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I don't think mine is doing medieval dagger. We're doing Highland Broadsword and will be starting quarterstaff next week. On Highland broadswords, is there any disadvantage to having a basket-hilt? The swords we use have them and we can't find any disadvantage to it. We reckon there has to be for sabres and other similar swords, otherwise it would have become a standard. I have also managed to hurt my wrist doing fencing. I wish I was less bad at protecting my wrist and forearm. I can't even do press-ups after some intensive sparring the other day.
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Aug 7, 2015 18:44
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Hadn't thought about the comfort of the hilt, but wouldn't that be easily solved by positioning the scabbard so that the hilt ends up hanging a few inches in front of you?
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Aug 7, 2015 19:02
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Siivola posted:But bruising is the best thing! You don't have anything to show off otherwise! Fairly sure it's just from my wrist and forearm being whacked. On the weeks where the arm hasn't been hit as much it's been fine. Usually it's just by upper arm hurting a bit from the guards being quite extended. We hold them with the arm made completely straight, then slightly bent. If I just get better and protecting arms and wrists I should be fine. It's a learning experience. We just focused on it for a few weeks since it's a way of making the other guy stop fighting,
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Aug 8, 2015 12:46
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Good fun. Sempai, as we jokingly call the bloke who knows the books best and teaching them is probably at Fight Camp today and trying to prove we know it right. Anyone here having gone to it?
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Aug 8, 2015 21:24
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[Looks nervously at trying pistol squats briefly every lesson] We're doing a brief about of fitness stuff every lesson in the beginning to teach us some stuff to do in our own time, but it's definitely not the focus, because I quote: "I am running a fencing class, not a gym".
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May 5, 2016 06:11
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:That and/or white supremacy seem pretty common among reenacting generally. I mean, when you get a group of people interested in the past together there will always be a few who like it (or rather, a particular idea of it) a little too much There was a brief row a while ago, with some people thinking we needed to witch hunt some White Nationalist types. The Nationalists were odd, with white pride stuff on their facebook pages, but nothing outright hateful. This was an affront to a handful of people who wanted them purged. I don't really care what the nationalists think until they're doing something harmful and then argued with a couple of people. If every community ripped itself apart over these people, almost every group would be gone. Maybe a few years down the road those sorts will try Co-opting the martial arts, but I don't think it's a problem right now. Paganism has a couple of white pride elements in it, but we don't call them Nazis either.
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May 14, 2016 08:52
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I meant in the general community, not specific clubs. HEMA as an aggregate having some, not your average club. There's enough people in the general community that there are bounds to be Nazis. To the best of my knowledge there are not that many Nazi's about, but some people are convinced that there's a lot in HEMA. Mea Culpa, I wasn't clear what I meant by groups. Hazzard fucked around with this message at 09:14 on May 14, 2016 |
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May 14, 2016 09:10
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My fault for not being clear. I do think long term there may be issues with Nazi's, but less a HEMA thing and more a culture thing due to other issues.
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May 14, 2016 09:31
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HEY GAL posted:it makes sense that nazis would like their fake misconception of the middle ages, but why the Renaissance? it was humanistic, disorganized, and incredibly homosexual They don't teach that in the UK. We get a boringly British centred version where we have Tudor's and Stuart's and anything that could upset the sensibilities of... I can't think of a word for it, but the sorts of people who don't like humanism and homosexuality. HEY GAL posted:edit: and you can't say "white pride stuff but nothing hateful," white pride stuff is hateful already They weren't calling for Jewish people to be put in gas chambers. But the standards of white pride, they were very tame. More concerned about the survival of white people as a group than anything else, so I can't help but feel sorry for them, since they seem rather distressed about it. Edit: just remembered what kicked off the whole issue. Somebody who was not a white nationalist had a pagan symbol for an avatar. The symbol is also associated with white nationalists, but they weren't one. Hazzard fucked around with this message at 10:35 on May 14, 2016 |
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May 14, 2016 10:29
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Rabhadh posted:The great thing about the white pride guys you bump into in Ireland (mostly Viking reenactors) is pointing out that it's only recently that we've been considered "white" I didn't think they'd actually come round to Irish people being white yet, since they cling to other psuedo-science about average IQ and ideas being a genetic thing. Hell, all racial pride is ridiculous, but the white ones seem to behave so much worse. Hazzard fucked around with this message at 10:42 on May 14, 2016 |
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May 14, 2016 10:39
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:ya think? To be fair, the media jumps the gun all the time on this. And actually looking at what people are saying is more effort than people are willing to go. More on topic, does anyone here do anything other than sword or polearm? I was curious about who does bayonet, club or axe, because I haven't seen much mention of it online.
