25 replies to this topic

[Johnny Henning]

Nice article on the theatricality of most modern sword choreography versus the days when it was actually used to when fights and battles.

Sword Fighting is Not What You Think...

To borrow a famous line, the problem with most people trying to understanding the true nature of historical sword combat is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.

...Face it, some readers will really get offended if you dare to suggest that they don't have an accurate conception of sword fighting. Fanboys especially will take it as a personal insult to their very identify when you challenge their assumptions. It's pretty silly, since no one of them relies on this skill for self-preservation nor makes it their profession. Plus, nearly everyone gets their information and opinions on it from the same essential sources: TV, movies, fantasy literature, video games, cartoons, comic books, dinner-theaters and renn-fairs fight shows. But where do those sources get their notions?


Almost entirely from experience with sport fencing, Asian martial art styles, and pretentious historical role-playing societies. Yet, all these sources derive their conceptions of it from still earlier ones. And so on and so on. Where then did most of today's ideas on historical sword fighting originate? When we trace it all back, we find romantic beliefs about the nature of swordsmanship among knights and cavaliers almost all started with ignorant Victorian-age prejudices.

Fortunately, during the Medieval and Renaissance eras there were produced hundreds of detailed instructional manuals by expert Masters of Defence. These knights and professional instructors in arms wrote and illustrated immense technical treatises and books on their "science of self-defense." Intended to preserve their secrets or instruct their students and patrons, these little-known works, some in excess of six hundred pages, represent time-capsules of the actual fighting systems and proven combative disciplines used at the time. Focused mostly on swordsmanship, these handbooks and study guides reveal highly sophisticated combat teachings. Further, their content and presentation is unmatched by any martial arts literature from anywhere in the world.

...And we have dozens of them...

In the end though, the piece can be summed up as "why don't filmmakers hire people who really know how to swordfight to choreograph their movies some times? And when I say 'people' I mean me."

[Miqque Loveland]

Tell ya a funny story from the Dark Ages. First I attended Los Angeles City College, and for the most part had a tremendous time. I was a very good student (Dean's List and such) and even had a couple of courses comped or did them Credit By Examination. (This made up for having to take Abnormal Psychology twice, as I ws late for the final and droppedto "teach me a lesson" - it did - and having a fail show up for a half-credit course in Badminton - which I never took, developed a hatredfor the sport, and had to endure as a permanent mark on my record.) So there I was all set to graduate, and it was found that I was missing yet another half-or-one-credit course. Health Education. Health Education? Wash yer hands and don't pee on yer feet? Yup. Working in a hospital, passing meds, teaching newbies, and I had to take a Health Ed course and thus graduate in August. (Summer session course, so there went my time off,a truckloadof gasoline, and baked in a hot room.) Teacher didn't help. He was a Mister Duda, a man of proud Polish origin. According to the Duda, Poles were God's First Most Perfect Creation. He could tap his teeth with a hammer and the hammer would break. No only was he running some 70% on correct health information (this one believed in mind over matter, as onedid not get sick unless one wantedto get sick) but arrogant to an unprecedented level. He also was LACC's fencing instructor. About week four I had had enough of the Duda. When he started railing against suicidal people and calling them "weak" I could not let that continue. I challenged him to a duel.I won, he'd shut up about his mental health opinions. I lost, I'd drop his class andwait another semester to graduate.

He wasnted foils. I wanted rapiers. We showed up at the practice mat (whatever you call it, I never had a single lesson in fencing, all I knew was that the rapier was bigger and sturdier). Duda had the classic fencing gear and mask. I decided he would do so, therefore I pulled my own psychological stunt and showed up in my gi with its brand-new brown belt. And my karate teacher and class to kinda cheer me on. And the psych department had heard, and was well represented. There were more people than attended any sport except football.

Duda was a big man. 6' 4" or so,sixty-ish,in shape. At the time (I was 20) 6' 6", a bit heavy, but quick. And motivated. Highly, highly motivated.

