouTube but I’d mainly like it to be very cheap if possible because money is tight and also something that won’t hurt the sword if I hit it. If that’s even possible.
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Nov 20, 2018 20:02
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rio posted:So I did my first water bottle cutting today, with the longsword and with my gladius machete for reference since it is an easy cutter. It’s interesting how when I gently caress up with the longsword it hits like a baseball bat. It’s really unforgiving, I assume both because I am so new to it and also since it is more of a piercing blade, or so I’ve read (similar to a XVa I think?) I’ve cut fruits and melons and stuff but these water bottles really expose my issues. Honestly... get or make yourself a cutting stand. Here is one all pre-built etc. Not the best wood, but it works: https://www.amazon.com/RYUJIN-Woode...la-566817459027 PS: get this book. Read it. Understand it. Ask questions. Mike is a drat good friend. He is the guy who really brought cutting into HEMA. https://www.amazon.com/Cutting-Medi...h+a+sword&psc=1
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Nov 20, 2018 20:34
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EvilMerlin posted:Honestly... get or make yourself a cutting stand. I was trying to get away without getting one of those stands or building one since I am tight on space inside as it is and don’t have a yard to keep it in (although I do have the space it use it, it is just technically communal despite no one else being back there). But I guess I might need to make space inside to store it if there aren’t any better options. I did get that book when it was posted earlier - it is fantastic and I haven’t gotten to the latter part of the book yet with the specific practice but the concepts I’ve read so far have been interesting and helpful. The reason I have been periodically cutting is because of his statement that you don’t know if things are working unless you are cutting (to paraphrase it). He is very good at explaining things in a concise manner but I’m taking my time reading and rereading to really understand the concepts rather than skip forward. Hopefully by the end of the week I’ll be there though because I’m getting close to it.
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Nov 20, 2018 20:45
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rio posted:I was trying to get away without getting one of those stands or building one since I am tight on space inside as it is and don’t have a yard to keep it in (although I do have the space it use it, it is just technically communal despite no one else being back there). But I guess I might need to make space inside to store it if there aren’t any better options. You can build your own and make the legs not as long... Oh great! Let me know if you have any specific questions for Mike and I'll get them to him. And yep. This is my big issue with some of the old school HEMA teachers out there that claim test cutting is useless.... because its not... far from it.
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Nov 20, 2018 21:03
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I wish I had bookmarked a blog I read once; it was this pages long diatribe on why everything but working the pell was useless. Cutting practice? Pointless, the pell was as good or better. Sparring? A down-right detriment, because it was too safe and not real enough; whack the pell instead. Wasters? You scrub, go back to your mom's basement; only sharp steel and pell-users need apply. It was the  est text I've ever read.
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Nov 20, 2018 21:55
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inscrutable horse posted:I wish I had bookmarked a blog I read once; it was this pages long diatribe on why everything but working the pell was useless. Cutting practice? Pointless, the pell was as good or better. Sparring? A down-right detriment, because it was too safe and not real enough; whack the pell instead. Wasters? You scrub, go back to your mom's basement; only sharp steel and pell-users need apply. That was a post by Huge Knight. I mean Hugh Knight. This is the same guy that "accidentally" shot his wife... twice... with a shotgun. Killing her dead. He was OK on wasters though. But the guy is an idiot.
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Nov 20, 2018 22:00
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EvilMerlin posted:Yeah that was one of the first things I swapped out. I had Adam at White Mountain Armoury (long gone) make me one of the first kettle helms he ever made for SCA fighting. That's some drat nice harness, thanks for sharing it!
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Nov 21, 2018 01:56
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BirdOfPlay posted:In more general Olympic fencing news, several proposals have been passed around in preparation for the FIE Congress in Paris next month. This include silly things like removing the off-target in foil and allowing the fleche attack in sabre. From what I've read, the fleche rule change might have some legs, and the executive committee is pushing to have the rule tested at several satellite events over the course of 2 seasons. Both of these are just... what? I really would not want to be a medic at the comp where they start allowing fleches in sabre. I know the no-crossing rule is an artificial limitation, but given how fast sabre is I can see some fun injuries happening from simul fleche. How is the foil change meant to work - epee with priority? Or just re-jig the box logic so that off-target touches don't make a light come up?
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Nov 21, 2018 09:57
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EvilMerlin posted:That was a post by Huge Knight. I mean Hugh Knight. Hahaha! Yes, that's him alright, there's no mistaking his particular kind of prose! Obviously the tale had grown a little in the years between the reading and the telling, but then again, I had forgotten the comments section where he goes completely off the rails 
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Nov 21, 2018 14:28
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inscrutable horse posted:Hahaha! Yes, that's him alright, there's no mistaking his particular kind of prose! Obviously the tale had grown a little in the years between the reading and the telling, but then again, I had forgotten the comments section where he goes completely off the rails I love that there is someone calling him out for a duel in the comments.
