My goal is to try and form a complete system using only his teachings. If this is not possible I will fill in the gaps with other manuals from that period.
http://jfgilles.club.fr/escrime/bibliot ... index.html
Some inquiries to the board:
1) Are the two men in Part 8, Engraving 1 standing in a "boxing stance" (Especially H)?
2) Notice in Part 11, Engraving 1 that the punch is vertical, not horizontal? Has this been the case in other works from the same period?
3) If H in P8E1 is standing in a "boxing stance", how would his fist travel from his side there to the final destination (The other's face) and from where would the power be generated?
4) In these illustrations and Part 4, Engraving 4, Part 11, Engraving 8, 10, and Part 13, Engraving 1 I think we can see some clear stances. But especially in P8E1 and P11E10 I feel that there is a lack of guards which leads me to question whether these are "boxing stances" or not.
5) For Part 1, Engraving 3 the text reads to grab the attacker by the wrist (In the original) but in the illustration that hand is clearly shown to be behind the attacker and instead the left arm is grabbed. Any thoughts on that?
6) Another thing that I would incorporate into the system is the foundation training methods of the time. Does anyone have any information regarding this?
7) I have been searching online and contacting with friends and family at home but have found almost no information on Nicolaes Petter. I would like to know more about who he was, where his techniques came from (Experience), and how exactly he died. Searching in Dutch surprisingly also yielded no results.
Some of the dagger defense techniques in Part 11 involve the attacker trying to draw the dagger from a small sheath. As this would not be the case now does anyone have any ideas as to how these examples could be "modernised"?
9) In Part 10, Engraving 2 (For example) I think that an ideal follow-up would be to strike the attacker in the face with an elbow. The question is: Would he (A man in that period)?
Interpreting techniques is one thing, but trying to find out what they would have done next is another matter. We can look all over the book and see how many situations each given technique (Or slight variants of it) would work in, but if an elbow strike there is really the best solution from a combative perspective or protecting your head with your off hand while punching seems like an obviously good idea even though it wasn't in the manual when does it stray too far from the source material?
I mean, we must stay true to the work, but not at the cost of effectiveness in a situation when the modern student of self defense arts need these techniques the most. That said, I think that Petter's work, overal, is quite timeless in its function. There are some obvious gaps, like multiple attackers and guns, but, then again, there are some situations that we just can't prepare for and even if we did might not survive so ...
The question is: Would someone of Petter's time incorporate elbow strikes (Many examples of knee strikes in the manual)?
Thanks to everyone for wading through this first juggernaut of a post. I'm sure I'll have more questions later as I continue my study and I highly recommend some of the techniques that I have already tried. Some of the techniques are similar to Qinna techniques that I have learned here in China and it is quite obvious that some of the strikes are directed at acupressure points as well. All in all I have found it, and other European works, not lacking anything that Asian Martial Arts have to offer. That is, except for the mystical
(Can I say that?)
