Why I hate tricycles

[Sal Bertucci]

Just taking time to share my thoughts.

I really don't like the Albion Meyer, or any of the swords that look similar.

My reason for that is that I feel like they're training swords based off of training swords.

I feel like the Masters had much practice with real swords, so using this practice sword wouldn't affect them very much.

However, in our day I know people where that is the only type of sword that they have, and they get very good with it's handling. Personally, I equate that to being really good with a Foil and thinking you can do just as well with a Smallsword.

So for myself; I prefer my training swords to be as close to REAL swords as possible.




Thought?

[Roger Norling]

Just taking time to share my thoughts.

I really don't like the Albion Meyer, or any of the swords that look similar.

My reason for that is that I feel like they're training swords based off of training swords.

I feel like the Masters had much practice with real swords, so using this practice sword wouldn't affect them very much.

However, in our day I know people where that is the only type of sword that they have, and they get very good with it's handling. Personally, I equate that to being really good with a Foil and thinking you can do just as well with a Smallsword.

So for myself; I prefer my training swords to be as close to REAL swords as possible.




Thought?

Well, I think this might be a pretty complex and not properly researched area. Personally I believe there is good reason to think that the typical profile of the blade has very little to do with training and rather function, in the sense that it helps protect the hand, just like the parierhaken on the zweihänder.

And they have been used for a long time, possible even as far back as the first quarter of the 1400s. And there is good reason to think there were sharp swords with non-flexible blades of similar design as well. I wrote an article on this topic some time ago:

http://www.hroarr.com/articles/article-federschwert-or-a-blunt-longsword.php

[Sal Bertucci]

Interesting article. Thank you for that. The addendum was very interesting. It may just be the picture, but it almost looks like the blade may have been cut down to those dimensions.

That being said, all the modern reproductions (that I've seen) are based of models that a purely for training. As you mentioned. a central ridge would change the handling of the sword, which is the opposite of what I hear most people like about the sword type.

[Roger Norling]

Interesting article. Thank you for that. The addendum was very interesting. It may just be the picture, but it almost looks like the blade may have been cut down to those dimensions.

That being said, all the modern reproductions (that I've seen) are based of models that a purely for training. As you mentioned. a central ridge would change the handling of the sword, which is the opposite of what I hear most people like about the sword type.

True. I think there is a lot to investigate on this topic. Many of us tend to focus on the 15th century longsword fencing, since we think it is closer to the "roots" and more serious than the "sports fencing" of the 16th and 17th century and authors/masters like Joachim Meyer and Paul Hector Mair.

However, people then forget that the people who learned fencing in these "schools" often went to war, had to defend their cities or just themselves in the numerous dangerous encounters they were sure to stumble upon each year.

Times were very different then, and the fencing adapted to the changes that took place in these times. It doesn't make them less valuable or less serious. Just different. And in some cases, it was probably more likely that the burger class fencer would enter a situation where he risked death or maiming than it was for a knight entering the battlefield, considering the huge number of knights that were commonly taken hostage for ransom. compared to the doppelsöldners and regular burgers who had fairly little protection against very serious weapons and little to no value as hostage.

The "feders" are part of this complex picture and I don't think we quite have understood neither them or the dussacken properly yet.

[Roger Norling]

But to answer your question more specifically.

Personally, I think that the so called feders in many ways "feel" more like a sharp blade, at least when you compare a sharp and blunt version of the same weapon. To get the same feel, you have to change the blade properties quite drastically, ie to a feder.

Furthermore, even sharp blades can have flex, some even in the whole blade. The Pavel Moc Howe sword is a blunt with similar characteristics and it is quite interesting in its handling... But, even his ridged blades have a certain flex.

There are feders that behave very differently and have quite different blades: The Ensifers can be very stiff, almost like a regular ridged blade and feels quite similar to the Pavel Moc ridged or fullered blades. The Arms & Armour are similar to the Albion Meyer, but a little stiffer. The Meyer flexes nicely in the last third which works quite well with most Liechtenauer style techniques. The Hanwei Gen 2s, which are at least in some respects a decent replica, have a lot of flex, which is good for some situations, but not for all types of training. Also the quality control has been uneven, as I've mentioned in other threads.

Hope I made sense here.