Am I late to this party? FECHTSCHULE GDAŃSK

[Corby de la Flamme]

Over at this thread there's a link to a mildly interesting cutting demo.

But on that same youtube channel, there's this frankly amazing vid of some very very good live steel greatsword fighting. I've watched a fair number of live steel bouts from various systems, and this is by far the most interesting.

Have I just missed other people pointing out these guys? To my eye, they're just about perfect: full speed, possibly full contact, working some historical techniques while not being slavish to them, serious training, serious fights, but not over the top crazy-gonna-get-somebody-killed action.

If they bothered to not wear or to hide modern gear, they would be truly awesome.

[St. George]

Wow that's impressive. I'm not sure what to say about the guys who are willing to go full speed with steel and bare legs!

Great find.

g-

[Leo Medii]

Honestly, I would choose this over any other sport combat group. This is exactly what I am looking for.

Now, if they wore armor and did period clothes.....

[Corby de la Flamme]

Wow that's impressive. I'm not sure what to say about the guys who are willing to go full speed with steel and bare legs!

Exactly what made me think that they may not be full contact. There wasn't any lower leg hitting I saw, but could be that it's a sucker bet and people who strike the lower leg get their heads knocked off.

[St. George]

At the speed they are going that's likely. It actually reminds me of some Kendo sparring I have seen.

[jester]

Looks like the stuff the American groups are doing. People in Denver, Chicago, Dallas, Seattle that I know of. The thing to understand is this: they *are* going to be clannish about this. They aren't going to hand you a sword and tell you to go to it. They want to train with you for a while and learn that you aren't an asshole and that you do know something about control.

[jester]

Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgRabORgUOQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7kETxZzXMY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvaBhEaFcNc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDGjWC7FfxU

[Leo Medii]

Wow that's impressive. I'm not sure what to say about the guys who are willing to go full speed with steel and bare legs!

Exactly what made me think that they may not be full contact. There wasn't any lower leg hitting I saw, but could be that it's a sucker bet and people who strike the lower leg get their heads knocked off.

having studied the German arts for a while I can tell you that hitting in the leg is an almost certain invitation to get hit in the head. There is far less leg tagetting in the fightbooks, and that is probably because of the huge chance a skilled or lucky opponent will cut your head or face and really put the hurt on you.

[Corby de la Flamme]

Jester, the guys in your links look much more in line with SCA cut & thrust when it comes to speed and force.

Leo, that's just what I meant about a sucker bet. Since we don't know the rules, we can only guess why those Poles aren't arming their calves. Rule or not? No knowing.

[Tomburr]

Honestly, I would choose this over any other sport combat group. This is exactly what I am looking for.

Now, if they wore armor and did period clothes.....

(whisper)Build it, and they will come...

(/whisper)

And I'll come too. That sounds awesome.

[LOGOS]

Honestly, I would choose this over any other sport combat group. This is exactly what I am looking for.

Now, if they wore armor and did period clothes.....

Seriously, you need to come visit us in Chicago...

[Violen]

Hey! I think we could do this stuff under the calontir steel ruleset!

[jester]

Jester, the guys in your links look much more in line with SCA cut & thrust when it comes to speed and force.

Leo, that's just what I meant about a sucker bet. Since we don't know the rules, we can only guess why those Poles aren't arming their calves. Rule or not? No knowing.

They allow strikes to the legs. Check the video here at 1:24. And kicking. And limited groundfighting. I read their webpage. But they are also constantly upgrading their armor due to injuries received while fighting. 'Long workouts are a waste of time without the ability to test our skills against an opponent who is trying to hit us at high speed and with force.'

Interestingly, their webpage also shows them using a federschwert rather than the wider-bladed blunts they were using in the video. And active marshaling.

[jester]

Nope, I'm wrong, they're using Federschwert in the original video. My bad.

[J.G.Elmslie]

anything's improved by gratuitous use of AC/DC for an backing track...

personally, I wasnt particularly impressed by the vids. there's a lot of actions to turn the blade, but it feels somewhat superflous, and mostly showy, in my opinion.
they're competent, but they dont excel. a lot of it seemed (to my eye) to be a little bit lacking in accuracy. there's a certain elegance to fighting with the minimum amount of movement nessecary, which their style lacks

but that's just a personal thing.

regarding leg targetting, I dont think in what, 7-8 years I've ever had a hit below the knee with longsword. scraped shin from a spear once, that's all. if you drop your sword to try to do a shin hit, and you're taking it off-point and you're asking for a hau to the forehead, or langort to the face...

