Help me explain something, please

[Justin Blackford]

I would like some opinion on how to convince people that Western Martial Arts are as effective a fighting system as the Asian Martial Arts.
The other day, I was training in both longsword and katana with a friend of mine in my back yard.
We started with some katana drills(guards, strikes, thrusts, etc.) to get warmed up. We were using blunt steel katanas, so it was pretty obvious what kind of sword it was. A few people came walking down the street and saw us. I overheard a woman asking somebody, "What are they doing with those swords." A man replied, "It looks like they're performing some serious martial arts training there." Another voice said, "Yeah, look how disciplined they are! They look really well-trained."
About two hours later, we moved onto German Longsword drilling and two other people came walking by. I heard one say, "What are those guys doing over there?" The other person said, "They look like they're just playing with swords."
So, the question is, what is it that makes Western Martial Arts "just playing with swords" and Eastern Martial Arts "a spiritual and martial discipline". I can't seem to convince people that they are both excellent forms of martial discipline. Anybody else out there have any similar experiences?

Justin

[Casper Bradak]

So, the question is, what is it that makes Western Martial Arts "just playing with swords" and Eastern Martial Arts "a spiritual and martial discipline". I can't seem to convince people that they are both excellent forms of martial discipline. Anybody else out there have any similar experience

The media, among other things. I think all of us have had similar experiences. Just continue to educate, and put forth a professional, disciplined and knowledgeable image.
Present the original sources when you can, stay organized, and wear uniforms.

[Shane Smith]

I was convinced when I,as a AMA certified Instructor, was invited to train with the guys in VAB About 5 years ago and was beaten decisively by every Swordsman present. I've been hooked ever since.

Invite them out to fence in a cordial and good-natured way and SHOW them how effective your personal skills are.

[Gene Tausk]

"I was convinced when I,as a AMA certfied Instructor, was invited to train with the guys in VAB About 5 years ago and was beaten decisively by every Swordsman present. I've been hooked ever since."

Amen, brother!


--------------->>>>>>gene
SFS
Director - Houston ARMA Southside Study Group

[GaryGrzybek]

You will find that kind of response seemingly endless. I've had someone tell me that all european cultures gained their martial knowledge and skill from the asians. Now this guy had absolutely nothing to back that up so it seems the blind leads the blind once more.

[Jaron Bernstein]

So you mean my Katana won't cut through everything like a lightsaber while I worship it? (yes, this is a joke) <img src="/forum/images/icons/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forum/images/icons/grin.gif" alt="" />

[SzabolcsWaldmann]

Hi,

Putting on shows in your town and explaining the technics with a Mike before you do the drill or show, seem to help here around. After such a show, lots of people come backstage and try to ask/convince us about EMA VS WMA. A friendly chat, a printed out leaflet with images from various fechtbuchs and a few reasonably done grapling /disamring/trapping technics do the trick.

You must understand, how people think: they just believe everything that comes out of that noisy box in the middle of the room. Few people do research or read serious books on many subjects, they just 'go hollywood'.

Let's see what the weeks after 'Kingdom of Heaven' have got in store for us.... <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />


Szabolcs Waldmann

[Justin Blackford]

Yeah, me and my training buddy are going to see the "Kingdom of Heaven" movie this weekend. I haven't seen too much from the trailers, but I would be blown away if they even somewhat represented Medieval fencing in a slightly accurate way, given that Ridley Scott's "Gladiator" was nothing but edge-on-edge bashing like all the other movies. But, who knows? Maybe they'll get it right this time.
I would love to see some real Western Martial Arts in a historically accurate movie. But, at the rate movies are going, I wouldn't be suprised if I saw a Teutonic Knight with a muzzle-loader musket in the middle of Australia fighting off a group of cybernetic ninjas.
My partner and I are actually planning on putting on a swordsmanship show in my hometown sometime in August or September. I did a sword show last year at the Bordentown Senior Center, and everybody was quite impressed. However, that particular show was just displaying my collection and explaining the histories of the weapons themselves. This time, I want to give a historically accurate series of fights with various weapons, including rapier, katana, longsword, spear, and sword and shield. My partner and I are in training for this right now, and man is it some hard work. We're wielding accurate replicas, sharps, and wasters, all of which are very lightweight(between 2 - 4 lbs.), but once you get swinging them around in test cuts and sparring for a couple of hours, they start to gain weight pretty freakin' fast!
But, since I am going to be displaying the longsword and the katana, maybe that'll give me a chance to clearly explain both the knight and the samurai in a clear and accurate manner. But for right now, it's training time, 3 hours every other day.
Concerning the "invincibility" of the katana, I have heard quite a bit. I took Aikido for nearly 6 1/2 years. My first instructor honestly believed that the katana had "up to 1 million folds" and "could cut paper on contact with the edge" and that "parrying is done edge-on-edge, because the katana is so advanced that it won't break". Then, I moved and temporarily saw another instructor before I read John Clements' book "Medieval Swordsmanship" and started studying WMA. My second Aikido instructor taught me the exact opposite of the first. He showed me how the katana was really used. You know why there was a difference? My first instructor was a Westerner and my second one was born, raised, and instructed in Japan. It seems to me that most of the hype on the katana has been invented by us here in the West. Gotta make you wonder.
Even the belt system is different in traditional Japanese schools. Over there, they just have white belt and black belt. I think the whole multiple colors of belts system must've been developed either by Eastern instructors as a scam, so they can charge you 100$ for every test, or invented by us in the West so we could mark our progress every step of the way. I'm really not sure how the whole belt system in the West got started. At least in WMA, we don't need orange belts and purple belts and God knows what else. I was a brown belt before I dropped out and began my studies on Talhoffer and Dei Liberi.
Maybe I will bring my copy of Hans Talhoffer's Fectbuch to the show. If I could find a way to blow up the templates and make the images larger so everybody could see them clearly. Do you think a photo shop could blow up pictures from a book?