Duda scored first touch. A feint that I fell for. I got second, bipped him up alongside the head with the flat of the rapier. Not a fair move, I heard earlier. Not fair? I fully intended to chop his Polish head off! Fair. Forsomereason he went for my legs. I bipped him on topof the head with the rapier's pommel. He thought he wasfast, but was not. I did not thinkI was fast at all, but I was. Then we bashed swords up against each other for a while. Duda had gotten mad. I think he might have also been aware that several professors were attending, as well as my allies in P.E., Don my golf/bowling teacher, and my sensei. Anyway, I thumped him pretty good. A couple of my professors had "a quiet word" with him. I got a nod from my sensei. Swords are not all they're cracked up to be. It's like the Batman philosophy that having a gun tends to makeone depend onthe gun. As I had not a clue about swordsmanship I depended on avoidance moves hoping to get a cut in here and there, and, praise God,it worked. Toughest damed single college credit I had to earn.

So, swords. What's the deal with Harry Tanner, anyhow?

[craggy]

Do you have to do squats whilst swordfighting?

[Ogul]

Man, he schooled us. I bet when most movie sword choreographers get into real sword fights on the street they get their asses kicked.

[craggy]

Harry Kilmer and George Tanner.


Anyway, I thought it was a fairly well known thing that swordfighting in films and tv and stuff was highly dramatised, and that real swordfights wouldn't have gone on like that the majority of the time, most often being quick, brutal affairs, with, if any back and forth, it'd likely be similar to a UFC style grappling contest, as opponents locked blades and/or arms and fought to break free enough to stab the other guy before he could stab them.

When it comes to things like claymores, the fights were likely a lot more like the Kenobi/Vader fight in Star Wars, a somewhat ponderous battle where each struggled to swing their weapon in any sort of controlled arc, and relied much more on brute force and luck than any real skill.

Know how I'd win a sword fight? Bring a gun.

[Christian U]

Anyway, I thought it was a fairly well known thing that swordfighting in films and tv and stuff was highly dramatised

Yeah, it's pretty weird to suggest that all "fanboys" think that what they see on Lord of the Rings is how they actually did it in the Middle Ages.

That said, the article was pretty interesting and I'd like to see this guy's reenactment of medieval swordfighting.

[Nicholas Taggart]

This seems relevant

Neal Stephenson to work on sword-fighting video game


Writer seeks funding to create realistic sword game – titled Clang – that weaves in world of his collaborative novel The Mongolia

Prize-winning author Neal Stephenson has decided to say "screw that" to fiction, and is working instead on a sword-fighting video game.

Stephenson, who has won numerous awards for the science and historical fiction he has written over the past 30 years, is looking to raise half a million dollars (£321,000) on Kickstarter to fund a realistic sword-fighting game "that will enable players to inhabit the mind, body, and world of a real sword fighter". Just a few days in, nearly half of the total has already been pledged by 4,245 backers, and there are still 26 days to go.

The game, Clang, will be initially be a PC arena game, based on one-on-one multiplayer duelling, using a commercial, third-party, off-the-shelf controller. As it develops, the game will be weaved into Foreworld, the world created by Stephenson and authors including Greg Bear and already revealed in the collaborative novel The Mongoliad.

"My career as an author of science and historical fiction has turned me into a swordsmanship geek. As such, I'm dissatisfied with how sword fighting is portrayed in existing video games. These could be so much more fun than they are. Time for a revolution," said Stephenson, whose novels include Anathem, Quicksilver and Cryptonomicon, in a video on the fundraising website Kickstarter.

"In the last couple of years, affordable new gear has come on the market that makes it possible to move, and control a sword fighter's actions, in a much more intuitive way than pulling a plastic trigger or pounding a key on a keyboard. So it's time to step back, dump the tired conventions that have grown up around trigger-based sword games, and build something that will enable players to inhabit the mind, body, and world of a real sword fighter," he said.

Gun-based video games allow customisations and reams of stats "for intense geeking out", said Stephenson. "But, when we play any given sword-based combat game, we're left with a glaringly absent suite of customisation options," he said. "The obsessive attention to real world detail so interesting to people who play shooters has been absent in the sword world, despite the fact that there's a galaxy of real weapon styles and variations just waiting to be incorporated into games."

Stephenson and his Subutai Corporation, named after Genghis Khan's strategic commander, have been studying martial arts books and talking to experts to create Clang. As the author is "nerd famous", he is acting as a "talking head to bring in some money" for the game. He'll then use that money to hire people so he can get back to his "primary function": "sitting on my butt, making things up and cashing cheques".

http://www.guardian....e?newsfeed=true

[Ogul]

The thing is, a lot of these "realistic" sword fighting styles seem to involve grappling, but with swords, just sort of wrapping swords around each other like they're baton twirling or something. This, to my mind, misses the entire point of using a sword, in that it's long and sharp, allowing you to strike at people from far away. If you're going to grapple with someone and want to do some damage use knives, they can do anything a sword can do within 1ft distance, only much, much better. If you're going to be using a sword, on the other hand, you should come within arm's reach of your opponent exactly once, preferably with the sword coming out the opponent's other side.

