Western Weapon Styles: The Longsword

[Zoodles]

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.

[darksoul]

GREAT POST!

I love love love LOVE historic western martial arts! LOVE them.

My only issue with them is that, nowadays, all you find in these clubs are weapon fighting. I don't know about you, but I don't really carry a sword around with me when I'm walking down the street. Just the same, I don't have a full set of plate mail I can put on when I go downtown

This is where I think the empty-handed Asian martial arts beat the western swordsmanship.

That being said, I wanna do it There's a historic western martial arts club here in Montreal that just looks like a blast - http://compagniemedievale.com/

It's in french, but there's an english version in the top right.

Video of the club -

[Zoodles]

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.

[darksoul]

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.

I'd love to

[Liver Punch]

That's a +1 for me. I'm headed out for the night, but I'll be back to this thread tomorrow - I have about a million questions.

[yamesu]

Great article!

I find this extremely interesting, as most I think a lot of people associate "MA" with the orient, whereas the middle east and europe have also been refining fighting arts for thousands of years!

Looking forward to the videos.

[DWx]

Great post Zoodles, welcome to the forums

[FangPwnsAll7]

Nice! This is a helpful guide you have set up here. It would be great to see more videos on there!

[Liver Punch]

Great videos, this sort of thing is right up my alley. Since you've probably got a better knowledge and outlet for finding answers about this sort of thing, I'm pretty excited.

I've always wondered about European sword construction. What was the process by which the steel was made, how would a smith go about forging the sword - is there a multitude of methods and techniques or one generally accepted "best way?"

How does the sharpness of these sword compare to other widely-used swords in history? The samurai sword was as sharp as possible and highly-polished to reduce drag, while the Greek bronze sword would have been poor at holding an edge and therefore produced more shallow cuts and done a lot of blunt-trauma. I would assume that these swords fall someplace in the middle?

What sort of metallurgic properties does a longsword have? For example, the general properties of a Samurai sword are a hard shell with a flexible core. What sort of balance between hardness, shear strength, tensile strength, flexibility, etc...in short, what's the mechanics and theory behind how and why European swords worked in the fashion that they did?

And I guess finally, what's the real context of how 16th Century armor and arms were used in their own time period. For example, smartphones, hybrid cars, and using the human genome were all basically new things 5 years ago - history books in 100 years will make it sound as though everyone today is utilizing them 100%, whereas that's not accurate. When the switch to plate armor was made, it would have been super-expensive, how long did chain mail and partial-plate armor appear on the battlefield? The same thing with swords - what would the cost of a broadsword be in the 1500s...no doubt your average person couldn't afford them and would instead appear on the battlefield with an axe, or a pike, or something within their means. How likely would we be to see two soldiers or knights armed with modern for the time technology square off in individual combat?

[Evil Dave]

Nice stuff, thanks for posting! My interest is in conditioning, do you have any information on historic conditioning methods? Cheers.