"Masters" trash talk...

[I. Hartikainen]

Stacy,

you also have this: http://www.thearma.org/Manuals/Liberi2.htm

- Ilkka

[Stacy Clifford]

Did you find a public link to that (I don't see one) or did you find it in a search engine? That page is so old I barely even remember seeing it before, but then this website is so large we might have the location of El Dorado hidden in here somewhere. Now I have to go fix those broken thumbnails!

[Brandon Paul Heslop]

I find your gratuitous insults of the rapier ("bird-sticker", "spit-three-times") telling.

Sorry they hurt your feelings, Will.

The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks.

Wow. You must be the only one to have noticed that dead give away, where I mentioned that, aside from my other points, I also just don't like the rapier on an asthetic level. You saw right through me, man! Now I'm all naked and vulnerable. What ever will I do?

First, the objective flaws:

• A single data point proves nothing. Indeed, even a series of data points from the same source doesn't have much meaning. One bout tells us exactly zero about the overall trend.
• The comparison is meaningless because you propose matching two fencers of unequal skill. If the novice loses, even over a statistically meaningful series of bouts, does this tell us that the longsword is inferior or that training confers an advantage? No way to know.

It's a martial art, Will. Not a debating class. In the physical crucible of a fight, something either holds up, or it doesn't. There is no debate. Disagree with me all you want. That's fine. You're entitled.

That aside, why on earth would you expect any small sword [would-be] master to accept this kind of slanted challenge? First, you have set him up with a novice, the most unpredictable and chaotic--and thus the most dangerous--of fencers. Additionally, there is no way for the master to win. If he wins the bout, the response will be "oh, but that was just a novice, it doesn't prove anything." If he loses, he will receive a double ration of scorn. You're also asking him to risk crippling injury or death from an untrained longsword assault in a way that the novice is not. (Sharps would change this, but I don't think anyone would agree to that, and rightly so.)

I would have thought, being a "master," he \ she would be able to deal with that sort of thing. Silly me. I guess fencers never risked physical injury historically. What was I thinking? The humiliation!

So why do you expect the small sword master to take up your challenge when he has nothing to win and everything to lose? For a measly fifty bucks, contingent on winning? No. To satisfy [i]your curiosity? I doubt it. Indeed, it seems kind of presumptuous of you to ask.[/i]

Ah! My favourite! From another post of mine: Of course, all I got for my trouble was the usual thing, what I like to call the [inflamatory word removed] Rote or Litany: "Why should I? What do I have to prove? What do I have to gain? Just to satisfy your curiosity? Blah blah blah. I'm not in fourth grade. Blah blah blah." There are variations, of course, but the basic formula is the same. Always the same. "Contingent on winning?" No. I clearly said, win or lose, Will. $50.00 for both parties. A good price for something common sense alone should settle on its own. Downright generous, I should think, for a foregone conclusion. Longsword wins against a sharp piece of jewlery, the wielder of which being still further hampered and restricted by codified rules and regulations, the dicates of comportment, etc. Mayhaps one shouldst learn to read, ere one criticizes, hmmmm?

I know a woman who is a well-respected Asian martial arts instructor in my area. She gets the equivalent to these kinds of challenges (she phrased it less politely) in her art all the time. She told me that, for most of the same reasons I've listed, she requires a $500.00 fee, nonrefundable and up front, to accept a challenge. This sounds like a good idea to me, though she may be charging too little.

And this is relevant how? Smacks of invention, (a bit convieniant -sp?-, don't you think?). Upfront? And what assurance do others have that your "friend" wont renege? Invention, I say.

So perhaps, Brandon, you should consider refining your experiment to make the results meaningful, and paying a fair wage for the risks you expect others to incur to feed your martial prejudices.

Price is fixed. I'm open to other suggestions, however. Expect? I just make the proposition, Will. No one's obligated to accept. Of course, that says something, too.


