The Armour Archive

Russ Mitchell

Hey, Wil, I have a relatively light-pull Magyar type (not quite so much a toy as the "Scythian," but definitely different than normal bows) that I'm currently getting little use out of, and as I am returning to Hungary in the fall, I can easily replace it. The guy stringing the bow on the site is th...

Russ Mitchell

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>By training to pull blows, and by desiring not to hurt his opponent with a potentialy lethal weapon, the practitioner of HWMA is phsycologicaly limiting what he can learn with either wasters or blu...

Russ Mitchell

**Not a practicing pollaxe man.** Responding to the grip only, in Grand Baton we use this, and it can be quite versatile and powerful-- I'm coming to prefer it to the regular grip. But anytime you see it, it's a clue that you're going to see that guy doing a lot of pivoting in order to avoid said "e...

Russ Mitchell

Mine, Vitus, is to leave the safety of the rational and allow passions to be felt and to emerge. Hitting is not hard for me; hitting hard is very hard, mentally, up in the noggin... spent years before I was able to cry, when it was appropriate and good to do so. The Russians are onto something with ...

Russ Mitchell

try this for a general overview: it's typically English, insofar is it ignores practically everything that's not Norman or French, but it does give a decent sense of period. http://chaos1.hypermart.net/medi/ This one has spiffy commentary, and has big holes in it, but hey, what doesn't... and the ne...

Russ Mitchell

[QUOTE] What is this tournament in Chicago that Chef has mentioned? Western Martial Arts Workshop in September. There will be men there who know what honor means, and if it grants us some peace here on the AA, I'll be teaching there, and will be happy to arrange for witnesses, if both parties can be...

Russ Mitchell

Well, we'd kill to have a guy like you in our savate salle, at which point we'd mix it up so often that it wouldn't be worth commenting on (Ladies and Gentlemen, for your edification, I'd like you to contemplate a PoD flying spinning back-heel kick... kind of like combining a helicopter and a refrig...

Russ Mitchell

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Gwen: I'd be interested to hear the response if someone were to tell these 2 that what they're doing doesn't recreate medieval battle, or that they were "standing around to be ...

Russ Mitchell

Way too dangerous. Things break, and most of the waster-using groups are folks coming from outside of "heavyish" fencing, and neither have, nor pretend to have, the control to go at it with anything resembling force safely, unless lots and lots of protective material is in play (in which case they'd...

Russ Mitchell

Kudos to Alail/Scott, and to Matt up in the frozen north... they are really good guys to deal with. Matt's wife made me these really cool padded cuisses. We had a slight oops which was nobody's fault, and they made a generous offer to adjust for it. Scott let me buy his mail shirt off of him (Hi Sco...

Russ Mitchell

What, you've got **another** customer you're in the process of ripping off, while you're busy pleading that you can't afford to eat and have electricity?

Geez, are you a jerk.

Russ Mitchell

Looks like a good kit for a Lombard persona. Those of you who have seen it... how were those splints constructed? Eyeing it in jpg form, I can see about three different methods possible...

Russ Mitchell

Though, Torr, I'd seriously recommend dropping the extra cash to have it fitted to your size... this is a huge step up from what was offered, but if your portrayal is courtly, you need it tailored. Now, if you're part of retinue, or something on those lines, not a big deal, because you'd get castoff...

Russ Mitchell

Osprey will give you a beginning. Email me at russathome@earthlink.net and tell me what in specific you're looking for. Hungary used to have extensive libraries and vast writings, but three hundred years of war and occupation has left us very little in the way of written records. Also, the Corvinus ...

Russ Mitchell

David, (First, what Chef said!) I have not had a chance to ever examine any arms and armor that was Vlach or Moldavian. (Moldavia and Wallachia existed in the renaissance, were Cuman and Tatar and Pecheneg in the middle ages. Romania as a political entity is a thoroughly modern affair, and when you ...

Russ Mitchell

No butted mail. Period. I wouldn't normally call Hungary under Turkish influence if you're in the middle ages... serious chronology problems in that statement... Hungarian mail, does, however, and Steve, if you're lurking, this is why we haven't gone more seriously into an order from you, retain mos...