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Nov 21, 2018 18:15
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Huge Knight is a prime example of toxic HEMA culture and why I'm moving away from the HEMA community. Yuck.
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Nov 21, 2018 18:17
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Verisimilidude posted:Huge Knight is a prime example of toxic HEMA culture and why I'm moving away from the HEMA community. Yuck. Where are you going
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Nov 21, 2018 18:24
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barkbell posted:Where are you going Mostly JSA, judo, and stuff outside of the general HEMA community like personal projects, personal classes, etc.
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Nov 21, 2018 21:20
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rio posted:I love that there is someone calling him out for a duel in the comments. People have offered to pay to fly him out to fight... and he keeps making excuses....
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Nov 22, 2018 02:16
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Verisimilidude posted:Huge Knight is a prime example of toxic HEMA culture and why I'm moving away from the HEMA community. Yuck. Meh, the community isn't all that bad.
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Nov 22, 2018 02:20
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Crazy Achmed posted:Both of these are just... what? I really would not want to be a medic at the comp where they start allowing fleches in sabre. I know the no-crossing rule is an artificial limitation, but given how fast sabre is I can see some fun injuries happening from simul fleche. The rough idea is to allow a single crossover during the actual attack and to continue to disallow crossovers at any other time. A "counter-fleche" would, theoretically, be cardable offense, which would be real dumb. quote:How is the foil change meant to work - epee with priority? Or just re-jig the box logic so that off-target touches don't make a light come up? Yeah, it would require on-target hits to register a touch and, thus, an action, which is what makes it real dumb and would, essentially, eliminate foil as we know it. Also, imagine non-FIE level reffing with respect to seeing and carding for covering. If you meant the technicalities, the box would require the lame line loop to be closed from the opponent as well as the opening of the weapon circuit to register a valid touch. An open weapon line would register nothing. As a bonus, the box would no longer sense that one side wasn't hooked up. As an aside, I'm not sure how the weight testing would be done without off-targets.
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Nov 26, 2018 22:19
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BRB, starting a company that manufactures weights with a wire coming out that plugs into a fencing box Thanks for explaining, that would be completely different from foil as it is now. Carding people for counter-fleche in sabre seems like it'd be incredibly difficult/borderline unfair given how close the timing is, and I've seen enough situations in foil/epee where regardless of priority there's simply not enough time to stop the momentum of a fleche once the motion is started.
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Nov 27, 2018 11:15
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Dumb question for more experienced longsword people : Am I ever going to be free from minor hand injuries? Like, ever? I don't even mean from getting hit, I just mean from chafing the poo poo out of my palms, even with gloves. Like, first I got one layer of calluses, then it would hurt the neighboring parts of my hand until they had a callus and then etc. Should I just get used to the fact that I'm going to spend a decent amount of time with little bits of gauze on my hands held on by gobs of medical tape? (The injuries are absolutely tiny, but they all have been on joints of my hand that bend all the time so I put poo poo tons of tape on them so I can get through the day.) Is this my poor technique, my hands being weak* or is this just the default state for everyone? I say this having already noticed lots of little band aid's on everyone's hands at the club and having a good guess at the answer. *I worked construction for like 5 years! This hobby is really fun and I love it, but god drat it's almost as bad as using a chainsaw for a couple hours.
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Dec 5, 2018 05:11
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You should expect to get a set of blisters on your palms opposite your knuckles and maybe on the first joints of some fingers, but that goes away with time. But to be entirely honest I've never ever seen anyone actually have to tape themselves up because of blisters. Try ditching the gloves? I can't imagine wearing sweat-drenched gloves is good for your skin.
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Dec 5, 2018 08:29
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My left hand is all blisters. And I grew up chopping firewood and then doing construction. What the hell did I do wrong? Am just a wuss?
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Dec 5, 2018 08:35
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You really shouldn't get any more blisters than you would get from swinging axes and hammers. The only explanations I can think of are a) your gloves suck and b) you're gripping the sword too hard. The sword has a knob on the end to keep it in your hand, don't worry about it.
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Dec 5, 2018 09:06
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Ditto about decent gloves and not deathgripping your weapon, I've seen people get blisters from foils and they weigh what, half a kilo or something?
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Dec 5, 2018 10:19
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You could try getting a pair of thin, form-fitting gloves to wear under your main gloves, lets the glove rub against the other glove instead of skin. I have to do something similar with socks to keep my feet from getting torn up and it works real good.
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Dec 5, 2018 14:43
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You can have the toughest hands in the world, but if you do something new/different, you can still get blisters. Having calluses from one activity can also easily aggravate blistering when doing a different activity. So, if you're relatively new, I'd just suck it up. Sure, review your grip with your instructor, make sure your hands aren't changing around when swinging (You'll be surprised of how many are playing the flute during their swing).