*Let us avoid the tiresome "Modern Masters" argument and consider this simply to be shorthand for "most respected small sword fencer we can find".[/quote]

Nope. I always take exception, Will. Call yourself "master" if you like...as long as you call me Emperor of the Universe. That sounds even to me. Personally, I like "most respected snall sword fencer we can find." More honest. And you thought you could slip it in there. Never, sir!

I'm glad you like the rapier and small sword, Will. I don't.

-B.

PS, you're one of those people who gets all flustered when somebody says that theit kid is the "cutest," aren't you? Do you start demanding evidence?

JK.

Maybe.

[Stacy Clifford]

Brandon, I realize you have strong opinions and in most cases fairly logical reasoning behind them, but you need to tone down the insolence toward our guests on this forum before I stop trying to convince Gene not to ban you. Challenging others' assertions is all well and good, but you're a guest here too and we expect a certain amount of civility, which does not include toeing right up to the line and sticking your tongue across it. Out of respect for us as your hosts, knock it off with the flame baiting, this thread has too many separate topics running already.

To everyone, let's try to keep this thread on topic about the Masters book from here on and take other subjects to a new thread.

[Sam Nankivell]

Downright generous, I should think, for a foregone conclusion. Longsword wins against a sharp piece of jewlery, the wielder of which being still further hampered and restricted by codified rules and regulations, the dicates of comportment

Though I can understand your distaste for it on an aesthetic level, there are some myths I would like to correct.

You seem to have the idea that all smallsword fencing is based around the idea of a formal duel with a salute and rules limiting fighting options. While this may be true for some fights, authors like McBane, Hope and even Angelo include both grappling and mismatched weaponry (smallsword vs. broadsword, smallsword vs. rapier, smallsword vs. polearm, etc...) in their manuals. Grappling and disarms were an active part of some duels (especially earlier ones) and mismatched weaponry a necessity for street defence. McBane's manual in particular gives many accounts of and methods for mismatched weapons, ambushes and dirty tricks.

What is interesting to note though is that during the late 18th Century there were complaints of some schools being too "sportified" and loosing touch with earnest combat, a change from earlier when sportive fighting had been taught alongside earnest fighting, such as with Meyer or the Bolognese school.

However, saying that all smallsword schools were rule obsessed and sportified is inaccurate. Like modern martial arts, you had good schools and you had McSalles.

[I. Hartikainen]

Stacy,

I found those images originally by a search in Firefox's "piclens" image browsing plugin. I searched for 'morgan', and found those. I believe the search was ran through Yahoo images or something like that, but I am not sure. It was a long time ago.

This time I didn't remember the address, so I just tried adding "2" to the link and got lucky.

- Ilkka

[Brandon Paul Heslop]

Brandon, I realize you have strong opinions and in most cases fairly logical reasoning behind them, but you need to tone down the insolence toward our guests on this forum before I stop trying to convince Gene not to ban you. Challenging others' assertions is all well and good, but you're a guest here too and we expect a certain amount of civility, which does not include toeing right up to the line and sticking your tongue across it. Out of respect for us as your hosts, knock it off with the flame baiting, this thread has too many separate topics running already.

To everyone, let's try to keep this thread on topic about the Masters book from here on and take other subjects to a new thread.

I undertand. With respect, however, one or two individuals here have posted with the express intent of bringing your above post about. I have backed off more than once, and these individuals have posted with express purpose of bringing the thread back the point you have described. While I acknowledge my own role in creating the situation, I maintain that it is not I who continues to bring it back to a level of tension. I apologize, and then one or more guests decide that they need to "burn a little karma." I am then not allowed to debate them with equal vigor. Due these conditions, I am withdrawing from this discussion.

-B.

[William Elder]

Sorry they hurt your feelings, Will.

No worries...delicate, I ain't. Stacy's right, though, we've sidetracked this thread long enough.

"Horse, meet water. The rest is up to you."

To everyone, let's try to keep this thread on topic about the Masters book from here on and take other subjects to a new thread.

Good point. My apologies.

[Jason Taylor]

I appreciate the attempt, however. Do keep posting, but can we please get over fetisizing with the erroneous-claim and the 'not-read-Fiore'-claim? I'm not going to comment more on those, unless you have something really good to say.

