IGX

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5w2Mh6CyXo[/youtube]

Getting tired of lazy HEMA dudes.

Take a look at Olympic sabre. Setting aside the rules that encourage some tippy-tap stuff, the competitors are actually capable of footwork.

These guys barely move. As they do move, they don't move fast. This is Texarkana Toughman fighting with swords.

Grandpa's Spells wrote:Getting tired of lazy HEMA dudes.

Take a look at Olympic sabre. Setting aside the rules that encourage some tippy-tap stuff, the competitors are actually capable of footwork.

These guys barely move. As they do move, they don't move fast. This is Texarkana Toughman fighting with swords.

Grandpa's Spells wrote:This is Texarkana Toughman fighting with swords.

Sound perfect...is there an online entry form? are the divisions gendered? is there a "Jar'Kai" division?

Kazuya Mishima wrote:

LOL. "Expert Sabre Sparring" triggered me.

So, you take an Olympic fencer, take away hishigh tech foil, give him a blunt training saber and better protective equipment, and set him loose on one of these guys, what's gonna happen?

WildGorillaMan wrote:So, you take an Olympic fencer, take away hishigh tech foil, give him a blunt training saber and better protective equipment, and set him loose on one of these guys, what's gonna happen?

After a brief adjustment, the Olympian slaughters these guys. His engagement range is much wider, he can easily control distance, and he's much faster.

This is not unlike a ninjitsu or kempo practitioner going up against a wrestler in the 90's. "Oh, well, the wrestler isn't used to people trying to kick him or gouge his eyes out." MMA straightened that out tout suite. There's no getting around the crucible of competition.

It's cool that the HEMA guys are actually creating competitions to try and work some of that out, but calling yourself "expert," when people who don't even compete in your sport could kill you at it is kooky talk.

Grandpa's Spells wrote: ...but calling yourself "expert," when people who don't even compete in your sport could kill you at it is kooky talk.

Hmm...deja vu.

Grandpa's Spells wrote:

WildGorillaMan wrote:So, you take an Olympic fencer, take away hishigh tech foil, give him a blunt training saber and better protective equipment, and set him loose on one of these guys, what's gonna happen?

After a brief adjustment, the Olympian slaughters these guys. His engagement range is much wider, he can easily control distance, and he's much faster.

This is not unlike a ninjitsu or kempo practitioner going up against a wrestler in the 90's. "Oh, well, the wrestler isn't used to people trying to kick him or gouge his eyes out." MMA straightened that out tout suite. There's no getting around the crucible of competition.

It's cool that the HEMA guys are actually creating competitions to try and work some of that out, but calling yourself "expert," when people who don't even compete in your sport could kill you at it is kooky talk.

One of my old Highland Games training partners was a college fencer who turned to figure skating in his late 40's....6'3", 285 and probably one of the most legit graceful, light and quick guys on his feet I've ever seen. Weak as a kitten but picked up most of the heavy events near instantly.

Sadly a 26# Braemar stone to the dome iced his Highland pursuits....iced a lot of things involving balance.

I don't give a shit, nothing is real until we get Gladius and Bastard Swords in an arena, where they fight until death.

Everything else is slap-boxing.

I expected this thread to have more euphemisms

These oddballs popped up last week.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMNKVacQKDM[/youtube]

Blaidd Drwg wrote:

Grandpa's Spells wrote:

WildGorillaMan wrote:So, you take an Olympic fencer, take away hishigh tech foil, give him a blunt training saber and better protective equipment, and set him loose on one of these guys, what's gonna happen?

After a brief adjustment, the Olympian slaughters these guys. His engagement range is much wider, he can easily control distance, and he's much faster.

This is not unlike a ninjitsu or kempo practitioner going up against a wrestler in the 90's. "Oh, well, the wrestler isn't used to people trying to kick him or gouge his eyes out." MMA straightened that out tout suite. There's no getting around the crucible of competition.

It's cool that the HEMA guys are actually creating competitions to try and work some of that out, but calling yourself "expert," when people who don't even compete in your sport could kill you at it is kooky talk.

One of my old Highland Games training partners was a college fencer who turned to figure skating in his late 40's....6'3", 285 and probably one of the most legit graceful, light and quick guys on his feet I've ever seen. Weak as a kitten but picked up most of the heavy events near instantly.

