Kata-like motions in the Historical European martial Arts

[Zoodles]

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.

[bushido_man96]

Thanks for sharing this. Very informative. It appears more like basics to me than kata, but very similar none the less. I love the applications as well.

This video also shows how "controlled" this style of swordsmanship is, and what it realistically entails, and not what is often assumed as banging and clanging swords together.

I hope that with the continuation of studies such as this, that we will eventually see some better representations in movies and the like, and I would also like to see some Japanese sword styles training with WMA to see how things link up against each other.

Watching this video, I also recognize some of the terminology from the books I've read, which really helps the visualization.

Thanks again for sharing this.

[T3chnopsycho]

I just watched some parts of the video. But what really surprised me the most was to see the control he has over the sword and also the techniques he's using.

It completely changed my thinking of swordfighting with two-handers. I never knew or well maybe I was just ignorant or didn't know better that it's Like bushido_man said not just a clash of two swords against each other.

Cheers and thanks for the info

T3chnopsycho