I had no intention of continuing along those lines. You made an assertion; I made what I felt was a necessary refutation, and you clarified somewhat (I’m assuming that’s what you meant by the “cut & paste” comment). I’m happy with that. Though I must say that I disagree with your choice of the word “fetishisizing.” If you don’t want someone to harp on comments like these, you’ll have to use more precise language; people tend to glom on to what they see as the most glaring of your ideas and spend less time on the material you really want them to read.

please do not be offended by my post, I don't wish any ill feelings. […]
Finally, I am sorry to hear you are disappointed by my comments, but honestly, what did you expect?

Well, what did you expect? My “disappointment” and the exception I took to your comments were a response to the apparent labeling of my input as valueless. This seemed like a personal swipe, or trying to turn me into a lame duck, in what I had thought was going to be a professionally toned discussion. Maybe that’s not the way you meant to paint me. Maybe that’s just the language barrier of the web getting in the way. Anyway, I’m happy to forget the whole thing. No hard feelings.

About reading the manual I am indeed suggesting that, especially since without doing so it is difficult for you to comment on what I call actual 'errors' as well as what I now accept as points of interpretation.

Thank you for that clarification.

I do appreciate you standing up for the essay, though. Maybe you could still contribute more. What did you, as a person not so familiar with Fiore, learn from it? Did it raise any further questions?

I learned a great deal of general information from the essay (the Fiore study guide; I don’t have the book yet), and since I hadn’t already had significant exposure to Fiore’s work, it helped ground me to begin my study of the text itself. From my point of view, the essay was a great primer, which I believe another poster here suggested was the primary aim of the work. I can see, however, how it might lack the technical detail that someone like yourself, who doesn’t need a primer, would be hungry for. For me, the essay is a novice’s guide to Fiore, so it works.

To be honest, when I read the essay, my initial thought was exactly "wow, that's a lot of mistakes", so why would I not wish to convey this idea to others?

Well, if that’s how you see it, then so be it. I’ve already expressed why I don’t think that that’s an accurate impression, so we don’t need to go any further into it. Anyone who really wants to know can read the thread and decide for themselves.

If you can address the factual errors at some point, that would be great! Or acknowledge them as errors, I am not challenging you to dispute them, they are not your errors after all.

I really don’t feel that’s my place. Let me make an analogy. If you were to ask me to acknowledge a grammar or punctuation error in a given text, I’d be more than happy to do so. In that field, I know what I’m doing. But during the same discussion, ask someone with four years of training in English, but who isn’t a native speaker, about the same error, the likelihood is they’ll defer to me. They can say, “Well, it looks wrong to me,” but they can’t say so with certainty, because there may be something they don’t know that I do.

John knows many things I don’t know. So to ask me to acknowledge an error is the same idea. The best I can do is say that something doesn’t seem to fit, but it’s not my place to speak for John and tell you that it’s an error. Ask me again in 15 years and you’d probably get a different answer.

I think this is how many of us on this board feel. There’s a lot we don’t know, and we’re acutely aware of it, so we don’t overstep what we feel we can adequately handle.

However, let me touch on two points. I’m going to narrow to these two points for right now because I’m spending too much time on the computer, and I don’t need my wife to get my sharp out from under the bed and start teaching me about the Zornhau.

What you describe as doing in your sd and pp training is not what Fiore talks about.

The reference to my other training was sort of a side note on my perspective. Apologies if it was confusing.

Still about multiple opponents, please cite where Fiore speaks of fighting multiple opponents?

I have not seen a reference to the type of multiple-attacker encounter you’re referring to. I wasn’t trying to imply that there was such a reference or that I had it. I think John’s intention in his passing comment was to reference a broader definition of multiple attackers than you’re using, which is what I was getting at; however, that’s back to a discussion of semantics, and it’s something that only John can really answer, so I guess we’re best off agreeing to disagree.

