Interesting training refrence

[Aaron Pynenberg]

Hello Everyone,

I am reading the book: The Oxford Illustrated History Of The Crusades by Jonathan Riley-Smith. Chap 10, pg 241 2nd paragraph reads:

"The young Mamluks in the Cairo Citadel embarked on a punishing schedule of military training. They were made to slice at lumps of clay with thier swords as many as 1000 times a day so as to build thier arm muscles."

There is no mention of where this info comes from, but I find it very interesting. Has anyone used clay as a medium to do any test cutting yet? I would imagine that it is a very good material in that it is probably cheap, mimicks body denisty and would perserve the steel of your sword as well.

Any thoughts out there?

[Derek Gulas]

It sounds like it's a really good idea. The clay wouldn't mind being cut. You could reform it multiple times and it would be cheap. Wouldn't it dull your sword easily though? And how close is it really to flesh?

Oh yeah, and be sure to check for pebbles <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />

[John_Clements]

A 15th century Persian military text (or "Furisaya") shows an image of this kind of exercise being performed. Sounds good to me. A small problem is sediment in the clay will scratch up the blade some.

JC

[Shane Smith]

I'm guessing your sharp wouldn't be for long. Abrasives can sharpen a blade just as the solids in clay can surely dull one. Do you suppose these guys used sharps and simply resharpened them at the end of certain number of blows or did they have training weapons as we do. Surely blades were still expensive enough that the common fighting man couldn't afford a blunt and sharp? I really don't know...just thinking out loud...

[Derek Gulas]

Maybe they only had one sword but sharpened it before battle.

Also, why not take swords from fallen enemies after battle to use?

[Jeffrey Hull]

Right - why not use the clay for cutting with different goals with different swords?

- With a sharp one to test your ability at making the range of cuts as best you can (after which you may need to sharpen the thing a little).

- With a blunter one for extensive repetitious workout, perhaps as described in that passage.

[Zach Palfreyman]

As far as the cost of a sword, I don't really know either. But I would have serious doubts that they couldn't afford an extra practice sword. Even if it /was/ costly, that is simply the price for making war. I mean could you imagine the US Army not having target practice to save money on ammo, or fighter pilots being grounded all the time b/c the price of gas? Also if swords were so much, why would they go into debt just for the one sword. They'd just train in some cheaper weapon like spear, staff, mace, or club.

But the more relevent question might be if clay is a good cutting target and how affordable/usable it is for us modern swordplay as a hobby practitioners.

[Kyro_Lantsberger]

I find this very interesting. What are all your thoughts comparing this to modern ballistic gelatin used to study performance of different rounds?

Ballistic gelatin is a very specialized substance. Is it possible that "Cutting Clay" was likewise made as a very unique substance vs. clay for construction for the very reasons mentioned - abrasives, and the preservation of blades?

Granted, I just thought of this now, but I think since this is only mentioned (at this point) in Egypt and Persia, I think it would be worth considering the possibility that the soils/geology of the area allowed for the production of a sword-friendly cutting medium.

[Stacy Clifford]

Clay straight out of the ground in most cases would present sediment problems like stray grains of sand, but a good block of modeling clay is usually very homogeneous and free of contaminants. Clay minerals themselves are soft and not especially abrasive, and the actual grains are microscopic and plate-shaped, which is why they settle together so tightly and make clay so dense. Overall with a clean block of refined clay I wouldn't think it should be any worse for your sword than cutting wet newspaper (with the tiny grains of titanium oxide that make paper white).

~Stacy Clifford, ex-geologist

[Kyro_Lantsberger]

.....or, the possibility that this training may have been somewhat similar to Dussack.......a wooden training weapon used for training purposes.

Thus, a training regimen could be produced that gave realistic feedback to blade alignment, plus some resistance training, and a recycleable cutting medium. I dont know clay very well, but could the softness be altered with water to create different levels of resistance? With the addition of armours over clay forms, I think a very high level regimen of combat training could be created.

Ive never done any cutting practice, but it is something that intrigues me. I watched the SCHOLA "First Cut is the Deepest" cutting video on the internet, and I would swear that those guys must have hijacked a produce truck to make that possible. A claylike cutting medium which could be re-formed and reused would make that type of training cleaner, quicker, and likely more "fruitful".
Very interesting idea.

[Jeffrey Hull]

Like Stacy said, a refined clay for artistic ceramics would be very fine and not really abraisive to metal, I would think especially the cheap orange-red pottery clays would be dense enough for nice resistance but would not hurt a blade. You can get sacks of that stuff that you can mix with water and so forth, make all you want. You could even mold it into the head of an orc or whatever you like. <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />

[Aaron Pynenberg]

Kyro- ballistic gellatin-that was exactly what I was thinking when I came across this in the book. I have been doing some calling around and so far I am having pretty good luck with lanscaping places and also at mines. We have a few here in Wisconsin that are producing aggregate rock and they are in most cases developing a fair amount of clay as well.

I have not followed up yet and retrieved any samples, but you and I are thinking along the same lines. The amount of water in the clay probably changes it's make-up and I would guess you could make it as "dense" or "loose" as you wanted. -now the big ? is how to stack it and form it, how to place it on a stand and store it etc...I'll be doing some more on all this soon- later, AP

[JeffGentry]

I was even thinking about modeling clay you can get that at a hobby store i would imagine., i think i'll check about the reddish pottery clay.

Jeff

[ElizabethPangerl]

I've used ballistics gelatin and I think clay would be entirely different - more resistant, etc. and very useful.

3 things to note about clay
1. If they could get clay for their dishes and houses, they could use it for their training.
2. Clay is found in riverbanks and valleys where it is deposited by slow-moving water, and they'd have access to that.
3. The term "clay" refers to a particle size/texture as well as a class of silicate minerals of varying composition.
(another ex-geologist)

[Stacy Clifford]

Good point on #3. Proper clay minerals are soft, but microfine quartz grains are still going to be abrasive. However, in most floodplains I believe it's going to be real, soft, slippery when wet clay. The important thing is to have a uniform texture with the larger, harder grains of different materials that would damage the blade filtered out. That does happen naturally often enough, but for us modeling or pottery clay guarantees better quality control I think. Geology rocks. <img src="/forum/images/icons/grin.gif" alt="" />