Conversations
with ARMA Director John Clements
PART I, PART II, PART III, PART IV,
PART V, PART VI, PART VII, PART VIII
II - ON
EXPLORATION OF FORGOTTEN FIGHTING ARTS
What advice do you have for people involved in or just now getting
into Renaissance martial arts?
I say they need to come to my class
or workshops. They need to take a look at
some of the manuals. Then they’ll see
some of just what we confidently know. On the
other hand, if I encounter intelligent skepticism that ask good questions such as,
“how do you know how well historical swords cut or how sharp they were”, etc.,
those are more complex issues to address. They
involve a range of things from experiment to archaeology to literature and art history. I
don’t believe any one group or any one person today can collect all the resources and
knowledge necessary to reconstruct on their own any of these lost arts (and certainly not
“master” one). The subject is too broad and too involved; there are too many
types of weapons and swords that experience with is required; and there are a huge number
of historical sources that have to be explored. There are enthusiasts and students
specializing in favorite source texts, yes, but I submit there has to be a collective
effort –in terms of researching, practicing, and instructing.
How do you train yourself?
Do you have any interesting thoughts as a result your
travels researching and giving workshops?
Sure, but most are beyond my ability to write about them.
They’re better left for conversation.
Where would you like to see this subject
go in five, ten, or twenty years?
That’s a good question. It would be good to see a greater
appreciation develop among students and practitioners of the actual nature of historical
armed combat and the genuine techniques real swords used.
I’d of course like to see more manuals translated and professionally
published. I’d like to see more
realistic replica weapons become available at reasonable prices, especially
foiled-rapiers. I’d like to see more
training or safety equipment for sparring. I’d
personally like to have a permanent ARMA school here in Houston, and I am positive it will
happen eventually. We’re also looking at the possibility of opening an ethnographic
sword museum in Houston.
How can a person first get started in Renaissance martial arts
now?
Well, heck….study, read, explore it, exercise, practice, train,
…and, of course, I will say join ARMA as an associate member or find one of our Study
Groups. If not that, then one of the many
historical fencing organizations and groups active around the world. But whatever a person decides to do, reading the
recommended literature is mandatory.
What makes a good swordsman?
Sheesh…that would take time
to answer. Okay...how about courage,
dexterity, agility, reflexes …and sincerity. I’ll
refrain from offering details on these at the moment.
What do you suggest is important in developing ability?
There’s a lot of course, but
I emphasize the basics. Over and over and over. Footwork,
voiding, simple strikes. These are the keys
to the art in my opinion, they are the foundation, and the thing about a foundation is you
never stop practicing it. Some people think
once they’ve learned the basics they can move on past them to advanced things.
That’s wrong in my opinion. A foundation
is vital. Think of it like a house, you can’t build walls or a roof or add floors
unless you first have solid floor, and the floor I something you will continuously walk
on.
What do you think makes someone effective, is it only
natural ability, or hard training effort, or exposure to learning opportunities?
I wrote about this back in like
’97, it’s a combination of all. You
can never be as good as you know you could be, you need to strive continuously as much as
is possible to be better, regardless of the quality of your fighting partners at any given
time. Don’t try to just overcome them,
try instead to be the best you can on your own (of course, doing this requires that we
compare ourselves with others from time to time). For
myself, I’ve always tried to hit fast and accurately and hard, but I first worked at
not getting hit at all. Good defense is the
foundation. Plus, if my opponents were say,
use to nothing but boffer fighting or using shinais or rattan under less realistic
conditions, then they were at a big disadvantage playing under more inclusive and open
rules. That’s why it’s so important not to get stuck using a ‘set of
rules’ and always fighting the same people under the same conditions. I should add that over the years I have learned
that if your sense of timing and distance is sharp, you can hit most anyone consistently,
but they will only see you as being ‘fast’ or ‘tricky’ without
realizing it’s got nothing to do with speed or fancy moves. It’s a perception thing.
What do you think is one of the larger problem areas or
concerns for students and practitioners of medieval or renaissance fencing?
