I know little more than nothing about swords and martial arts, but this is what i think.
Well, i did´t know that African martial arts existed, but that doesn´t surprise me. African warriors are pretty skilled. Some days ago i saw two warriors( I think they are Massai) fighting with long sticks, and they were performing the fight pretty fast. Those warriors were very skilled, but the purpouse of the fight wasn´t killing the other warrior, it was a fight between members of different tribes. One of the rules of this fight was not to attack an opponent when he is in the floor (I can´t remember any more). Massai warriors fight even against male lions, and if you don´t know how to use a spear and a shield properly as almighty God demands, be sure of becoming the lion´s meal. Surelly a lot more cultures had martial arts techniques for their warriors.
The Hausa's Gangi not only perform their weapons based martial art for demonstrations purposes during festival ocassions, they use them in real disputes after the hunting expeditions when one Gangi challenges the hunter/associated Gangi prowess of another. Serious injury and death are often the results, so these are not armchair enthusiasts.
About this quote, medieval martial arts are not only for demostration purpouses, i mean, you are not going to kill anybody, but in the past those techniques were used in war, to shred blood. So demonstration purpouse during festival ocassions, could be, but remember that Japanese samurais, European Knights and Massai warriors are trained to kill, not to entertain.
The use of one versus two swords may be cultural/systems based as well. Given the emphasis of thrusting in the European traditions, as opposed to, say, my own African traditions (such as that of the Gangi, whose weapons use features double sword and" machete" based techniques as well as Kaskara use-the Gangi are the traditional warrior/hunters of the Hausa- examples of whom are found across Western Africa- speaking peoples of Nigeria), it does not appear to have been of practical use in the European based systems.
And remember that weapons wich can seem useless with some techniques can be very effective with others, you see, if you try to half sword with a Katana shurely you will lose your fingers, so Katanas aren´t for practical use in european half sword tachniques. But Katanas are very effective in kendo techs. Someone who studies kendo or another samurai martial art will not find of any utility straight arming swords, two handers or longswords, but in hands of a medieval knight those straight ¨archaic clumsy things¨(Ironically, i had problems to say such thing without explanation
) became lethal weapons capable of dismembering while being unsharpened, very versatile weapons. See the rapier, a kendo student will surely see a rapier and will laugh, but the rapier, used with proper techniques is a very lethal weapon, this techniques are not foun in kendo, and is not practic try those moves with Katanas or wakizashis, but this doesn´t useless or non practical rapier swords. So Machete or twin sword techniques of Nigerians can seem to be non practical from the Flos duellatorum, but with African martial arts techniques can be very lethal. Weapons or their combination are not made to suit in every martial art, For example when you see an abysinian shotel (A double edged sword with a semicircular curvature) you soonly discover that is not good at stabing, or slashing, not for using Dei Liberi techniques, but those swords are made to grip, and with the style of abysinians those shotels can be deadly (Maybe you can grip your opponent´s neck
) The same goes for japanese Kamas, out of ninjutsu those weapons doesn´t seem to be very practical, but they are.
Que Dios los bendiga.
P.D. Are bastard swords more versatile than two handers? (Talking about being in the middle of the battlefield foot fighting against heavy and lightly armored senemies)
Non nobis Domine...
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