Justin

[Jake_Norwood]

A photoshop can do it, but they might not for copyright reasons. OTOH, if you give them images on disk they never ask. Go to www.schielhau.org and download the color Talhoffer plates there. They're better looking, anyway.

Jake

[M Wallgren]

I saw Kingdom of Heaven last night.

Some realy bad blocking edge on edge occured, but it was one when Balian (Orlando) was supposed to be a newbe, and in the battleline fighting where men where desperatly fighting eachother.

The REALY good thing was that there were a scene where Godfrey de Ibelin (Liam Neeson) showed his bastard son, Balian how to fight...

-Dont´t use the low guard, use the high guard, or the posta di falcone, as the italians calls it!!
-Then you can strike down as a falcon, like this and like this...

Accually a hint to that there was a system to the fighting.
Hopefully this could be an embryo to understanding of what we try to teach among the masses...

And of course there were BATTLE-ENGINES... huh huh cool...

Cheers...

Martin

[Justin Blackford]

Yesterday evening, on the History Channel, I heard what was probably the most stupid thing a studied man in my short lifespan in the fields of historical weaponry and Medieval history like myself could hear. It was a program on Richard Lionheart and the Third Crusade. The narrators were comparing weaponry of the Europeans and the Saracens. They said "The Eastern peoples had already developed a form of steel that was light and extremely sharp. The Europeans were still using iron and relied on brute force to swing their heavy and cumbersome swords."
???!!!!
Aren't the History Channel people supposed to be, well, historians? As a person who has handled about a dozen antiques and countless accurate replicas, this statement coming from people who are supposed to be experts in their field was irritating. And, what I want to know is, who the hell started making all this stuff up about "European swords were primitive and Eastern weapons were godlike and invincible"? And why was all of this information so readily accepted?
Food for thought.

Justin

[Casper Bradak]

Heh, I just saw one on El Cid. It had some similar goofy ideas too. "This is the type of sword El Cid would've used.." shows gaudy wallhanger "It wasn't as heavy as the usual medieval broadsword..." (as if it were a detriment) shows nearly identical wallhanger stuck in dirt "and it didn't have much of a point, but they weren't concerned with stabbing people back then...but it was very effective for slashing through chainmail armour, the predominant armour of the day..." etc. etc.

[Jamie Fellrath]

I saw that too, Casper. The historical event information was pretty good, the description of his weaponry was appalling. But man, what great fight scenes! <img src="/forum/images/icons/confused.gif" alt="" />

Key to remember is that the wealth of misinformation that exists about the longsword is born of the misapplication of the theory of evolution that existed during the Victorian era (and still exists somewhat to this day). The idea that Victorian Britain was the pinnacle of human achievement led to a lot of people in that era misrepresenting evolution, which Darwin had just put out at the time. Instead of seeing it as an ongoing process, many writers chose to point out that if survival of the fittest was the rule of game, then they and everything about them must have been the most fit. So a lot of the writing back then was focused on everything in the past leading to that point, and stopping, basically.

That includes the sword. Writers of the day had an attitude that everything from history was inferior to the current day, and the sword of the day (when the sword was still used) was the pinnacle of weaponry achievement. And instead of discussing the sword as it existed in each time and place, it was seen as more "scholarly" to explain the evolution as if there was some ultimate goal for it to reach, that being the swordsmanship of the day. Hence a lot of the bad writing about the sword. And those writings are what are still around today, and being in English that is most like our own, they are the most accessible.

At least, that's my theory, based on my historical reading and classes I took in college, way back when. <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" /> There are other factors, too, and I'm sure other scholars will chime in with those. In fact, I hope they do! <img src="/forum/images/icons/grin.gif" alt="" />

[Justin Blackford]

I think the myth of swords being heavy also has to do with some form of misplaced masculinity. "Look how strong I am! I can wield a 7-thousand pound sword! Smash! Smash! Kill! Kill!"
Also, from the Eastern practitioners, who want to have their sword forms sound like they have some form of mystic, zen-like technology, they don't want to admit that even they haven't truly studied Western swordsmanship, and are actually in no position to judge it based on dumb stuff from popular media.
Even the rapier has been bastardised by movies. Although, to be fair, I never truly thought of the rapier as that efficient of a weapon until I actually bought a real one and saw how it was truly meant to be wielded. Plus, I just got back home from nearly five hours of rapier, longsword, and zweihander practice. Mostly rapier freeplay with a few newbies who wanted to see how a rapier was meant to be fought with. Even they thought it at first to be inefficient, until we started drilling and engaging in freeplay for over two hours. They started to gain respect for it pretty fast after I beat them almost eighteen times successfully.
Well, I am now so tired, I can't even type anymore. Talk to ya later.

Justin