I will be in Colorado Springs for some time still. I can take you through the basics and all that. I'll send you a PM with my phone number. FYI I'm out of town at the moment, but we'll talk.
As another suggestion for shoes: I wear nike court shoes. They even come in red and black (ARMA colors, in case the site didn't give that away). Great grip and very light. Plus when you get to teaching the bright colors help your students watch your footwork.
I've been working deeper myself with Meyer quarterstaff. To start out I just went to Home Depot and found a 12 foot closet pole (pine - not the best wood but it will do to start) and had them cut it in half. Grab some sandpaper on the way out (fine grit) and sand the things out when you get home. Ma...
Now that the snow is finally starting to melt around here I'm on the lookout for anyone in my area that might be interested in getting together for some practice. I live on the north side of Colorado Springs and I have a big backyard, as well as longsword wasters for two and enough besides to mix an...
As you study thrusting like this you'll realize why an experienced knife/dagger fighter will say that the safest distance to stand from a person you think may have a knife is around 30 feet. That said, I would suggest that you try it with dagger/knife as well. It's lots of fun, especially if you try...
The only problem with Play-Doh that I could think of is that it is (as far as I know) more expensive than other clays. Also, given that it is not as dense as pottery or modeling clay, it would not provide as much resistance. It would definitely make a good target though, and I don't think it would b...
Heh I couldn't tell they were moving, maybe I should have looked closer. <img src="/forum/images/icons/blush.gif" alt="" /> I meant no offense. I still don't really see what the guy on the right is doing though, but of course as a still it could be lost in translation...
I dunno about surgical instruments, but like I said a lot of higher-end knives have hollow ground blades. As far as I know most military-grade knives are hollow ground. This does indeed make the edge more delicate, but for knives they can use a much harder steel than you could a sword, as the knife ...
No, it's exactly opposite. On an ice skate, the blade is hollow ground so there are two edges. On a hollow ground cutting blade, there will be two concave surfaces 'leading up to' one (very sharp) edge. Give me five minutes and I'll draw a diagram and post it here. Edit: here's the diagram. I don't ...
About the zweihander: try using halfswording, it turns the thing into a very sharp staff/edged spear/whatever you want to call it. About the picture: that seems to be some sort of crazy schrankhut, but I can't say that I've seen it anywhere. By the looks of the 'pflug' the guy on the right is, I'm i...
It means that the edge has a concave cross-section. Generally this cross section allows a much sharper edge, but because the blade is going to be so thin approaching the edge, the edge will generally be less durable. You see hollow ground edges a lot on higher-end knives, but I don't know about swor...
The more that I look into it the more that that Mike and Brian's theories are close to what could have been. I've seen some of the messer-dusack similarities in the manuals (though I haven't found what Brian mentioned in my casual search). Brian, could you give plate numbers for those references? I'...
What Jake said. Honestly though, I would rather be using a messer waster for messer practice, but then I don't know what they would do historically but use dusacks. They certainly could be applied either way though. One thing to think about is as to why Meyer would include a dusack section in his ma...
