WMA and SCA heavy not totally incompatible

[Magmaforge]

2) Lack of knowledge on how arms work against armor. That is what most of the book learning of the manuscripts are all about.

The manuscripts deal with a specific pair of weapons-- poll-axe and longsword-- against plate armor during a 60-year period towards the tail end of the age where armored knights were a relevant feature on the battlefield. They don't address the 300-350 years of the European martial tradition that preceded the manuscripts, where the armor, weapons and techniques were vastly different.

Respectfully, Saint, I feel that you are inaccurate here. The manuscripts deal with at least 300 years of heavily combative training(i.e. ~1300-1600) speaking conservatively, and upwards of 600 if you consider the saber ala navy pistol & sword training of the 19th c.

The earliest manual is dated to ~1280 AD, and deals with sword and buckler. The fact that we have 14th c depictions of battle involving sword & buckler, and by 1599 George Silver is still teaching sword and buckler or sword and shield should indicate that when this stuff crops up in literature in the form of these manuscripts, this is not some sudden freak evolution; it is the gradual continuation of a long tradition. In the Mac Bible there are men with skullcaps, full body maille, single hand swords and daggers and spears/lances. They grapple, on the ground, on horseback, in the same spirit as Fiore shows over 100 years later.

To say that the WMA manuscripts do not address the previous tradition back to an arbitrary cutoff of 1000 AD is misleading at best, as they drew on the martial culture of the time, and each century drew on the established body of knowledge in the century previous. I have heard that a grappling technique on horseback shown in Fiore was used by Edward I in a tourney in France, as documented in a period account. The MS' do not show us exact documentation of that 1000 AD body of knowledge, but using the manuscripts as a guide or lens, we can read period accounts and look at period illustrations with much enhanced understanding. Some of the articles in the publication SPADA deal with exactly this subject. I'd recommend reading SPADA 1's article on reconstructing sword and shield, along with the followup article in SPADA 2.

Let me add to that: The lack of even basic grappling rather radically changes the game. Just by allowing grabs, holds and pushes, you will find that you can make the fight much more realistic (and fun, fun, fun!). I haven't found a way to make throws and full locks safe yet. That's a tough one. You learn to love your dagger, I'll tell you that much.

The grappling thing is another technique that belongs with the later periods addressed by the manuscripts. In the 1066-1300 period, you see it depicted in manuscript illuminations, but it is relatively uncommon. The reason behind this is pretty clear (to me, anyways): the only rigid protection on your body is your shield, and the part of your melon that pokes up past its upper edge. The rest of your armor is "fail-safe" gear...To grapple, you lose your primary defense from the get-go, or you give up your offensive capability to have a hand free to grab, or you had to disentangle yourself from your shield to free up that hand to grab, which sort of telegraphs your intentions. It seems to me, anyways, that the lack of grappling in SCA fighting is appropriate to the period around 1100 AD.

I disagree. A shield is an excellent thing to keep and use. The problem is, what happens when you're fighting to harm and kill (or live) and you lose your shield? What about when something gets tangled up and you've got moments to let it some equipment go and try to improvise? When a lance shatters and you can't get your sword in hand? Take a look at the Mac Bible, I.33, Talhoffer and Gladitoria. These show grappling without letting go of your shield/buckler, particularly I.33. But the ability to "reach out and let someone know you're there" with some serious techniques prevents the "toe-to-toe" fighting (with sword-length weapons) that I've had described to me by SCA fighters. The fact that period illustrations of the period you are specifying display these techniques is evidence that they are entirely viable and appropriate.

Something I'd like to try is seeing if the WMA grappling stuff is applicable in free-form combat with weapons.

There's a lot of people that seemed to think so...Vikings, ancient Greeks, Roman gladiators, Renaissance Europeans, people that trained for a medieval judicial combat, all of the WMA manuscript writers, every military force up to the present day...

[Brennus]

Mag-
I have to disagree abit. When we look at the extant fectbuchs especially the earliest the I33 or the German longsword manual of 1389 we are often not looking at books designed to teach the armoured Knight.

