Defeated by rapier...

[Joachim Nilsson]

Robert Rolph wrote:

No, offense...but nobody has ever beaten Muay Thai fighters in a fight to the death.

So that's why the Muay Thai fighters have conquered most of the world. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

No offense.... but I think you should go out and spar a renaissance martial arts praticioner or two before you make any more remarks regarding whether it's a stiff and sluggish martial art or not. <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />

[Matthew_Anderson]

Wow, not only is this off topic but probably the biggest load of crap I've ever seen on this forum:

"I was watching a Thai historical drama which was about French making a treaty with Siam (now Thailand) to give away an island, and I saw Thai villagers trained with Krabi-krabong dropping French soldiers like dolls in sword fights. And those weren't even the royal guards. No, offense...but nobody has ever beaten Muay Thai fighters in a fight to the death. Aytthayian fighters were legendary. Burmese soldiers would gang up on a royal guards in an offense formation with spears, and shields, or two spears in both hands...or swords...and more often he was more than a match. Sometimes he would refuse to go down and the Burmese would be forced to shoot him because noone is able to kill him (at least, it would more people) to save their men's lives. They strike with such speed, ferociousness, and strength that the Muay Thai arts, in its purest form, cannot be used spar as sport. They were train to not only to go up against 1 person, but as many as they can hold their own. Going full out would mean someone loosing his life in a split seconds".

Wake up Robert, there is no invincible martial art or invincible martial artist. Stuff like this is hype, pure and simple.

[Shane Smith]

Please stay on topic and seek to avoid offering scenes from dramas as evidence for the superiority of any martial arts form, especially one which has not even one practitoner who could be fought to the death under any circumstance.Please read and abide by the ARMA forum rules as laid out here http://www.thearma.org/forum/ Thanks.

[Michael J Pierce]

Hopefully the following quotation will not be considered off topic. Considering the unsuccessful use of drama references, I'll move for a medical one.

researching the effects of what a rapier may do to the body I asked my father, a practicing Chiropractor for suggestions. Following his advice I started to search the internet for various cases of puncture, stab, lacseration wounds done to various parts of the body. The following was obtained from the Entrez PubMed website ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&amp;db=PubMed&amp;list_uids=3354299&amp;dopt=Abstract )
<Quote>
Stab wounds of the liver. An evaluation of 131 consecutive cases.

Leppaniemi AK, Salo JA, Haapiainen RK, Lempinen MJ.

Second Department of Surgery, Helsinki University Central Hospital, Finland.

The records of 131 consecutive patients treated for liver stab wounds during a 20-year period were reviewed. All were operated on. Bleeding from the liver injury ceased spontaneously before operation in 41% of the cases. The chest, stomach and extremities were the most common sites of associated injury. In 36% the liver was the only injured organ. The liver injury was managed with simple surgical techniques in all but three cases. The mortality rate was 4.6%, and only one of the six deaths was directly attributable to the liver injury. Complications, mostly involving the lungs and the wound, arose in 27% of the series. Stab wounds of the liver are relatively benign and the great majority can be satisfactorily treated with simple surgery. Excluding juxtahepatic venous injuries, the mortality and morbidity are due mainly to associated injuries.

</Quote>
The Following pic is linked through www.medterms.com


As you can see, the liver is centered in the abdomon (hey! I'm 21 not a spell checking wizard!) Bet you ten cents to none, that a rapier fencer would aim roughly for the center of the abdomon in hopes of hitting something vital. To inflict a killing blow.

So by the information presented above, it indicates that in 41% of stab wounds to liver ceased bleeding before operations could be performed to correct it. This is a modern medical observation, in my mind I imagine a kitchen knife inflicting the wound that appear in these results. I theorize that in the case of the rapier, the rate of spontaneous stopping of bleeding would be much higher. The rest of the information in the quote is intesting and applicble in some way to the reasons I give for citing it.

By understand the workings of the human body a swordsman may improve his ability to defeat his oppenent.

For the curious, wanting to know the placement of sme other vital organs in relation to the liver I give you the following sketch from http://catalog.nucleusinc.com .

Michael

[Shane Smith]

Interesting input and it seems to support Master Silvers's disdain for the minimal stopping power of the rapier unless the brain or central nervous system are struck (note I didn't say "killing" power all you rapier enthisiasts <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" /> ) A good cleaving blow and you're done, stuck like a pincussion, you may continue long enough to repay the favor before you bleed out maybe.

