Well, I was expecting Western (aka European) weapons, but if you want to bring Eastern weapons in, feel free. However, this is a question about someone (for example), a 28 year old healthy male in average shape being able to pick up a weapon and fend off/kill an opponent, not master the weapon and kill a back ally cloaked assassin 
Ok, to clarify. There is a great deal of variety in the category “two handed sword.” They range from blossfechten weapons that can be manipulated with more than a little subtlety to monstrosities that are good for cutting the heads off pikes.
A small woman with five minutes of training can swing a dueling two handed sword properly.
I would have some difficulty staying in a drawn out fight using a Landsknecht piece.
And nobody assumed an opponent armed with a sword or staff, or was we in the west say, grand baton. 
Attacking a wielder of a sword with a knife is considerably difficult. I think here we agree. But that was not your original claim. You said:
Which in my experience with navaja seviliana, is manifestly untrue. There is nothing inherently more difficult about using a knife. Hell, knives are extremely useful in close quarters against individuals with cutting weapons.
Two words. mezzo tempo
We also practice unarmed locks, grapples, and strikes. They have been a vital part of the western armed tradition since the earliest extant treatises. The Italian master Fiore dei Liberi wrote an influential manual on unarmed combat. Many of his techniques from the 15th century are shockingly similar to modern eastern martial arts.
Recall then when a defender seeks to control his opponent’s blade, he is presenting a threat. If you choose to react by attacking with an empty hand, you risk suffering a serious wound with the blade. If I lock your wrist, go ahead, punch me. Because I’ll be damned if I am going to seize your weapon if I am not striking and the same time.
Don’t be so defensive. Swordplay evolved in the east, just as in the west, because individuals who considered the issues of combat rationally were able to systematize what techniques worked and what techniques didn’t. I know eastern swordsmanship works. That is not really the issue.
That is a pretty big “if”. Those who just pick up a sword with no training, in my experience, have a serious tendency to be damned careful. They fight from out of distance, not having the kind of practice with distance that swordplay requires. I can watch two novices fight with heavy weapons for an hour without seeing any blows landed with commitment. Occasionally one will get lucky, sure, but even with weapons they know will cause no permanent injury they still lack the fortitude necessary to close into striking distance.
This is only exacerbated when the weapons are real.
A knife can land a satisfying blow on luck alone as well. In the heat of melee, with both sides having closed, someone easily could end up with a point in the gut.
An inch and a half of penetration to the vitals either by a sword or by a knife is a fatal wound unless immediate and skilled medical attention is exhibited. A three foot long sword requires tremendous point control to place a thrust without being hit in return. The knife has no such drawbacks, and is in fact much easier to place accurately.
Ultimately, I do not think that one weapon is any more difficult than the other in conditions conducive to both of them. Obviously a different kind of contest would privilege one over the other.
I do not know what kind of kendo you study, but the kendo I have observed possesses many of the stylized and gamelike aspects of sport fencing that have rendered it all but useless in real combat. I know that there are combative schools of kenjitsu, or something like that, but I know little about them. A friend of mine studies aikido swordsmanship, and we have a great time comparing technique.
While I am not as familiar with these techniques as you are, I suspect that you may be very interested in many aspects of western swordsmanship. The timing and angulation of Spanish rapier and the effenciency and finesse of French smallsword come to mind.
Yeah, my rules. Hit and don’t get hit in return. Sport fencing is absolutely useless in martial situations, which people from my school of classical and historical fencing occasionally point out to sport fencers. Remove the conventions of right of way, the strip, and give them real weapons rather than strips of copper wire, and they do not tend to perform well. Modern fencing is fine and well, but it must be recognized as a sport, not as a martial art.
<shrugs> All right then. Not much more to be said on the subject.
But “hit any exposed body part” only works very well if the person isn’t moving and doesn’t have a weapon. I think I elaborated sufficiently on this above.
Regarding Mike Tyson, I thought he was shorter than that. I stand corrected. And yeah, he could probably pummel you to the ground something awful.
For the past two years, students in my school have won the Bakbakan full contact sword and dagger competition. This coming year they will feature a longsword division, which I eagerly look forward to competing in.
Regards,
MR
I’m starting to think our entire dispute is over how we define effective. To me it’s just disabling your opponent with a fair chance of getting away with it. You seem to be assuming that a practitioner isn’t efficient with a weapon until they can exert good control, time their stikes based ont heir opponent and have developed the hand-eye co-ordination, stamina etc that makes for a good fighter. To me good is well beyond the ‘pick up and know how to use’ of the OP.
No disputing that, that’s why I was referring to the weapons where "training includes developing the muscles needed to use the weapon ".
Agreed, but you and I are wel trained. Befoe I was trained I found the sword far easier to use, as would most people.
Two words: Say what?