Now this may be where much of the WMA community and the SCA community butt heads. The Knights of the SCA community are much more interested in the fighting styles of the Knights of 1300 than the monks of 1280 (I33). So if we examine the early fectbuchs many not all of them are geared toward unarmoured men. It is quite a different thing to wrestle an armoured man to the ground than an unarmoured one. At least in my experience.

Lets examine I33 for a second. The grappling is almost limited to the grabbing of the sword and sword arm between the arm and body on the shield side. Anyone who has fought me in practice for long knows this move because I accidentally do it on occasion. Its a great move and works against most newer opponents, I have rarely had it work on anyone at a higher skill level.

But again I33 is geared toward the monk and the unarmoured monk not the knight. There is much to learn from I33 but I don't think grappling is all that prominently displayed here in any case.

That brings us to the next fectbuch

The German Longsword manual of 1389... Much harder to characterize as I have read the work but have seen no illustrations for it. The book contains what I like to think of as four separate issues. Longsword on foot, Longsword on Horse, longsword armoured, and longsword unarmoured.

For our purposes we need to examine only longsword on foot and armoured as that pertains to SCA. The manual begins with a discussion of the strikes and parries and only in the section about the unarmoured opponent does it discuss wrestling. The manual implores the student to wrestle but defines this as grabbing the opponents weapons. He later describes what to do if your weapons are grabbed.

I won't delve further because I think the jury is still out on the amount of early use of grappling in armoured combat. While it has no doubt been pictured in art it is also very rarely depicted compared to the amount of depictions of actual stand up fighting also it is seemingly very rare in original texts. I can't think of an example off the top of my head of an armoured combat that went to ground in a 14th century or earlier text.


Addendum.....

To sum up my actual thoughts I personally believe and this is an opinion based solely on reading and research that grappling becomes more common as knights became more heavily armoured. The reasoning is that as it became harder to kill an armoured man fights more often went to the ground and those in these fights had more need of instruction in ground fighting. Advantage that could no longer be reached at the end of a sword then became reached by a dagger in the clinch.

[Steve Hick]

Mag-
I have to disagree abit. When we look at the extant fectbuchs especially the earliest the I33 or the German longsword manual of 1389 we are often not looking at books designed to teach the armoured Knight.

Now this may be where much of the WMA community and the SCA community butt heads. The Knights of the SCA community are much more interested in the fighting styles of the Knights of 1300 than the monks of 1280 (I33). So if we examine the early fectbuchs many not all of them are geared toward unarmoured men. It is quite a different thing to wrestle an armoured man to the ground than an unarmoured one. At least in my experience.
(SNIP)

This is a great research topic, one not yet explored much. Ray Smith in his dissertation (CUA 1989, available through UMI) analyzed various romances for technical uses of the sword, and one of his results is that there was evidence for grappling coming into play (so to speak) just prior to the date of I.33. Currently Matt Galas is doing something similar, he has presented on this at WMAW in Racine and HEMAC in Dijon, and is preparing to publish (and while not fight books, he has discerned some techniques for sword and shield, and grappling is in there.)

The relevance of I.33 and other fechtbuch material is discussed by Steve Hand in his various articles in SPADA I and II. I don't remember if Steve has anything on grappling, his work is mainly on shield work.

Likely the use of grappling was situational, they'd use it if circumstances warrent. My favorite, as always, is the plate in Codex Wallerstein, where one armored fellow is using his shield in both hands to bash the other fellow.

Steve

[Magmaforge]

Excellent response, Brennus!

Mag-
I have to disagree abit. When we look at the extant fectbuchs especially the earliest the I33 or the German longsword manual of 1389 we are often not looking at books designed to teach the armoured Knight.

Now this may be where much of the WMA community and the SCA community butt heads. The Knights of the SCA community are much more interested in the fighting styles of the Knights of 1300 than the monks of 1280 (I33). So if we examine the early fectbuchs many not all of them are geared toward unarmoured men. It is quite a different thing to wrestle an armoured man to the ground than an unarmoured one. At least in my experience.

