WMA Schools

[Sean_Gallaty]

You're entitled to your opinion, of course. If you prefer the ARMA method, then by all means you should use it. But other people have differing opinions, and they have reasons for those opinions. What I was objecting to was the apparent hubris of some of the responses. Too many ARMA folks seem to take a sweepingly dismissive view of living traditions from East or West, any reconstructed methods other than your own, and even the historical manuals themselves if they seem to contradict ARMA's pre-conceptions. Indeed, I seem to recall a thread recently that questioned whether some of the historical fencing masters were even qualified to write the manuals they wrote- all because what they wrote didn't match the ARMA method.

Interestingly I see this from an entirely different angle. Rather than preconception, I see ARMA in general as being openminded and adaptive. The thing that's interesting me about this organization is their lack of adherence to any one text, or formulation but rather adopting the 'find the best in all' approach which to me is the true basis of martial arts.

What I see ARMA folks stand up for is not the style, but the method of research and testing. You don't seem to be arguing the same point here. I happen to agree with their method of research and testing, insofar as I know it. They openly admit at all turns that -they do not- understand the style. Quite the contrary to your apparent accusation. They are starting from a tabula rasa, to avoid the basic errors in interpretation caused by practicing the body of knowledge in ways that don't support full contact free sparring.

No martial art I have ever studied was valid until it was practiced while someone else was trying to prevent it from being practiced on them. Training without sparring is theory without testing.

The critical point is that these studies, this art in toto is intended to enable you to not get hurt, whatever else you choose to do - when faced by someone who intends to harm you. How can that point be made, unless you square off against someone who does?

There was a time when I studied two martial arts at the same time. One of them I studied because they gave an intense workout before class, and had free sparring. It's that important to me. Nothing else proves my moves.

- nox

[Shane Smith]

One particular group of technques that I think almost demand a padded weapon for safety are those which involve timed countercutting of the hands. Wasters and blunts will leave you with mangled hands in a hurry as speed and follow through are critical in pulling this off consistantly. Slow it down even a bit, and it no longer works very well and you will miss the hands more often than not in my experience. Put on heavy gauntlets to facilitate the use of blunts and wasters, and your feel for the hilt is lessened too much for my liking.

[Bill Welch]

"Full speed and full contact is not the same thing. Controlling a sword cut is not the same as pulling a sword cut. If you really are skilled, I'm sure your sword cuts are always well supported, and when need be, you can put pressure on your opponents parries and posture to break them. The same way, if you are skilled, when you see an open line you can go as full speed as you would go if it was the real thing and give your partner light contact not to break his/her neck or other bones.

I see it being a bit silly to condition yourself to take hits by blunt swords or wasters - you can't really condition yourself to take sharp cuts either. Fiore even tells us something in the lines of "with sharp swords failing one single cover brings death"."

- Jako

I think you have the wrong idea of Arma free Sparring, some other group might thry to "condition" themselves to take hits and that would truly be an odd thing to do. We here at ARMA use full speed because as Joachim said

"Ehh... That is not why we do full contact sparring. Full speed, full contact is nessecary because weapons behave, and techniques work, differently when applied in speed and with force. Doing things with speed, but devoid of force, breeds false impressions of how the techniques work and what one can do with them."

is dead on in my oppinion, but I would also add we do full power with the intent to "whack" the crap out of someone because it hurts. And as anyone that has been exposed to German fencing has heard "what hurts teaches", which means you try to stay out of the way and not get hurt. Instead of just lightly tapping where it breeds false security, in a real sword fight(Not that we would condone or participate in a real sword fight) .

OH, and as an aside that is why we use padded swords, not boffers, blunts, or wasters for full speeed, full intent. There is a place for these and anyone that can does use them to lightly spar(gentle tapps of sorts). except "boffers" because they have no edge and while good for some do not cut the mustard so to speak in the ARMA way of doing things.
That being said what you will run across in the majority of ARMA is 14th to 18th century fighting arts mostly long sword, and I have noticed in several posts that you keep saying that you are not familiar with German Masters of this time.
I dont know of anyone here(And I might be wrong) that fences epee, sport saber, foil, or as is termed late classical sport fencing. So to argue and I am not aiming this at anyone, with these in mind is just simply to argue apples and oranges.

