tournament of the Pheonix

[Steven Blakely]

you guys get on youtube and look up tournament of the pheonix 08 poleaxe combat. i think this is ultimately our goal.

[Jonathan Newhall]

That's not too bad looking for a live event, though I must wonder about the material of the axe head - fighting without visors must be exceedingly dangerous if it's steel!

[Matt Easton]

I assisted the British guys in preparing for the pollaxe combat - I'm pleased how well they both did, considering how little time they had to prepare!

Matt

[Greg Coffman]

I'm not sure who you mean by "our" but this is not ARMA's goal!

First, we are opposed to tournaments or any kind of sportification of what we do in ARMA.

Second, what counts as a successful, debilitating attack in this video? The video kind of demonstrates how most hits from a poleaxe don't even stun the armored opponent yet alone give an incapacitating blow. Of course they are not swinging as hard as they can but, if swinging as hard as you can *could* defeat the harness, then you have to acknowledge those hits as good hits. Or, you ignore hits altogether and focus on execution of other techniques such as take downs, disarms, and sticking the point in places where there is no armor. All of those require a very high proficiency of control! Harnessfechten has such a smaller margin of error between pulling off techniques that would *end* the fight given full force, follow throw, etc., and seriously injuring your training partner. Not that it can't be done safely. But I didn't see techniques in the video that were meant to *end* the fight. So what was the point of the sparring?

[s_taillebois]

The hooking of the leg was nicely done. And apparently some modification was needed for safety, the calico was not used much...

But that may have been necessary if the heads of those particular weapons were actually steel as opposed to some very soft alloy. And as M. Easton noted the gentry involved were apparently less than fully familiar with these weapons.

And so I would be disinclined to be too critical of these gentlemen. It seems much of what they did may have been conditioned for safety needs. Have to remember that 'intent' does not include wounding, maiming, or accidentally killing sparring partners. And any hit strong enough to 'stun' in this case would have had one of those gentlemen riding out on a EMT van.
Mike Loades had done some interesting videos/research on how much secondary force can be transmitted through armour via pole weapons.

There may be some just concern about 'sportification' but that line is a bit fuzzy in regards to resurrecting western martial arts of the Renn, Baroque and Medieval. Since the intent is not to kill with these weapons it is a form of sport or art...it's more a matter of degree than being non kindred.

[s_taillebois]

Found the Mike Loades video, interesting effect...

http://www.youtube.com/user/SergejKorol ... mJSE9VLv60

[Greg Coffman]

That video is in no way conclusive. Does the breastplate sufficiently distribute those shock waves to the wearer, even through arming clothing, in significant force to cause trauma? Can't tell from that video.

But my point is that IF a solid hit from a polaxe is sufficient to cause debilitating harm, even 5 times out of 10, then a good blow that lands needs to be counted as a *kill* even if the blow itself was not delivered with force sufficient to cause the damage. That the opponent *could* have delivered such a blow is sufficient. Parallel example: in blossfechten, if I make a longsword cut to your head, you need to acknowledge the blow as a good hit even though I did not hit you hard enough to do serious damage had I had a longsword in my hand.

But I am not convinced that a poleaxe blow could actually do real damage to somebody in full harness short of blows to the head.

Another example: My sparring partner and I locked up in a high kron position (longswords) with about 12 inches between our noses. I tried to bring my hands straight down for a pommel strike to his head. I have to do so with a fair amount of energy to get out of the bind. Since he has a fencing mask on, I have no qualms about hitting that hard. IHe deflected my pommel strike enough for me to miss his head. I had committed to the strike and followed through and it actually landed on his side, mid-rib cage (which I didn't find out until after the fight, I thought I had either missed or glanced off his shoulder). The hit made him pause. Now, he is better and grappling than me and I expected to be dead by that time. His hesitation allowed me to get my dagger out and finish him off. So, I had given him a *stunning blow* that in and of itself was not enough to end the fight. Of course, the pommel strike to the head would probably ended the fight too.

I think all that would be representative of polaxe combat in harness. Hits to the head should count for something but elsewhere? Ehh. Notice in the video (this one:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsJz99KtJjg), the one good blow to the head at 53 seconds actually knocks the guy off balance or something and puts him on the ground. That ended that fight.

[Jason Taylor]

Found the Mike Loades video, interesting effect...

http://www.youtube.com/user/SergejKorol ... mJSE9VLv60

I, too, would be disinclined to excessive criticism here. They seem to be hitting with less force than needed to penetrate armor, but I suspect that they're trying to exercise control to avoid the kind of internal trauma the Mike Loades video is showing (nice clip by the way, thanks for sharing it).

There may be some level here of a problem I see a lot in HEMA, which is the tendency to use blossfechten techniques in harness, using the harness for safety but neglecting to take into consideration the differences between harnissfechten and blossfechten. But since I don't know how they're scoring the hits to armored portions of the body, it's tough to say.

