Calling any samurai?

[Chris Ouellet]

http://www.freewebs.com/battlefieldweaponstournament/
I can't attest to the event's credibility, but this could be a good opportunity for the kind of cross discipline sparring and experimentation, that seems to be a rather discussed topic of late.

I've had bad experiences with wood and the untrained who think they have control. Wood can kill.
The rules are odd, I'm quite confident people will be tempted to abuse them using a very light weapon and simply striking as fast as possible to vitals regardless of their opponent. It depends heavily on how a strike is judged.

Don Angier is primarily an Aikido guy, I know full well where you're coming from Jay, his style is not legitimate koryu.
For what it's worth his footwork and timing are very good and on most cuts in the video he gets good arm extension and does broad movements quickly. I'm of the opinion that's respectable even if the basis may not truly be koryu. And some of the moves are interesting, even though they're not practical.

[Jay Vail]

Stacy:

When I say ducking under, I'm referring to several times when I saw them stepping offline toward the oncoming blow, and instead of meeting it in a bind in kron and stifling it as I think the European masters seem more likely to advise, they void the blow and slice under it.

Missed that. I'll watch again.

It just seems as though some of the defensive choices run counter to the more common advice we see in the fechtbuchs

Could be. But much is also similar as well. Still, as time goes on and I grow in WMA, I think on the whole that WMA fencing with the longsword is different, and better, largely because of its use of the false edge.

I think there are a lot of moves that can work under the right conditions, but aren't the best choice, but in the Japanese arts I don't know what the standard wisdom is vs. what they do because it looks cool in the demo

As Maxime points out, there really is no "standard wisdom" among Japanese fencing systems. There is huge variation among the different ryuha.

Happy to keep an open mind here, this is interesting stuff.

I try to do so as well.

[Randall Pleasant]

There may still be a chance for something like this to be happening in the near future, the "Battlefield Weapons Tournament"

http://www.freewebs.com/battlefieldweaponstournament/

I can't attest to the event's credibility, but this could be a good opportunity for the kind of cross discipline sparring and experimentation, that seems to be a rather discussed topic of late.

Honestly I don't think you would find any legitimate school of japanese swordmanship in there.

I'm not seeing anything awful in the Don Angier video. His style is considered by some to be koryu, others don't, but that's the only demo I've seen and haven't seen any historical reasearch to prove or disprove it. He was also instructed in kenbu (japanese sword dance) so some peple wonder if it didn't transposed.

We've thought about going to this just for fun since it's in Texas, but really I wouldn't expect too much either.

Stacy

I have been thinking about this event too. If any of you Houston people go, give us a heads up and we will try to meet you there.

[Jay Vail]

[quote="Chris OuelletDon Angier is primarily an Aikido guy, I know full well where you're coming from Jay, his style is not legitimate koryu.
For what it's worth his footwork and timing are very good and on most cuts in the video he gets good arm extension and does broad movements quickly. I'm of the opinion that's respectable even if the basis may not truly be koryu. And some of the moves are interesting, even though they're not practical. [/quote]

Okay, so his footwork looks good and he gets good extension. The key is, the stuff's not practical. Why bother with him then? Life's too short to waste time on studying the moves of pretend swordsmen.

[Steven Blakely]

Well Jay, the reason one of the more skilfull members might want to attend is so that maybe those looking for real training wont get sucked in to this farce he has created. I would however suggest that whoever goes wear full battle harness for safety sake
looking around i see that a lot of people who wish to undertake this art for years have had to deal with inferior substance. I was gratefull when i found you guys. I think it might be benificial for "SENIOR" members of ARMA to attend some of these kinds of events. I say senior because they have the nessecary credentals and tallent to fight and come out in one peace. I also think the exposure might help those who are seeking to find those who actually study wma.