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Dec 5, 2018 19:18
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I have a question - not sure if there is an established answer. With a sword that has a seam on the grip of the hilt (longsword in this case), is there a preferred orientation when holding it? My sword has a seam running down the hilt and I think I’ve settled into finding it most comfortable on the bottom (i.e. by my fingers rather than up in my palm). I didn’t know if this was down to personal preference or if there were an established way to deal with it in terms of comfort and also keeping the seam intact and tight as long as possible. To clarify, the seam is where the leather is sewn together and it is kind of rough. The blister talk made me think of it since I felt like I was starting to get some from it at the beginning, though it’s not an issue now mainly because it was due to me gripping much too tight. I know that all swords don’t have this on the hilt so I can take a photo of it if it’s not clear what kind of seam I’m talking about - the leather is raised and you can see whatever string they used to see it together and it feels rough on the hands.
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Dec 5, 2018 19:58
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I have a pair of PurpleHeart Armoury gloves that are pretty well fitting (I think), but still need a lot of breaking in ; I've had them a few months and they still stain my hands blue sometimes if I'm sweating in a harder sparring session. They'e decently tight, requiring a bit of oomph to get on ; way tighter than any work glove I've ever used before. Lots of people at my club use something that looks kind of like golfing gloves (I don't know what they actually are. Super thin gloves ending at the wrist. They could be driving gloves for all I know). Like once a month just a chunk of my left palm rips off, usually no bigger than a dime, but it takes weeks to heal because I type a lot at work and it keeps getting reopened. Like, I tape it but the tape is entirely because it's my palm between my thumb and my index finger and that's a part that bends and unbends if you're doing basically anything with your hands. The tape is just to keep the itsy bit of gauze to stay on so it's not bumping into poo poo. Currently it's a chunk of the base of my thumb that was unhappy from doing too many zwerchaus last night and decided it'd preferred to not have skin. Which is basically nothing except then I go to touch my face any my beard gets in there and it's a very not happy space. From your perspective, it sounds like I'm gripping too hard and I'm going to talk to my teachers. Friday is the holiday party so it seems like a good time to bring it up. Thanks!
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Dec 6, 2018 07:08
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These are the only blue gloves I found, do you mean these? I'm repeating myself but seriously ditch your gloves and see what happens. I've not used this particular model more than a couple of times but I know that they're really stiff and the cut is weird. The glove shouldn't be tight either, it should just... fit. You certainly shouldn't have to break a pair in over actual months. Poorly fitting gloves chafe and make you choke the life out of the sword. They're not even that protective in a longsword context.
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Dec 6, 2018 11:19
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I have these : http://www.woodenswords.com/Gloves_Padded_Leather_Fencing_Gloves_Black_p/glove.p.htm They’re actually black but the dye comes off as blue because I have no idea. I’m colorblind. People have told me my hands are blue. They seem to fit really well. Like, you know, a glove. If this was a pair of gloves for anything else I’d say they fit perfectly. Like they’re the size of of my hands. You know, as gloves are supposed to be. But still so many blisters. I’ll show the gloves to people at my club tomorrow and ask their opinions and maybe they can workshop this in person.
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Dec 6, 2018 13:48
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rio posted:I have a question - not sure if there is an established answer. With a sword that has a seam on the grip of the hilt (longsword in this case), is there a preferred orientation when holding it? My sword has a seam running down the hilt and I think I’ve settled into finding it most comfortable on the bottom (i.e. by my fingers rather than up in my palm). I didn’t know if this was down to personal preference or if there were an established way to deal with it in terms of comfort and also keeping the seam intact and tight as long as possible. For me, seam down. I like the smooth against the palm of my hand.
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Dec 11, 2018 18:08
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Leather? Brutal. Not sure if this sort of thing would work but have you considered wrapping it with something to cover the seam, say the grip tape they use for tennis racquets? In other news the fencing clubs here have just finished for the year, which is great timing because the zip on my breeches just broke. Hopefully I can fix it before things start up again next year...
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Dec 14, 2018 12:28
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I got to play with a Castille feder the other day that had spray on truck bed liner for a grip. It works really well with gloves. Would eat your hands up a bit barehanded though.
