The Armour Archive

There was a sparring demonstration done at SwordFest 2009 event with RSW by my friend Steve Baxter and various participants.

Here are the videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFyNHx7zcH4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INB1odZkZo0

And one that Steve done with his students at Ishi Yama Ryu dojo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPH09fZ0-XU

Is there a link to descriptions of rules?

Corby de la Flamme wrote:Is there a link to descriptions of rules?

I have no idea either.

Corby de la Flamme wrote:Is there a link to descriptions of rules?

Corby, this event was local to me, in the dojo in which I train. The guys doing the gekken are not of our dojo. You could drop a line to Viet -- the organizer, and he could put you in touch with the fellows doing this.

I don't have his email address, altough I see him most weeks. You can drop him a note on Sword Forum. You can mention my name.

Or if you want to go direct, just google the dojo listed on the youtube videos.

Steve

Corby de la Flamme wrote:Is there a link to descriptions of rules?

Corby,

I was the organizer for this particular demonstration. The only rules we utilized for the Swordfest demo was: 1) no thrusts to the neck (we didn't have protection there), and 2) try to fight with a pure intent.

The concept was intended to not make this a competition, but rather an opportunity to train and apply technique in a free sparring environment. So there were no points, no winners and no losers. We wanted to try to adopt the mentality of someone who not only wanted to cut down their opponent, but, at the same time, also not be cut/injured themselves. So we'd fight until someone got cut or slashed, separate, then repeat. It helped put a lot of things into perspective. For example, in point based combat, one person might walk away the victor because they got their cut in just a fraction of a second quicker than the other person, but in an actual duel if the other person still got in a cut or slice then both participants might be lying in a pool of blood. In that case, who got cut first is obviously irrelevant because they're both dead. So by removing the point-based victory and the winner/loser dynamic, it allows us to think more objectively about each exchange. Taking the situation I just mentioned in which there were near simultaneous strikes, instead of the "winner" walking away and thinking "well I got the point there so I should do that again in the future", they might think "well I just got nailed too so maybe I should rethink doing that in the future". Obviously, nothing is going to truly replicate live combat, but we felt this framework would provide something in which we could learn something positive from.

I hope that answers your question. Also, I noticed you live in VA as well. Please drop me a line, if you or your group is ever interested in doing some non-competitive inter-style sparring. All we have is the RSW katana, but RSW makes all kinds of Western and Eastern weapons which you could bring in.

Thanks,


Steve Baxter
www.ishiyamaryu.net
steve@ishiyamaryu.net