(oh, and am I the only person who hates the phrase "live steel"? its rebated, it's not going to leap from the hands and run away crying "freeeeedom". the blade is an inanimate object. That always irritates me. )

[Michael S]

personally, I wasnt particularly impressed by the vids. there's a lot of actions to turn the blade, but it feels somewhat superflous, and mostly showy, in my opinion.
they're competent, but they dont excel. a lot of it seemed (to my eye) to be a little bit lacking in accuracy. there's a certain elegance to fighting with the minimum amount of movement nessecary, which their style lacks

To my mind, what we're seeing in that vid should be compared to the later-period fencing schools in Germany, as opposed to as a super-deadly martial art. On the one hand, I agree that the tournament fencing doesn't look too efficient, but on the other they are training with intensity and martial intent to a far greater degree than most other HEMA videos I've seen. They're clearly willing to go at it with gusto, and have the athleticism to pull it off. If neater blade-work, better footwork etc. are superior to their training then people are always welcome to enter a tournament and prove otherwise - which in my opinion is one of the strengths of competitive HEMA, appeals to authority are somewhat limited, especially as more of the sources become freely available and/or widely disseminated. I think that there's quite a big different between what the Eastern-European groups are achieving with their training, and how many of the ones more local to me are approaching it.

regarding leg targetting, I dont think in what, 7-8 years I've ever had a hit below the knee with longsword. scraped shin from a spear once, that's all. if you drop your sword to try to do a shin hit, and you're taking it off-point and you're asking for a hau to the forehead, or langort to the face...

Now, if only people had bothered to name that effect thing that means it's easier to hit someone in the head than in the leg...
More seriously though, I find that mixing in the occasional 'Das gayszlen' can really throw people off, although if they know to expect it them can usually deal with it.

[Corby de la Flamme]

anything's improved by gratuitous use of AC/DC for an backing track...

personally, I wasnt particularly impressed by the vids. there's a lot of actions to turn the blade, but it feels somewhat superflous, and mostly showy, in my opinion.
they're competent, but they dont excel.

Ok! I'll bite. Let's see some video! because this Gdansk stuff effing rocks. Did you watch past the stuff in the outdoor pell area to the actual bouts? That early stuff wasn't impressive, I'll grant.

Also, I noted that watching older videos shows that there has been a marked, impressive increase in skill amongst members of this school.

(I admit, your taste in music makes me concerned for your taste in sword play, but they may not be related. I turned the awful soundtrack to that vid off. )

[jester]

Jester, the guys in your links look much more in line with SCA cut & thrust when it comes to speed and force.

I just don't know how I feel about that. It's an apt comparison. But are the Gdansk guys doing it better because they're more aggressive? I don't have an answer to that question. All of the folks in the videos I posted are experienced students trying to fight with precision and at speed. Is precise better than aggressive? Again, I don't have an answer.

[J.G.Elmslie]

(I admit, your taste in music makes me concerned for your taste in sword play, but they may not be related. I turned the awful soundtrack to that vid off. )

Apologies. my sarcasm there was probably a little too subtle for text. I'd hoped "gratuitous" would indicate it was unwarranted. Nothing particularly wrong with ac/dc, Even if I've never bought a single album by them (there's many worse bands. Can you imagine WMA videos backed by rap or nu-metal tripe? ugh.), but it is rather inappropriate for the feel of medieval martial arts.

Ok! I'll bite. Let's see some video! because this Gdansk stuff effing rocks. Did you watch past the stuff in the outdoor pell area to the actual bouts? That early stuff wasn't impressive, I'll grant.