[Arjan Dirkse]

I think real sword fights were probably over really quickly, not like those scenes of fancy sword twirling in Star Wars movies...

[Ogul]

I think real sword fights were probably over really quickly, not like those scenes of fancy sword twirling in Star Wars movies...

Oh, well sure, but I don't think they'd be these "hug it out" fests either. You got a sword, you stick the pointy end into the other guy, you don't wrap it around his neck.

[Christian U]

Oh, well sure, but I don't think they'd be these "hug it out" fests either. You got a sword, you stick the pointy end into the other guy, you don't wrap it around his neck.

I think it may just be a thing of getting in there as soon as possible, so he can't stick you with his pointy end.

[Nicholas Taggart]

The issue of Northlanders that was just a realistic fight scene between two vikings was pretty great.

[craggy]

many swords also have sharp edges as well as pointy ends. there is variety in how you can hurt people. variety is good.

[al-x]

I think real sword fights were probably over really quickly, not like those scenes of fancy sword twirling in Star Wars movies...

or Highlander.


Al...

[craggy]

to be fair, in Highlander, there's only one way to definitively end the fight, and the majority of those guys have plenty of practise not losing...so...

there's a lot more ways to kill a force-user though, yes.

[Ogul]

I did enjoy that youtube video where someone took the Darth Maul fight scene and broke it down into a lesson on how to sword fight, which basically consisted of never aiming the sword anywhere where it might accidentally hit the opponent. It kept showing how the angles of each swing were designed to never cross the opponent's body in any way, such that contact was only made because the defender arbitrarily chose to meet the incoming blade, but he could as easily ignore it and be no worse for it.

[Johnny Henning]

The thing is, a lot of these "realistic" sword fighting styles seem to involve grappling, but with swords, just sort of wrapping swords around each other like they're baton twirling or something. This, to my mind, misses the entire point of using a sword, in that it's long and sharp, allowing you to strike at people from far away. If you're going to grapple with someone and want to do some damage use knives, they can do anything a sword can do within 1ft distance, only much, much better. If you're going to be using a sword, on the other hand, you should come within arm's reach of your opponent exactly once, preferably with the sword coming out the opponent's other side.

Actually, it does depend a lot on the type of sword you use and the type of armor you wear. It notes that the rapier was the height of personal defense technology of its day, and it was designed for thrusting and distance. Basically, the entire technique was to stay away from the opponent and find a way to jab the damn thing into a vital organ or artery. However, going broadsword to broadsword against a guy in armor or with a shield required a bit more work and using the weapon as a lever as much as a blade was necessary when opponents were matched in skill and strength.

[Ogul]

However, going broadsword to broadsword against a guy in armor or with a shield required a bit more work and using the weapon as a lever as much as a blade was necessary when opponents were matched in skill and strength.

Yeah, but I mean if your intent is to get all up close and personal like that, a dirk would do a lot more damage, especially to someone in armor. I mean, if I were in medieval Europe and the vogue fighting style was this sort of "sword wrestling" then I think my preferred armament would be a buckler and dirk, or a dirk and a parrying dagger of some kind. If you're going to be getting in close anyways, use in close weapons.

[Johnny Henning]

I had a fight instructor in college who was also a bit of a historian, and he believed that Shakespeare - who seemed intimately familiar with everything from rigging sales to baking - actually wrote fighting styles into his plays. For example, he thought that though all the characters were Italian (Veronese), Romeo would've fought with the usual swashbuckling style (broad swipes) favored in England while Tybalt would've used the "continental" rapier style - indicated by the "thrust" by which he dispatches Mercutio in the play. As the rapier, at the time, was considered a less noble or brave style of dueling, it would've emphasized the villainy of the character compared to the hero's more "English" technique.

Aside from introducing the idea of competing schools of swordfighting in Europe at the time, it also made me wonder about all the other implied elements of the plays that would've communicated non-verbally to the audience of the time.

[jamon g]

next thing they're going to tell us that you don't shoot guns, smoke cigarettes, skydive, drive cars, hack computers, do martial arts, or box like they do in the movies.