I don't think we're in total disagreement here. I.33 is clearly not training a young man at arms for the profession of war. However, the 1389 german longsword text is part of the Liechtenauer school, which passed down the merkeverse. It begins thus:

jung ritter lere...
translated by Christian Tobler in Secrets of German Medieval Swordfighting as
young knight learn...this art which will win you fame and honor (paraphrasing this second part from memory)
I don't see an issue with claiming that this is designed to teach a professional man of war, a knight of harness. I would submit that the historical masters taught both men at arms, knights and duellists, along with civilians that had to train for a judicial combat. Fiore mentions that he trained under many knights and lords, and lists some very famous professional men at arms as his students. However, it seems that by ~1480 (Vadi) and on, more of the texts (that we have) were designed for the civilian duel.

Yes, the period manuals focus a great deal on unarmoured combat. In addition to having the very practical application of everyday self-defense (Fiore shows how to use a stick to protect yourself if someone tries to attack you with a knife when you are sitting on a bench), this is one very good way to establish a foundation for the Art of Arms. In a number of period texts, armoured combat is then built on that as a subset of the art that follows different rules. It also has the advantage of allowing the student to work up to the encumberance and cost of full harness And it damn well is different to wrestle an armoured man to the ground! So the masters addressed this.

Lets examine I33 for a second. The grappling is almost limited to the grabbing of the sword and sword arm between the arm and body on the shield side. Anyone who has fought me in practice for long knows this move because I accidentally do it on occasion. Its a great move and works against most newer opponents, I have rarely had it work on anyone at a higher skill level.

I.33 is fought with sharp blades and no armour. It is a very dangerous "game" to play. Kind of like knife fighting with really long knives, every little nick counts and many actions are very risky. I agree it is difficult to successfully execute techniques on highly trained opponents, and that is a good indicator that knowing when and how to pull something off is as important to train for as knowing what to do. Hence the German concepts of fuelen and indes, or the French sentiment de fer

[AllenJ]

Great posts Mag-
I think people forget that this is a complete system of self defence. These perople are NOT always knights. They don't walk around all day fully armored and fully armed. They dont exclusivley train for the tourney or the duel. You got to know how to be effective if sitting in a pub and some drunk or "buffel" (sp?) pulls a knife on you, just as much as you do at the lists...probably more so. I'd argue that any and all combat systems start with unarmed (grappling) stuff and add weapons to that system.

The other difficulty is when you start to include "what the Knights of the SCA community are more interested in"... there are problems. They say they are recreating ARMORED combat. Yet the techniques and auspices of the rules and the game dont reflect that. So even in the narrow corridor of Knightly armored combat in the 1300's, the recreation is not faithful.

The evidence of grappling both armored and unarmoured before and after this time period leave me with no doubt that it was an intergal part of training and was in common useage in action.

[jester]

Regarding I.33: Sword and Buckler play features heavily in scenes of the noble youth at play. We can find direct correlations in position and technique in other manuscripts (such as the schiltslach illustrated in the Manesse Codex). I.33 may not have been intended as instruction in arms for a young man going into the profession of arms, but it seems to very clearly be instruction in a form of arms that was practiced by young men going into the profession of arms.

[audax]

Well, let's see: Not all styles of combat start with unarmed techniques and move to weapons. Filipino styles start with weapons and then apply those techniques to unarmed combat. It just depends on the system.

I honestly don't see a need for a "steel-tard fu versus rattan-tard fu" debate, except some folks seem to have a problem with the SCA and controlling their egos.

It seems to me that then, as now, people were studying different systems that met their interests and needs. Like we often say in the SCA, the answer to the question depends on who, where and when you are. Sword and buckler was a popular sport in the day, so it was just as likely that a young nobleman (or woman) would learn it at well as the son (or daughter) of a merchant or silversmith.

