Full contact sparring video with slomo replay

[Lance Chan]

Well, I know our ARMA friends know how to judge but the following passage was written for those on SFI and I just copy it here. ;P

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I've just made a video that can be used to compare with Jiang Ting's.

In the video Ben was using sparring sword modelled after German bastard sword from A&A. I was using my sparring sword that's modelled after Tinker's XVIIIa. The weight, size and balance are all turned to fully represent the real swords. Here are the photos of our real swords:



I know some of my audiences could not see how we fight actually and thought we were swinging boffers blindly at each other. They couldn't tell when and where we hit the opponent either. That's sometimes because of the inexperienced eyes being unable to follow the speed of the action, and do not have the experience about where to pay attention to.

Thus this time, I've added slow motion replay into the video. We can see that despite Ben's sword's huge size, both of us were targeting at more or less the same areas, the closest targets available at the time that were mostly the grip.

Besides our choices of targets, we can also see our sense of distance about how to aim at a small target that presents itself for a fraction of second and how to evade just enough to void a strike while keeping counter attack options available.

The fight in the video was full contact and not pre-arranged.

http://lancelot.servehttp.com/Sunday%20Butchers/6-4-03/bastarddemo.rm

[Shane Smith]

Hello Lance! Thats some good-looking steel you guys have. <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

AS for the video,I am not absolutely certain which Swordsman you are,but the gentleman in the blue gloves seems competent( I believe that is you) while the other seems largely un-trained to my eye. I saw alot of good timing and technique in the video on the part of yourself and I note a great improvement in your footwork over your previous vids.The guards were well done and overall,I'm impressed! If I were to comment on anything in the interest of constructive criticism,it would be the following;
1.Alot of the beats you employed against your opponents blade were un-neccessary as you were largely out of range due to either proper voiding or simple mis-calculation of range on your opponents part.This may result in a damaged/broken blade as well as allow the fight to continue longer than neccessary(the longer the fight,the more chance your opponent has to "get lucky").Perhaps a void and counter-cut to the hands would be prefferable to a void-beat-counter.

2.I also note that there was a considerable amount of cross-handed/footed cutting in the clip(mostly on the part of your opponent).This shortens the reach of the weapon and may explain why he fell short of reaching you so often.

Good effort.Thanks for sharing! It's good to see my fellow Swordsmen actually DOING instead of endlessly talking ABOUT doing. <img src="/forum/images/icons/grin.gif" alt="" /> Best regards.

[Lance Chan]

Shane, I want to thank you for your words and I agree with everything you said on the post. I'll keep working on those areas and try to persuade my friend to do so.

Best regards.

[Mike Cartier]

yeah the footwork is looking good, also Lance i like your use of the Das Gayzlen or Spring strike with one hand.
I know you guys are on concrete there, but do you ever go to the ground ?
We love to add that in the mix, (throwing, ground fighting and disarms) fighting to either grappling submission or more preferably to a weapon finish from the ground. We have talked about wearing daggers when we spar so we can also go for the peasant sticker if we get close.

We have been meaning to make some videos of our sparring but my webcam sucks, anyone know an easy way to turn those Sharp family video cam videos into digital format.

Our footwork as a study group really has improved after our John Clements seminar, footwork is an important component of just about every martial art i can think of so it stands to reason that some expert instuction there would do us loads of benefit.

[Lance Chan]

Although the spring strike didn't score any hit in this video, you know where I was aiming at. <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" /> (the grip) It usually succeeds more often on other fights.

We did goto the ground from time to time and in group fighting (small groups. I've never had more than 9 people in the field in the same time) , some of us carry a dagger on their side as well because the situation may go wild. Sometimes people get very close in a formation press.

I'm sorry I can't help with the cam and I agree that having an instructor will do a lot of help. :

[TimSheetz]

Lance,

Good Job! I haven't had a chance to review the video yet, but look forward to it.

Keep up the good work!

PEace,

Tim