New Article - Which Weapon is Right for You?

[Webmaster]

A new article is now available in the public essays section:

Which Weapon is Right for You?

[Benjamin Abbott]

I find the notion of specialization problematic. Perhaps it works for us in this era, but various period masters - di Grassi, Silver, and Musashi at least - insisted upon general martial skill as the mark of prowess. If the kind of specialization Clements means leads to that result, okay, but remember historical warriors had to fight with whatever weapons were available. Masters fought with a wide range of arms, as evidenced by Silver's challenge to Saviolo: the single rapier, rapier and dagger, the single dagger, the single sword, the sword and target, the sword and buckler, & two hand sword, the staff, battle axe, and Morris pike.

[Stacy Clifford]

But what John is saying is that it's only human nature to find a favorite weapon you enjoy using more than the rest, but that in order to discover that favorite you have to learn many different weapons in the process. I can tell you as his student that John would completely agree with general martial skill being a mark of prowess, as do I. I personally take more pride in being able to fight with many weapons than having extra skill in any one, but like John I've gone through several favorite weapons over the years and it has been the better for my skill that I spent some time concentrating more on each one for a while. I think being a fighter is a lot like being a doctor -- you have to have a wide base of general knowledge before you can truly become a specialist, and if you let that general knowledge get too stale and unkempt then your prowess in your specialty is likely to suffer as well.