Miscellaneous > The Sallyport

Gotta get this off my chest.

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Sir William:
My only point was, we really don't know how it went down.  Sure, we have treatises and manuals, but to me they are 'stylized' versions of what actually goes into said art- I think the fechtbuchs we have access to are great for learning the techniques- but you can learn forms all day and still not be 'ready' for an encounter.

Some excellent points have been made during this discussion and no one's flying off the handle or getting overly assertive because they feel their particular choice was slighted...man I love that.

Sir Edward:
Sir William, there's a lot of truth to what you said.

Several of the manuscripts describe the techniques not as  "this is the only way you must do things", but rather "here are some things you can do that will work". They're meant to serve as examples, and through them you can learn to fight.

Sir William:
That's how I look at it...great building blocks but I find that the true masters of their craft got that way not by necessarily adhering to strict tenets (other than don't be the one getting killed) but by applying what they've learned with what they've encountered in real situations and incorporating all of that as part of their repertoire.

I liken it to the sport of boxing...most all boxers, amateur and professional are taught the same principles, but as we all know, they all experience differing degrees of success based on natural talent, aptitude, skills/athleticism as well as training.  The training is essential to learning the basics, but it is up to the individual fighter to incorporate them and build upon what they've learned.  There used to a term that got bandied about quite a bit in the late 90s early 00s - 'continuous improvement process' - a somewhat spurious notion in the business world, but certainly applicable here.

Sir James A:
In SCA combat to wrap-shot someone has little fear; you can almost bind your opponent's shield/weapon simply by proximity, and the primary thing you leave yourself open to as a counter is them throwing a wrap at you, and little else. Historically, it would probably turn to ringen/wrestling/throw (as most fechtbuchs show); in SCA context, you can't be thrown, you can't grab weapons/arms... it's an inherent "safety net" to close in and wrap.

The primary "problem" with wrap shots is that while it makes a great sound with rattan for a "kill", it seems a less efficient idea with a real sword. The generation of force on a wrap shot is considerably less than a "well planted, well struck" blow like a forward-stepping zornhau. More (proper) power, bigger wound, faster kill(s). The up side is many people seem to have worn less armor on their back/rear, so getting a good strike with less or no armor is less important since there could be less "resistance" to getting at flesh. However, you'd have to be *quick* at getting in to strike and kill - quick enough that your opponent doesn't grapple you or bind your weapon.

SCA has some similarity to late-period tournaments where they used wooden clubs instead of swords, and somewhat similar to the "counted blows" competitions. It has it's ties to being historically based, and I've found it to be, in general, pretty good about not claiming it's 100% historical. I'd have no problem with SCA publications being used as a supporting source for the sake of discussion, as long as it wasn't in an attempt to prove that "historically they did this, because the SCA does, and the SCA is a historical society, so....".

I'm surprised (or maybe not) to hear that a moderator was the one who said that. You have to be careful in other people's sandboxes, sometimes they get snippy and seem to have no "people skills". I had a post deleted and a warning issued by a moderator on another forum because I posted that Medieval Fight Book (history channel show) was available on YouTube for people who didn't or couldn't see it. I didn't even post a link to it. First time I ever had any communication with the moderators.

"It's copyrighted material. Distributing copyrighted material in any manner is illegal. I'm not here to teach you copyright laws, however, and so trust that you will look elsewhere for information if you are interested in the subject."

What really pissed me off even more was that other people posted about Youtube after my post was pulled, and nothing happened to their posts. I was "special". I rarely go there any more, but I rarely posted there and there wasn't much interesting anyway save for a few random threads ... so no loss for me. :)

Sounds like you might want to just ignore that forum, if that's an option?

Allan Senefelder:

--- Quote --- Right now all I see in the American HEMA is a bunch of people arguing over how to do a simulated unarmoured duel with matched longsword simulators and no Hand-to-Hand moves.

--- End quote ---

I can't attest to any other WMA events as the only one I attended was the various Chivalric Weekend events held northeast of me and this certainly wasn't the case at that particular series of events. The last year it was held there were something like 15-20 armoured challange bouts, one instructor got his ankle broken practicing Ott's wrestling and there were classes on both armoured and un armoured combat and a variety of weapons and people bouting all over the place when not taking classes as well as an archery tournament. Things must be very different at other WMA gatherings.

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