Sadly a 26# Braemar stone to the dome iced his Highland pursuits....iced a lot of things involving balance.

My BFF man crush Mike Beech is a former fencer. Pretty damn successful as far as I recall.

Grandpa's Spells wrote:

WildGorillaMan wrote:So, you take an Olympic fencer, take away hishigh tech foil, give him a blunt training saber and better protective equipment, and set him loose on one of these guys, what's gonna happen?

After a brief adjustment, the Olympian slaughters these guys. His engagement range is much wider, he can easily control distance, and he's much faster.

This is not unlike a ninjitsu or kempo practitioner going up against a wrestler in the 90's. "Oh, well, the wrestler isn't used to people trying to kick him or gouge his eyes out." MMA straightened that out tout suite. There's no getting around the crucible of competition.

It's cool that the HEMA guys are actually creating competitions to try and work some of that out, but calling yourself "expert," when people who don't even compete in your sport could kill you at it is kooky talk.

A fucking sport fencer who has never used a real saber would fucking die, dipshit. It's a lot heavier than an Epee a foil or a sport saber that's about as much like a real saber as a plastic toy ninja sword is to a katana.

Don't listen to this Chi town dip shit, this is not about Shotokan.

The guy that runs the school this vid is from has done a shit load of sport fencing, I talk to him about once a week. I am also friends with J.Christoph Amberger, author of Secret History of the Sword and a man who fought in 11 Mensuring and was a sports fencer. Sport fencing has fuck all to do with fencing for combat. You are actually encouraged to statty the fuck away from it if you want to get into Western Martial Arts ( HEMA is more a catch phrase and an association) it's even more divorced from the real thing than kendo is.

My son's fencing coach also agrees the sport and the real thing are very different, he does both and he moves very differently between the 2 forms.

The footwork of modern fencing is a result of rules, a narrow strip and no real danger. it's great to watch, an awesome sport but divorced from how one should move with blades in combat.

BTW This is Mensuring that my friend did when he was back in his native Germany , it's more of a ritual and a test of balls. They take all footwork out of it but these guys all do older combat forms and many sport fence. he's in this video @ 1:51 and other spots. He's one of the people I've leanred the most about European swordsmanship from. I think he has a better knowledge base than Gramp here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjDfp2__LVk

Things change when every part of the body is a target, the weapons can break bone, cause nasty cuts, even dismemberment and decapitation and stab with a point that incises what it stabs through.

It changes when you are not limited to a strip.


Note Troy is comparing these guys to karate guys who didn't spar. Uh you see these guys in gear to keep them from going to the hospital and they are sparring. yes Olympic level sport' fencing is faster, but it's not going to matter if Olympian has a real sabre and Richard has a real saber. Olympian only lunges into his death quicker. Foiled, Epees and sport sabers don't cut things off of people and they don't weigh shit. they are about like an old car antenna.


Now Troy does say " a few adjustments". Now I'll give him a chance to use his planted back door out of this.

If the Olympic level fencer studied historical fencing for a bit, he'd be fucking scary indeed. Not that an Olympic fencer's athleticism is not going to be some very helpful attributes.


While as an Arnisador, I'd want to use more angled footwork than this and I do not bother trying to stick to a manual’s doctrine when I spar with simulated sabre/cutless/backsword and medeval weapons, but in this clip,. they are staying true to a style of fencing, the Polish school, which had a good rep for both mounted and unmounted swords menship. In this clip they are trying to give you a good idea of what it's like, use your imagination to put them in period clothing and visualise the injuries they'd sustain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83Fb0Y6uUSw

Testiclaw wrote:I don't give a shit, nothing is real until we get Gladius and Bastard Swords in an arena, where they fight until death.

Everything else is slap-boxing.

That would be the shit.

We should do it with lifer inmated. they can win the chance to live on some island in the middle of nowhere with all the food they can eat and some female inmates.

People get tired, they get hurt, they are scared and they are hyped.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aflbDR6NIUg

Blaidd Drwg wrote:

Grandpa's Spells wrote:

WildGorillaMan wrote:So, you take an Olympic fencer, take away hishigh tech foil, give him a blunt training saber and better protective equipment, and set him loose on one of these guys, what's gonna happen?

