Hope you guys enjoy this clip that features some of the Aussies I know [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpepojqHHkc]Number 1 Knight[/ame] enjoy!
If I ever -on a gloomy day starts to question my hobby, and thinking of skipping an event or a training, I'll watch this one; thanks!!!
LOL! I just loved it when I saw it too and it made me feel like a big kid again! Hope someone else will put up some more movies too! Did you see the one that the TV people made about my jousting group?
click Jousting Knights link and enjoy! the TV crew followed us about for 2 days filming all sorts of things. The best bit was when poor Luke got a low hit during a demo bout for the TV and I had to catch and hold his horse while he threw up on camera and the camera guy was shooting it all over my shoulder...
Cool! I think that sweedish tv did somthing on the Kungelv-stuff; I'll see if it's still online.... ...edit.. and here it is. It's in sweedish, and there are mostly interwiews. but we (The Freelances) are covered a bit towards the end of the clip. (I'm actually in it as well; I'm the lightly armoured dude in the red hoses that gets killed by two dudes in panzer and plate in one of the foot-combat-sequenses ) http://svt.se/svt/road/Classic/shared/mediacenter/index.jsp?d=53921&a=627638&from=tipsa
Their armour looks great! But crafting armour in a Green Lantern t-shirt is kinda funny *cough-geekalert!-cough*
That was absolutely brilliant. Man they just get in there and some serious bashing in all that armor and chainmail! Wow - geek alerts aside... that was way cool.
Great armour and great fun I'm sure, but videos such as this is one of the many reasons the general public think European swordsmenship was nothing more than Knights bashing each other with 50 pound unsharpen swords. :bang: Given that this is a martial arts web site, wher you think people would know better, let me point out clearly that re-enactment and role-playing fighting, such as seen in the video, (A) is not a martial arts and (B) is nothing like actual European swordfighting.
You are right about actual european swordfighing not looking like that, and you're allso right about such re-enactment-fighing making people getting the wrong impression on how it was really done. The only defence I can plea is that we asume that anybody that bothers to go to our little, cosy WMA-thread allready knows what you points out. As for fighting realistically; well doing halfsword-techniques in full plate can be done full-speed and more or less full contact (and that actually doesn't look to far apart from some of the stuff in the first video). The problem comes when one tries to do the stuff without armor. That isn't possible to do either full speed or full contact. That leaves us with two options... Sparring realistically in our "dojos", and not getting any public attention, asuring that we will continue to be a marginalized group living in the shadows ot the great and supernaturally perfect EMA's that are around, or we can try to adapt the sparring into a relatively safe system that makes it possible to flirt with the audience. The backsides to this option are those that you mention in your post :cry: (If you critisize re-enactment-fighting, I hope you do the same critisizing towards kendo, olympic fencing, olympic wresteling, etc. that give just as false an impression on how those systems really looked back in the days when those arts were performed in fights to the death.) Personally, I do 2 different styles of fighting; WMA-learning Fiore, somthing I consider a martial art, and re-enactment-fighting, somthing I consider a martial sport -just as kendo, olympic fencing/wresteling is. WMA is somting I train all the year with fellow students, with or without the proper equipment. re-enactmentfighting is somthing I do to earn money for the stash I make, and to try to recruit new WMA'ers :love:
wow... thats cool..... I wish other martial arts of other places got more exposure so people would be all "martial arts = asian" cause martial arts equals culture who have developed a system and 'art' of fighting
WMA does suffer from a lack of exposure, but that is changing. Just about every major city in North America has some kind of WMA going on, even if the group is only small. I am no fan of re-enactment/SCA fighting, if it's being portrayed as being martially valid and historically accurate. There is some crossover between all three groups, so I hope that if someone comes up to an SCAer and asks "is that how knights really fought?", there's a better chance now that he'll say "no, but if you want to know more about that, check out ARMA/AEMMA/whoever." The nice thing about WMA is that it's exploding in popularity right now. It will eventually penetrate into the public consciousness, and that's a good thing. Best regards, -Mark
Anything to make WMAs in general a bit more popular is a good thing. I don't get a chance to get into the foot combat stuff, I do more than enough sparring in my normal MA and this is a chance for me to have some fun with my horses instead while I do some sword and other weapons work. The problem with a lot of realistic type WMA is that to joe public it looks boring or isn't available for them to watch or to do without having to go a lot of searching about, so the only exposure some of it gets is when people like us do displays. Also a lot of the more serious types do not seem to like to spend time with the public, involving them in what they are doing and answering questions etc so they lose a prime opportunity to get more people involved. We spend time with the public before our displays armouring up so they can see how it all goes together and are available for them to look at touch and try the armour for themselves. After the displays we let them approach us and ask questions and this seems to be very popular too. Just my 2c worth. It may well be different in your countries but this is what its like here from my observations.
