Comparing historic injury patterns to strikes in modern Euro

[Zaine]

The nature of the buckler not covering as much area, and requiring a more active defense, was obvious in the stats.

This is correct. In what I've learned of sword and buckler so far, every time you move the sword, you also move the buckler for additional cover.

[Drew]

The studies comparing the sword and buckler to the sword and shield were informative, too. The nature of the buckler not covering as much area, and requiring a more active defense, was obvious in the stats.

I'm sure other people did and do use bucklers differently from how I do it, but using a buckler for active defense is almost impossibly hard. Except for parrying thrusts, trying to parry with a buckler against an opponent who doesn't put everything into every strike almost always ends in getting hit anyway. Using the buckler to protect your sword hand instead, and both blocking and attacking with the sword will save you some broken fingers. Experience and the Tower Fechtbook support this

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0043824042000303683#.U6EVVJRdVjE

That's a link to the specific Japanese one I was thinking of. You may also find this to be of use: http://www.bajr.org/documents/bajrbattleguide.pdf

[Zaine]

Here's a quick video of a sword and buckler sparring match. Watch how the shield moves every time that they move the sword. Drew nails it pretty well. Bucklers are small and used (at least by us) as additional defense.

[Zoodles]

Some more Sword and buckler:

As an interesting segue, this is sword and buckler video that shows how differently a sharp blade performs in the bind as compares to a blunt blade.

[ShoriKid]

And nice thread, and I get to sit back and watch good video now. Thanks for the great clips.