After a brief adjustment, the Olympian slaughters these guys. His engagement range is much wider, he can easily control distance, and he's much faster.

This is not unlike a ninjitsu or kempo practitioner going up against a wrestler in the 90's. "Oh, well, the wrestler isn't used to people trying to kick him or gouge his eyes out." MMA straightened that out tout suite. There's no getting around the crucible of competition.

It's cool that the HEMA guys are actually creating competitions to try and work some of that out, but calling yourself "expert," when people who don't even compete in your sport could kill you at it is kooky talk.

One of my old Highland Games training partners was a college fencer who turned to figure skating in his late 40's....6'3", 285 and probably one of the most legit graceful, light and quick guys on his feet I've ever seen. Weak as a kitten but picked up most of the heavy events near instantly.

Sadly a 26# Braemar stone to the dome iced his Highland pursuits....iced a lot of things involving balance.

My hard on for real blades and beating each other with sticks aside, I think the sport of fencing is one of the finest sports there is and I wish my son;s coach had not moved away and that my son was into it enough to make it worth the drive to a decent coach.

My son;s fencing tournament was 10 times more posative than any karate tournament i have ever been to.

Coaches from other teams giving kids pointers and tips. One guy gave my boy 15 minutes on lunging that contained glimpses of jewels of the technique from a master and I sat there and focused to remember every word he said. All parents helped out. After being there for maybe 30 mintues I was helping hook kids up to the leads for the sensors because everyone was part of it.

Gracious winners, losers who too it in stride, handshakes and hugs all around,

And yes, I was impressed by some of the athleticism I saw.

DARTH wrote:

Grandpa's Spells wrote:

WildGorillaMan wrote:So, you take an Olympic fencer, take away hishigh tech foil, give him a blunt training saber and better protective equipment, and set him loose on one of these guys, what's gonna happen?

After a brief adjustment, the Olympian slaughters these guys. His engagement range is much wider, he can easily control distance, and he's much faster.

This is not unlike a ninjitsu or kempo practitioner going up against a wrestler in the 90's. "Oh, well, the wrestler isn't used to people trying to kick him or gouge his eyes out." MMA straightened that out tout suite. There's no getting around the crucible of competition.

It's cool that the HEMA guys are actually creating competitions to try and work some of that out, but calling yourself "expert," when people who don't even compete in your sport could kill you at it is kooky talk.

A fucking sport fencer who has never used a real saber would fucking die, dipshit. It's a lot heavier than an Epee a foil or a sport saber that's about as much like a real saber as a plastic toy ninja sword is to a katana.

Don't listen to this Chi town dip shit, this is not about Shotokan.

So angry! This has nothing to do with me (or you).

I actually know a couple people who were on div. 1 college fencing championship teams. They don't all *only* fence. Some like knife fighting, guns, etc. They don't suddenly get clumsy and slow with heavier blades. Go to knives, even further away from fencing than HEMA, and Ray Floro made a pretty good name for himself.

I don't know the people you're talking about, but we have some of these guys very nearby. It's ponytails and clubbells and doing the fun part of MA training. Which is great, as long as they're honest. But the less fun part is where a lot of the skill comes from, and athletes don't skip that part.

But your assenet son was that a sport fencer ( well lets say Olympic level, so we go with the cream of the sport.) with a little bit of time for adjustment would wipe the floor with these guys, so that is barring the fencer in question being into anything else. I mean shit if he had a Judo background and he could get close in, he could use that but when we compare, we have to compare sport fencer put into situation with real fencing weapons against one who trains in systems based around such arms and compare those two factors.

Sport fencing is great and the athleticism would be a big plus if he went into studying the real weapons and how they were used but his athleticism alone wont make the grade and his trained behaviour as a sport fencer puts him at the disadvantage. Sport fencing has developed a lot of wicked techniques that are completely ludicrous to risk with real steel. Just compare the old way of lunging with what they do now. What they do now is faster, more powerful and covers more ground but it also violates a lot of basic rules of real fencing but it's the perfect evolution for the sport, it will get your lower leg or swordarm hacked. Now you can take a lot of attributes built from lunging that way and then tighten it up for combat.