Best wishes, <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />

[leam hall]

Chris, I'll disagree with you on two points though they are largely a matter of opinion. First, I prefer not to start students with steel weapons. Not even blunts. It *does* cause a bit more attention and fear and that's what new students don't need. If you only use those techniques that might work against a more dangerous weapon you lose the ability to learn from your mistakes. Few things bring clarity like a thump on the head while you're doing your intricate moves. <img src="/forum/images/icons/blush.gif" alt="" />

ARMA uses wasters and blunts for more experienced students and padded for the rest of us. This gives me a chance to really learn the sword by knowing that I can risk more to learn more. I *know* it is not the most martial encounter but I'm learning the sword, not trying to beat you up. If I define "win" as me standing and you not then I'll break your leg or slam you into something and then poke you in the gullet. But I'm making my "win" as learning more about the sword even though I may lose the training fight. By doing so I leave with more options in my skillset without depleting my already limited number of friends.

I *know* I'm not the only one here who has been taught techniques we really can't use because they break things even in training. My techniques are thus limited by the assumptions I want to make and one of them is that training is just that, training. We train in ernest but don't lose sight of the boundries we place on what we do when sparring. Bringing in newcomers means a more protective set of assumptions.

The second thing involves the Cateran Society itself. I think you're doing a great thing. There is a benefit to focus in many endeavors and you're looking at a chosen sub-set. My concern, and again this is opinion, is that it seems a limited sub-set and liable to lose opportunities to share the message because of the size. The newspaper article gives a good example; not only were you interviewed but John C and another person. I'm reminded of the proverb "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another." (1) You have your own book, and you lead your own organization. One of the things I like about ARMA is the very wide range of perceptions and opinions. Whether or not I agree with everyone I can at least be confident that if I express a dubious fact I'll get called on it and have to either prove my point or accept that I don't know. John C wrote in his books "Question everything." I'm an inclusive type of person and I'd prefer a group in ARMA that is exploring and sharing the Highland broadsword with all of ARMA. However, you seem to be going out and interacting with others so hopefully you'll be able to share what you learn with us.

In any event I look forward to training with you someday.

(1) Prov 27:17 (NIV)

[Joachim Nilsson]

Jako wrote:

Full speed and full contact is not the same thing. Controlling a sword cut is not the same as pulling a sword cut. If you really are skilled, I'm sure your sword cuts are always well supported, and when need be, you can put pressure on your opponents parries and posture to break them. The same way, if you are skilled, when you see an open line you can go as full speed as you would go if it was the real thing and give your partner light contact not to break his/her neck or other bones.

I did not say they were the same thing. I said we do both.I should perhaps add that we do what we do -forcefully hitting each other- to also discern and learn how the weapon in question behaves when you physically and forcefully hit a moving target. That type of sparring, complemented with pell-work, gives insight to how to properly follow through your cuts and do follow up attacks/techniques. To lightly "tap" your target in what is percieved as a all-out sparring situation would only serve to give him/her an unrealistic opportunity to counter your attack. And once again breed misconceptions. Our sparring is "simulated combat" and as such we have to do it the way we do it.

EDIT: I, btw, also have a hard time understanding the critisism towards our use of padded weapons since it's not the only tool we use in our training. It's one of four: padded, wasters, blunts and sharps.

I see it being a bit silly to condition yourself to take hits by blunt swords or wasters - you can't really condition yourself to take sharp cuts either.

I have neither done, nor stated, such a thing. Where did you get that from?

[Aaron Pynenberg]

Also with the ARMA training method it allows you more freedom in the padded weapon sparring to explore the techniques and understand the totality of how the weapon behaves. I sparred a guy from mostly SCA fair once and after stopping the energy of his attack, I left his blade to hit me from about an inch away from my body, striking him full force on the crown of his head, he immediately argued that it was a double kill because his sword had touched my side. (Just like in John's article "They are not lightsabers!" ). I let him go, intending to argue but realizing that it was not worth my time. This points out why the ARMA method is so important it is not just one type of training but the combination of all which gives you the freedom to not have to operate under some kind of false notions about how these weapons perform under combat conditions- Aaron

[Jake_Norwood]

Hey Everybody.

When I saw the title of the thread, and then saw that in the last 36 hours 46 (!!!!) posts had been made I knew that it was full of some sort of crap. Only crap gets that many posts that fast, unfortunately. Now, I'll confess that the contents of this thread aren't nearly as bad as I suspected, but there's one thing that I would like to bring out of this.

In the last month we've had some of the absolute best threads I think this forum has seen. We've had some incredible conversations about very important issues pertinant to the art (sturzhau, krumphau, unterhalten, etc.) that challenge current assumptions or which begin attempting a systematic look at things that have been less thoroughly investigated to this point. Good stuff. Stuff that made me very, very proud to be a member of this organization and this forum. Stuff that proved the quality of the research capability of the members here.

But this thread, even though it isn't the full-blown flame war about "this school that school etc.," is still stupid. It deserves to be here, sure. As a little thread, with 20 posts in a week. Instead, we have important threads only getting 20 threads in a week and this one getting 46 in less than two days.