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Dec 14, 2018 17:03
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I have a question for you guys. I have been practicing a lot and feel like on two or three basic movements I can swing reliably with good edge alignment and decent form. Testing on water bottles today I am getting clean and straight cuts. I have a couple pool noodles and read that those are demanding in terms of showing flaws and I first found that I couldn’t do more than maybe cut a little into them and not often. They would just bounce away or tear right next to where the top of the dowel was inside. I was trying to figure out what was happening and I realized that if I took it very slow that they slice very easily when moving the sword over the noodle rather than through it - this might be wrong but I thought I remembered reading not wanting to cut with the blade when practicing, drawing the sword to slice, and to keep the sword moving forward. I think they called it cleaving instead of cutting but I might be remembering incorrectly. Seeing others test cut in pool noodles it looks like there is no noodle bouncing or tearing like I was getting with the same cuts I was having success with on the bottles. One noodle was considerable softer than the other, both were used and bent and narrower than the ones I’ve seen others cutting but I feel like this is a problem with me and not the noodles. So my question is - am I supposed to be drawing the blade as it travels in the target to slice it? Does it depend on the target? Or perhaps the bottles aren’t telling me about some flaw I’m exhibiting. I was focusing so much on the mechanics of movement and edge alignment and since I thought that I shouldn’t be cutting with the blade in a slicing kind of cut I am wondering if I am missing something now that I’m trying something other than bottles.
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Dec 19, 2018 06:45
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rio posted:I have a question for you guys. I have been practicing a lot and feel like on two or three basic movements I can swing reliably with good edge alignment and decent form. Testing on water bottles today I am getting clean and straight cuts. I have a couple pool noodles and read that those are demanding in terms of showing flaws and I first found that I couldn’t do more than maybe cut a little into them and not often. They would just bounce away or tear right next to where the top of the dowel was inside. I was trying to figure out what was happening and I realized that if I took it very slow that they slice very easily when moving the sword over the noodle rather than through it - this might be wrong but I thought I remembered reading not wanting to cut with the blade when practicing, drawing the sword to slice, and to keep the sword moving forward. I think they called it cleaving instead of cutting but I might be remembering incorrectly. Seeing others test cut in pool noodles it looks like there is no noodle bouncing or tearing like I was getting with the same cuts I was having success with on the bottles. One noodle was considerable softer than the other, both were used and bent and narrower than the ones I’ve seen others cutting but I feel like this is a problem with me and not the noodles. Draw cut.
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Dec 19, 2018 15:40
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EvilMerlin posted:Draw cut. Is this something that should be incorporated on everything or just depending on the target?
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Dec 19, 2018 18:42
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A correct cut naturally has a "drawing" component to its arc because of body mechanics. When you hold the sword in the conventional "handshake" grip the blade is at an angle to your forearm, which means it won't meet the target perfectly perpendicular and the sword will naturally bite into the target easier. In addition, when you make a boring old descending diagonal cut, the movement of your shoulders and hips will turn the arc of the sword into an ellipse which means that the sword is drawn through the target as you cut into it. My completely uninformed guess is that you're either hyperextending your wrists to reach further, or you're cutting without proper extension in the arms and shoulders, or both. Can't really help you more without video.
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Dec 19, 2018 19:27
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Siivola posted:A correct cut naturally has a "drawing" component to its arc because of body mechanics. When you hold the sword in the conventional "handshake" grip the blade is at an angle to your forearm, which means it won't meet the target perfectly perpendicular and the sword will naturally bite into the target easier. In addition, when you make a boring old descending diagonal cut, the movement of your shoulders and hips will turn the arc of the sword into an ellipse which means that the sword is drawn through the target as you cut into it. Thanks a lot - that’s extremely helpful. I think you’re right about the hyperextension but I will get a video tomorrow when I’m practicing if you don’t mind taking a quick look. I’m hoping that after New Years I’ll be able to adjust my schedule since there’s a somewhat local class but right now it’s on a night where I would need a babysitter for 4 hours with the driving and class time and I can’t afford that weekly. I’m really itching to learn so I’m watching as much as I can online and reading but I know I’m missing things like the details of what you’re describing even though I do feel like I’m better than when I started.
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Dec 19, 2018 21:00
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Still and always an ignorant idiot, but I got to play with a Kvetun feder the other day and jesus christ. I want to just make a video of it with sexy saxophone music. Probably not the best feder, sure, but well made and the weight just feels nice in your hand. (Thanks senior student who randomly handed me his!) To my uninformed hands it certainly felt really good. I also like the schilt was big enough to actually protect my thumb but without being enormous.
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Dec 20, 2018 05:23
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Siivola posted:A correct cut naturally has a "drawing" component to its arc because of body mechanics. When you hold the sword in the conventional "handshake" grip the blade is at an angle to your forearm, which means it won't meet the target perfectly perpendicular and the sword will naturally bite into the target easier. In addition, when you make a boring old descending diagonal cut, the movement of your shoulders and hips will turn the arc of the sword into an ellipse which means that the sword is drawn through the target as you cut into it. Well said.
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Dec 20, 2018 14:15
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Xiahou Dun posted:Still and always an ignorant idiot, but I got to play with a Kvetun feder the other day and jesus christ. Never even heard of them! Do you have a link?
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Dec 20, 2018 14:15
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