Zoodles

Here are a few videos 1) Unarmoured Longsword (two handed weapon, weighed between 2.5 to 3.5 pounds. This style is German Longsword) 2) Armoured Longsword. Swords are lousy weapons to use when fighting another armoured man, so you have to use it in a completely different way. 3) Dagger: This dagger is known as a rondel. It was a long spikelike weapon designed to be used in armoured combat with an icepick grip to punch through the link of mail armour and into the gaps of plate 4) Abrazare/Kampfringen: Medieval combat grappling. JuJutsu for knights

Brown Belt in Aiki Jujutsu Scholler in Armizare.

The use of "traditional martial arts" always gives me a bit of chuckle. The traditional martial arts common to the western world are boxing, wrestling and fencing. In the west, Karate, Judo and Taekwondo are Johnny come latelies. Yet somehow, they are now called "traditional" and many people do not see boxing wrestling and fencing as real martial arts at all.

A man who knows how to use a sword can be extremely dangerous with a stick or any long narrow and rigid object. Imagine some guy who had done thousands and thousands of air cuts with his sword hitting you on the head with a cane at full force. Or jabbing you in the stomach for that matter. I know of one guy who used armoured sword techniques (which are based around grappling and using the sword as a lever) to defend himself from a mugger with his umbrella. Swords aren't sticks though. Sticks and staves are alot easier to use. You don't have to worry about edge alignment or hitting with the proper part of the blade. Swords also feel very different in the bind, the moment when two swords come together. There are still alot of similarities in how they are used. For instance this is a portuguese staff fighting art called Jogo Do Pau JDP is a living lineage, and has a great deal in common with certain styles of European longsword.

If english shakespearean stuff is your interest, check out the works of Saviolo, Swetnam and George Silver. Silver is especially revered in HEMA circles and his concepts of timings, the True Time and the False Time are used by everyone. These guys work out of Sussex, so they aren't much use to you but it does give you an idea of what Saviolo's art looks like

Just for inspiration, here's some footage form a recent tournament event.

In reality, two handed blades are faster than one handed blades, and you can't duel wield em For that you need a sword and a dagger.

Your sword sounds like a wall hanger, and I would not use it for anything. A proper longsword would weigh 2.5 to 3.5 pounds on average and has very fine balance. It will be made from carbon steel and have a level of flexibility. You can learn how to use such a sword. Just google your city and the words HEMA. there are now hundreds of groups that study these weapons. If you do train get yourself a proper trainer from a company like albion swords or arms&armour. Learn how to use it, then buy a proper replica sword.

Its a common misconception to assume that Kata-like forms do not exist in western martial arts. While WMA has traditionally eschewed kata, they do exist for certain arts. Bolognese swordsmanship had a series of Kata known as Assalti or Assaults, each of which are designed to train various aspects of the art. Another Kata-like motion is the Florysh. While the Florysh often looks like random flailing with a longsword, the can in fact be precise motions intended to train techniques. One advantage of having the manuscripts is that we know precisely what each motion of the Kata is supposed to represent. This video here shows one such Florysh from the Dobringer Codex with a breakdown on what each motion is intended to accomplish.

I'd just like to add that there is no need to limit yourself ARMA. There are many orgs doing this now, and the whole thing is growing very quickly.

The SCA means society for creative anachronism. They are a medieval reenactment society. They do have forms of sparring such as Heavy Combat, but these forms are not historical nor do they pretend to be. SCA Heavy Combat evolved completely on its own, and the best fighters develop distinct styles with thier own techniques and forms. Some of them even run schools and seminars. There is very real technique behind what they do, and good SCA guys can be a beast,. (As an aside, a comprehensive study in how Heavy combat evolved over 50 years from a group a guys whiffing at each other with sticks into a what it has become would make an interesting topic for people who want to study how martial systems evolve) While Heavy Combat is well suited for the style of sparring engaged in by the SCA, it is not a historical style and not considered a WMA by the HEMA community or by the SCA itself.

Some friendly sparring between a german longsword stylist and a Japanese stylist. I don't know which style the Japanese stylist is using..it looks a bit like kendo, but seems to have alot of non kendo stuff in it. they are using Shinai instead of steel, but teh german stylist seems to have few adaptation issues.

