Sikh Martial Arts? Saber (tulwar) and buckler

[JeanryChandler]

Check out this somewhat fanciful sword and buckler combat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRJJ4LC1_jo

Obviously choreographed but interesting nevertheless.

This video has some forms with different weapon mixed with dancing and more choreographed dance /fighting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAfdruOQHK8

Some of the sword and buckler / stick & buckler stuff reminds me a bit of I.33

[Derek Gulas]

Is it just me, or do they seem to be aiming for the bucklers when they're doing their demonstration?

They also didn't seem to be using broken timing a lot of the time, and their fighting looks different from what we do because of it.

Otherwise, they seem to be very skilled at what they do. Very fast.

[Stacy Clifford]

I noticed the same thing about them not aiming for each other, and those odd hops like they're fighting on an antbed. Actually the fighting with that weapon that looked like a stick with a buckler handguard looked more realistic to me, minus the spinning. At least in those clips they seemed to be aiming at the body. The rest looked like a very elaborate and athletic dance. I'm sure there was something to it at one time, but it looks like another art that lost its martial context.

[Brian Hunt]

there are a whole bunch of arab type groups on the internet that practice this style of sword and buckler and various other sword and staff/stick techniques. I beleive there was a thread on them here about a year, year and a half ago.

Brian Hunt
GFS

[Allen Johnson]

yeah i remember some videos of a practice group or something. Looks very athletic and fast but much more like a capoeria (sp?) thing than a strict martial art. Though it certainly looks like with a few adjustments it could be quite effective.

[Jon Pellett]

Mike Stillwell over at the Schola forum and SFI does Gatka. He posted some video in this thread. Looks good to me.

Cheers

[JeanryChandler]

Yeah thanks thats really cool, here is the video link

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7175997216454163399

The sword & buckler reminds me a lot of I.33 in certain aspects.

JR

[Shane Smith]

All the high-speed stuff with the S&B-ish combo I saw in the video from your preceding post were repetitive drills. Watch for a while and you'll see the pattern.

[Matthew_Anderson]

Interesting, but looks like mostly "set play" type drills and they never get in range to hit anything but each other's weapons/buckler. Very athletic, etc. but like many displays of martial art, more style than substance.

[Corey Roberts]

Looked interesting if nothing else. I was curious about middle eastern martial arts. Google searches of this generally only produced Asian Martial arts dojos in middle eastern countries. This one is obviously of Indian/hindi origin and not Arab. The sword being so important to Arabic culture I had wondered to what extent Arab culture retained it's old martial skills, or if they became obscure as in Europe?

[Gene Tausk]

Looked interesting if nothing else. I was curious about middle eastern martial arts. Google searches of this generally only produced Asian Martial arts dojos in middle eastern countries. This one is obviously of Indian/hindi origin and not Arab. The sword being so important to Arabic culture I had wondered to what extent Arab culture retained it's old martial skills, or if they became obscure as in Europe?

I agree that the subject matter is interesting but this is getting off-topic. Let's try and keep focused on European Renaissance MA, which is the subject matter of this forum.

Thanx!

[JeanryChandler]

I agree that the subject matter is interesting but this is getting off-topic. Let's try and keep focused on European Renaissance MA, which is the subject matter of this forum.

Thanx!

Wouldn't Arabic (and by extension, Persian and Indian) marital arts be of relevance to WMA in terms of trying to reconstruct the history and context of the Western Martial Tradition, if only because of the close interraction with WMA warriors? I mean, from the Crusades to the Reconquista to the Ottomans, you certainly had a lot of close interraction. Saracen mercenaries were used not just in spain, but in Italy and France... "Damascus" steel came from India to the Middle East and through Toledo in Spain to several other important sword manufacturing centers (such as Barcelona in Catalonia). IIRC The bodyguard of the Doge of Venice, the famous Schiavoni, namesake of which the famous Schiavona sword favored by so many modern collectors, were Muslim mercenaries from Albania. We know from historical evidence that Jewish wrestling apparently had a major influence on Ringen... I would personally be interested to know if there were any other traditions brought over to Christian Europe from other neighboring cultures.

I really appreciate how you keep things on topic in here and can certainly understand not wanting to get thrown off topic with discussions of Ninjas and Samurai and mystical Chi Channeling three section staff fighters from China, but the issue of actual historical Middle Eastern martial arts at any rate does seem somewhat signfiicant to WMA.

Just my $.02 anyway

J

[Shane Smith]

I agree that the subject matter is interesting but this is getting off-topic. Let's try and keep focused on European Renaissance MA, which is the subject matter of this forum.

Thanx!

... but the issue of actual historical Middle Eastern martial arts at any rate does seem somewhat signfiicant to WMA.

Just my $.02 anyway

J

Read your last sentence above and you'll see the problem. It becomes a matter of is it directly relevant, or is it an interesting trip down a side road that is not. We are a Forum dedicated to the martial arts of European cultures, not to the contemporary martial arts of the East. Relevant content is a fine line to walk in a thread of this type...Now if we were discussing the comparative tactics and techniques used by these two cultures when engaged with one-another in battle, that would be on topic in my opinion.

[JeanryChandler]

Understandable, but one pproblem with putting the blinders on too tightly is that if you lose track of the context, you have a much harder time understanding your basic subject. It's useful to understand for example who Western warriors were fighting other than each other. Otherwise it's like studying cars with a strict prohibition against mentioning motorcycles, trucks, gasoline or roads for that matter.

Now if we were discussing the comparative tactics and techniques used by these two cultures when engaged with one-another in battle, that would be on topic in my opinion.

Well that kind of thing always makes for an interesting discussion too, but how and precisely where you separate individual fighting technique from combat tactics is a fine line, especially so the further back you go into history where individual prowess could matter as much or more than things like tactical oprganization or even logistics.

JR

[Gene Tausk]

Now if we were discussing the comparative tactics and techniques used by these two cultures when engaged with one-another in battle, that would be on topic in my opinion.

Well that kind of thing always makes for an interesting discussion too, but how and precisely where you separate individual fighting technique from combat tactics is a fine line, especially so the further back you go into history where individual prowess could matter as much or more than things like tactical oprganization or even logistics.

JR[/quote]

JR - Shane has already addressed this. If someone wants to discuss for example how Arab and Kurd warriors fought Crusaders and the relevant tactics and weapons and martial systems they used, that would certainly be on topic. There are many more such examples that can be given and I'm sure you are intelligent enough to add some relevant examples of your own.

However, the series of posts on this thread have been to criticize a system of apparently modern martial arts used by Sikhs. This has nothing to do with Historical European Martial Arts. It is nothing more than examining an off-topic martial arts system, just as if someone were to post a hyperlink to a Kendo demonstration and ask for our opinion on it.

I don't want to be the first person to shut down a thread on the new, improved forum (I'll leave that to Shane ) but it is clear that any further discussions on evaluating and/or criticizing contemporary Sikh martial arts is off-topic.