TrueFightScholar, A ? for you.

Kai,

I'll address the subject of your sword question on my next post, which will probably be sometime tommorrow. Have a great day.

TFS

Sothy,

For Russian knife combat, the man to check out would be Vladimir Vasilev, who teaches the Russian "Systema", which is Soviet-era special forces fighting (a blend of old and new stuff, I believe). If you want to see Russian knife work, you should look him up. Check Google.

No problem, Kai. Talk with you soon.

Ye: Unfortunately, I'm in the dreary state of Michigan...

Jason: *LOL* Well that's the problem, my goal is just to get better... Anything can and will help...

I'll keep up on those sites... i'm still digging through erratta on the HACA site.

Oh and PS, the guy in Novi MI on the HACA site seems to be a ghost, I couldn't find him...

ttt

ttt

ttt for the 6 or so people who are reading this.

But is the previous styles of fence applicable to what I am doing?

"Honestly, It's like a civil war re-creation type organization that's gone horribly wrong.... "

HORRIBLY, HORRIBLY WRONG....


Kai, I have always liked you (not in a gay way).

In my experience, the vast majority of the SCA has been a bunch of fat, badly shaven clowns who make a lot of shit up. (this is not directed at you). I am good friends with TFS. We have been attending Ren faires and fencing events for years. I have seen shit that would make you puke. I have seen guys argue to TFS about George Silver, the Romans, the Verangian guard (sp?) the samurai, and fencing and MAKE SHIT UP only to soon be schooled because TFS knows his shit very well. Both TFS and myself fence, and we both fanatically study the history of western martial arts. TFS has trained in martial arts and writes. I have extensively trained in and currently train in martial arts. We try our best to interpret techniques and theories from the past, but before all we realize that WE ARE ONLY THEORIZING. Many people I have met in the SCA will actually claim that what they are doing is a martial art, and of the same quality that was practiced hundreds of years ago by European masters ready for war. This is of course ridiculous....but I digress....

In my opinion....if you are fighting with any moderately long, cut and thrust blade...you should probably have make your blade hand your lead hand. This should be especially stressed with a sword. If you want to get some skills at moving a blade around, I would suggest starting with (although it is a watered down sport) western fencing. Western fencing is unfortunately pretty much all the technique we have left of western sword arts (although some clowns will claim otherwise). Modern foil and epee is derived from 18th century and early 19th century smallsword (thrusts only). Modern Saber fencing may be all we have left of 19th century military saber and singlestick. When I say singlestick I dont mean a kali/escrima stick, I mean a well balanced, sword length, wooden tapered stick with a basket hand gaurd. This was used as a practice weapon and a tool in a rough sport that dates at least back to 18th century England. In modern saber fencing, both cuts and thrusts are allowed, but no leg shots. And by cuts, I mean a good hack, not any of that light "draw cut" garbage from SCA fencing. TFS and I have made some singlesticks and have experimented fencing with them. Quite an eye opener. You might also want to try some filipino martial arts classes for some ideas about using a smaller blade and some of the angles of attack.

If you haven't already, I suggest reading George Silver's "Paradoxes of Defense", whick was written in 1599. George Silver was an English weapons master who was fed up with the pussyfication of the Italian rapier shools and the unrealistic techniques that the Italian masters were teaching to Englishmen. He did not like the rapier. The book is FILLED with common sense regarding weapons and hand to hand fighting. Here is a link.

http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/paradoxes.html

TFS is probably eating. I will tell him about this thread.

BTW, interesting to note on the effectiveness of fencing.

John peretti supposedly held a knife tournament with marked rubber blades. He called up many Filipino Martial arts instructors and some other guys to compete. The guy that won it hands down was a Russian fencer.

Kai, start to look for what? modern fencing? Do internet searches, where do you live?

Here is a link to a few fencing clubs, the first one is historical fencing.

http://www.aemma.org/

This one is fencing quarterly magazine

http://users.townsqr.com/ale/fqm.htm

This is a forum kind of like this one, but very much not a place to post hotties.

http://www.swordforum.com/

This is a site by a cool fencing author:

http://www.swordhistory.com/home.html

That should be some start for you.

Ye: *LOL* I don't do SCA, I can't take myself seriously enough for that... So what I do is near fantasy... Keeps from having to spend years researching just to find out later you are wrong anyways. And yes, that means I'm pretty far down on the geek list, but it's fun as fun as paintball...

I am very interested in western blade arts and such, but I know that the best we can do at this point is approximate and theorize. Also, since this is for something that's a cousin of anything resembling fighting, I am mostly looking for something that will help me in the 'sport' of fighting we do there.

Now, I am not alien to learning the real arts along the way, but unltimately, I'm looking for something very euclidian...

Thank you for the site, it's brillant and not in old english so I can read without my face hurting... And for the compliment, nice to know some don't think of me as a troll...

Keep up the great posts and thank you for your help...

I'm happy that I kept on checking this thread. It's archived as well...

Are there any Russian schools of knife fighting that would be useful to look at then? I believe SSonnon has referred to it before...

No problem. Where are you located? TFS and I are in NJ.

Kai-

Just a couple of points. I'm not exactly sure what it is that you are looking for in training. I'm proceeding under the assumption that you want to do cut&thrust with dagger. If this is what you know you want to do, you need to seek out groups that do that. Modern fencing is probably not going to help much, IMO. Ditto for the SCA, although there is occasionally overlap with the SCA, they aren't exactly held in the highest regard by a lot of people.. In addition to the sites Jared mentioned, here are a few more:

This is the flyer for the last WMA convention in Lansing. A couple of folks, including the contact person, taught at the convention, although I'm not sure what they taught. You could try to contact them to look for groups in the area.
http://artofcombat.org/public/thespis/convention/aocflyer.htm

The haca site has someone in Michigan, you could contact them and see what they do.
http://www.thehaca.com/Practice/partners.htm

Lastly, here is a WMA practice partner database. I'm not sure how big it is because I never felt like registering to find out. You may also find someone in Michigan.
http://wma.411now.net/

While I was digging around for these sites, I see others and yourself have posted some stuff. So just ignore this if it is irrelevant to your goals.

Jason

You two are in NJ? And here I had some small modicum of respect for you guys up until now. Man, you never know about people.

:-)

It's a geek thing... Where people pretend to actually know history... The Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc. Honestly, It's like a civil war re-creation type organization that's gone horribly wrong....

ttt

ttt

I would advise going in for modern fencing, as opposed to the historical stuff -- if you are looking for a base of skill, then try on the historical stuff with an understanding of the correct fundementals.