I study them. My art is Armizare. There are many fine HEMA groups out there now and many more being founded every day.

Robert Charette just released a very nice book on Fiore Dei Liberi's manuscript Flos Duelletorum. If you purchase Tom Leoni's translation of the Getty Manuscript, and use Charette's book as study guide you'll have an excellent combination. Even if swords aren't your thing, Fiore's simple, logical and efficient grappling and dagger defense (plus variants on how to apply the defenses using every day objects like batons and belts) is worth taking a look at. His entire grappling system is broken down into 4 basic positions, and the rest of his fighting system extrapolates from these four positions. The great thing about Dei Liberi is that his system is a complete, integrated and internally self consistant system of fighting with weapons that is laid out in a logical and reasonably clear manner. Leoni's translation: http://www.lulu.com/shop/tom-leoni/fiore-de-liberis-fior-di-battaglia/paperback/product-5364635.html Charrette's Book http://www.freelanceacademypress.com/armizare.aspx

Sorry..i'm a Canuck Its quite difficult to say, to be honest. I don't know enough about the Koryu arts to make a solid judgement. I do study an eastern sword art, buts its Haedong Gumdo, which was invented in the 80's and is a synthesis of japanese styles, Gicheon il su kung fu and theatrical sword fighting so its not entirely relevant. If you look at the grappling, its very similar. The dagger work is similar too. All The techniques tend to emphasize very direct gross motor actions. There isn't anything like the japanese notion of Aiki and not much emphasis on pressure points or small joint manipulation, just a fist to the face and a dagger in the neck. Western swordwork has some very unique features which are made possible by the shape of the weapon which I haven't seen in Japanese swordsmanship , but as to whether they are more or less practical I do not know. There were philosophical, even internal aspects to some of the arts, but these aspects do not resemble the philosophical aspects of eastern arts at all. The biggest issues we face are context. We see these pictures, we read the words but we are not entirely sure what it is we are seeing, especially with sword. The grappling and dagger are fairly easy, since we have a modern basis of comparison. Initially there was great resistance to applying and using Kenjutsu and other living lineages, but that resistance is dying and with more eastern sword arts people coming in we may gain perspectives to fill in the gaps. In these manuscripts the language is sometimes cryptic. The art may be crude or missing. The context is uncertain. One of the problems is that these manuscripts were usually written as reference books for people who already knew how to fight. There is much that the authors assumed the reader would already know, so they didn't write it down. Trying to figure these things out takes alot of time, study and trial and error. Disputes over interpretations have caused heated arguments and even schisms in important organisations. Another problems is the distinct possibility of frauds..how many of these manuscripts were written by guys who knew what they were talking about, and how many were written by frauds? Koryu arts don't need to worry about this..they have a living lineage, a teacher and full syllabus with a defined interpretation of the art There are strong points though..we can see elements of context that I think may be lost in oral transmissions. We have the literal words of the fighting men themselves telling us what to do, what works and when. For instance there are certain dagger defense techniques and sword guard positions that work much better in armour than out of armour and the authors tell you this. Similar techniques may have been preserved in Koryu, but without the words of the old masters, their original intent may be lost. There is also an element of mutation that is bound to occur in any oral transmission. Any art that is not being used in its original function will mutate to suit its new function. Since no form of transmission is perfect, I suspect that there has been mutation in certain elements of Koryu that no one may realise.

Another good place to to look is the ringen section of the huge and gorgeously illuminated manuscript of Paulus Hector Mair http://dfg-viewer.de/show/?set%5Bimage%5D=475&set%5Bzoom%5D=default&set%5Bdebug%5D=0&set%5Bdouble%5D=0&set%5Bmets%5D=http%3A%2F%2Fdaten.digitale-sammlungen.de%2F~db%2Fmets%2Fbsb00006570_mets.xml

