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BirdOfPlay posted:Including how a blow with the guard is "Brutality." In SCA heavy combat, back when I was still active, we'd refer to calibration. The goal being that since force of a strike that was accepted as a 'good' hit was on the receiver to judge, it was best policy to take as good the lightest hit you would want to deliver to an opponent and have taken. Otherwise, things tend to escalate, as the solution to someone calling every blow light is to simply hit them harder, and experienced fighters generally have a mile or two of body mechanics and leverage in reserve in case a harder blow is needed. So any given group would tend toward a middle ground as far as what was considered a good strike, and thus be locally calibrated on what was acceptable. Also, hi, fencing thread.  Did some sabre way back in the stone age, but my knees and ankles are too wrecked to be any good at it anymore. Glad to see a bunch of people interested, though!
Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Feb 4, 2015 |
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Feb 4, 2015 01:58
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Siivola posted:Alright so, uh. Would you accept that speed and power are connected, but the fastest hit might not be the strongest? A jab is faster than a cross, right? More of a funny thing about fencing specifically. It'll depend on the sword and the target otherwise, but generating more force is generally preferred when you have to worry about penetrating armor, or being able to fight for more than a 5 minutes at a time because your arm muscles are going to give out a lot faster than your back when it comes to generating swings with sufficient force to hurt an armored opponent. It's looking like I may get to pick up some historical fencing soon, my local SCA chapter is making a few noises about picking up cut and thrust, which would be nice. I'd like to spend time working with something that handles more like a blade than rattan, even if I can't go full force with it. Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 10:46 on Feb 13, 2015 |
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Feb 13, 2015 10:39
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That's a nice Wikipedia assertion you've got there, but I wouldn't take it as any sweeping evidence of greater effectiveness. Remember, most of the swordwork that survived into modern sport fencing came through the aristocracy, and thus has as much to do with what was fashionable as what was most effective outside of the salle. This is something to always keep in mind when judging any historical work. Our records in many places are fragmentary at best, and research into them has moved in leaps and bounds over the last few decades alone.
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Feb 16, 2015 08:50
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It makes a lot more difference when you're not fighting in a flat, completely empty open space, too. 
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Feb 16, 2015 14:04
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Oh, sure, I'm just pointing out that sport fencers not being good at using lateral movement has more to do with the rules of the game they train for than the utility of the movement in swordwork in general.
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Feb 18, 2015 07:16
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ScratchAndSniff posted:Anyone else know people who legitimately believe fencing/swordfighting can be used for self defense? I've known a few SCA fighters who've used their skills in self defense, but they train in how to effectively and forcefully hit someone with a stick. It's handy in a lot more situations than knowing how to flick for points in foil, and in any case is a last resort for anyone with a bit of common sense. Replacing your wallet and credit cards is safe and cheaper than hospital bills or what the lawyers will want to defend you. Engage in the poor man's martial art, the 100 meter dash.
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Feb 19, 2015 09:00
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ScratchAndSniff posted:Another big difference is that SCA has a much different definition of a "cut" than the historical manuals do. For safety reasons, they encourage more gliding cuts, rather than forceful whacks which would actually do damage. They also do the whole "hit person in the leg, then they pretend they can't walk" thing. Depends on which system. SCA has three separate ones, Light Rapier, Heavy Rapier and Cut and Thrust, with similar rules but important differences. By standard the scoring strikes are thrusts and draw cuts, although the regional organizations (kingdoms) can opt to allow push cuts as well. Cut and Thrust allows percussive strikes. Leg shots are 'take a knee' in Light or Heavy, and a kill in C&T. The rules they use are actually quite simple.
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Mar 5, 2015 03:44
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Don't forget the two parrying daggers in there as well. The on the left appears to be in the swordbreaker style.
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Mar 10, 2015 11:40
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curious lump posted:Since we're still tangentially on the discussion of cuts, how fatal/dangerous would a rapier's draw cut to the side of the head be? They always seemed like bullshit to me, especially when someone was landing them right before a wheel cut to the face, or a point to the chest. Period rapiers weigh in about the same as a single-handed sword of their day, 2-3 lbs. They don't really have stiff enough spines for a percussive blow to shatter bone like a broadsword's will, but they'd be plenty nasty. Not to mention how badly headwounds like that bleed.
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Mar 21, 2015 09:14
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HEY GAL posted:Check out this guy's arm: Interesting, although it doesn't say much about rapiers given that it's pretty much in the perfect place to have been caused by a strike from above by a cavalry sabre.