Can we not just agree that WMA enhances SCA and vice versa? SCA can benefit from learnig of historic techniques that can be safely applied to SCA combat and WMA can learn what really will work at full speed with an aggressive, uncooperative opponent. I've seen the typical SCA toe to toe slugfest but I've seen that same thing in most martial arts I've studied. alot of time that situation occurs with inexperienced or unskilled fighters who want to show that they are tough enough to hang in. As they get better, they move more and begin to use angles, footwork, tempo, measure, etc. I like to call it progress. Same thing happens in the SCA.

And what is with the "you only know how to use a club not a sword" b.s.? WMA guys don't use wooden wasters? Weren't practice dussacks chunks of wood? Didn't they have whalebone clubs for practice with the buckler? Did they not use whalebone or cuir bouilli weapons for combats a plaisance? I think there is plenty of evidence they did. I've done test cutting and it wasn't that bloody difficult. A little practice and those tatami mats were toast. So, please, let's let go of that and give each other respect.

Can't we all just get along?

audax

[AllenJ]

And what is with the "you only know how to use a club not a sword" b.s.? WMA guys don't use wooden wasters? Weren't practice dussacks chunks of wood? ...audax

I haven't seen anyone say "you only know how to use a club and not a sword". Who are you quoting?

There is a HUGE difference between a waster and a rattan stick. Theres edges, flat, tapering blade and a hilt and pommel that help to at least resemble a similar weight displacement in steel weapons. Also, it's only one tool that is used. In many to most WMA groups they have the freedom to use the wasters as well as the steel. That way they get a broader knowledge base from a variety of learning tools.

Practice dussaks weren't just "chunks of wood". They were made to accuratley resemble the steel weapons they would later be using. Though there is an argument that wooden dussak play may have turned into its own little sport in a similar way that later singlestick play came from broadsword training.

The point being that the SCA confines you to one training tool, when better ones are easily available. Granted you have the freedom to go home and do whatever you want. Or if you are lucky enough to have a variety of places to train in your city. But once you do that, it ceases to be SCA. WMA offers the ability to learn and gain experience from a wider base.

[Felix Wang]

Brennus:

Does this qualify as armoured combat going to the ground?

"Count Renaud was still fighting so strongly that no one could tear him away from the battle. He had with him only six knights who, rather than abandoning him, were fighting very strongly at his side. At this point a courageous and daring sergeant by the name of Peter of Tournelle, who was fighting on foot because his enemies had killed his horse, went toward the count, lifted up the covering of his horse, and struck it so well with his sword that he plunged it to the guard all the way to the guts. Upon seeing this blow, one of the knights who was fighting on the side of the count took him by the bridle and dragged him out of the press with great effort and against his will. Then he took flight as best he could while Quenon of Condune and his brother John pursued him and threw this knight to the ground. The count's horse dropped dead and the count fell in such a manner that his right leg was trapped under the horse's neck. At this point Hugh and Gauthier of Fontaine and John of Rouvray appeared. While they were arguing as to whom should take the count prisoner, John of Nesle appeared on the scene. This John was a handsome knight and large of body, but his prowess matched neither the handsomeness nor the amount of his body as he had fought no one in the course of the whole day. So, along with his knights, he was arguing with those who held the count as he wanted to gain some undeserved praise for the capture of such a great man. In the end, he would have succeeded in taking the count away from them if the Elect Guerin had not appeared at the place. As soon as the count saw him, he gave him his sword and surrendered to him, begging him to spare his life. However, before the Elect had arrived at the place where the knights were fighting with each other, a boy named Commotus, as if he had been a man of strength and great virtue, ripped the helmet off the count's head and inflicted a large wound on his head. Then he lifted the side of his hauberk, thinking he would strike him in the stomach, but the knife could find no entry as the iron chausses were strongly sown to the hauberk. While they were thus holding him and were forcing him to get up, he looked around and saw Arnoul of Audenarde and some knights hurriedly coming to help him. Upon seeing them come thus toward him, he let himself slide to the ground and pretended not to be able to remain on his feet, with the hope that this Arnoul would rescue him. But those around him were hitting him with great blows and forced him to climb on a work-horse, and this Arnoul and all those who were with him were captured and restrained. "