Russ Mitchell

Weapons discussion... A word regarding falchions: they work pretty much like swords do. Unless you have evidence to the contrary, which I would love to see, my research involving falchions and similar weapons has been that they're often about the same weight as a regular short sword... this is not a...

Russ Mitchell

Can you email me the shipping confirmation for the sabres? I'm having trouble with my apartment complex, and things that may or may not have been delivered....

Russ Mitchell

Actually, you should be MORE, not less, haughty, in your Tatar get-up... that slouch is weird... I really like the small-child-smacking part of this; can we come out there and beat some, too?

Russ Mitchell

This is fair warning for any friends and acquaintances of James Davis, who has ceased to either return calls or answer either emails or the telephone. If you like this guy, motivate him to get in touch with me NOW, because in short order, possibly as soon as two weeks, but no longer than four, I am ...

Russ Mitchell

Check your email, Bill.

Russ Mitchell

Squared... the originals are kind of "worn down pyramids" Don't you like those light axes? I'm a big fan of the fokosbalta and fokosbard, though I've always wanted to try out a csakanybalta (substitute hooking spike for knob) and that kettofokos. That sphere, btw, is important in that design... you ...

Russ Mitchell

They're good. They're not the end-all and be-all, but they're good cutters in general, and if you break them, he'll fix them. That warranty is the main reason I'd consider getting one -- otherwise, for the money I'd go elsewhere, just because the style isn't what I'm usually looking for... but if yo...

Russ Mitchell

I'll scan and email tonight: I'll be home all night, for once...

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emailed to the address in your profile, mi amigo. I sent you sketches of axes and maces.

[This message has been edited by Russ Mitchell (edited 04-23-2002).]

Russ Mitchell

Russ Mitchell

I think this is the kind of place I could make an online home in.... but, um, Bob... when was Charlemagne crowned emperor? You've got bad timeline problems again... (which isn't to detract or to be a bastard, but when your site's called "more perfectly period," it helps to get the periods right). wh...

Russ Mitchell

I'm seeing a whole lot of edit signs, and a slew of bids for items that aren't there... so assuming the sabres and smallsword are left, I'd like to get in on them. But I don't know what I'm looking at with weapons inside scabbards... are these windlass as in way too heavy, but solid, or Indian-make ...

Russ Mitchell

YMMV!! Only if you want butt-ugly linen... try using onion peels, brown, or purple, or else crushed boysenberries... there's all kinds of stuff you can use, but for heaven's sake, not tea bags. Soak it in the stuff while it's hot, and then put it in a cold vinegar rinse. You get colors that look a m...

Russ Mitchell

You have Nicolle's western euro green book? Look on page 513, for Hungary, and particularly at 797a and 797c... now, I don't know *where* he gets that these are bronze... I'm sure one or two in bronze existed.. but the ones I'm familiar with are just plain old iron. (of the two, 797a is the one I'm ...

Russ Mitchell

Actually, I'm looking for a mace head as well, one of the polovitsi/seljuk types with the band supporting four small pyramidal heads...

Sasha, you might wind up very popular on the mace front...

Russ Mitchell

He's got 580 of mine (400 for a mail shirt, 180 for a coif)... I called for several months without actually managing to get him on the line -- spoke to his wife, who finally said, I think two weeks ago, that she'd send a refund... haven't seen it yet. As far as I'm concerned, Ancient Armory has been...

Russ Mitchell

This comes up a lot in savate (I'm really untrained when it comes to longsword stuff... have just attended a seminar or two), where the basic strategy is "hit him until he stops moving." And, actually, we're dealing with one of those factors right now, mostly because I've tended to try to one-shot t...

Russ Mitchell

and can force them to fight in that form... Then Edwin, remind me not to mess with you, because the number of people who can actually do that to another skilled fighter are few and very far between. That's like saying "power comes from the hips..." ever...

Russ Mitchell

--warning, not SCA member-- I agree with Rhys. I played some with Sir Duncan, while I was balancing my loads, and found that he did a great many things out of Ringeck as far as a bastard or greatsword were concerned. He didn't realize most of it consciously, because it had simply become an integral ...

Russ Mitchell

Usually Marshal and I are on such opposite ends of the spectrum that I disagree practically on reflex... but having seen living practitioners of at least half of the world's better-known martial arts, I concur about boxers. There is a tremendous difference between a man who knows boxing, and a man w...

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