I have had an interest in history since I was a child. It was interest in history that drew me in HEMA to begin with. The community has a scholarly bent to it..it has to. These manscuscripts are written in different languages, and use a context and idiom that most people do not understand. The manuscripts need to be translated, the language studied to extract clues, theories formulated, tested and debated. One of the interesting things about this is that it has actually stimulated interest in martial arts and physical culture in people that until then had no interest in either. And it has stimulated interest in history and language in people who had prior interest in academic studies. A thorough knowledge of the manuscript that an organisation uses is vital and to really get a proper understanding, a student should have a working knowledge of other key manuscripts as well. Many students go so far as to learn the languages the manuscripts were written in so as to read the manuscipts in the original and produce thier own translations. It is pretty normal procedure for organisations that use a ranking system to require a high level of knowledge before they can qualify for a promotion. (As an aside, there are historically based ranking and promotion systems that are based on those used by european martial arts guilds of the era. Some orgs use em, some do not, some don't bother with ranking systems at all) Knowledge of swords is also important in this community. There are so many misconceptions about european weapons and martial arts to dispel, that any serious practioner is forced to become very knowledgable on the subject. Its very common to be forced to fend off attacks on the credibility and legitimacy of our arts by skeptics or the ignorant.

Europe has a rich tradition of stick and staff fighting. Unlike the sword techniques, stick and staff fighting styles are still very much alive, though many of them have become obscure. Here is a sampling: Jogo Do Pau: This is a portuguese style with roots that stretch back for centuries. Jogo Do Pau was once far better known than it is now, and had unfortunately become somewhat obscure. However, witht he recent revival in interest in western martial arts, it is growing once more and spreading beyond portugal. Jogo Do Pau includes both single stick and and two handed staff. It has been theorised that the two handed techniques draw extensively from Portuguese Montante, the two handed sword style of the Portuguese peoples. For this reason Jogo Do Pau is of great interest to those looking to reconstruct european two handed sword styles. There are many little details of footwork and body motion that one cannot discern form manuscripts but may be preserved in JDP. JDP training methods are also of interest, because it is a living lineage and may also preserve techniques that could be of value elsewhere. Bataireacht Ireland has a long history of warfare and strife, so it is not surprising that they developed a rich array of native martial arts. One of these is Bataireacht, a form of cudgel fighting. Bataireacht was once very common in ireland and was used in inter factional fighting, with some fights turning into small battles with hundreds a side. It has become very obscure in Ireland where it is seen as an embarassing reminder of the past. However, it is a growing art in North America. In the mid 1800's the Doyle family from Ireland emigrated to Newfoundland and brought Bataireacht with them. The style was taught within the family, from father to son. In 1998 the current grandmaster recieved permission from his father to begin teaching the style to the public, and now it is beginning to grow.This style is not a museum style, where it has been preserved like a fly in amber, but rather an evolving one which has chnaged with time. Canne De combat: Canne De Combat is not obscure in France, but not well known out of it. Canne is a very athletic and acrobatic art that shows a great deal of fencing influence. Canne was codified into a sport in the 70's and has grown since then. It is often taught alongside Savate.

Some do, some do not. Most of the videos I have posted up are from a group in Poland that specialises in Ringen and have backgrounds in Wrestling and Judo. Since this stuff is still very obscure, it is only very recently that we have begun attracting the attention of mainstream martial artists who can bring in thier experience and training to the material. Until now, most of the work has actually been done by scholars and hobbyists with little background in grappling and martial arts. You can imagine how great it looked. Anyone who is honest in this community will tell you that as a whole we are still only one (small) step above backyard ninjers in terms of our training..but things ARE improving, and improving quickly.