Commotus clearly has a hand free, since he is pulling off the count's helmet and tugging on his hauberk, and a number of the participants in this incident at Bouvines (1214) must be on foot. http://www.deremilitari.org/resources/s ... vines5.htm

[Magmaforge]

Thanks AllenJ. I like to think we can show our SCA friends that most WMA types can be very nice and fun to talk with.

Well, let's see: Not all styles of combat start with unarmed techniques and move to weapons. Filipino styles start with weapons and then apply those techniques to unarmed combat. It just depends on the system.

Very accurate. Which is why I tried to be cautious and say;

(unarmoured combat) in one very good way to establish a foundation for the Art of Arms.

One of my instructors presented a lecture on being able to enter the Art from any point and develop it in any direction. Vadi mimics Fiore's introduction in saying "the art is built on wrestling" and then never shows any wrestling, and only a little knife work towards the end. I understand that the Morgan MS of Fiore starts with mounted combat, and never gets to any dagger or wrestling. Likewise, one of the German masters (Lekuchner?) takes the Liechtenaeur tradition and applies it to the messer in the most expanded way he can; and the result is collosal. Hell, Fiore's unarmed stuff (IMHO) demands learning skills and principles from the weapons sections and then applying them to unarmed combat.

I honestly don't see a need for a "steel-tard fu versus rattan-tard fu" debate, except some folks seem to have a problem with the SCA and controlling their egos.

Agreed. There are individuals on both sides who can't see the point of allowing "that's a different game and that's okay" to be an acceptable thought. Me, I want to have fun, and I love WMA. At some point, I will try SCA combat. I know a number of people that started there and a number that love it now.

It seems to me that then, as now, people were studying different systems that met their interests and needs. Like we often say in the SCA, the answer to the question depends on who, where and when you are. Sword and buckler was a popular sport in the day, so it was just as likely that a young nobleman (or woman) would learn it at well as the son (or daughter) of a merchant or silversmith.

Absolutely! Sword and buckler were well known in England and on the continent. Chaucer is a nice reference, as are records of justice from various cities and townships.

Can we not just agree that WMA enhances SCA and vice versa? SCA can benefit from learnig of historic techniques that can be safely applied to SCA combat and WMA can learn what really will work at full speed with an aggressive, uncooperative opponent.

We agree. SCA offers a high pressure/destruction test lab for combat techniques.

As they get better, they move more and begin to use angles, footwork, tempo, measure, etc. I like to call it progress. Same thing happens in the SCA.

I agree. It's a natural progession. However, in my own head I like to think that somehow we can benefit from hundreds of years of experience, testing and training that culminated in the period texts. Using that wisdom as a guide, we may save a lot of time, and accomplish more in this Art than we could in a lifetime without their guidance.

And what is with the "you only know how to use a club not a sword" b.s.? WMA guys don't use wooden wasters? Weren't practice dussacks chunks of wood? Didn't they have whalebone clubs for practice with the buckler? Did they not use whalebone or cuir bouilli weapons for combats a plaisance?

I like to think of SCA heavy combat as baton tourney combat. I don't think that's any less of a historical piece of equipment (granted, superficial appearance can add to or detract from the feeling) than what I use. I just think slightly more swordy-shaped stuff is cooler and feels better.

Can't we all just get along?

audax

Audax, I really think so. Hope to meet you sometime.

[Saint-Sever]

I think people forget that this is a complete system of self defence. These perople are NOT always knights. They don't walk around all day fully armored and fully armed. They dont exclusivley train for the tourney or the duel. You got to know how to be effective if sitting in a pub and some drunk or "buffel" (sp?) pulls a knife on you, just as much as you do at the lists...probably more so.