Hmm…probably the lack of
lower leg strikes. I’ve written on this
before and will be doing so again. You simply
can’t ignore the legs as targets in your training or free-play. You specifically can’t outlaw hitting to the
feet or shins and expect to really have a fully developed grasp of the whole picture of
armed combat. But too many practitioners I
feel are still doing this. They have several
reasons why, from historical references to tournament rules or Fechtschulen displays. You
see however, the facts are if an opponent strikes to your legs there indeed are a number
of possible effective counters. But it does
not follow from this that you can therefore conclude such attacks are ineffective or not
worth using. On the contrary, if you don't practice these very counters by actually having
someone try striking to your lower legs, how can you expect to skillfully develop them? They don’t come automatically. And if the other guy is good at making such
attacks, well, you’re in big trouble.
What areas do you believe need the most improvement in
Medieval and Renaissance fencing studies?
Hmmm…good question. Having
given workshops or seminars in 19 different cities across north America in the past
decade, and having had some 200 students pass through my local classes, I’ve gotten a
feel for what people commonly believe about Medieval and Renaissance fighting and
weaponry. Having also seen or practiced with
various combat groups around the country and in Europe, I had a very good sense I think
for what occurs in our community. An area
that needs improvement in my opinion is the obsession with fighting on the knees or
sitting down, which as many know I abhor and consider an embarrassment to our community. To that I would definitely add the whole
edge-parry misconception. Why some
practitioners don’t realize what trauma occurs to sharp cutting swords when they are
banged together in a manner which no Medieval and Renaissance manual teaches, I just don't
understand. Why the instructions in manuals
to counter-cut the opponent’s cut in order to deflect and intercept gets
misinterpreted to mean letting them hit your edge with theirs, confounds me. Lastly, I
would have to say the problem with rapier-cutting is a big area that needs improvement. Too many folk are employing double-wide epees or
thin schlaeger blades to simulate later “true” rapiers, but are using them in a
manner that actually reflects earlier swords and styles. In the process they slice and
slash with them as if they could cut into body torsos and take off limbs. These weapons
can’t do that.
Can you expand further on that
last, what exactly do you mean?
You can’t accurately perform the cut-and-thrust style of say,
Marozzo, Manciolino, Viggianni, or Di Grassi with their short side swords by using blades
that are equivalent to those of Giganti or Capo Ferro or Thibault. The earlier blades are nowhere as agile or quick
in thrusting as the latter, and the latter simply do not have the capacity to make the
slicing and shearing cuts of the earlier. Yet,
for some reason, and it perplexes me to no end, a good many Renaissance fencing
enthusiasts now practice by pretending one is the other. They use techniques with
theatrical-epees or schlagers or flexi-rapiers as if they were much the wider and flatter
weapons, and they then make up rules for their bouting that in my opinion do not reflect
the reality of the differences. Either you are using a thick narrow blade ideal for
thrusting, or you are using a flatter wider one with more of an edge. Each type is going
to have trade-offs in what it can and can’t do, and more importantly, in how it
handles. In my experience, the more you train
and practice with accurate replicas of different blade forms –in a manner that
reflects their intended use –the clearer all this becomes. You begin to appreciate just why historically they
developed different blade forms and styles to match them.
That sounds logical, would you address that issue a bit
further?
It was covered in my book back in
’97, actually. I’ve noted some
rapier fencing practitioners don't seem to grasp that different blade cross-sections and
dimensions (weight/length) allow various types of swords to cut to different degrees. You can’t use a later rapier like it’s a
katana to slice through somebody’s torso or dismember them, let alone decapitate. But you see this kind of thing all the time
in rapier fencing practices. I’ve
watched fencers with skinny whippy blades act like their rapiers are light sabers and they
only need brush or slide it on their opponent to somehow render their limbs useless. This betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the
cutting capacity of different blade geometries and edge bevels as well as the intent of
the cutting instruction within historical rapier treatises.
Plus they see this kind of nonsense in the movies and assume it’s true. I also think a lot of it is sheer
laziness. They enjoy being able to
“cut” sloppily and don’t want to “lose that “option” in
their sparring rules. We’ve
examined all kinds of antique rapiers and test-cut on all kinds of materials with
deterrent types of replicas rapier blades. We
know what they can and can’t do. Not
only that, but the historical literature itself offers no evidence of true rapiers cutting
lethally.
A rapier could always throw an edge blow though, so what
do you call it in fighting practice?