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Mar 25, 2015 09:33
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Verisimilidude posted:It's an issue we deal with constantly. How do you learn to fence "for real" without that inherent risk of real injury? This is, idly, one of the things that I think results from what the Martial Arts thread preaches against as well. Not sparring full contact. Pain is a great teacher, and you will never learn to defend yourself the way you will if failure hurts by playing for points. It's one of the things SCA combat does well, although pretty much everything else about it is nothing like real swordwork. A lovely guard or overextension is punished by getting hit with enough force to let you know you've hosed up and not want to do it again. Until I got around to building better cuisses (and building up better arm strength and speed) I used to come home with zebra-stripe bruises on the outside of my left thigh because my shield side was too slow and wasn't getting down to catch leg shots.
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Apr 26, 2015 12:45
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DandyLion posted:I only mention it because in my local group the knife fights are by far the hardest to win unanimously with. Even the best members in the group win no more than 50% of the time, and usually you end up being cut/stuck a half dozen times even when you 'win'. We felt the correlation in the aforementioned quote related to how difficult it was to isolate/limit your opponent before they injured you, and since injuries could mean death a while later, the context seemed to our eyes to imply that Tallhoffer was mentioning it because even with the instruction /proper training, there was a good chance one would die anyways. This seems likely to me, because knife fights are nasty like that. The first rule of knife fighting has always been that you're going to get cut, win or lose. If only because it's really hard to do enough damage to instantly incapacitate an opponent with a single knife shot.
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Jun 17, 2015 08:29
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:So hey any of y'all seen this guy? It's interesting, but if any of his opponents actually knows how to use a buckler (hint, punch his dumb rear end with it), then he's going to have trouble. That said, with the beard and turban I'd guess he's Sikh, and they had a pretty fearsome reputation as swordsmen back in the day. This could be historical, I'd have to see sources. HEY GAL posted:the difference is because americans, in my experience, are huge babies about getting hit on the hands Hands, eyes, throat/spine. None of these things are optional to have protected.
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Jul 1, 2015 09:26
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I actually got knocked loopy in a SCA match one day and it reminded me why I love proper protective gear. Total my-fault accident while training with 4 foot axes, I was new with them and ducked just wrong into a shot that was headed for my shoulder. Instead I caught the haft square between the eyes about a foot above his hands, and got my bell rung. He tried to pull it but I basically headbutted his stick. Safety gear isn't to keep normal practice hits from hurting you, it's to keep one-off dumb accidents from hurting you.
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Jul 6, 2015 10:26
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Verisimilidude posted:You can duck slightly if your sword is in place to defend yourself from immediate counterattack. A drill I learned from JSA utilizes a very minor duck: one person has a padded gekken, and one person has nothing (hand/arm takes the place of a sword, or you can use a sword if you like). The goal of the drill is to not step backwards, which is the typical movement people tend to make when being attacked. You want to step towards your opponent, preferably off to their side (and within the reach of their sword), such that they need to turn their head to see you. Using your sword to shunt their blade (with longsword you can do this safely down to the crossguard or schilt). This teaches you to intercept a blow as it's coming towards you while simultaneously putting yourself into a very advantageous position to either strike or use a takedown. It also embodies the JSA concept of "seme" or pressure, part of which requires your defensive actions (blocking the sword) to be inherently offensive in nature (putting yourself into a strong position). Yeah, as I was taught it, the drill is to step in and to their weak side, shunt the attack past your weak shoulder, and throw the snap cross to their face. Unfortunately I failed at it.
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Jul 8, 2015 04:05
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curious lump posted:If you wanted to go defense with a shield, you can just shift so that your left foot (and thus your off hand) is forward, which makes it easier (?) to defend, and keeps your weapon in your main hand. That's... pretty much standard shield fighting, yes. Shields are for hiding behind, not throwing out dramatically behind you. Was this somehow in doubt? I mean, the whole point of a shield is that you have an object to block your opponent's lines of attack and lines of sight. I suppose the rapier-and-buckler set sometimes fence sword forward and mostly use the shield to stop simultaneous hits when they strike. Rodrigo Diaz posted:This is correct. I.33 shows striking with the buckler, and Stephen Hand has shown a pretty good interpretation of attacking with a centre-gripped shield, some of which probably translates over into the flatter kite shapes and other strapped forms. You can punch with a center grip shield, and bosses are good for that, but using the edges to foul your opponent's strikes is better. I fought most of my time in the SCA with an 18" center grip round shield, and it served quite well despite being a 6'5" large guy. http://www.bellatrix.org/school/section05.htm There's a few examples of the 'classic' Bellatrix shield form from the SCA. Not historical, but effective practical technique if limited by the rules of the SCA's game. The annoying bit is that, at least when I last researched it some years ago, the paper trail on historical European weapons use doesn't really pick up until the 14th century, when larger shields were falling out of fashion, and mostly only covers sword and target.