I think that is one of the fascinating things about the fechtbuchs. Has there been any research done on which parts of the market-share these "anti-buffel" techniques were intended? There is a dojo here in my area where they teach everything from very "hard" combative styles to tai chi. There is something for most folks with an interest in EMA, if they come looking for instruction. Could it be a similar situation with the fechtbuchs?

The other difficulty is when you start to include "what the Knights of the SCA community are more interested in"... there are problems. They say they are recreating ARMORED combat.

It's hard to examine both WMA and SCA systems without a common point of reference. SCA armored combat is, well, just that-- combat while wearing harness. By the SCA's rules, it is specifically "knightly" combat, with requirements on behavior that are pointedly less "war" and more "tournament". WMA research into unarmored styles of combat is interesting, but it does make for an apples and oranges comparison when the other half of the comparison is doing strictly full-farness combat.

Yet the techniques and auspices of the rules and the game dont reflect that. So even in the narrow corridor of Knightly armored combat in the 1300's, the recreation is not faithful.

If you look at the presumed armor standards of the SCA, the 1300's are 'way too late. 1350-era knightly harness has a great helm, possibly being worn over a cerveillier (sp?), rigid plate body defenses in the form of a coat of plates, and cuisses and shynbalds of a variety of materials. Harness from 50 years earlier would still have many, if not all of these items.

The presumed SCA harness is from about 1100 AD, from what is written and the convention of the fighter's expected response to being struck. The primary defense against attack is a shield. The primary weapon is used with the non-shield hand. In order to grapple, or even grasp at an opponent, shield or weapon must be given up, in order to free one hand or another for that task. Did they do it? Without a doubt-- but I think that it was more in the line of the ground-fighting that cops do: you rarely end up scuffling on the ground with someone, but you sure know how, if it happens.

The evidence of grappling both armored and unarmoured before and after this time period leave me with no doubt that it was an intergal part of training and was in common useage in action.

Looking at MS illuminations and writing that correspond with the SCA's "presumed armor" period of around 1100-1200, I don't know if I agree with that. As I said above, it most certainly existed, because it was illustrated repeatedly. It is not particularly common, though, IMO for the "I ain't got enough hands" reason: one hand/arm for the shield, one for the weapon. When the hands got freed up by most of the body being covered with rigid armor, and heftier tools that used both hands were needed to defeat that armor, then grappling does indeed become an integral part of combat.

As a fun exercise (and because it gave me a good excuse to pore over the M-ski Bible again), I counted up the armored figures, mounted and on foot, actually in the process of sticking steel into another armored warrior. I also counted up the number of similarly-equipped warriors grappling, while shanking their opponent. (I did not count all the assorted murders and massacres) Non-grapplers outnumber grapplers by about 5:1. If you toss in that cool panel of the servants having a gang fight where they are all over each other, unarmored and going at it with knives and swords, it's about 4:1. It's not really anything like a scientific survey, but it might give one the idea that except in extreme circumstances, fully armored men of the period didn't consider grappling as a routine, anticipated feature of a fight.

Addendum-- Allan-- I apologize for not responding to your beautifully written post on the other thread. I am up to my butt in work alligtors, and by the time I had any time, others were already in the thick of a good discussion that didn't need my 2 cents.

Michael

[audax]

Back atcha, Mag. I hope we meet and I can learn some of that cool WMA stuff.

audax

[AllenJ]

no worries Saint-Server, real life before all this nonsense, right ? I'm never online on the weekends anyway, so I didnt even notice- too much stuff to do!

It's really interesting how we interpret evidence. I'd look at that ratio of 5:1 and say that it supports my idea of common grappling occurences. 1 out of 5 I'd feel is a common occurence.

on the idea of the buffel and EMA- I doubt that there would be much use for "softer" martial arts back in the day. Either you learned how to fight for real, or you didnt. Granted, you are probably going to find some evidence of that if you get up into the nobility of them learning how to fight as a matter of schooling rather than for an actual need of protection. That line is going to be more blurred as you advance through time. Generally life becomes 'safer' and there is less of a need for serious self defence. Today, there are actually very few people that have serious violent encounters in their life and thus serious training is not needed.

