I’d especially like to hear from Maeglin (if he’s around,) since he has studied Western swordsmanship. Hell, anyone with any experience would be welcome.
Anyway, why is it that “Fight Science,” and other shows of its ilk, never analyze Western sword or other fighting traditions (other than the “one-punch knockout” thing they did for boxing?) Lord knows there are thousands of Western styles and techniques that I’d love to hear about, and I am given to understand that some of those traditions (especially short swordsmanship) have been tested extremely successfully in combat conditions against Eastern sword masters.
Are there many people who practice western style sword fighting compared to those who practice eastern style martial arts?
When most people hear “martial arts” it conjures up images of kung-fu, ninjas, kickboxing, and samurai. Popular culture has just about made eastern warriors into superhumans. How many people still think a katana can cut through anything? That might be part of why you don’t see them bringing in the Romans.
Romans with their gladiuses (sp?) would have beat anyone wielding a katana like a drum. Then put their heads on pikes outside their cities. Crucified the rest. Something like that. Despite the katana folk having had like a 1000-year head start.
I read an article about meideval military training. It turns out to have not been too different from Asian martial arts. The manual that the article was talking about was illustrated, and the knights seemed to be doing alot of things you’d find in KenDo
You’re comparing apples and wheelbarrows. Roman soldiers were trained and equipped to operate as part of a unit, and the units were near invincible. The gladius, pilum and so forth were only useful weapons if you had a mass of other men around you that you knew weren’t going to break and run. In contrast the katana became popular as part of a culture of individual combat, similar to the European longsword. It was designed to be use din single combat with plenty of room around the user.
Quite simply if a group of Samurai with katana were to go up against a Roman unit they would be butchered. However if a single Roman soldier with standard equipment were to go up against a single Samurai he would be slaughtered. Totally different weapons that are useless with alterntaive tactics.
Not only not historically accurate but not even very well choreographed.
All else aside if anyone tried swinging a bronze sword the way those guys were they would find themsleves holding a handle with the blade snapped off and lying at their feet. Bronze just isn’t flexible enough to take that sort of punishment. that’s a large part of the reason why bronze age swords were usually short stabbing weapons.
As for the choreography, let’s just say that anyone not a demigod trying those sorts of moves would have a life expectancy measured in seconds.
Advanced Japanese swordmaking is a relatively recent science, certainly not a thousand years old - it probably dates no further back than the 14th or 15th centuries. Katanas are younger than gladiuses by a much greater margin than machine guns are younger than katanas.
It is quite unlikely indeed that a Roman army would have defeated a samurai army for the simple reason that a medieval Japanese army was 1500 years later and correspondingly better armed; indeed, for much of the peak of Japanese military might in the late 16th and early 17th century, it would have been an army with a lot of guns. It would have been like asking Henry V’s army at Agincourt to take on the First Infantry Division.
Laziness? Western Maestri are few and far-between, a lot of the period manuals aren’t in English or rarely translated, and Western styles don’t really have whole movie genres devoted to them i.e. large built-in audience already familiar with the genre.
In order to do a piece on MS. I-33 Sword&Buckler technique, or a piece about the English cut&thrust vs. Continental rapier technique “war” in 16th C. London, a producer/writer is going to have to do a lot more legwork. I can bump into a couple dojos walking from here to the train, whereas there are only 3 commercial sources in the world for approved blades for my renaissance rapier style. It’s a lot smaller pond, basically.
My only practical experience in this area is a quarter century of SCA fighting. It’s very arguable (and believe me, it does get endlessly argued) as to how much this resembles the real thing. But since human beings in all cultures are physically not much different, and the physics of motion and materials is the same, there are only so many effective means of using hand-to-hand weapons.
I’d say that in any culture, the most effective techniques use the basic principles of: 1) seizing the initiative; 2) using offensive strengths against defensive weaknesses; 3) avoiding wasted motion. But I’m no expert. I do know my very best fighting in the SCA has combined kinesthetic memory (through repetitive training in standard movements, footwork and combinations of blows) with pure instinct.
The movies are a whole different thing. There, the idea is to create dramatic images, with any concern for “science” coming in a distant second. The HBO series “Rome” did a good job in the first episode of showing a Roman shield wall, with the men in front rotating to the back at regular intervals; you can see how that kind of organization could hold out against a larger force of less-disciplined Goths. (I saw the same technique used at Pennsic in a big bridge battle, by the forces of Northshield; that really impressed me, since in my SCA kingdom of Meridies (comprising much of the Southeast U.S.), we’re known as more of a disorganized mob.)
[tinyjack] You don’t happen to have a link to some online images of these, do you? The article I read was a couple years ago and I think that might have been what i was looking at.
Both of my kids took fencing lessons. The guy that owns the studio does movie work. We have discussed this on several occasions. When asked for a movie with good sword fights, he has to think long and hard to come up with a really accurate true to life sword fight.
