Greetings from Brazil!

[Rafael Zaia]

Hello to you all, I recently discovered Arma, and I always wanted to know more about medieval swords, fighting, techniques. But here is the question.Where should I start, I already have a wooden waster, I was wondering if you guys could recommend some books and stuff, I also wanted that it would be on internet, because most of the books I saw they doesn't ship to Brazil, so it's kinad hard to learn this in here.

Thanks.

[Greg Coffman]

Hello to you all, I recently discovered Arma, and I always wanted to know more about medieval swords, fighting, techniques. But here is the question.Where should I start, I already have a wooden waster, I was wondering if you guys could recommend some books and stuff, I also wanted that it would be on internet, because most of the books I saw they doesn't ship to Brazil, so it's kinad hard to learn this in here.

Thanks.

I highly recommend looking through the enormous amount of material right here on the ARMA website.

Modern Study of Renaissance Martial Arts
http://www.thearma.org/study.htm
Core Assumptions and the Exploration of Historical Fencing
http://www.thearma.org/essays/core_assumptions.html
There is more than enough reading material to keep you occupied for some time:
http://www.thearma.org/essays.htm

And then you should also start reading some of the primary sources, the texts of the historical fighting instructors themselves! I recommend Sigmund Ringeck's commentary on Johann Liechtenaur, http://www.thearma.org/Manuals/Ringeck.htm. Liechtenaur's teachings on the longsword is kind of the root instruction on fighting among the German language sources. The Goliath commentary, which can be found on this page http://www.schielhau.org/, is about the same text. For a book, I would recommend Jeffery Forgeng's translation of Joachim Meyer's teachings with cover a the spectrum of longsword, dussack, dagger, rapier, and polearms, http://www.amazon.com/Art-Combat-German-Martial-Treatise/dp/1403970920/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262879423&sr=8-1.

As you go along in your reading, or course practice the movements with your waster, but post any questions you have on interpretation or terms. There is a lot at first when you are trying to learn the vocabulary of Renaissance Martial Arts. Good luck!

[Rafael Zaia]

Thank you for all this material, and thnak you for your patience, some words are quite hard for me because the neglish is not my native language so...
I have another question, what is the dieferrence in the Italian and the German schools of swordsmanship?

[Greg Coffman]

I have another question, what is the dieferrence in the Italian and the German schools of swordsmanship?

Mostly vocabulary and teaching style. In ARMA, we believe that fighting with the longsword was generally the same all over Europe and didn't really differ that much between, say, Italy and Germany. There is quite a bit more German sources, quite a bit more translated into English, and they are easier to understand and learn from than the Italian works.

[Jonathan Newhall]

The only real difference between the German and Italian systems is that the German system came "first". The primary texts from Italy came some years later than the German ones mostly did, and as such they tend to have more content (stances, grappling, and such things) when compared to the German systems.

At their core they are very similar, however.

[Randall Pleasant]

The only real difference between the German and Italian systems is that the German system came "first". The primary texts from Italy came some years later than the German ones mostly did, and as such they tend to have more content (stances, grappling, and such things) when compared to the German systems.

At their core they are very similar, however.

The Italians had more names for stuff but they clearly didn't have more content. Reading the Getty version of Fiore is like walking through a desert compared to reading Ringeck, Goliath, Döbringer, etc. For example, in a bind Fiore explains that you can thrust or cut to the other side of the adversary's blade but he says nothing about why one or the other, where as the Liechtenauer students said that you do one or the other in regard to the amount of blade pressure from the adversary.

[Jonathan Newhall]

By more content I mean more suggested ends, not necessarily more explanatory statements. Some stances the Italian master(s) tended to teach did not even exist in the German teachings, for instance, and were inventions of later generations of masters.

Generally the farther you get, chronologically, from Liechtenauer, the more "stuff" there is that subsequent masters invented. Most of that stuff is Italian because the Italian systems had a later average "publishing" date, so to speak.