Your best caveat is " a little adjustment" well how much is a little? Sure, if he trained for a few months in the real deal, he'd be a scary fucker but if he played with the real weapon for only a day, than his odds are not much better than if he did nothing with a real sword and a middle skilled combat fencer has more advantages.


It is a great adjunct or background for a WMA/HEMA guy to have. A lot of HEMAist, whatever do come over from the sport because you do have guys who are wicked on a strip but find out that they are not as formidable with the real thing as they thought they would be or they just think it would be fun.

No anger other than LOL at your flippant assessment that some sport fencer will wipe the floor with Marsden, who I know. And if we are all the sudden pulling out what backgrounds a fencer may have? Well you are running into a well rounded and trained individual with Marsden. He sport fenced, he's done asian combat systems ( the best HEMA and WMA guys have real backgrounds for the most part, it's just getting to the point where you have people only trained in HEMA/WMA who are decent fighters, for the most part all the good guys had backgrounds in Asian systems up to the last few years. it's grown from SCA whack a tweeker, ARMAA kiss Clement's era. A lot of those influenced by Terry Brown's early research have taken the lead ( Thank God!). It's already diverging into camps, with HEMA Alliance and the like really sporting it up, another camp that has a Koryu like attitude towards this stuff . I know a few here and largely see their point. I am not against competition, in fact the idea I like and am interested in entering, the rulesets though are getting to the point where people are starting to move and behave in ways that if it was real, would be a bad way to go but that's not everywhere and there is a lot of back and forth over this and the rules are being tweeked ect. You also have guys who straddle both outlooks and in some ways besides being flexable, they in many ways are being very close to those who developed these arts ( the Medival ones) in that Knight's did train for war but they also competed in tournaments that had restrictions and rule sets.


It's amazing how much Arnis and the very little Japanese sword I've done allowed me to jump in to this stuff because many of the concepts and rules are the same and I came from an Arnis that actually spars full contact.

The WMA/HEMA for me is an adjunct. I do see some direct and round about translations to modern combat, ect but for the most part this is the side of my martial arts training that is a hobby.

DARTH wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH8auVrYL3M

I'm sure Dungeon Master's 10 minute video plays well with the guilds, but is there a summary for the rest of us?

Grandpa's Spells wrote:

DARTH wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH8auVrYL3M

I'm sure Dungeon Master's 10 minute video plays well with the guilds, but is there a summary for the rest of us?

If your too lazy and stupid to actually listen to him, as he knows about 100X's about this shit than I and 1,000 times more than you. He's done the sport shit, he's one of the most respected people in HEMA on this period. He actually teaches and competes.

The point is, with your supposition about a competitive fencer does not have the same grounds as comparing a boxer or a wrestler to a" non competing martial artist" and here was many of the reasons why.

An Olympic fencer plays a game of tag, like bullshit point karate, if he hit's a moment before the other guy, he wins and the other guy loses, but in military fencing, getting killed by your enemy's sword as you stabbed or cut him was a real concern. You might not get this, but edge and point contrl are way more important in real sword than in the sport, The sport swords don't have an edge, as long as you touch the other guy, the buzzer goes off.

So even a slower, older military fencer with a real blade would kill an Olympic fencer with a real blade. Olympian might touch the other guy, but it will probably be a mere cut and unless you know where to stick it, you could stab a guy and it not have any describable effect for the length of the combat.

Now give the Olympian a year of the real stuff, working a real blade, cutting with a real blade ( Many Eurps were even more into that than the Japanese) and yes, his athleticism and attributes combined with the proper techniques and combative behaviours burned in, he'd be a fucking monster.

The sport is a great sport, never said it was not.

I'm just messing with you. The renaissance fair ponytail dudes that crowd attracts invites teasing. 10 minute rants about how other people sword fight wrong beg for teasing.

That being said, you can look at Olympic fencing in the 80's, or especially in the 60's, and it looks quite a bit more like sword fighting. The range control and footwork looks good to me. The modern fencers look weirder to me, but they're no doubt better at the sport. They may be worse at actually fighting with swords than the 60's, but that doesn't make them worse than hobbyists forming guilds.