I’m assuming you’re referring to the fact that a trained fighter can get inside the effective range of any weapon. No disputing that, but it does requires training. It takes far less training to be able to strike a someone using a staff with a sword than it does with a 5 inch blade, and training is what this is all about. I know how useful knives are but in the hands of a novice they’re far less effective than something like a falchion.
Which proves my original point: They’re short so you have to move in very close giving little room for error. If you’ve locked up my weapon arm and are attacking with yours then I’m in way to close, a situaion unlikely to occur if I’m using a sword. But we now come perilously close to talking a fight. We both know dozens of techniques and counter for those techniques and counters for those counters. It’s impossible to say that a fight will go any way, only that knives are so short they place you in range of an opponents attacks and because they do this they require extra training in to use effectively.
Again, no dispute, that’s why I said “a knife blow is far less likely to immediately incapacitate”, not that it couldn’t. However what knives can’t do in untrained or slightly trained hands is break bones and knock people out. Even edge wounds with knives to the limbs wouldn’t be incapacitataing unless an artery or major tendon was struck. Edge stikes with a sword will often cause sufficient blunt trauma to incapacitate (as I’m sure you’ve found out in training).
This hasn’t been my experience except in cases where we have two skilled practitioners facing off. Take a semi skilled person with a wakazashi and a semi-skilled person with a kinife and I’ll put my money on the wakazashi every time. Take a skilled person with a knife and a skilled person wiht a wakazashi and the advantage is lessoned considerably as you’ve said.
I’d almost agree with that. My point was that kendo is just forms. It’s essentially a training drill designed to teach targetting, timing, familiarity with the weapons and courage, all essential for good fighters. Combined with sparring it produces effective fighters.
I’ll bow to experience. My point was that mastery and effectiveness are not the same things. Just because it takes years to master a weapon doesn’t mean you can’t become effective in a matter of weeks. It takes years to master fencing, does that mean that anyone starting fencing tommorow won’t be effective in a fight for years? I hope not.
Won’t argue with any of that. I don’t think I’ve ever seen real fencing then, but it sounds suspiciously close to what I learn. (Is throwing your weapon in the opponents face allowed? Don’t laugh, I’ve seen it work though I wouldn’t make a habit of it.)
Granted, but the fact remains that sweeps don’t just ‘not work very well’ for untrained fighters. They don’t work at all. Therefore any weapon that you can use effectively without utilising these techniques is going to be easier to become effective with.
A bit like being hit with a sledgehammer while sitting an a trash can I suspect.
Good luck. Hope you kick arse.
A couple of questions.
How long do you think it would take to train a compleet novice, male, late teens, early twenties, no previous MA experience, to use any given single handed sword effectively.
Do you ever use shields, which seemed to play a big role in actual combat? I’ve used tonfa which can be utilised in a similar way, but I wonder how much difference a shield actually makes to technique.
Forgive my ignorance (this is a real question) - but how does a full-contact sword/knife competition work? Would that not equal filling up the local hospitals with stab and slice wounds or killing people? - or do they use fake weapons and serious body armor? I hope the initial picture in my head is wrong… sounds like something that would be outlawed in the US. Do fill in.
Hmmm…I’m not an expert at all, but I don’t think foils and chainmails have been in use at the same time…
well, chainmail was for the want of a better word
Just a data point on knives and effectiveness:
How many times have you heard/read about a victim recieving multiple stab wounds and still managing to fight-off/flee their assailant? It seems to me that the average person tends to “ice-pick” with a knife, and frequently fails to deliver an effectivly disabling blow in one or two strikes, and that they subsitute physical assault and multiple strikes in place of effective placement. Hell, the Zodiac Killer stabbed two bound victims with a bayonet, one six times (survived), and the other ten times (took two days to die).
You are definitely right, Gaspode, we are discussing this at cross-purposes with each other. I will try to clarify my argument into a handful of propositions in order to see where the differences lie.
Effectiveness is the ability to cause the maximum amount of damage at the least risk to oneself.
Agreed, a large, heavy sword is inherently capable of doing greater bodily harm than a knife.
However, the large sword presents considerable disadvantages to the novice practitioner: its weight, timing, distance, and point control stand out most in my mind.
While a sword may be prima facie more effective due to its physical characteristics, I think that its attendant characteristics and the confused nature of real combat minimize said effectiveness, rendering it equal, or even less equal to a good knife’s effectiveness.
Technically, all weapons require a certain degree of muscle training, but I don’t think I particularly have to split this hair.
This must be a matter of personal opinion then. They might find the sword more satisfying on first heft or might think the sword gives them an illusion of greater security.
But I suspect there was a reason why we learned kung fu dagger early on, and straight sword only after several years of training. For my part, I didn’t make it that far.