The only and best way that any of us are going to prove the value in our school/study approach/whatever is by action. By the products we produce in terms of demonstrated skill and insightfulness of research and publication. The ARMA method has lots of pages on the net explaining it.

If someone is more impressed by the work of another organization that's fine. But whether you're ARMA or not I expect to see opinions validated by solid, concret, citable examples that can be referred to and viewed/read/researched by anyone on this forum. Otherwise this debate is just a juvenille argument.

So shut up everybody, pick up a sword and a manual, and train.

I hate this crap. Waste of good server space. We should be talking about the art.

Jake

[Chris Thompson]

>Well call me a sceptic but i would have to see some proof of this>

Read Bazancourt's "Secrets of the Sword"- it's easily available, and it's a 19th century work. In it, Bazancourt describes fighting a Neapolitan fencing master named Parise, who still practiced rapier and dagger. Parise was three or four generations back in Gaugler's lineage, as you can see here:
http://www.scherma.org/communique/origins.html
Now, I've never heard Gaugler claim that rapier was still preserved in his own time, but if it was preserved into the middle of the 19th century, it's not too far-fetched that it could have been preserved in some classical fencing lineage, is it?
Maestro Martinez does claim that his master taught some historical fencing, including the rapier. I see every reason to take him literally and none to doubt him.

>The only people I have seen claiming this are the Martinez folks but they seem to have a poor opinion of sparring which seems rather out of step with a fighting art>

You should have read his article more carefully. He's not against free fencing, he's against calling it "sparring." As he points out, it's not a historical term, and it originally refers to a particular training exercise in boxing that is not exactly free fighting. Perhaps he's taking the word a little too seriously, but that's all he's saying.

[Chris Thompson]

>You don't seem to be arguing the same point here. I happen to agree with their method of research and testing, insofar as I know it>

Then I'll be a bit more specific. Numerous historical manuals advocate edge-to-edge parrying in plain and unambiguous language. John Clements at one point seems to have denied this outright, but now takes a more nuanced view in which edge parrying is seen as a later practice- despite the fact that it was advocated by more than one 16th-century master. Many ARMA members, however, still refer to edge parrying as "nonsense", "idiotic" etc, on other forums and on this forum. When told that there are many manuals advocating it's use, one ARMA member on another forum was totally incredulous. So I posted a long list of direct quotes from the manuals in question- and he just stopped posting at all. On this forum, I've seen more than one thread criticizing the authors of historical manuals that taught edge parrying- including the one Rabbe Laine referenced, where the master in question was said to be "idiotic," and the "What gives you the right?" thread, where the authors of the Highland broadsword manuals were called to task for advocating edge parrying and a defensive approach to swordplay- just like every other British master going back to Silver in 1599 if not before.
So when people ask "what makes the ARMA method superior" and the reply is "we're more scientific, more historically accurate, more martial" I'm more than a bit skeptical. Why not just admit that some schools do things differently from you, and some of the historical fencing masters did things differently from you? Why the attitude that all others must be "idiotic" or "nonsense" or "not pure martial arts" or whatever? I realize that not all ARMA members take this position. There are a number of ARMA members on this forum who do not. But an attitude of contempt for other martial arts, other schools, even the historical masters themselves in some cases- this seems to be far more common among ARMA members than elsewhere, and there must be a reason for that.

[David_Knight]

[quote]How did swordsmen in the past address this issue? I recall that one master believed all training should be done with sharps! I'm not suggesting we do such a thing, but padded weapons remove some crucial psychological elements of training, including the caution that automatically results when you're facing a weapon that can really hurt you. The truth is, if you have to face a sharp sword, you'll be terrified. That's why fencing masters have always complained that fencers were far more aggressive in the salle than they would ever dare to be against a sharp blade. By making it relatively safe to fence so aggressively, padded weapons may be the most unrealistic training weapon possible.[quote]
With all due respect, this is a deeply flawed argument.

You are effectively discounting the exact same training principles used by the Western armed forces, who have a living lineage of 3,000 years spent training men to kill and then proving the validity of this training on the battlefield.

According to your logic, the hours I spent on an Army rifle range were unrealistic because I was shooting at soft "Green Ivans" who weren't shooting back and couldn't really hurt me. The dry-fire drills were ineffective because there was no recoil and no psychological pressure from the enemy returning fire. The exercises with blank rounds and MILES gear were ineffective because bullets were not really flying and thus we were able to be overly aggressive. The night infiltration course was unrealistic because the C4 explosions couldn't actually hurt us and the tracers were aimed 3' above our heads instead of directly at us. The bayonet training was unrealistic because we used padded weapons. The grenade training was unrealistic because we used duds and thus did not incinerate anybody or feel the heat and concussion of a real grenade. Along these lines, you could even argue that there was not adequate psychological intensity during CPR training and obstacle courses because we used a dummy instead of a real battle buddy who was bleeding to death...