And one other point about which I think we can have meaningful discussion:

On page 17, last paragraph Fiore's guards are compared to those of Vadi's with the same name, but with no mention that Vadi's system is not similar to Fiore's, there really is no reason to expect the guards to match either externally or in their supposed use. Same goes on the next page about comparison to Liechtenauer - the styles are not to be expected to be similar even if they cover similar concepts.

Fiore mentions in all three prologues that he has trained with many German masters. I’m not saying he trained with Liechtenauer or anything, but is his training with German teachers not at least plausible reason for there to be a connection between the two systems, or at least to make it meaningful to examine the similarities between the styles, especially where the positions look extremely similar?

At any rate, I think I hear her rattling under the bed, so I’d better cut it off there….

Respectfully,

Jason

[Stacy Clifford]

I learned a great deal of general information from the essay (the Fiore study guide; I don’t have the book yet), and since I hadn’t already had significant exposure to Fiore’s work, it helped ground me to begin my study of the text itself. From my point of view, the essay was a great primer, which I believe another poster here suggested was the primary aim of the work. I can see, however, how it might lack the technical detail that someone like yourself, who doesn’t need a primer, would be hungry for. For me, the essay is a novice’s guide to Fiore, so it works.

A beginner's primer is basically what it's supposed to be, as is the similar piece on our website. It's a study guide to help someone get started in their detailed study of the manual, it's not intended to be a detailed technical analysis of everything covered. As such, its content is going to be somewhat subjective to what the author thinks is most important. The rest of the Masters book is similar. When we were first asked to contribute, the purpose of the book was described as an introduction to the masters and various weapons, mainly for people who are not already familiar with Renaissance fighting literature. The book is a sampler to display the range of the field and get people interested. Most of us were asked to take a selection on a particular weapon from a master we had studied and provide an introduction. Most of us provided a fair amount of technical analysis to assist in understanding, but there were no specific guidelines to that effect. John, as lead contributor and head of the organization, was given more leeway to contribute as he saw fit.

To me, the chief value of this book to people like us is that it makes available some translations that many of us didn't previously have. The analysis that comes with it is useful, but we already have the skill to do this ourselves. I don't think it's unfair to say that much of the introductory material in the book was and still is a work in progress. Mine certainly is. The authors did not expect this book to be the definitive and final authority on all the subjects contained, but an insightful introduction for the novice. I think it's helpful to keep that in mind when examining the choices made by the authors in their writing.

[Shane Smith]

I guess I'm not the only guy in ARMA who thinks the rapier is a sissyfied weapon then?

Silver was right!

As Stacy said, you guys keep it scholarly and well reasoned.

[William Elder]

I guess I'm not the only guy in ARMA who thinks the rapier is a sissyfied weapon then?

Silver was right!

As Stacy said, you guys keep it scholarly and well reasoned.

Actually, in looking back through the thread, Brandon seems to have been the only one to express that opinion directly, and Stacy has been at great pains to point out that he is not an ARMA member.


On another note, shame on me for not noticing that Brandon and Stacy are both contributors to the book we've been discussing. I wish I'd noted that earlier. Congratulations to you both.

[Stacy Clifford]

I wouldn't go so far as to say that rapier is sissyfied, but I would kind of agree that it doesn't feel quite as "manly" to me as cutting and striking weapons do. I don't think that makes it any less challenging to fight with or against though. However, I'm beginning to understand Silver's contention that it was only good for murder the more I use it.

[Steven Blakely]

Gentlmen, gentlemen, blades in there time. when the rapier and the small sword came out; especialy the small sword. this was the age of the gun. gone were the days of the Knight in armor, but for a few exception.
and i believe the rapier and small swords were more civilion weapons for street defense. Then as today can you imagine carying around a two handed long sword down the street. the rapier and especially the small sword were to quote a famouse swords men "It was a civilized weapon for a civilized age."

[Stacy Clifford]

Yes, we know, it's just our personal feelings about the weapons, nothing to get in a tizzy about. However, I believe the crux of Silver's argument is that while the rapier (and by extension smallsword) may have been civilian, its use was anything but civilized. This should be another thread however if you want to discuss it.