Mezzo tempo is executing a fencing action in the middle of your opponent’s time, thereby seizing it and making it your own. It takes place between stesso tempo, in which your action and your opponent’s action occur at nearly the same time, and duei tempi, in which you wait for your opponent to complete his action before responding. Knives lack the reach in general to perform good stesso tempo actions, like inquartata, passa de soto, and other useful stop actions. It is also insane to wait for your opponent to deliver a full action with a large weapon, as deflecting the force delivered by a staff with a knife is a risky proposition. So you wait until your opponent demonstrates that his attack is committed, and you respond mid-strike, not the second he first attacks, but a brief moment later.
It is precariously difficult to explain, but much easier to demonstrate. The ancient masters struggled with explicating the difference in their texts four hundred years ago, so I suppose I shouldn’t feel so bad.
But in order to strike with a sword, you also have to be in your opponent’s deadly range. Yet you believe there is more room for error within point distance from a three foot sword?
If so, then this is consonant with my original contention, that knives are easier to control, and are hence more effective for an untrained practitioner.
But again, in order to come close enough to use a sword or staff, you must place yourself within your opponent’s distance as well, unless you have a considerable reach advantage. With a knife, you are also in range of the empty hand and feet.
No dispute here, either. The sword has a greater spectrum of grievous wounds it can give out. I just think that the exigencies of a real fight make it pretty unlikely that untrained wielders will deal out these kinds of wounds.
Oh, I agree definitely. I was thinking about same weapon pairings. We practice rapier vs. smallsword fairly often in my salle. With semi-skilled practitioners, the rapierist usually gets the better of it due to his superior reach. But if the smallsword fencer knows a bit about timing, he can get inside rapier distance and do some lovely things.
Well, I would not want to create a real/fake distinction in fencing, as pretty much the entire sport fencing community thinks we’re idiots.
We prefer not to throw our weapons for a few reasons. We recognize that there may be a time and place for it in a fight, it simply would not work in training. I know that I paid quite a bit for my weapon, so I would prefer not to do anything that might diminish its performance. We also rent out a dance studio, in which the walls are covered in eight foot mirrors. Thrown swords…mirrors…bad idea.
There is a story my fencing teacher told the class about just this question.
In the end of the 18th century in France, a young man was challenged to a duel by one of the most renowned swordsmen in France. The skilled Frenchman, in the style of the times, left his dueling card with the young man’s friend. The engagement was to take place in two weeks.
The challenged was terrified. He had no training with a blade whatsoever. So he went to one of the best fencing masters in Paris and told him the history of his misfortunes. The fencing master said that he could teach him how to defeat the duelist and save his life, provided that he trusted him and did exactly what he said. The young man agreed.
Every day, ten hours a day, and for two weeks the fencing master taught the young man one technique. The young man practiced extending his arm, charging, and screaming at the top of his lungs as soon as a fight began.
Like I said, he practiced this for 140 hours over two weeks.
The day of the duel arrived. The experienced duelist was rightfully confident. Although he heard that the young man had been training hard for two weeks, he knew well that it could never make up for a lifetime’s devotion to the sword.
The duel began. Off like a bullet the young man pointed, charged, and screamed. In a split second the favorite lie bleeding from a mortal wound.
To repeat your question:
Apparently two weeks. But YMMV. 
Not really. Some people enjoy rapier and buckler play, but I don’t especially. The weapons we use are so well developed that a shield seems more to be a hindrance than a help. If I were using a heavy broadsword, then yeah, I’d want a shield. But I do mid to late period rapier, in which all defensive actions are performed more efficiently by means of bladework and body avoidance.
A question was asked about the tournament:
We use wooden weapons and no body armor. Bakbakan fighters use their fighting helmets, and we use wire fencing masks. A lot of bruises are given and received, and there is occasionally some blood, but certainly no permanent injury. I suspect that all fighters in the longsword division will be asked to pull their strikes.
Regards,
MR
I think I know what you mean. Yo’re not striking first, your not blocking the striking, your pre-empting the strike to your advanatge somewhat like using a soft-block.
Again we’re talking at cross purposes. Based on the OP I’m not willing to assume equally armed oppossition. Let me put it this way. You have to face someone with your weapon of chouice (I’m asusming you’d select broadsword). You know he has had the bare minimum of training, would you rather he had a knife or a sword?
The OP asked what we be the hardest wepaon to learn to use effectievly. If we assume you’re going to be facing a range of opponents using a range of weapons as on a medieval battlefield where swords, daggers, maces, flails and warhammers would all show up in one battle then I really think your chances of survival would be least with a dagger.
But an untrained knife weilder isn’t just unlikely to deal those wounds, he can’t deal them becasue it’s impossible for a knife to do.
See, we’re actually in agreement. Since semi-skilled practitioners find it easier to ‘kill’ with a rapier without being killed we have to assume that it’s easier to become effective with a rapier under hypothetical battlefield or being-mugged-on-the-streets conditions.
Now I know you’re a bastard. I’m just getting over a cold and that had me laughing so hard I ended up coughing my lungs out for about 5 minutres.