I'm afraid I do my best not to be on camera, on pain of looking like a village idiot at the best of times, nevermind when doing wma stuff. And my footwork sucks monkey cock.

but its down to a personal taste. I much prefer a far more cautious, point-emphasised style of fighting where its much less dynamic. I try to fight from the mindset that if it were sharps, the first goal is to never expose yourself to excessive risk, only strike when its a certainty. which is why I've got a habit of using longpoint/langort and stepping out to avoid grapples. As the guy who taught me put it, "its not how many you kill, its how many kill you, and if that number is more than 0, you're in trouble"

but...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5d9tSqkbac&

is a pretty good video of the sort of style I prefer, particularly the chap with the black gorget/bib on their mask. and I'll be the first to agree, its far less spectacular, it certainly does'nt "rock" as you put it. its pretty staid, far less impressive in use. but equally, I pesonally feel (and its just my opinion. and opinions are like arseholes, everyone has one, and its probably full of shite.) that one of the faults we *all* have is that we fight with far less appreciation of the risk, that an actual swordsman of the age would've done. we fight for fun, in a sane, sanitised version, probably much safer than the federfechten of Meyer and Sutor, yet alone the blossfechten of Ringeck or Kal, and that divorces us a little from that risk, in the same way that modern olympic fencing is divorced from rapier, to the point where actions can be taken which would be nigh-on suicidal in the 15th/16 Century.

As I say, that's just my personal taste. the flourish and headlong clashes just arent the way I like it.

does that many any sense whatsoever, or am I just bibbling like a village idiot here? Dunno. I'll shut up anyway.



oh but before I send, just to be a complete hypocrite having said about not liking the flashy, reckless stuff...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjT4JepA-Vc

that clip always impresses me. there's a speed and agression in these guy's style which is absolutely incredible.

[Michael S]

Makes perfect sense to me. Personally, I disagree with the Olympic fencing/rapier analogy, because Olympic fencing has developed to the point that it doesn't really pay heed to the original intentions behind the sport. I think a more apt comparison might be between Sambo and military combatives - it is aware that it is a competition and has to be done safely, but is trying to do that without sacrificing aliveness. It's a spectrum thing I guess - I like competitive pressure testing and the athleticism that the video displays, you wish that they showed more of an appreciation of the dangers of entering into a fight with swords, and focus more on the consequences of the combat that the sources inform us about. Just because we have differing opinions doesn't mean we have to go a'hating on one another's views

Personally, part of the reason that I enjoy HEMA is that it is largely irrelevant. It's no-longer a matter of life and limb, it's not self-defence I'm ever likely to use. So we have a luxury with HEMA, we engage in it as a sport or a hobby unlike a combatives or a personal defence class. I don't have a problem with people playing with Belgian tournament rules or using nylons so long as they're aware of what they're trying to achieve by doing so, and what they're not doing with it. But I also don't want it to turn in the direction of modern Olympic fencing (I trained/competed in it for longer than I care to remember), and stay rooted in the history and original intent behind the systems. On the other hand though, it might be worth underlining that people fenced for fun all the time, although often we only know of it from when it went wrong because that's how history works. It wasn't all chivalry and knightliness, even if that's what some of the sources profess to teach. But that's a tangental ranting ramble for another day...

Finally, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-82cajZi70s is a pretty damn sweet video too. I'd love to be able to train with them...

[Lucian Ro]

Seriously, you need to come visit us in Chicago...

I'm moving to St Louis in August, this puts me five hours away. I'd drive that far to do this

Hey! I think we could do this stuff under the calontir steel ruleset!

See my above comment to LOGOS about where I'm relocating too -- we need to chat, Violen.

[Dietrich von Stroheim]

Hey Corby,
I used to do a lot of fighting like this (backyard fighting with the guys from my old WMA group that wanted something a little rougher than our formalized training).

I'd be up for doing this with you anytime--perhaps as a 'demo' at an SCA event, or perhaps just at a private practice.

I incorporate a lot of German longsword technique in my heavy list greatsword fighting, and that is incredibly fun, but I do kind of miss the clash of steel in a full contact ruleset.

Cheers,

Dietrich

[Violen]

http://calontir-steel.webs.com/

[raito]

Personally, part of the reason that I enjoy HEMA is that it is largely irrelevant. It's no-longer a matter of life and limb, it's not self-defence I'm ever likely to use.

Might be true for you -- wasn't for me. (Not sure whether to use the smiley or frowny here. Frowny because I had to use it, smiley because I came out alive.)

[Peikko]

Personally, part of the reason that I enjoy HEMA is that it is largely irrelevant. It's no-longer a matter of life and limb, it's not self-defence I'm ever likely to use.

Might be true for you -- wasn't for me. (Not sure whether to use the smiley or frowny here. Frowny because I had to use it, smiley because I came out alive.)

And at the end of things, that you are alive to tell the tale is all that matters, yes?

The key is that we don't have to use it...although it is good to know we can rely on our skills.