Thanks for the responses. I'll try and answer your questions! liver punch: The way swords are built are dependant on the quality of iron. Europe employed a large variety of techniques in forging swords that varied as time went on. One thing to understand is that Japan is a resource poor island..this affected that way they forged swords. Thier smelting technology was quite basic and thier sources of iron were poor, so as a result they learned the process of differential hardening and lamination (ie folding) form the chinese. They needed these to produce quality weapons from the resources they had. Europe had good access to high quality iron, and some of the worlds finest smelting technology. The Europeans were fully aware of differential hardening and folding, and indeed used them when needed. In fact the Vikings and Migration era germans are perhaps the finest swordsmiths who ever lived, producing technological tour de forces like the Bamburgh blade by twisting steel bars together. But as the middle ages wore on, they no longer needed to go to these extremes. The Europeans could mass produce high quality blades that did not require extensive working. They could even sharpen them on a water powered sharpening stone and shape them with water powered sanding belts. It's the difference between having to build a house with paper, and having to build a house with wood. You don't need to go to elaborate lengths to build a house out of wood. No sword is good at producing blunt trama. The shape and weight distribution are all wrong, and swords are too flexible. Greek swords will cut you up badly! In any case, no sword that was actually intended to use in a fight was actually honed to such a level of sharpeness as people think. To find out why, take your finest butcher knife, hone it as keenly as possible, then hack into a cow bone. The sharper the blade, the more fragile it becomes. This is especially true of laminated japanese style blades, as any chip past the temper line means the blade needs to be reforged. The Japanese used to swing thier blades into bags of sand before a battle to ensure they weren't too sharp.Swords were honed to about the level of sharpness of a wood chisel. Shape, blade geometry and technique are far important to cutting power than sharpness. Straight bladed Euro blades are extremely diverse in shape and function and are generally categorised according what is called the Oakeshott Typology. Broad bladed swords with spatulate tip are superb cutters, whereas narrow blades with an acute point are less able cutters. Blades with a certain type of blade geometry (ie the cross sectional shape of the blade) are better at cutting than others. European blade design was constantly changing to adapt to the times. In general, the earlier blades cut as well as Japanese blades. The later blades, which were compromise designs intended to allow efficient thrusting were less capable. Speaking of the later middle ages, generally speaking they were monsteel blades. That means they were forged from a single billet and were through hardened, not differentially hardened like Japanese Blades. Europes superior smelting technology and better iron allowed them to produce higher quality steel. The Japanese on the other hand produced a lower quality of steel that had to be more extensively worked. This is why the japanese folded thier blades. Folding the blade reduces the structural integrity of the blade, because of microscopic flaws in the welds between layers. But it is needed to even out the carbon content of the steel. If your steel is good enough quality, folding is not needed, and can even damage the steel by removing too much carbon. If your steel is poor, its vital to use a process like folding to produce a quality blade. This is the same reason the Japanese employed differential hardening..ie soft and hard steel. They needed to work with wildly differing qualities of steel, so the harder martensite steel was used on the cutting edge, and the softer pearlite steel formed the core. Europeans did not need to worry as much about this..they could make blades of martensite because thier steel was better. This doesn't mean european swords are 'better', it just means they did not have to put nearly as much effort into making a quality blade. Mail armour is thousands of years old, and was invented by the celts, long before the birth of Christ. Plate armour started to appear in 1300's and reached its height in the 1500's as european smelting technology improved and allowed mass production of steel. I cannot say how expensive a sword was though. As to how often two knights sqaure off in single combat? Very often. Duels and tournaments happened all the time. Judicial dueling, trial by combat was common into the early 14th century. Unlike other duels or tournaments, Judicial duels were always to the death. Evil Dave: No, unfortunately we do not. The fechtbuchs were written as reference books for an audience that already knew how to fight. We know little about thier training or conditioning techniques

I'm posting this up after a request on a thread I made in the Weapons forum on European sword techniques. Years of bad history have conditioned us to think that the knights as lumbering idiots who somehow, despite 1000 years of nonstop warfare against each other and all thier neighbours, never learned how to fight. They are depicted as crude iron clad dolts and bullies, a sad contrast to the lethal, honorable and well trained warriors of the east. Its all bunk of course. European knights were highly trained professional fighting men who fought and defeated a wide range of enemies and developed a vast array of martial arts that suited thier needs. The grappling arts of medieval Europe are a varied as the people themselves are. The best documented are the arts we collectively call ringen or "grappling". The more sportive forms are known as "Ringkunst" and the more combative forms are known as "Kampfringen" which translates to "Battle grappling". The line between the the two is very nebulous, and seperation is based less on forms and more on intent. If you fought with the intent to kill, it was kampfringen, if you fought with the intent to play it was ringkunst. The people of period stressed it was potentially lethal to mix up the two intents. Medieval Knights believed that grappling was the core of all fighting and upon the beginning of thier training (usually in childhood, around the age of 7) they would recieve a comprehensive education in grappling. They would learn jointlocks, throws, takedown, how to deal with a weapon when you are unarmed and how to integrate grappling with weapon use. If there are any groundfighting styles, the authors of the manuscripts we use to reconstruct these styles did not record them, and in any case had something of a bias against them. Here are some vids showing some of the work being done to reconstruct Kampfringen and its related arts. These techniques are drawn right from manuscripts we call "Fechtbuchs" or "fight books". These manuscripts detail an exceptional array of martial arts. They were often written by the same men who used the techniques in lethal combat. For instance, the manuscript I study is known Flos Duelletorum and the man who wrote it was a fighting man by the name of Fiore Dei Liberi. Fiore fought at least 5 lethal duels, fought in war and trained several very eminent italian condottiere to fight duels with other well known men. Here are some vids on the techniques http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJMKG9ru9U0&feature=related