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May 15, 2016 14:32
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Ultragonk posted:The club I'm in pretty much does anything as long as it's safe to do it. We have two bayonet's a few people have axes/tomahawks and sickles, daggers are pretty popular as are shields, staves and spears. We're planning on getting some bayonet soon. To my understanding, one of our guys owns a Brown Bess and is carving copies out of wood. Then attaching some strips of blunt iron to the end. And to see how casual my club is, one of our Facebook posts quote:Because we only rent a hall on our Thursdays, on Saturdays we train in a nearby park owned by a university. This means we:
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May 15, 2016 21:11
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Ultragonk posted:I forget the type of rifle the wood part is supposed to represent on the ones we use but they bayonet part has a flat end and is spring loaded so we can thrust them and it really won't hurt if it hits a person. Right now we only have broadswords and quarterstaves, so mixed weapon fighting doesn't work. An experienced spearman will beat a swordsman, at least in our club, every time. Getting past the point is not easy. As soon as the spearman knows that thrusting with one hand is a bad idea, they've won. I'll take pictures once we've got the bayonet simulators. I like my club and to clarify, there are no nazis.
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May 16, 2016 11:11
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HEY GAL posted:i have sparred against a rodelero with a pike and he owned me repeatedly; a dude with a sword and i were able to beat him together. the shield and sword is powerful How long are your pikes? The staves I use are 7ft, so they're still maneuverable, but if the pike is about 21ft like I'm imagining, I expect dodging the point is easy. Just remembered I faced sword and target with just a sword a while ago. The guy I was facing had been doing our style for a lot longer than I had and is probably fitter than me, so he had every advantage on me, but I was taken apart. Whatever I did he could block with the sword and hypothetically whack me with the shield. And the shield made feinting almost a none starter. Add a shield to almost anything and you've got a huge advantage. I reckon I'd need to carefully study a lot of movements to work out where weak points are, because under pressure they weren't obvious.
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May 17, 2016 13:28
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I don't like the idea of introducing technology to working, it might create a more centralised system, which then gives rules people could start to game, which I think gets away from the point. I had an experience sparring with a Polish sabreist last night. That was frightening, but I did finally see why curved swords are useful. My knee doesn't like it though. Lots and lots of very fast spinning and I just hold my sword out and try to block and riposte. Except he doesn't block my riposte, because he doesn't recognise it as an attack and we double hit. I think that we were both too aggressive and not analysing each other, that's something I think could improve most people's fencing.
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May 20, 2016 09:41
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Crazy Achmed posted:So, basically foil whilst drunk? I approve. What do you try to do with your legs? I need to get into the habit or pulling my front foot back to put both heels together.
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May 31, 2016 13:15
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curious lump posted:what the gently caress is this poo poo One of the manuals my group works from says that most of your kills will be from the riposte, so I think there's almost certainly something to the riposte being the most important part of the system. Any fool can block true play without much difficulty. On the other hand, when I first started, I was very rarely attacking, so I was slowly picked apart by more and more complex feints, since I they didn't need to think about defending themselves, except on their terms. ScratchAndSniff posted:At the end of the day playing with swords is fun, and trying it with different sets of rules is also fun, and surprisingly helpful. I think everyone should dabble in a bit of everything they can because why not? I went to a general meetup a couple of weeks ago and fought a fair few different weapons and styles. I fought sidesword and other styles of backsword with my own. Mixed success, because the skill levels of everyone else really varied. We weren't going off points though, just battering each other until something moderately dangerous happened and we realised that it was time for a break. Like I got a cut on my neck and someone else nearly got castrated by a careless thrust.
