The Fight Book (National Geographic)

[Sir Edward]

Featuring John Clements and Terry Jones:

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/medieval-fight-book-5366/Overview#tab-Videos/09511_00

It could be interesting. But I really would prefer them to interview Christian Tobler instead of John Clements. Personal bias of mine, I suppose.

[Sword Chick]

I have to agree with you there!   

[Sir William]

Why the bias?

[Sword Chick]

I can't speak for Sir Ed.  As for myself, I confess, part of it is personal bias in that I consider Mr. Tobler a friend.  On a slightly more objective level, I am continually impressed by the scholarly work that Mr. Tobler produces.  You can find a sample here:

http://www.freelanceacademypress.com/

[Sir Edward]

Why the bias?

I agree with what Sword Chick said. But also, John Clements has done a really good job of sectioning himself and ARMA off from most of the rest of the HEMA/WMA community.

[Sir William]

Understood.

[Das Bill]

Looks like it should be entertaining. Take it with a grain of salt, because from their promo alone I can already tell they're working off some outdated theories. For example, they seem to be going off the idea that Talhoffer's illustrations of the duel between a man and woman might possibly be a thing that Talhoffer made up (the woman in the video makes a point of prefacing her opinions with that). That was a theory some 15 years ago. There are dozens of other manuscripts that show this type of duel and have pretty specific descriptions of the laws and customs.

I look forward to catching this when it's out. Though I do wish people would stop making it sound like Talhoffer is so unique and unusual.

[Sir James A]

I took one class with John Clements last year, and it opened my eyes to a number of WMA things I never knew. ARMA was one of the first "local" forums I came across, there was a post about him coming out to teach a class near my house. He was a good instructor. At first, I was interested in becoming an ARMA member, but after hearing the part about "and what you learn is not to be taught to anyone else", as essentially a "what happens in ARMA, stays in ARMA" feeling, I realized it's not the place for me.

The best thing about the class is that it brought to my attention there are lots of groups if I learned terms like HEMA, WMA, KDF, etc, that I never knew existed.

I set myself a reminder for the show, and hopefully I can record it and post a digital copy of it for those unable to watch it. My tech is, unfortunately, medieval as well, as I'll need to record it on a VCR (like from the museums) and then convert it to PC format. I'll post up a link if I can get it done and the quality isn't horrendous.

[Sir William]

"and what you learn is not to be taught to anyone else" - what kind of happy crap is that?

[Sir Edward]

"and what you learn is not to be taught to anyone else" - what kind of happy crap is that?

How very medieval of them... Yes, they generally also take a stance that they are the only one true reconstruction of the sword arts, and the rest of the community are years behind. It gets tiring seeing those arguments crop up.

[Sir Brian]

"and what you learn is not to be taught to anyone else" - what kind of happy crap is that?

Hehe sounds about on par with “The Great Pumpkin” cult of Charles M. Schulz. 

[Sir William]

Oh!  If you'd said "like the Church of Scientology" I would've understood implicitly.  I find such pronouncements to be ludicrous when referring to certain subjects.  I mean, unless of course there's a Wanderer about who lived during the times they proclaim themselves to be indentifying with, like the artes martial that they practice, for example.  There's no feasible way to corroborate what they claim to know, beside a few treatises and fechtbuchs that have survived the passage of time.

[Sir James A]

"and what you learn is not to be taught to anyone else" - what kind of happy crap is that?

How very medieval of them... Yes, they generally also take a stance that they are the only one true reconstruction of the sword arts, and the rest of the community are years behind. It gets tiring seeing those arguments crop up.

Yep. And the name of his school, "The Iron Door", makes it even more obvious.

I'm just glad we have people like Das Bill and the others who are willing to teach without requiring a vow of silence.

[Sir Wolf]

hear hear

[Sir Edward]

hear hear

Dude, you got that right. I see so many people type "here here"... and I just want to correct all of them, but bite my tongue.



Anyway, did anyone catch this last night? I did.

It was OK. It had some good stuff in it, but spent most of its time on siege engines and the like. It touched on the judicial duels, and put a lot of emphasis on the pommel strikes. They did some interesting experiments in creating a diving suit, talked about cannons a little, etc.

The narrator said "platemail" at one point, and I cringed. John Clements also said "chainmail", but these days it seems you have to say that for people to know what you're talking about.