Ringen and Ambrazare are also being reconstructed, not to mention dagger fighting and defense. I can post up some grappling stuff in the grappling forum if people want to see it.

Been lurking a long time, noticed there weren't many threads on western martial arts, esp weapon arts, so I figured I show some vids. Firstly, I study HEMA, historic European martial arts. No, its not a joke, its not larping or anything like that. What it is is serious attempt to reconstruct the martial arts of medieval and rennaisance europe from period manuscripts known as Fechtbuchs. there are dozens of these manuscripts known and more are being discovered all the time. They describe many systems of fighting form Jujutsu like grapplings arts to staff, sword, dagger, sickle, club, you name it. No, I am not in ARMA. ARMA is just one of a great many organisations now studying this. Contrary to popular belief, knights were highly trained in the martial arts they needed. In the same way a samurai had to know his bow, his tanto his yari, his sword, naginata and his combat grappling, a knight needed to know lance, pollaxe, sword, dagger and his own type of combat grappling. Like a samurai, they started training in childhood. And like a samurai they were very good at what they did. Ignore silly stereotypes of 10 pound 'broadswords'. To understand why, pick up a 10 pound weight bar and try to swing it. Longswords don't need to be heavy..they are meant to cut flesh and do that very well. The term 'broadsword' in incorrect as well, and more properly refers to a one handed basket hilted weapon from the 1600's. Using the term 'broadsword' in a generalised fashion is as annoying as the misuse of the term 'ninja sword' to describe any kind of curved asian sword. The longsword was a two handed weapon about 4 feet long, and weighed between 2.5 to 3.5 pounds on average. That makes it about 8-12 inches longer than a katana, but weighing almost the same. It wasn't intended to cut armour. Trying to cut armour with a longsword would have just damaged the longsword. Armour cannot be cut by swords, and armoured sword fighting was very different that unarmoured swordfighting. The longsword was fast, agile and wicked sharp. These individuals are using unarmoured longsword techniques from the tradition of a german grandmaster named Johannes Lichtenauer. Thier training weapons are rebated steel and slightly overweighted. See how agile they are. Longswords actually have excellent handling characteristics. Another assortment of longsword techniques I included the one below because if you examine it closely, you will see that the gentleman in white is in fact using a curved sword that resembles a Nihonto. This is no anomaly..curved swords were common and popular in europe. This one is known as a Kreigsmesser, or War Knife As for the ability of a longsword to cut: Tournament fighting: An example of tournament fighting at this stage of reconstruction. The exciting part of this community is that you can see enormous improvements being made. In a decade from now, this video will look quite quaint. Sword arts were integrated into grappling. The Europeans had thier own highly sophisticated combat grappling systems that closely resembled Jujutsu. They were known as Kampfringen or "battle grappling" and were integrated into everything. (kampfringen is also being reconstructed) Examples of this integration: Armoured swordfighting was completely different. Its based on 2 things: 1) swords cannot cut armour. At all. To swordfight you need to grab the sword like a small spear, and use it to thrust into weak points in the amour, or reverse your grip and use the crosspiece to smash the skull, or use the sword itself as a grappling lever to break joints. 2) Armour is far lighter and more agile than it looks. In fact a man in plate armour is not impeded much in his gross motor movements...he can do backflips, run, jump on his horse and grapple. It did not weigh as much as people assume..about 65 pounds on average with the weight evenly distributed throught the body. armoured fighting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fv-Vut0xb9Y&feature=related I hope you enjoyed these! I'd like to post up more videos about western weapon styles, some of which are living lineages, some of which are being reconstructed.