Research and Discussion Forums

I feel like a perpetual noob on unarmed stuff.

Stumbled upon http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCS_tFVv-Ww with a couple of guys working from Codex Wallerstein. Any comments? To my untrained eye a bunch looks sloppy. At least they're taking a crack at it.

For clarity, which "foot hits the ground when the arms are fully extended", the foot stepping forward or the rear foot pivoting behind? The stepping foot (formerly the rear foot, now the forward foot), as it's the only foot being lifted off the ground. The rear foot (formerly the forward ...

What kind of gloves Yeah, hockey gloves can be quite restrictive. Personally I don't like them. Casper has taken a knife to his hockey gloves to give his hands and fingers much greater mobility. I have bag gloves from which I removed the bar in the palm (undid the stitching with a razor). Good padd...

Also, using the short edge is completely new. Should you use the bottom left fingers when using the short edge or do you change your grip? You'll learn this at a 1.0 seminar, but your grip will shift around slightly to accomidate the desired technique. Even with the dominant hand by the cross, you'...

For which swords do you grab the pommel? Any and all for which it's comfortable. If the pommel is too uncomfortable to grip the top, put the off hand above the pommel. Keep your dominant hand up by the cross. In short, the answer is where it allows one to retain a firm but flexible grip. No complic...

Do you think I should get a sharp one or unsharp? Yes. <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" /> At least get a blunt that you can have no qualms about beating up. While there are certainly better swords, the Paul Chen practicals have good "bang for the buck." ...

I just want to re-inforce what Jeff said. Don't be sparring with wasters beyond your control. The goal is education, not enriching doctors. You can break bones even with lots of personal protection. Some semi-random thoughts: Nobody should be striking harder than one's partner can safely take. The f...

Matthew, You should get your fill at the seminar. <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" /> But in brief, get a comfortable grip with the left hand. This will vary with the sword. Remember that there's a pommel unlike a shinai or katana. On some swords and wasters I have...

ARGH! I hope that you can get your money back. That's a seriously rotten piece. Unfortunately WW --- which was once a pretty good source --- suddenly went silent. You're not alone in the troubles department, sorry to say. I studied from JC's books solo for a few years alone before I found that ARMA ...

The final solo plate 230 is not part of a sequence, Not to contradict you... you could be right as there are other techniques that involve no blade contact. My assumption has always been that this was a fourth play that occured after the technique in plate 228 failed, in the same manner of the tech...

the historical masters speak of deflecting and/or stifling with the edges much more often. What does that tell us? That these were unusual situations. Litterature utilizing expensive writing materials and labour-intensive production methods did not ordinarily waste resources on the mundane. Our age...

Lance, Thank you for sharring. Looks like that was a lot of fun. I have to admit that I've a limited number of video from your group. One thing that came to my mind watching this is that it appears that there is a lot of good fighting from zufechten and krieg , but very little closing to ringen with...

leather was expensive To continue along these lines, I have a paper ( Books and Readers in Byzantium by Nigel G. Wilson) that talks about the scarcity and expense of parchment in Mediaeval Rome (the Byzantine Empire). One typically obtained eight pages from one animal. Wilson states, "The low ...

I would agree that the simplest explanation was some really bad scribal error, assuming that Doebringer had a subordinate do the actual writing who then got it totally confused. Or maybe it was his own that he overlooked in later editing. Is the extant manuscript an original or copy? Hand-written w...

Awesome! That sounds like it was a great opportunity!

Thanks for sharing the positive news.

James Knowles
GFS
ARMA Ogden, UT