Footage from our club's steel sparring sessions. I'm impressed with how everyone's improved. Most of these guys have two years or less under their belts. I'm the guy in the silver mask, perfecting my outside snipe to the right hand (a good move for a southpaw like me). Also remember that is after two solid hours of conditioning and drilling. :evil: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRUmaweFHYA"]Steel - YouTube[/ame] Best regards, -Mark
Looks like a lot of fun! I like how you started throwing knees at the one guy. My favorite part was the guy headbutting his opponent beneath him. Shame all the locations are so far away, it'd be fun to come out and give it a try. Out of curiosity, what kinda sparring weapons are those? Are the required protection just a helmet and gloves?
It does look like a lot of fun! I'd love to meet up with some WMA types..or is it HEMA?...and have a bash about. It would be interesting to see how my FMA "skillz" compared.
Yeah, that was fun. I couldn't quite see where the sword was (a Muay Thai-style clinch is less than ideal with weapons), so I didn't make contact. No sense accidentally kneeing a crossguard in a sparring match. That guy's a beast. Former bodybuilder, 6'5", 280 lbs of solid muscle. He plans a lot of our conditioning routines, together with the other big guy with the bear painted on his mask, a former defensive tackle, IIRC. Also 6'5", 290 lbs. He's the guy that knocked me down with the thrust to the throat. I'm 6 feet and 200 lbs and I'm smaller than a lot of our crew. We grow 'em big here I guess. Those are Pavel Moc Fechtschwerts: http://www.hroarr.com/hands-on-preview-pavel-moc-fechtschwert/ They're amazing. Ideally, you need a padded HEMA jacket (mine is basically a reinforced sabre coach's jacket) or gambeson, a three weapon fencing mask (ideally with back of the head coverage), and some suitable sparring gloves, lacrosse gloves at the very least. Those who aren't wearing jackets are required to take it easy and not go too hard, more like spontaneous drilling than sparring. It's also a good idea to wear rigid elbow, shin, groin and knee protection. Thigh padding is good for tournaments in case people try to charlie horse you with an afterblow at the break. It's a douche move, but some people do it, hoping to slow you down for the next exchange. Best regards, -Mark
I believe that is the best comment I've seen on a sword video, ever. Have a "made Langen laugh out loud" point. -Mark
And the improvement continues: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrMyp91V_3o"]Fight ! - YouTube[/ame] My focus this time was working on "guard breaking", choosing the right attack to use against whatever stance the opponent is using. There are four main strikes (the Vier Versetzen) that are used to do this. I idea is to close range without getting hit in "single time". My Zwerchhau (high horizontal strike with the back edge) needs some work... got my hands tagged on the way in. I made a specific effort to avoid using the Longpoint guard, which is my specialty, and garners me most of my hits. -Mark
That looks freakin dangerous. Do you guys ever get hurt using metal swords instead of wood? Also it looked like you didn't have much protective gear on.
Excellent question. The worst injury I've ever seen is a broken finger, and that was before the gear we use today was even available. Much safer than say, ice hockey. It's WAY safer than Battle of the Nations, which is crazy dangerous, where people pour blood (their own and that of others) out of their helms between fights. I'm wearing a surprising amount of gear. The helmet is 16 ga steel with a brigandine bib (metal plates inside leather), a HEMA jacket that has integral plating on the forearms and padding everywhere else (much like a sabre coach's jacket) and a collar designed to catch thrusts should they slip under the bib. I'm also using "fechtschule gdasnk" sparring gloves made of high-impact rubber (shoe rubber, actually) and suede which are designed and used by the hardest-hitting guys in HEMA. I'm also wearing a cup. Today I added rigid elbow protection to my kit. All I need to add is shin protection and perhaps a plastron (rigid chest protection). I also have thigh protection on order and am trying out additional throat protection. The swords are also quite flexible and are designed to be low-impact. The main danger is not from getting hit, but from a broken blade puncturing the protective equipment. Fortunately, they are designed to break "square". In that regard, they are far safer than wood, which is rigid and therefore dangerous to thrust with, and tends to break into vampire stakes and fly across the room. That's scary... broken steel blades tend to fall straight down to the floor, or at most a few feet. For reference, here is the Fechtschule Gdansk (where I got the gloves). They're scary good: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7aXtzf7-Lk"]Fechtschule Gdańsk 2010 - YouTube[/ame] Best regards, -Mark
Very nice, short engagements showing respect for the weapon, acknowledgement of hits and timing of the counters. I didn't realise you were wearing so much gear - it must make it quite a workout, and tough to move very quickly! I didn't see as many engagements with switches to punching/kicking/grappling as last time, was this a session with a different focus, or was it that the successful cut had been made by the time you were close enough?