Or to use some different examples, "by making it relatively safe to [cut] so aggressively, [rubber knives] may be the most unrealistic training weapon possible" for knife fighting.

"By making it relatively safe to [punch] so aggressively, [gloves] may be the most unrealistic training weapon possible" for self-defense courses.

"By making it relatively safe to [disarm] so aggressively, [rubber guns] may be the most unrealistic training weapon possible" for police weapon-retention training.

And "by making it relatively safe to [breach &amp; clear] so aggressively, [Airsoft] may be the most unrealistic training weapon possible" for SWAT team drills.

I could continue this ad nauseam, but I think my point has been made. By utilizing paddeds in addition to wasters, and blunts, the ARMA Method provides training that is as well-rounded and realistic as possible without injuring perfectly good fighters.

And incidentally, the most basic underlying principle of the Lichtenaur tradition, relentlessly siezing the Vor and thereby forcing your opponent into a defensive posture, is identical to the "overly aggressive" tactics of the US military. Is it coincidence that the training methods we adopt are similar?

[Chris Thompson]

Hi Leam,
Thanks for your comments. I run the Cateran Society as a specialized sub-set because of our strong emphasis on the role of the Highland broadsword within the context of Scots Gaelic culture. In my experience, it's very hard to do that within a group with any other emphasis.
Oddly enough, when I first started the Cateran Society years ago, I sent an email requesting to form an ARMA study group. I got no reply, so I just started my own group. Over time I concluded it would work better that way anyway.
I'd be happy to train with you (or any other ARMA people) if we ever get the chance.

[Bill Welch]

">You don't seem to be arguing the same point here. I happen to agree with their method of research and testing, insofar as I know it>

Then I'll be a bit more specific. Numerous historical manuals advocate edge-to-edge parrying in plain and unambiguous language. John Clements at one point seems to have denied this outright, but now takes a more nuanced view in which edge parrying is seen as a later practice- despite the fact that it was advocated by more than one 16th-century master. Many ARMA members, however, still refer to edge parrying as "nonsense", "idiotic" etc, on other forums and on this forum."


What is that I hear..... the sound of a dead horse being beaten?
I agree with Jakes post above this thread has gotten way out of hand, and we should suffice to say "your way, my way, and never the two shall meet."
I take my leave of this arguement before it sinks into the mud any farther.
Good day and God bless, <img src="/forum/images/icons/frown.gif" alt="" />

[Sean_Gallaty]

I apologize for this thread being so ugly. I guess I should have known better, I wasn't attempting to troll I am just trying to learn what differentiates the schools and I hadn't (until this point) seen anything to suggest I would get more than an objective answer.

[leam hall]

Jake scribeth from the hot Arizona land:

"So shut up everybody, pick up a sword and a manual, and train."

I'm kinda pooped from this morning's workout but I do need to spend a little time on my training plan and a manual or three. While I catch my breath I wanted to disagree with you on the merits of this crap...er...discussion.

A question was asked and some answers were given. A few answers didn't follow the pure ARMA mind-set and for that I'm glad. It is a GFS requirement that we can "express understanding of --ARMA Study Approach: research of period fighting manuals, literature, and iconography combined with comparative analysis from hands-on experience using replica arms and armor". If we can't do that then we need to go back the the books and study some more. There seems to be an outsanding question about the manuals referring to edge on edge contact which doesn't seem to have been answered.

I inwardly groan whenever someone from the ARMA talks about how we're more oriented to the battle-field. On the field in the 15th and 16th century the weapons were lances for horsemen, pikes and crossbows for foot. With a bit of crossing here and there like mounted crossbowmen and knights that dismounted with their lance and axe. As JC says on page 29 of "Medieval Swordsmanship", "The sword was never the primary battle weapon, however." Also, on page 11 of "Renaissance Swordsmanship" he states 'It must be mentioned that the rapier was not a true "field" weapon (unlike the cut-and-thrust sword variety), but rather for "civil defense".'

Although I prefer ARMA to the other things I've looked at, we're not perfect. Being able to clearly discuss and disagree with someone helps keep us honest. And, if we work hard at it we can identify places that need improvement and come away from the discussion better for it. If we're real good we can end with more friends than with which we began.

That's my opinion, anyway. My inner child needs a shower.

[jamesduffield92]

in response to jeanry although i am not a member of any group i feel that although it is helpfull to sparr a lot as with any form of martial art .... and boxing... to be able to do so succesfully you also need to kno the right way to go about sparring wich means practicing the forms and doing the drills
sorry if i cause offence but that is my very tiny contribution to what will be always a huge debate