Sure, but not a lethal one to the
body or one disabling limbs. And I am still waiting for evidence of any such
incapacitating or disabling rapier cuts in a history duel or manual. I think a problem is that in any mock-combat
practice-fighting it’s hard to reflect non-lethal or stunning actions. By this I mean, you hit someone good and you can
both recognize it would be a killing or incapacitating blow. But if you throw a light grazing blow that would
have been a harassing or distracting cut in real combat, it’s impossible to safely
simulate the effect the pain or mental shock might or might actually not have on their
capacity to continue attacking or defending. Make
sense? A lot of rapier cuts involve this very
problem.
Let me address that edge-parry issue as example of a problem area. I recall in an
issue of the stage-combat journal the “Fightmaster” a few years back where two
guys had “analyzed” the “parries” in Talhoffer’s Fechtbuch,
concluding that all the basic parries of modern saber fencing could be found in
it…one problem though…there’s not a single parry in Talhoffer! He makes no mention of blocking as they
understood it and all his techniques are counter-attacks by displacement or closing. He taught no parries. Yet, they viewed the material through the prism of
their own narrow or specialized understanding of “parry-riposte” swordplay and
thus terribly misinterpreted the whole thing. It was hideous. They even brought in Dr. Ray Smith to give his
opinion on their findings, since; about twelve years back Ray had done a dissertation on
medieval sword combat. Now, I’ve chatted with Ray at length, and he’s the first
one to admit he is not any kind of fencer or martial artist and that he examined only one
edition of Talhoffer’s work and even then, never had a translated version to rely on! So, his opinion admitted was of less value than
theirs. This illustrates the kind of problem
area I think needs improvement in this subject.
Anything else you could add to areas in need of
improvements?
Well other than the obvious need
for more and better translations of source manuals and better copies of many of them, it
would have to be the area of weapon sparring. As
you know, we have always used our free-play or contact sparring as a tool of learning, as
a way of getting better at understanding techniques.
Others use it as the end purpose, as their goal, they just
“spar”, usually for points or tournaments or what have you. We believe this misses a lot of the martial
character of the craft and leads to misconceptions, since you can’t do things in mock
combat that they would have done and the system or structure you use to fight under has to
have safety restrictions on top of that. So,
in ARMA we have very different way of approaching things and we try to keep sparring
within in historical role as practice fighting. Lastly,
I would say that understanding of follow-through and commitment in actions is crucial, and
by that I meant striking with force and intent to make good contact. You don’t have to go full-power and
full-contact all the time, but you can’t learn by only “touching” or
grazing, you have to commit to the blow whether thrust or cut or slice. Otherwise, you are
just learning to play “tag”.
Are you surprised by the occasional debate
that still crops up over edge parrying with cutting swords?
No. Not really. On the one hand there are so many new people
coming into the field who have been brainwashed by movie and TV sword fights. And then of course, many 18th and 19th
century saber/cutlass manuals did teach edge-blocks, so it’s not surprising to me. On the issue of edge parrying, the Medieval
fighting texts are quite clear on the matter. After
having explored and pursued this subject for going on 23 years now, what I personally
really find astounding is when enthusiasts trying to interpret techniques from the
historical manuals will, after parrying edge on edge, become puzzled at why the moves
don’t seem to work correctly. On top of this, they will wonder how real swords with
thin sharp edges could have stood up to such abuse while their modern, extra-thick-edged
blunt replicas get all chewed up. It never
seems to occur to them that the actions may not be making sense because they are
intentionally (and incorrectly) trying to parry attacks directly with their edges
–just like in modern saber fencing. If
they only understood the concepts of displacement, voiding, and counter-striking they
wouldn’t have such difficulty. If they conducted test cutting with accurate sharp
replicas as well, they could better comprehend why edges needed to be persevered. I’ve never met a single student who after
being properly shown flat-side displacement and counter-striking, then went back to
edge-blocking.
Could you sum up in short answer what skill in fencing is
all about?
Sure: “Hit and do not get
hit”. “Do nothing that is useless.” “Discover your adversary’s
designs and conceal your own.” ...Hey,
that all sounds pretty easy enough, doesn't it?
That
sounds like a good place to end for now.
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other portion of the
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