Discussion - historical training & practice

[Jamie Fellrath]

Bill Pearl, a former Mr. Universe and definitely a good resource for fitness, has a somewhat brief but very informative history of resistance exercise in his book Getting Stronger. He might be a good resource for this study.

I will try to get in touch with him on this question and will report back the findings if I hear from him.

[Casper Bradak]

Well, I'm going off memory here, but I think the authors name is Keen, and the full title is Chivalry. It's a great book, but a general work on chivalry, so it doesn't go into more detail that what I already mentioned on a lot of these things.
It'd be great to have access to some of his sources though!

Count me in on the morning workouts at the international event!

[Joachim Nilsson]

Thanks. I think I found it. Maurice Keen, right?

[scott adair]

Sean,

I am glad you brought up the mental conditioning aspect.
The following statement is from the Ringeck translation here on the arma website.

"Don’t pay attention to what he’s up to, fence securely and you’ll hit so outstandingly, that he’ll not be able to get through with his own techniques."

The following is from Bruce Lee's "Tao of Jeet Kune DO", pg 12.

" Forget about winning and losing; forget about pride and pain. Let your opponent graze your skin and you smash into his flesh; let him smash into your flesh and you fracture his bones; let him fracture your bones and you take his life!"

"... His behaviour should not be in any way different from his everyday behaviour, no change taking place in his expression, nothing betraying the fact that he is engaged in mortal combat."

I think, and I may be stretching it, that the line from ringeck about "don't pay attention to what he is up to" suggests something similar to what Lee said. That is, a mindset where you are calm confident in your abilities, and open to the outcome of the encounter. In asian arts I think it is called "mushin". I can't find my copy of " a book of five rings" but I remember it as having a large mental component.

Can those of you who are well versed in the manuals think of any passages which speak of mental conditioning or at least attitude?

Scott Adair

[Matt Easton]

As a side to Steve's post, it is also possible that Fiore is referring to Boucicault in his prologue when he says 'Buzichardo da Fraza', 'da Fraza' meaning 'of France'. However, Greg Mele tells me it could also be his younger brother - we can't know at the moment.
Boucicault was Governor of Genoa (in North-West Italy) at the beginning of the 15thC, just before Fior di Battaglia was written.
This is all covered, along with lots of other stuff about Fiore and his treatise, in my article in the following journal:

http://www.international-arms-and-armour-conferences.com/publication.htm

Matt

[ChrisThies]

Talhoffer's 1443 Fechbuch has an isolated image, with no apparent text, which shows two figures about to go at eachother. They're wearing normal period clothing, not any type of judicial duel uniform. One has what appears to be a large stick/log ready from von tag, and the other has a what appears to be a large rock also ready from von tag (on his shoulder). Each figure has a 'second' standing behind them. Each 'second' appears to be pointing with one hand, as if giving some type of instruction or oversight to the encounter.
BASIC training perhaps?

[Jake_Norwood]

Very interesting. There are enough similar images and references to make this pretty convincing evidence.

I've tried training with a medicine ball this way, and it does make a difference, I think.

Jake

[Jamie Fellrath]

Just looking at this thread again, and noticed Jake's comments about sports.

In one of my other hobbies as a soccer afficionado, I have read that the playing of sports and games, particularly football (which, at the time, was more of a combination of soccer and rugby but with fewer rules, and was primarily played by peasants), was FROWNED upon in the middle ages and rennaissance.

From the website "Soccer 101":

But it was in England that football began to take the shape we now recognize. The games that are now known as Rugby and Association football began in England about halfway through the present century. The crude raw material of the game was found in the fields and streets, played among farm boys and apprentices. It started as a folk game and grew more and more with with time. It belonged to the people; in the eyes of authority and the well-bred, it was a vulgar, rowdy pastime, and from the fourteenth century onwards, the respectable and the Godly observed it with distaste, and made constant efforts to suppress it. It kept men from their Christian duties, occupations and it wasted time that might be used in the practice of archery and other military skills. The English king Edward banned the game because he feared his bowmen were spending too much time away from archery practice in preparation for war against France.

More at Soccer 101

I have no knowledge of this being a popular sentiment among lords in other parts of Europe, but I find this interesting that sports and games were specifically NOT seen as proper training - despite the fact that these games were bloody and exhausting.

[Aaron Pynenberg]

Jamie, I am really not surprised at all by this. It makes sense to me, If I was a king, (which I am not by the way), but if I were, I would also want no distractions taking my people away from thier chores etc.. and it also touches on something I have often wondered about.

In Police Training sometimes you get tired of the same old drills, range fire, DAAT stuff, SWAT stuff, all very cool for the uninitiated, but for the paid Policeman it can get boring, (I stress sometimes) but there have been times. So, I was wondering, man if I can get bored with this I wonder if they got bored at their training and obviously they could and did.

This is a good example of the mindset of these guys, professional men-at-arms, while mostly took it deadly serious were sometimes probably bored and looking for other pursuits.. football, women, beating up their siblings etc.

[Jaron Bernstein]

I don't know dude. I could go to the range for as long as the department is willing to buy me ammo... <img src="/forum/images/icons/grin.gif" alt="" />

But I do see your point. <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />

I am wondering if that is partially why "advanced" techniques were developed in the first place:

"well, we have done basic technique x for the 5000th time now. I am bored with it. Lets just go play football instead."

And/Or.

"Basic technique x no longer works on the guy who has seen it 5000 times. I guess we need to come up with something that does work on him. And so we don't get bored and just quit training and instead go and kick around a football"

Or maybe not.

[Jeffrey Hull]

Yeah I read about early soccer-rugby, with maybe elements of capture-the-flag thrown in, apparently played in Anglo-Saxon England, called *camp ball*. It seems that it was literally played between towns, the miles of landscape betwixt them constituting the field, and was really rough and so forth. One could argue that it had military training value, especially to the fyrd system, but of course, as the historical source tells us, the royals (at least in later times) would see it as a distraction from training at archery. JH