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Jun 7, 2016 21:33
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Future Days posted:Thank god. Epee rules are pretty much straightforward, so loving up is really hard, both for the ref and the fencer. That's what makes refereeing high level epee tournaments so complicated: you have to be able to deal with that kind of stuff as quick as possible and with the full force of the FIE Rulebook. Just take out the card, tell them to go back on guard, and restart the match. Sounds easy when you don't have to deal with the 2m, 90kg hulks that are most world-class male epeeists! I went to a fencing tournament in Paris last February. Good grief was watching the finals dull. Good sportsmanship from everyone, but the really good Epeeists and Foilists went on forever. I quickly realised they had spent years and years getting that good and I can see how it's a challenge, but it is not an interesting spectator sport. On sportsmanship and the like. Everyone was very good humoured. Myself and most people I know have the stereotype of fencing being a very elitist sport and there was nothing like that there. There were a couple of minor issues. I got a pretty nasty looking cut on my left hand when I panicked and blocked a sabre with it. And someone from the Navy team stood too close to a match and got cut just below the eye. Edit: Fight Camp tickets are on sale, is anyone else going? Hazzard fucked around with this message at 10:10 on Apr 7, 2017 |
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Apr 1, 2017 14:47
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Several people at my club have one of Neyman's other jackets. We'd all solidly recommend them. And for my exercises (mainly doing Highland Broadsword, but learning bits of Italian Sidesword and when I'm back at Uni, sports fencing) I mainly practise lunging and try to do at least a handful of pressups every day. Unfortunately when I went to Uni I fell out of the habit of doing some exercise everyday.
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Jun 27, 2017 10:21
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I don't bother with fancy shoes, I just wear trainers. My club has what some might call an obsession with footwork. I see it as we emphasise lunging properly so we don't hurt our legs. I've seen a couple of videos of being lunging in a way I don't think is safe, including a Skallagrim video, where he actually hurt his knee doing it. Also, someone asked me to watch his broadsword video. He counted the sighs I made. It was a lot.
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Jun 28, 2017 14:10
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I haven't done any cutting, but I'd like to. I agree it's a skill worth practising. However, my club has no sharp swords and no mats, but we have expressed interest in getting some carcasses off the commoner in our club. Then we'd cut up some pigs and deer. I don't see how they could weed people out the tournament without either A: Some kind of standardised ranking, which I, and I think most people, would wholly disagree with. Or B: Everyone sends in some footage of them sparring, but that has its own issues.
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Jun 28, 2017 20:21
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I use a one-handed sword, which isn't quite the same, but we try to move the left arm at the same time as the right. This helps guide the shoulders, which adds power to cuts and blocks. Also, when comparing people cutting at your group, are they all using handles of roughly equal length? There's a huge difference to be made there and even different arm lengths will affect that. I think this is a case where simply being taller, with all other things being equal will make cutting easier.
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Jul 4, 2017 15:41
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A guy who does Sabre, Rapier and Sidesword is back at my club for a while. It's made me realise how short our blackfencer broadswords are. Blackfencers are lovely weapons and I'll recommend them to everyone, but the Broadsword is really short and I don't know why.
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Jul 7, 2017 10:57
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The Rawlings we use are slightly longer. According to the HEMA Shop, they have a blade length of 87cm. That comes up to my hip bone, or just as far as my arm with my thumb up. Both of which amount to about the same and are recommendations from two different manuals. I compared 82 cm to my leg length. I'd say I have at least a fist's width on it. Everybody in the club agrees they are too short. At 6 ft the Rawlings is perfectly sized for me. In short, most regulation British Military Swords were not good. The broadsword is too short for example.
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Jul 7, 2017 20:21
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That reminds me. Is anyone else going to Fight Camp? It's Matt Easton's scaled up version of Fight Club, with less philosophy and more history. I'll see if I can get an answer about why regulation military swords aren't so good.
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Jul 9, 2017 14:57
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The weird thing is, they clearly had experts designing some swords. The 1796 Light and Heavy Cavalry Sabres were both designed by the same person. John Le Marchant also wrote a cavalry fencing manual adopted by the cavalry. The 1796 Light Cavalry Sabre is considered one of the better sabres out there, while I've heard nothing but bad things about the heavy sword. Despite being designed by the same man. Although I've been told that the heavy sword only existed because the Dragoon Guards refused to use a curved sword, which may mean the blade design was rushed.
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Jul 9, 2017 19:26
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Someone in my club says that the soldiers seem to have chosen what kind of point they wanted. Some swords have hatchet points, some have spear points. So which you came across in a fight is random. I don't remember him saying if there's any trend towards one or the other.