Silvers' assertion that the perfect fight relies on the cut and the thrust is just too darn intuitive and rational to be ignored.

[John_Clements]

Good stuff, Michael, thanks.
And yes, Shane, Silver actually was also not the only source from the time to comment on the rapier not always producing an immediately debilitating hit.
I will be exposing more on that in the future.

JC

[Grant Hall]

Rolphy MATE!! WAZZZZUUP ( <img src="/forum/images/icons/mad.gif" alt="" /> trying hard to refrain from obscenities) Please, just STOP! your persisted praising of all thing Eastern!!
If I wanted to train in EMA I'd do the Hokey Pokey... "Put your left hand in, put your left hand out, put your left hand in and you shake it all about..." ah you get the idea!

Down here in Australia me and my mates enjoy nothing more than descimating practicioners of so called "Invincible" Martial Arts! I have been in more pub brawls and street fights than you have hairs on your chest! and NEVER has martial arts even come close to competeing with the three fundamental truths of combat.
1) Knowing how to throw punch/kick
2) knowing how to take a punch/kick
And most importantly!
3) Being willing to take a hit!

I have taken down a highly skilled Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do (I wouldnt want to fight him in a competion! He was ranked number two in Australia I Believe) and used nothing more than my determination, my short temper, and my overly large Adrenalin Gland!

I have had more Martial Artists bent over backwards choking on their own... Ahem... Ego's than you can count on all the extremities of your body, and I am by no means even close to being an expert fighter!

I have been looking into combat arts for a good part of 12 years now, and the only thing I've seen come close to being useful is the dirty tricks embedded in Ringen!

Here's something for you to remeber, go into a REAL street fight using 'Mu Thai! &amp; You Die!"

Go into a fight using determination, guts, and everything you can get your hands on and you might just live to make it back here and appologize to everyone for flaunting your beliefs in man made "Invincible" Arts!

I have had more than enough of hearing your "Honest Opinions" about EMA.

As for WMA being slow and sluggish, come here and tell me if you see my left fist coming before your choking on my right!

Sorry if this sounds overly aggressive, I guess your almighty katana must have hit a nerve.

[Ernest Brant]

Shane, your distinction between stopping power and "killing" power is a very good one. That distinction and the information provided by Michael caused me to think about the similarities between a rapier thrust and a bullet strike to the human body and how those similarities might help better understand the likely effect on the body of a clean, in and out rapier thrust (vs thrusting the rapier into the body and moving it around). I have read many studies over the years on the effects and pathology of bullet impacts on the body and some of that information may be relevant to rapier thrusts as well.

My premises and assumptions for this comparison are as follows. First, the cross sectional area of a rapier blade, particularly near the point, is probably very close to the cross sectional area of some calibers of bullets. I would also argue that a bullet entering the body is in fact a thrust of sorts. The tip of the bullet enters the body in more or less a straight line as a rapier blade does. In both cases you have a relatively small cross sectional area entering, by comparison, a large body. I would add that the bullet to which we are trying to compare the rapier thrust must not be going so fast that fluid dynamics become a significant factor. The bullet should also be of the full metal jacket type, not expanding. So, we are looking primarily at bullets of that type fired from handguns.

As I am sure you all know, stopping power is an important issue for firearms, particularly handguns. About four or five years ago. maybe longer, I read a study done by a professor of criminology that contained statistics showing that more than 92% of people shot with handguns survived. This study included all types of handguns and bullet types, expanding, high velocity, etc. If the type of bullet had been restricted to those I defined in para 2 above, I think the suvival percentage would have been even higher. There are several ways you can interpret these results, one of which is that most people under sever stress of a life threatening situation are lousy shots. But therein is the point. Unless the type of bullet as defined above hits a vital organ, your chances of survival are very good. I would conclude that unless the rapier thrust hits a vital organ, your chances of survival are good.

There are also innumerable studies which show that a person can be shot and not even know it if they are in the midst of a violent, life threatening situation. There are even more studies showing that people can be wounded by a bullet and continue to fight very efffectively, possibly even winning the battle ultimately. Further, there is research and studies which show that a person with a lot of adrenelin in his blood can function for 5-8 seconds after being shot directly in the heart before collapsing from bleed out. That may not seem very long, but take your sword and use it effectively for that length of time and see how much damage you theoretically could do. I have tried it several times with a handgun and I can fire a lot of rounds in that time. Plus, not all heart wounds are equal. In the famous Miami FBI shootout of 198?, early in the fight an FBI agent wounded the criminal with a shot that clipped the bottom of his heart. He was a dead man but did not know it. He functioned for several minutes after receiving the wound and killed and wounded several FBI agents before bleeding out to the point he had to get into his car, where he was then killed.