I understand what you are saying as far as WMA unarmored vs SCA heavy combat being apples and oranges. But there are many WMA practioners that do heavy armored bouting as well. Even in this vein are the two studies quite dissimilar. I am being very careful here to not pick a fight but if you watch the two side by side it is quite clear who is more martial, practical and like the manuals.

1100? ok thats fine. I was just quoting a previous post that cited 1300's as being a focal point for a large majority of SCA heavy fighters. With the 1100's though presents its own set of needs for accurate fighting. With open faced helms and little to no protection below the knee it's obvious where the blows are going. That would change combat in a big way. Just check out the stats from the Wisby research. Very few casulties are coming from torso wounds. etc...

I really appreciate what you said about using the last several centuries as our sources. Really, there is no way we can develop a better way of doing this than they did. So what bother deviating from the manuals? You can't establish everything from them, but you can establish many things and also discredit many things from the evidences there.

[Gest]

Grace unto you, my Companions,

I have followed this thread, and have greatly admired the exposition offered. I feel compelled to offer my opinion, not as truth, but as someone seeking to understand the sword, and beg indulgence should I stumble.

I fight both SCA heavy weapons and WMA. I am not a duke, or a WMA master. I have stood on a SCA list field on more than one occasion, and I study with Schola Saint George. I am only offering out my opinion, poor as it is; I do not speak for the SCA, or Schola Saint George, or any other individual.

I and my companions, as all who take the field in honorable combat of peace are truly companions and not enemies, do not face each other with real sharp-edged swords, as to do so would greatly diminish our numbers and reduce the beers I could expect to drink over time. Instead, we use "simulators" to mimic a real sharp-edged sword.

There are many kinds of simulators: rattan swords, aluminum swords, wooden swords (wasters), shinai-based trainers, rebated steel swords, and I am sure there are more of which I am unaware. Each is not the sharp steel sword it simulates. And each distorts the "truth" of the sharp steel sword, and each distorts that truth in its own way.

Rattan does not have the "feel" of rebated steel, but rebated steel cannot be safely used with the same power as rattan. Even if armoured, I would be reluctant to engage in a bout using rebated steel weapons with the same intensity that I face in SCA combat. I think someone could be greatly injured or killed.

Aluminum has the metal feel akin to the rebated steel, but when the players are unarmoured, the thrust, which is common in WMA, cannot be delivered with an aluminum simulator with the same commitment as a thrust delivered by a properly constructed SCA thruster. It is simply too dangerous. The force of a strike delivered with an aluminum sword is concentrated on a much smaller cross-section that a comparable one delivered with a SCA rattan sword. It's just physics. The SCA uses armour for safety, and asks us to judge blows acording to a common reference. This allows full-speed, full-contact bouts. In Schola Saint George, if we are armoured, then we are practicing techniques that would be employed against an armoured player: half-swording, wrestling, and dagger. We would be trying to put the point between the plates, under the arm, or in the eye-slot. But, we are often unarmoured, and that is why thrusting with an aluminum simulator must be done with great control. I think the same applies to wooden wasters.

Although each kind of simulator distorts the truth of a sharp steel sword, each none-the-less gives us a glimpse of the truth that the others do not. Rebated steel gives us the feel. Aluminum allows us to strike with more safety than rebated steel. Rattan allows us the exhilaration of full-speed, full-contact encounters, and that is no small thing. I would not want to do without it.

It makes no sense to my mind to say which simulator is "better". Each simulator has its own logic, each is what it is. Each has its place. An SCA bout is what it is because of the logic of the rattan sword. A WMA bout is what it is because of the logic of the simulators used. Each have their own parts of the truth of the sharp edged sword.

A whole book could be written on spirit, which is independent of the logic of any simulator, and which I shall be kind enough to omit here. A warrior is a warrior.

-- Gest