Jason

[Greg Coffman]

There may be some just concern about 'sportification' but that line is a bit fuzzy in regards to resurrecting western martial arts of the Renn, Baroque and Medieval. Since the intent is not to kill with these weapons it is a form of sport or art...it's more a matter of degree than being non kindred.

See this article:
http://www.thearma.org/essays/MartialArtorCombatSport.htm

In ARMA we draw a sharp line between martial art and sport. What we do IS NOT a sport, sportitive, or anything like it. Sure, we are not getting into real fights with these weapons. But in the end, we are not learning/studying "sword fighting," we are learning Fighting, according to how the people in the Renaissance fought and with the tools (weapons) that they used. This is the Art of Close Combat at its zenith. We train and practice with these weapons just like somebody trains and practices by going to an indoor gun range to learn self-defense marksmanship. You don't have to shoot anybody to learn marksmanship, and that doesn't make it a sport. It can be turned into a sport easily (in either the case of shooting or sword fighting), and other groups do so. That is fine for them but not for us. The reconstruction of this art is still at its beginning. Muddying it with rules and competition would really get in the way of our purpose. In ARMA you compete against yourself. Getting *killed* in a fight is more about that you did something wrong than that your opponent did something right. It is far better for two opponents to come together, lock up, and then come apart without either landing substantial blows (as long as they demonstrated good technique and audacity), than for them to get double kills where they are both dead.

[Stacy Clifford]

This account describes a great deal of polaxe combat in armor, with some bouts going to as many as 55 blows:

http://www.thearma.org/essays/Lalaing.htm

From the overall descriptions, it sounds like blows from the polaxe were mostly bruising at worst considering how many they were able to sustain. Thrusts from the spike ends were the main lethal threat. I doubt they had many opportunities to throw full-length, full-rotation hammer blows with maximum force the way Mike Loades does in that video. If they were finishing a stunned opponent on the ground, maybe, but then they wouldn't be aiming at his chest with the hammer end anyway.

[s_taillebois]

"Getting *killed* in a fight is more about that you did something wrong than that your opponent did something right. It is far better for two opponents to come together, lock up, and then come apart without either landing substantial blows (as long as they demonstrated good technique and audacity), than for them to get double kills where they are both dead."

Well that's exactly it, it is an martial art as I had mentioned. Although I may have phrased it poorly and so concede that the meaning was not as clear as it should have been.

But to have too many references to "kill", "dead" and the like seems incredibly disrespectful to the memories of the men who actually did have to use these weapons with genuine lethal intent.

There is a considerable difference between training seriously and assuming that gives us the right to claim the same status as those who fought and died by these weapons. Over use of such words as 'kill', does imply a connection which may not be appropriate.

So yes we may be learning fighting, but at its core truth, we are learning a particular form of fighting...not living it or dying by it.

[Jason Taylor]

There may be some just concern about 'sportification' but that line is a bit fuzzy in regards to resurrecting western martial arts of the Renn, Baroque and Medieval. Since the intent is not to kill with these weapons it is a form of sport or art...it's more a matter of degree than being non kindred.

See this article:
http://www.thearma.org/essays/MartialArtorCombatSport.htm

In ARMA we draw a sharp line between martial art and sport. What we do IS NOT a sport, sportitive, or anything like it. Sure, we are not getting into real fights with these weapons. But in the end, we are not learning/studying "sword fighting," we are learning Fighting, according to how the people in the Renaissance fought and with the tools (weapons) that they used. This is the Art of Close Combat at its zenith. We train and practice with these weapons just like somebody trains and practices by going to an indoor gun range to learn self-defense marksmanship. You don't have to shoot anybody to learn marksmanship, and that doesn't make it a sport. It can be turned into a sport easily (in either the case of shooting or sword fighting), and other groups do so. That is fine for them but not for us. The reconstruction of this art is still at its beginning. Muddying it with rules and competition would really get in the way of our purpose. In ARMA you compete against yourself. Getting *killed* in a fight is more about that you did something wrong than that your opponent did something right. It is far better for two opponents to come together, lock up, and then come apart without either landing substantial blows (as long as they demonstrated good technique and audacity), than for them to get double kills where they are both dead.

Well, yes. Drawing that line is important. And as I said, they may be treating the weapons as if they were fighting unarmored but while in armor, which is a pretty major game-changer. But still, I wouldn't go so far as to say that any application of a tournament setting automatically makes what they're doing crap.

Every form of sparring is really nothing more than a drill for specific fighting techniques and skill sets isolated in as all-inclusive a way as possible. But it's never going to be perfect. So if we don't like certain rules and we don't like sportive aspects because we feel that introducing those particular flaws is more detrimental to our training realism than we'd like, we still have to remember that our style of sparring, whatever it is, is just a differently constructed drill. This is true across the martial arts, of course; any type of training must include a "flaw" in order to be safe enough to practice repeatedly without hurting someone (anyone interested in this aspect should pick up Rory Miller's book "Meditations on Violence." He covers it much better than I can here).