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Jul 10, 2015 10:50
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Perestroika posted:So this is a question that probably goes more towards the historical end, but of course all perspectives are welcome. In many movies or novels that feature swordfighting, there's often that moment where one combatant will step close, do some twirly thing with his sword, and suddenly his opponent's weapon goes flying. Now, I've wondered whether that has any basis in reality. Are there any treatises or schools that feature techniques specifically focused on disarming the opponent? If so, how common and effective are those, would they be a reasonable choice in any given fight or only something very situational? It's very difficult against anyone with a decent grip, but disarming someone from a bind is doable.
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Jul 12, 2015 06:32
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I have never, ever, ever sparred with anyone I would trust enough to spar with sharps against. Or who I hated enough to wish a manslaughter rap on if I failed to block a cut.
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Jul 21, 2015 05:47
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tirinal posted:The first is understandable, but if you're lacking candidates for the second then you really need to spend more time in the world. Nah, I just don't spar with people I want to hurt. It leads to bad form. 
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Jul 21, 2015 18:04
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That sounds like a great way to disarm yourself if your opponent is in any way faster than you.
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Aug 22, 2015 23:55
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The Rawlings plastics are actually pretty good too. I have been using a Rawlings basked hilted broadsword sim for solo work and pells and it's a lot sturdier than you would expect for a plastic. Weight's not bad either, I'd happily spar with it, although not against a steel feder as squared edges would mar it pretty badly.
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Jun 15, 2018 11:06
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I'm one of those six and a half footers of German extraction, and my endurance is fine. It's just that I'm fat, and fat is a good insulator so I overheat like a motherfucker.
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Jul 5, 2018 08:08
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Sounds like someone needed better hand protection and/or to not try to block with their hand. 
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Aug 3, 2018 20:41
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your friend a dog posted:this is not the answer No, the refs pulling that dude's card because he's clearly not controlling the force of his strikes is the answer, but at the same time I'm big on overbuilding protective gear a little.
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Aug 5, 2018 22:22
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your friend a dog posted:Agree but I'll effort post when I get back from work on why the culture leads to it happening Please do. The HEMA tourney scene is a mystery to me.
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Aug 6, 2018 01:30
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Those I am pretty familiar with, but generally you see the macho over-swinging and shrugging off good blows as 'light' in SCA heavy, not C&T.
Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 02:26 on Aug 6, 2018 |
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Aug 6, 2018 02:24
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your friend a dog posted:Warning: effort post incoming Thanks for this! Makes a lot more sense now from my angle as an ex SCA heavy guy looking to maybe come back and do C&T. That said, yikes. I had immediately assumed it was an equipment failure, but that sounds pretty unfortunate. One of the cardinal rules of any kind of martial sport that was beaten into me is that you have absolute responsibility for the safety of your strikes. If your opponent does something dumb and hurts themselves, that's on them, but if they get hurt because of you, woe and shame on you for not having proper control of your weapon. The vast majority of more than a bruise SCA injuries I've ever seen were the result of falling down, usually related to rolling an ankle or tripping on someone in combination with heat stress.
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Aug 6, 2018 07:38
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your friend a dog posted:Why are the two mutually exclusive? It's not like karate, where it devolved into a bunch of useless katas and meditational exercises. The rapier was a dueling weapon, the treatises and manuals written about it aimed to teach students how to effectively use it. Learning rapier properly means being good at it and being able to use it effectively. And that's why when HEMA fighters come up against SCA fighters they get beaten into the ground. Just remember, bitching about suicidal rapier fighters is period, if a bit late period. George Silver goes on at length.
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Aug 6, 2018 20:14
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bessantj posted:I don't get people who seem to go psycho at tournaments. I don't really fight in tournaments but I did fight in one unofficial tournament put together by my school and a few others in the local area. We were using bespoke rules because HEMA rules can be a bit poo poo. In a match that was first to ten I was nine - one up and my opponent charged me so I just thought he'd given up and I hit him with a thrust to the head. Only he didn't stop and kept on charging eventually colliding with me and we both went over where he held my head down and stabbed me in the side of my neck. I didn't react too well and we got into a fight. But I'll never understand why he decided to do what he did (beyond him being an arsehole.) I think the real question there is if he got his card pulled. Because that's pretty unacceptable behavior for any competitive sport.
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Aug 6, 2018 21:41
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At least he apologized, I suppose, but still not a good look.