It is unreal just how fast fencing is. Of course they are not swinging broadswords, they are using rapiers or sabers. But this sport is blindingly fast.
My personal feeling is that against a sword master with a saber the ninja would have his heart cut out before he got his sword clear of it’s sheath.
“Rob Roy.” The final swordfight between Liam Neeson and Tim Roth is frighteningly realistic. It’s very, very fast, and they’re trying to stab each other, for the most part, rather than swinging the swords like baseball bats.
That’s probably my greatest irritation with movie swordfighting; they’re always swinging like they’re trying to hit a curveball. In most circumstances, with most swords, the best way to hurt someone with one is to stab them.
Not really accurate. In fact there was a famous treatise on swordsmanship written 16th century which contains what is an almost classic phrase (quoted form memory) “severance of the limbs is the most effective way to render an oponent innocuous”.
All longswords and most broadswords were designed primarily to be swung. You can confirm this yourself simply by looking at Medieval illustrations and unearthed remains or reading historical texts. Texts speak exclusively or “hewing” or “cleaving” usually with an overhand strike, and never mention people being stabbed with swords depsite numerous references to stabbing with spears and kinives. Humans remains likewise show wounds caused by hacking blows with no obvious swords stabs. Tapestries and other ilustrations are in perfect agreement: soldiers are depicted using hacking motions, usually overhand, but I have never seen a pre-renaisssence picture of a person being stabbed with a sword.
That trend towards slashing weapons started form the warrior hero culture of northern Europe, and was one of the reasons the northern Europeans were so eaisly ocnquered by Rome. There weapons were designed specifically to be swinging like they’re trying to hit a curveball an can’t be aplied against a massed compact enemy. In contrast Roman swords were designed to stab, one of the few iron military swords in history that were.
However with the fall of Rome and the loss large professional armies Europe reverted striaght back to slashing swords. The evolution of plate armour made the use of slashing wepaons even more important. Quite simply a stabbing motion with a sowrd had no chance of going though steel plate. So as armour advanced swords became more and more geared towards swinging like they’re trying to hit a curveball.
The evolution of primarily stabbing weapons and the classical fencing style was not a military innovation, it was purely civilian. Even at the height of the fashion for men of position to carry rapiers the military was still issuing broadswords and cutlasses: weapons designed primaily to slash and cut. Indeed many people fail to reliase that the typical broadsword has only a single blade, not a design well suited to with stabbing.
So for most periods in European history fighters should be swinging their swords like they’re trying to hit a curveball. That is not to say that such fighting lacked grace or didn’t require considerable trianing and never involved stabbing people, but in general Europeans have favoured slashing and hacking with swords ever since the Roman empire collapse.
I suspect a Roman Legionaire actually would do well one-on-one against Samurai, simply because the Samurai didn’t have shields. That’s a huge equalizer. Almost anybody can kill almost anybody - if the first guy just body-rushes the second, if the first has a shield. In afct, that’s what Romans did - they basically, rushed in and stabbed, and the enemy couldn’t swing effectively.
The lack of shields is an extreme oddity, and seriously hurt the Samurai in some contexts. During the wako raids of China, for instance, shields in combined-arms tactics proved effective at killing the far faster and more skilled japanese warriors.
Why the Japanese never develioped them seems to be largely an artifact of their internal wars. Early on, they used mounted archery, where shields couldn’t help. Then they moved to the use of long spears, but used them almost as duelling weapons. Finally, Samurai became elite warriors or commanders of mass Ashigaru armies.
That’s mostly good information, but the Romans went to slashing weaponry before the fall of the Empire. Improvements in iron made it possible and more useful, and their style of combat changed radically. Nor were the later armies weaker, though they fought more loosely.
Not sure about that. (generalisation alert) Roman swords were much shorter than Japanese swords. That worked to their advantage in a tight mass of men, but in a one on one fight reach is a very important factor. (generalisation alert)
I suspect a Samurai could simply stay out of reach until he got lucky because of the extra 2 feet of sword he was using.
Romans also didn’t commonly rush into fights. In fact normally the Roman tactic against “barbarians” was to wait for the enemy to rush them, which provided a massive advanatge. Of course fighting other ‘civilised’ armies inevitably required advances, but the normal advance was very slow and steady in lockstep. The only time I have ever heard of a Roman soldier rushing anywhere was in retreat or in pursuit of a routed enemy.
Yeah, there are a number of broad generalisations in there, hardly surprising when summing up 200 years of development in two paragraphs. But the take home message is that, Rome aside, military swords have almost all been primarily slashing weapons, and very few people ever appear to have been stabbed with a military sword. If a soldier wanted to stab someone he used a spear.
I get the reference, you Spanish peacock!