We don't use tournament rules in my local group. But we do call hits and stop to discuss damage where necessary and employ the judgement of the onlookers if necessary in order to maintain the highest level of realism possible for us under the circumstances. But it's still imperfect, and it always will be; each type of sparring, whatever the rules, can have positive learning outcomes (sorry--the teacher in me is sneaking out) so long as the participants are aware of what the flaws are in the current rules system.

I apologize for what seems to have become a bit of thread drift here. I am curious to hear from others what types of sparring "rules" (guidelines, whatever else you might term them in your local groups) they use when practicing with their own groups.

Jason

[Greg Coffman]

But still, I wouldn't go so far as to say that any application of a tournament setting automatically makes what they're doing crap.

I never said it was crap. I said it was extremely divergent from the goals of ARMA, and I was responding to this statement of the original poster, "i think this is ultimately our goal."

Yes, sparring is a drill. It's a tool. It simulates fighting to a degree that nothing else does. We don't really have rules in our sparring in ARMA. We have "guidlines" like: be safe, use control, wear proper safety equipment. We fight until somebody pulls of a technique that would in reality leave their opponent dead, wounded, incapacitated, or otherwise unable to continue the fight.

There is a certain amount of guessing in this. The sword is not a lightsaber and not all hits would do real damage. So we do test cutting to learn what swords and other weapons could really do. And we study period accounts of wounds and injuries to learn how the body reacted to these weapons. But it is always better to not get hit than to take a hit that you *think* you could shrug off. And then sometimes we will take a hit that probably would have stopped us, but keep fighting just in case, and afterwards acknowledge that the first hit probably was enough.

Mr. Taillebois, we may not be living or dying by these arts, but we feel that we better honor those who did by taking seriously the intent of these arts to maim, injure, kill, and to preserve the life of the practitioner. The zornhau was not meant to earn points or win tournaments but to preserve the life of those who rely on it by hurting those who would wrongfully take that life. And while these weapons are not used in real combat any longer, these arts of defense are still applicable to every exchange of close combat that occurs today. These weapons, sword, dagger, staff, are just tools and have passed out of modern usage. But the art remains terribly relevant and useful for personal self defense. Thus we stand in the tradition of those who came before us.

Saying that this is disrespectful is like saying somebody who trains with handgun for self defense by going to the range and shooting at silhouette targets is disrespectful to the soldiers and police officers who "live and die" by their skill with a firearm. Nonsense.

[Greg Coffman]

Over use of such words as 'kill', does imply a connection which may not be appropriate.

So yes we may be learning fighting, but at its core truth, we are learning a particular form of fighting...not living it or dying by it.

We are learning the particular form of fighting practiced, taught, and studied by those who lived and died by it from those things that they left behind which existed for the purpose of teaching this form of fighting. There is the connection and it is a strong one. By practicing and studying these arts we are connected to those who practiced and studied these arts who came before us just in the same way that the soldiers of today are connected to the soldiers of yesterday by virtue of being soldiers! We are not soldiers (although some in ARMA are). We are students of the Martial Arts of the Renaissance.

[Jason Taylor]

But still, I wouldn't go so far as to say that any application of a tournament setting automatically makes what they're doing crap.

I never said it was crap. I said it was extremely divergent from the goals of ARMA, and I was responding to this statement of the original poster, "i think this is ultimately our goal."

Yes, sparring is a drill. It's a tool. It simulates fighting to a degree that nothing else does. We don't really have rules in our sparring in ARMA. We have "guidlines" like: be safe, use control, wear proper safety equipment. We fight until somebody pulls of a technique that would in reality leave their opponent dead, wounded, incapacitated, or otherwise unable to continue the fight.

Pardon me; I reread my post and realized I did sound like I was putting those words in your mouth. Not the way I meant it. Sorry; my mistake in expressing myself poorly.

I guess what I was trying to reference was the concept of training effectiveness; i.e., does having a rules set or a tournament-style competition invalidate that training as useful for serious HEMA practitioners across the board who don't want to train for "the game?" Not exactly what you were referring to, but it is a question worth asking. We don't spar with rules either, but guidelines, as you mentioned. But even though I spar that way, I can see value to taking part in something like this (maybe not exactly like this--just something tournament-like), so long as it's not the only thing I train for. And I'd be okay with rules in that circumstance because I don't know the people I'm up against, so having strictures on techniques is more necessary than it would be with my friends, whom I trust.

I do understand ARMA's concern about tournaments leading to a slippery slope, which is quite a valid one. I would hate to see HEMA degenerate into an SCA-Heavy-Fighting-style points game. But I still see the value of this kind of competition--though I will agree that this kind of competition is not really ultimately our primary goal--I can just see a place for it.

Jason