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Aug 6, 2018 22:18
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Ravenfood posted:Ok, all joking at the expense of foilists aside though, you really need to calm down on this one since it's clear you're not really listening to what I'm saying either. You've decided there is some ideal of "good technique" that everything else, like scoring etc, should be in service of. You could presumably design a sport that enables that, but my theory is that, in a sport context, good technique is defined by what wins the sporting event. You even talked about the fact that HEMA's ruleset encourages "sloppy" technique. Ideal foil parries are different from ideal epee parries because they're what work under the terms of sport, and bear little resemblance to some kind of idealized historical parry because that's not the point of either sport. And if HEMA wants to move that way, then they have to accept that, just like every nerdlinger who comes to an Olympic fencing club needs to be slapped until they stop saying things like "realistically..." It's simple: what is the role of competing against another person? Is everything in service of that? Or is it a fun way to identify problems in your technique? Olympic fencing has occasional honor code bouts too: in practice, to work out problems or to test out drills. They are in service of winning competition, though. Good technique is defined by what wins the sport. It's not possible to say "i lost the match but at least I fought better" (if you define technique really tightly and don't include distance, timing, and application then i suppose the sentence "i lost but at least my technique was better" is...at least possible) because there isn't some platonic goal of fighting better. Hell, it's a given part of Olympic fencing that if the judge didn't think you parried, you didn't regardless of what everyone else thinks. It's an expected and understood part of the sport to learn to adapt to the judge while on the strip, and part of being a good fencer. If the purpose of studying HEMA is to recreate historical martial arts in a functional manner, then yes, there are objective standards of what makes good technique. Translating that to a tournament-capable ruleset is an art that is still developing, and as such relies heavily on fighters self-policing and behaving in an honorable manner on the field. The example YFAD illustrates (charging though a face thrust to grapple and get an afterblow for a 'double') is, so far as I can tell, bad technique from the perspective of recreating a historical martial art because it would be suicidal with sharps. That is, in theory, why HEMA (and SCA) fight with feders and schlagers as opposed to foils or epees, as these more accurately behave, weigh, and balance like a sharp. Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 14:16 on Aug 7, 2018 |
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Aug 7, 2018 14:13
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Ravenfood posted:Right, which is why I said that deciding whether you're an art or a sport is pretty important. I think that the two goals are mutually exclusive. The thing is, there will not be that consensus any time soon if ever. There is in the SCA, in that the organization as a whole has standards, practices, and rules of the list set by the organization. However those standards in the SCA are intentionally very loosely defined as far as practical intent and limited to speaking to safety practices, because their goal is to have the greatest number of participants able to get into their game with a minimal investment of preparation and gear to get started. HEMA as a whole is a loose label for any number of individual clubs, individuals, and organized schools with very different takes on how their various arts are to be practiced, and what sort of rules of engagement are appropriate and necessary to compete. There's no sanctioning body to even take up the question of art versus sport, and no general agreement on things as simple as 'is playing with sharps okay as long as we promise to be extra super careful?'
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Aug 7, 2018 16:20
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Hands, eyes, and throat/cervical spine, man. The three things that must be properly protected if some dumbass is going to be swinging a sword near you, no matter how good their intentions. Groin is a close fourth but that won't cripple you for life.
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Sep 16, 2018 04:46
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Verisimilidude posted:I'm actually looking to get some SCA gauntlets since they seem to get the job done and have full mobility. Do you have any recommendations? I tried a pair of these from Darkwood Armory and they're great, but I'm looking for more options. A bunch of the C&T folks locally bought these in a group buy for doing longsword because the new rules require hard hands. DandyLion posted:Why do y'all think so many of the old artwork and images show knights in full harness but without gauntlets on? I would wager that anything sufficient to break your hand through a good SCA heavy rated mitten was probably someone actually trying to kill you. 16GA stainless properly arched to ground out on the weapon hilt is exceptionally strong, to the point that without padding them hand shots were painless for me. It's a lot more, and a lot better, metal than was used in period gauntlets. Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 07:42 on Sep 21, 2018 |
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Sep 21, 2018 07:20
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If there's one thing on that list that bears repeating, it's do squats. Most of the positions you'll fight from are a lot different than anything you do in your day to day life if you're a desk dweller, and strength and flexibility in the hamstring/glue/lower back chain will be rewarded with much better movement in the fight.
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Oct 8, 2018 07:54
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I'd be interested as well. I know very little about longsword.
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Nov 13, 2018 04:25
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EvilMerlin posted:Well said. Paired drills with sharps make me nervous. What level of armoring do you require for them?
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Nov 14, 2018 01:55
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Yeah, I'd want steel, myself, out of a strong respect for both leverage and idiots. Never know when someone new to swords is going to make that one big dumb mistake, usually out of pure nerves. At least with feders that usually doesn't mean permanent injuries.
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Nov 14, 2018 12:23
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Oh, speaking of which, Castille Armory is doing a Cyber Monday sale. 10% off any of their production designs, including their very reasonable economy clamshell rapier/side ring dagger set.
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Nov 19, 2018 18:09
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I've been really tempted by their basket hilts. I'd like something in a broadsword for SCA use that's roughly late-1500's, and the other option I've seen, Alchem's Mary Rose find based half basket isn't really my jam.
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Nov 19, 2018 20:01
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