A person full of adrenelin is hard to stop, even with something larger than a handgun. If you accept my premises and assumptions in para 2, then I would argue that a rapier thrust is unlikely to be very much more affective at "stopping" a person than a bullet, and with equal medical treatment for both wounds, not much more lethal.

The above is a very long way of saying that I agree fully with Shane. In a real life situation, a good, strong cut from a sword is much more likely to stop the unpleasantries than a rapier thrust.

[Lance Chan]

I got my revenge today on the rapier (muhahhahaha)...

http://www.rsw.com.hk/tom-vs-lancelot-30-10-05.zip

Lesson learned from last week: Don't try to play bind and wind with the rapier. The weapon of finess is easy to get around my blade and get me good. Don't even let the rapier stay more or less online.

So the tactic this week is to wrap a cloth on my left arm to prevent being sliced, which happened for a lot of "double hits" for last week (I don't want to call that double kill). Then I bash the rapier away, go right in, keep attacking nonstop....

It works! <img src="/forum/images/icons/laugh.gif" alt="" />

[Rod-Thornton]

Robert Rolph:

Not knowing much about you, your age, your experience, and your past training, assuming you are able to, I am extending an invitation to you to come to our study group in Virginia Beach, and fence against me. I have only been training less than one year, however, in the vein of our illustrious Director's comments, "The Door is always open..."

I will place my faith in only 4 guards and 5 basic cuts...you may use any combination of EMA/fencing styles that you wish. I will reserve judgement until then.

-Rod

[Mike_McGurk]

"A good cleaving blow and you're done, stuck like a pincussion, you may continue long enough to repay the favor before you bleed out maybe. "

That is why I find it ironic that as time went on, swordfighting became seperated from fighting as far as duels were concerned. It's a bit off topic, but can anyone shed some light on why armbreaking and all the other fun techniques fell out of favour?

[Mike_McGurk]

"But, like I said...the European counterparts seem stiff, sluggish, and cumbersome, IMO."

If you think that, you might want to check the vids of JC demonstrating techniques.

Here's a good one:

http://www.thearma.org/photos/Gathering03/G03Vids/JCdemclips.mov

[Michael J Pierce]

<quote> Mike McGurk said:
That is why I find it ironic that as time went on, swordfighting became seperated from fighting as far as duels were concerned. It's a bit off topic, but can anyone shed some light on why armbreaking and all the other fun techniques fell out of favour? </quote>

I assume it had to do with aristocrats. You know , the big white powder wigs that the upper class would where. Those people probably thought that it was uncivilized to fight on the ground or wrestle. For some reason, I see JC saying this. Maybe he mentioned it at the Provo '03 seminar. Plus the need for effective swrdsman went down in the evolution of war and personal firearms.

Just a thought.

Michael

[Mike Chidester]

But, like I said...the European counterparts seem stiff, sluggish, and cumbersome, IMO.

If you think that, you might want to check the vids of JC demonstrating techniques.

You might also be interested to learn that in 1994, when our understanding of the art was much more rudimentary, John Clements entered the Advanced Weapon Sparring division of the National Kung Fu Championships and took first place.

[s_taillebois]

The powder wig attitude, did play a part in it all. We're discussing relative lethality of these weapons...in part that's a response from being part of a society which has been subject to two world wars and mass produced weaponry.
The rapier, mainly a civilian defense weapon, and so linked to the dueling culture. Brutal yes, but in duels, often it was enough to disable and draw blood. And a class factor was involved, in peacetime, hacking apart a like aristocrat with a longsword or such, conceptually would have been problematic. Honor, such as it was, needed to be satisfied. But as the period (and weapons changed), the overt excesses of the battlefield weapons, were a little too much to be applied in aristocratic squabbling. Sort of a long process, which eventually stylizes completely into the epee'.
So from a certain view, the lack of lethality wasn't a conceptual issue for many using rapiers. The rapier was a symbol of class, and to a degree, so was the type of violence it inflicted.
A distinction, which in large measure, our society no longer makes.