That's a good question. Sometimes it comes down to what our videographer chooses to highlight. No sense in putting "crappling" in highlight reels. Come to think of it I think there was less grappling that night. The funny thing was, I had every intention of closing to grappling range as much as possible that night, but the opening never materialized often enough. I think I tried once... you can see me at 2:51 start to close in for a pommel strike to my opponent's head, and all I got for my trouble was a slice across my neck! It was over so fast that I had no idea what happened. It is quite a workout. My shirt is drenched at the end of a regular training night. I was told one of our conditioning routines would burn close to 1500 calories. Don't know if that's true, but we do push ourselves very hard both from a technical standpoint and in general fitness. Best regards, -Mark
That's a very good point about "crappling", there's a fine balance between showing things that look smooth and 'real', and things that look scrappy but 'real'! I noticed your closing (you have that awesome looking stainless steel helm, right?) and yes, sometimes if goes wrong and one's throat often takes the brunt of it. Whenever I try to crash on my instructor I usually get a boot to the chest for my troubles! I've got to learn how to do that better... In my FMA group we take a minimalist approach to armour when sparring, usually we use padded sticks and no armour (except respect). The padded sticks have a similar weight and balance to training (rattan) sticks but aren't quite as heavy as "fighting" sticks (kamagong or bahi). Sometimes we "play" with the aluminium training blades while wearing I've hockey gloves and kali helmets, but don't often go above 60-70% power as we want to avoid too many broken bones! I do, however, want a suit of plate armour...
Any kind of sparring has its compromises. Gear up and you can lose fear of the weapon. Slow down and you distort the timing, etc. There's something very educational about someone swinging a steel blade at you at full speed using a random attack. It can be very frightening and teaches you something about how you react under pressure, and how you should react under pressure. Equally important is the feeling of blade on blade contact and what you do with it. Only steel gives proper feedback for that. So that's why we do things the way we do. Fencing slowly with minimal protection is also useful, but less fun to watch. I want a suit of plate too. -Mark
Here's some Prize Play from our latest grading. The lanky guy in all black and the guy with the red bib on his fencing mask were called to play the prize for the rank of Swordsman (first official rank after "Recruit"). They both chose to test with longsword, messer, and dagger: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB5ZjQejE9w"]Let's Play - YouTube[/ame] Included is some general non-test freeplay. -Mark
That looks like a really fun style of swordplay! Very entertaining. However, I noticed that you both had a tendency to let the tips of your sword droop to the floor. It seems like a bad habit to develop to me. It causes you to leave your guard open. (this will be a big problem when you take on someone more advanced than you) I could be totally mistaken though, as I'm only familiar with Japanese sword. Just my 2 cents. Keep on practicing and I look forward to more footage in the future.
It's not unusual to dipp the sword in my school (Japanese). What sword practice do you do matveimediaarts? It says only karate in your description.
It's pretty common across sword arts. See it all the time. The two most common reasons for it are usually intertwined with each other. First, it only looks like a vulnerability. The purpose is frequently to make it appear that the guard is open in order to bait the opponent into attacking through a given, known and well prepared, path. It's a form of feinting and you see it in every art which has some sort of striking, whether sword or even Jack Dempsey's boxing. Second, it allows parry with the back edge ("false edge") or the spine of the blade. With some swords, such as the katana, this is stronger and less likely to cause damage to the edge. It is also an extremely mechanically strong parry. In order to perform it, one (or both) arm must "pull" not entirely dissimilar to a bicep curl. Most people are stronger in the pull than the push. This, therefore, allows for a stronger, more commanding, parry. One of the most common techniques is to lower the guard, bait the thrust through the open area, snap a pulling back-parry, and ripost with a thrust (or snapdown cut - kendo-ish style) or follow the momentum of the back-parry around in a circle over the head in a very very fast and powerful horizontal cut. Peace favor your sword, Kirk
Hi Mat, In any strike there are two options: to stop the cut so that the point is in presence, threatening the opponent. You can follow up by running the opponent down with the point. The vulernability there is that your tip can then be controlled by the opponent if you fail to disengage it in time should he attempt to do so. The other option is to cut all the way through. This cut tends to have more power, but takes the point out of presence. It also can bait the opponent to attack the head which you can then counter. Also, a longsword has two edges, and a rising cut with the back edge can do some damage, and is also very fast. If cutting to a low side guard, it has the advantage of denying the hands as a target, forcing the opponent to really close distance. German longsword has four main guards: Two high and two low: Ochs is a point forward high guard. Vom Tag is a point back high guard (Hasso/Jodan), Pflug is point forward low/middle guard (Chudan) and Alber is a point down and forward guard (Gedan). The fifth main guard is Longpoint, which is full extenstion, point forward. Most cuts and thrusts should pass through that guard. Best regards, -Mark
I like doing something similar to this with Tomahawk. I'll take a low guard, "point" down and bait the attack to my head or shoulder. When the attack comes I have to pronate the hand and raise the "true edge" into the attacking arm. It actually looks a lot more like Talhoffer's 3rd messer play. Peace favor your sword, Kirk