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Jul 9, 2017 21:35
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Fun fact, the "scwing" noise swords make when coming out of scabbards in films is kindof accurate. If you have a steel rim on the top, then you get a noise. Unfortunately, it also blunts the blade. You get the noise or you get a sharp sword, but not both. Although people did get into a fight with a blunt sword, but this wouldn't have been deliberate. I think there's examples in the Indian Mutiny of Cavalry getting ambushed between arriving in India and having a chance to sharpen your sword.
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Jul 10, 2017 11:13
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I'm aware of the practise of Union Cavalry using repeating rifles, which caused the Confederates to start carrying several revolvers, because they lacked the number of repeating rifles to counter the Union. I'm guessing many stopped carrying sabres just because it would save on weight and make it easier to carry extra ammunition and revolvers.
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Jul 10, 2017 14:01
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dupersaurus posted:If you get a misfire the response isn't to keep packing rounds. They were talking about guns with 3-4 rounds in them. I believe one had the rifle (Would it be a rifle in the early Civil War?) with balls loaded right up until the barrel was full of bullets. I think the article I read mentioning this assumed the soldier had run after that. Maybe the act of reloading the gun was something reassuring, or let them take their minds off the stress of the battle and then the interruption makes them realise how dangerous the battlefield is. I remember Lindybeige did a video on the subject of shooting people. I know those are frowned upon, but cited a study saying only 2% of soldiers aimed at the enemy when shooting. 1% are psychopaths, the other 1% are extreme patriots so they'll do anything for their country. Maybe. I don't remember if he had a citation.
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Jul 10, 2017 21:14
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There are some people who go in the other direction. Marco Danelli has made some rather barbed comments about people going too softly. I don't worry too much about injuries, but I've been rather careful when drilling. I was learning some Fiore from someone and we were using spatula tipped steel feders.  He was telling me to stab into him when I could. So mainly his torso. I felt rather worried about this and he told me to go harder. People who don't use any protection scare me, but if we have the right amount, I don't think injuries are a problem. My club spars pretty hard, but the worst we've had was me lunging and getting whacked in the face with a staff, which made me black out for a few seconds.
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Jul 13, 2017 10:44
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I didn't go to a doctor. In hindsight I should have, but this is over a year on and I'm fine. This headache that suddenly set in is probably psychosomatic. I'm aware in the past, I was accidentally hitting too hard during a drill. Without realising it, I was putting force into a cut that I wouldn't be able to do in a fight. I was shifting my body slightly and in the words of my partner "You're nearly knocking my block off." So I think in drilling, there can be a point, but you can't hit as hard in sparring as you can in drilling. Although there's someone in my club who hits very hard and I wish he didn't. He is difficult to fight, because sometimes he will moulinette the sword very hard, I get scared and block in hanging guard, with my arm moving out of line to block the blow more easily and then my wrist gets whacked. Edit: I sparred with him again last night. I did much better once I got over the fear of being hit. Hazzard fucked around with this message at 09:41 on Jul 14, 2017 |
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Jul 13, 2017 14:39
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Said bloke in the longsword example uses the term dominant and submissive hand for teaching wrestling. He said he needs a new term because everyone's mind goes elsewhere when he says that.
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Jul 14, 2017 19:51
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Most people I know, myself included, have found it difficult to hit people when they first start. I was teaching some ex-reenactors today and they were having problems hitting me, then hitting my with any degree of force. People often groan loudly when whacked, whoever hit them is very sorry, but nobody minds being hit, because this is a martial art. I do regret selling my Spes jacket though.
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Jul 16, 2017 19:31
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I think it's Swetnam who says you should be going out and deliberately starting fights with people for practise. Is it just Longsword that has problems? Because I have never heard charges of excessive force leveled in one handed weapon tournaments, but those are quite rare.
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Jul 17, 2017 19:15
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How did they overturn the weapon control after the sword hunt? Wouldn't that be a big concern?
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Jul 21, 2017 19:23
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Fightcamp removed shield and sword, as well as spear from the melee. This is very sad.
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Jul 30, 2017 23:34
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I went to Fight Camp. It was fun, except for my food poisoning and too much alcohol. I met famous people! And my and friends are now competing to see who can get the most famous people on Facebook.
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Aug 16, 2017 21:22
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Crazy Achmed posted:A plastron is a relatively inexpensive and good thing to have. But what's the licence? Nobody I know has any kind of sword licence. Give it time, the UK will need one soon.
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Aug 21, 2017 22:08
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Our Government is about to tighten knife laws again. I wouldn't put it past them.
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Aug 22, 2017 16:34
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