Justin Blackford wrote:Yeah, you're right. I forgot all about that. In the early colonial period, rapier and dagger and the later smallsword could definently have happened.
Well, we weren't supposed to start our bouts until tomorrow, but one of my friends had off from work today, as did I, and we saw my tomahawk and his rapier and just couldn't resist. It's a shame we don't have a digital camera, I'd love to show you guys exactly what's happening.
But, hey, none of the fechtbuchs have moving pictures, so you'll just have to use your imaginations as I explain what happened during our exciting bouts of tomahawk and knife against rapier and dagger.
I can wield both tomahawk and rapier, but my sparring partner knows very little on the use of axe-bladed weapons, so he took the rapier and dagger. I personally have some experience training with Native American weapons. My father was a Lakota and every once in a while, he would show me how to throw the tomahawk as well as a lot of neat little knife tricks that complemented it in close-quarters combat.
In our first bout, I realized that I couldn't let his signifigantly longer weapon take the initiative, so I rushed him as he attempted the first thrust with the rapier, which was parried with the tomahawk, and then came the thrust with the dagger, which was parried with my knife. We ended up caught in a tight bind until I kicked him in the gut and forced him back. Then, I was all over him like Mel Gibson in "The Patriot". Had the fight been real, he'd have been hacked to pieces.
Then came bout two. I tried to rush him again, but he dropped to one knee and delivered a stop-thrust under my neck before I could close the distance.
For bout three, same as "bout two". <img src="/forum/images/icons/blush.gif" alt="" />
The final bout lasted several minutes, involving a lot of binds, wrestling, and attempted stop-thrusts. I wasn't going to throw the tomahawk because I was too afraid I would miss or would be deflected, thus having to face the rapier with just my buck knife(not good!). I managed at one point to strike at his dagger hand, causing him to loosen his grip, and then I knocked the dagger out with my tomahawk. He didn't hesitate to withdraw before I could strike him again and proceeded to fight with the rapier alone.
It ended when he attempted another quick stop-thrust, which I locked up using both of my weapons and proceeded to strike him on top of the head with the tomahawk. Then, I took his scalp(just kidding!).
So, I've learned from this that the fast thrusting rapier is a real pain to fight when armed with shorter close-quarter weapons. But when I close the distance between the sword and the man, he's as good as dead. This is all pretty obvious to the experienced martial artist, but the cross-training with different styles certainly taught me better judgement at distance, range, and timing.
And there was much rejoicing....(Yeeeeaaaaah!) <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />
I'll brief everybody tomorrow when we get back from our anachronistic cross-training with a variety of other weapons. It'll be a lot longer, because my whole group will be there, and everybody is eager to try out different combinations. I think that our results should be fascinating. We'll see.
Justin
