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Main => The Library => Topic started by: Sword Chick on 2010-12-29, 13:45:59
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Hello,
I thought some of y'all might be interested in knowing (and perchance haven't heard yet) that Freelance Academy Press has a downloadable video with a companion PDF on an anonymous messer treatise from the Glasgow Fechtbuch. It's well done, informative, inexpensive and you get it instantly. Pretty good deal.
I got it yesterday and have only watched it once so far. I especially enjoyed it because Das Bill had me working through some of those plays in my lessons before the holiday break.
You can get it here:
http://www.freelanceacademypress.com/GlasgowMesser.aspx
Enjoy!
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This looks awesome. I think I need to grab that.
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It is. You do.
Remember, Das Bill said we are going into messer in class after the break. Time to get ahead of the curve. :)
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Anything related to sword instruction is awesome...I have very little knowledge regarding messers or how they were used; I just thought of them as single-edged swords much like a falchion or backsword. I am learning, slowly.
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A lot of the messer techniques will apply to fairly average sized single-hand swords, but there are a few things that really are meant for the way the messers were built. The nagel comes to mind, which is a protrusion out the side of the guard. Some of the techniques assume you have one. Otherwise, it's all pretty adaptable.
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Huh...singlehand swords is where it's at for me...guess I should sign up for a class at some point so I can actually learn this stuff in real time.
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Absolutely! You won't regret it. It's a blast. :)
The historical techniques for single-hand usually fall into two categories-- Messer, and Sword & Buckler, since that's what most of the currently available surviving material covers. Either approach will give you a really good grasp of how to fight with a single sword.
Longsword tends to be taught a lot since it also historically was a good teaching weapon. What you learn can be scaled down to a single-hand sword, and also scaled up to a spear or poleaxe. There's also a lot of good surviving material on it. But you don't have to start there if you don't want to. Personally I found it easier to start there and then work in some of the added complexity of having your other hand do something different.