a question of Western Martial Arts 'styles'

[Brian Hunt]

Hi all,

since things are a little quiet here, I thought I would post a new topic I have had simmering in the back of my mind for a while now.

In EMA everyone talks about their style, whether that may be karate, kung fu, jujitsu, etc. And whether or not their style is better than someone elses. I have noticed that there seems to be somewhat of a trend towards a 'style' in western martial arts. Some people say they do Fiore, others do Silver, over here we have a german style, over there an english style, and then there are the Italian styles. Or I have seen others who say I do 18th century arts, or 17th century, or 16th, and so on. I tend to think of all of the 'styles' or writings of the masters as being a contributer towards my goal of becoming an excellent western martial artist. I don't find myself thinking, ok - today I am only doing Fiore, and nothing else that is not Fiore is going to interfere.

I do study from one manual at a time, but I also cross study. I don't consider any of this information to exist by itself in a bubble, for me to move from one bubble to another, and the bubbles never intersect one another. I am trying to create within myself a whole art from what I see as pieces of a complex puzzle, that is not a complete picture. After all, most information does not exist in a vacumn, or as an island unto itself.

I am not trying to say that specialists are bad, but I am not sure there is enough of the art in just one master's writings to truly make me a complete martial artist. No matter how complete that master's writings may appear, there will still be things missing. I think that to really understand what was done historiclly, there must be 'cross-contamination', not this concept of styles, or individual training in only one master, exclusinary to other works. What do you think? What is your opinion? Do we need to be a 'stylist',exclusinary to other teachings, or do we need to be a generalist and try to construct the art from whole cloth?

Waiting for replies with interest.

Brian Hunt.

[Randall Pleasant]

All of the manuals that I have seen, such as Ringeck, Goliath, Vadi, Silver, and Fiore, etc., contain methods, techniques, and principles on swordsmenship. None of them contain anything I consider "style". My personal opinion is that the different styles currently discussed by WMA scholars are a recent creation born out of narrow interpretations rather than anything historical. Instead of talking about styles, we should talk about Liechtenauer's methods/techniques, Fiore's methods/techniques, Silver's methods/techniques, etc. We need a much, much better understanding of the methods, techniques, and principles before we start trying to pull other things out of the manuals.

Once we get past this thing about style maybe we can start asking questions like: [*]How does Liechtenauer counter technique A in this context vs. how Valid handles it? [*]When sparring, which one of these counters work best for me in a similar context?

[Guest]

Unless one is Superman one can't do research seriously on any martial field of WMA at once. One also has his preferences and I would not really ask to small sword researchers to be proficient with the long sword if they do not want to, small sword fencer of the past did not use long swords as much as long sword fencers did not use small swords <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" /> Different periods, you know. One can be curious, cross study etc..., but there is no DUTY to be complete and by the way ARMA does not do small sword, sabre, spadroon, backsword (the stick)... It has selected a field of research itself, a broad one. I do study weapons of later periods, why should I feel compelled to pursue true skill with any earlier one? I just do what I like to do <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />
And, after all, specialists do produce interesting and usefull study material from which any one of us can gain knowlege, so let's not discount their role in WMA, there are still a lot of things to discover.
Carlo