The Armour Archive

perhaps the lack of "rhino hiding" is a local thing here. Maybe my feelings about the SCA are from watching just one group. I know everyone handles things differently. The way I have seen it is that 2 fighters go at it, as soon as one is killed the next person steps in and fights and it continues that way. No one gets more than a couple minutes fighting at one time.
I also know I originally approached this topic wrong and have upset a lot of people, but from my contact with the SCA thats just how I feel. Obviously Fiore and the SCA can operate hand in hand, just look at Bob Charron. But perhaps that friction is caused by both groups thinking they have the upper hand on the other and neither wants to alter what they have been doing for years. Both organizations can learn a great deal of information from the other, its just putting our differences behind us and working together thats the next step.

Mike

That particular thing is called a bear pit. It's common. it quasi-simulates tourney fighting. There are different ways to run a bear pit, such as winner stays, loser stays, and things like maximum of 3 fights in a row. Not everyone has the stamina to go fight after fight after fight. Training for fighting stamina is something I preach at the practices I attend.

Greetings,
This is just another thread on what seems to be a ongoing theme. WMA people putting down the SCA. What I would like to ask is, What would you WMA people think the state of WMA combat would be if the SCA never happened. Without the SCA you never would have had the resources that you have access to such as books, armour, weapons, etc. plus many of the main WMA people started in the SCA and may not have been inspired without it.

Ronald

That's not *entirely* true, Wilmot.

But it's close enough, and I've been heard saying it myself in public. Most of the public research that started this rolling came out of the SCA.. .and several of its best practitioners stateside are still affiliated or active in some way.

Russ,
What is not true about my last statement. A large part of the resources that WMA people use were devoloped by SCA people (not all). What I ask is how much of the selection of costumes, armour, weapons, research, etc. that WMA people use would not be there if it were not for the demands of a world wide group with 30,000 members that has had 40 years of devoloping many of the resouces that WMA people use.

Ronald

PS. I should have said "A WMA person" sorry about that.
Ron

wilmot wrote: What is not true about my last statement. A large part of the resources that WMA people use were devoloped by SCA people (not all). What I ask is how much of the selection of costumes, armour, weapons, research, etc. that WMA people use would not be there if it were not for the demands of a world wide group with 30,000 members that has had 40 years of devoloping many of the resouces that WMA people use

I'd say that's an impossible question to answer, as is the question "How much of the resources for historical research the SCA uses would be available if there hadn't been LH groups out there trying hard to get it exactly right?" There's no point in debating these things; we all have varying approaches to similar activites. There's lots of crossover and we can all learn to some extent from the other groups.

wilmot wrote: PS. I should have said "A WMA person" sorry about that.

Thanks for qualifying that. I actually thought this thread was good in that respect; most of the WMA types described the SCA as "different, not better or worse, and fun to boot". If there was more of that - simple respect for the other person's game - we'd all be happier.

I think that's the key here, Mike. If you aren't going to play their game and appreciate it for what it is they aren't going to want to hear much about yours. People listen to folks they respect, and to get respect from SCA fighters the best thing you can do is get out there and fight.

Jon Barber

Jon,
You are correct in your statment, I think that the LH, WMA, and SCA groups have for the most part worked well together and my question is for the most part impossible to anwser. I do have a (BIG) hot button when it comes to people from one of the groups trashing the others. I think there is a place for all of us and different people seek different things. I have studied and taught SCA fighting for over 27 years, I have worked hard at this and to have someone (Mike's not the first or will he be the last) just to trash what I do offends me.

Ronald

wilmot wrote:Without the SCA you never would have had the resources that you have access to such as books, armour, weapons, etc. plus many of the main WMA people started in the SCA and may not have been inspired without it.

Ronald

In my own personal experience, I don't see much SCA influence or origin in our training, source material, weapons, or other resources. I'm not bashing the SCA mind you, I just think your statement makes it sound like all current WMA study has its roots in the SCA which is clearly not the case. Lots of people, individually and as members of many groups who have never had any association with the SCA, both here and abroad, are actively involved in the development of historical WMA as a modern discipline by researching, training, and writing. To say all this would never have happened without the SCA is a bit of a stretch IMO.

MS Anderson,
I am not saying it would not have happened, what I am saying is that many (Not all) of the figures in the WMA world either came from the SCA or saw it and went "That's not for me, maybe there is something more to my liking out there". I feel however that say if there was the much smaller market if the SCA had not happened that things like rivited chainmail would not be so practical to produce for the price that anyone can buy it for or Brian Price would not have as large of a customer base for his products. I have no problems with the other types of groups, it just pisses me off to no end when some of them treat us as inferior and act as though the SCA never contributed anything of value.

Ronald

I live in the Omaha group (Barony of the Lonely Tower), and if I remember you right, Mike, you are over in Lincoln (Barony of Mag Mor).

I've seen you at the Nebraska Ren Faire. You and your partner looked knowledgable. It may surprise you to know that you were also working a lot of techniques that I and my compatriots in this group were familiar with. We watched you with interest, and discussed what you were doing. We were impressed, but it's not how we play. The part you were missing is the part most of us enjoy the most, which is the rush of fraternal combat. Truly testing our skill versus each other, to the best of our ability, at our full level of effort. Your method, while technically accurate, does not allow for the type of full contact fighting that we find so exhilarating. We also share a bond here as brothers-in-arms, and I suspect you tripped over that a bit.

Historical swordsmanship study is respected in (at least) this part of Calontir, and a number of us have at least cracked a fechtbuch or two and often discuss and in some cases have made use of the information we have found there. One of the more technically astute fighters I know is from Lincoln (SCA: Graf Volkmar Katzbalger). He is also a very intelligent man, a student of the period, has some knowledge of period technique, and understands the concepts of fighting beyond the rattan game. Some of our guys have participated in some test cutting, though I was not fortunate enough to be around that night, although it is something I'm interested in doing from the standpoint of seeing how a real sword performs. Some have experimented with the grappling techniques, out of a sense of curiousity and to expand their knowledge. Many of our fighters have been at this for upwards of 10-20 years, so have a substantial investment into what they are doing.

Given your opening statement, your enthusiasm is apparent, but I also note a certain tone of condescension toward SCA combat in general. Knowing the people in the group to be friendly, knowledgable, and open to learning, if you approached in a matter condescending to their fighting, and appeared to have no intent to join in the game but only to recruit away from it, you will fail. You will appear as an outsider who cares only to recruit people away from us and to your school. There may be those in the group who are interested in studying -with- someone who knows WMA, but they will for the most part not be interested in you if you do not at least show -some- level of interest and respect for the time, blood, sweat, and tears that they have put in to develop to the level that they are at.

I would also humbly suggest, if you consider yourself and your technique superior, that you have enough respect for them to consider putting yourself in armor, learn the rules of engagement (rules exist in all martial arts/sports and are always "silly" and artificial. The SCA differs not in this from other competitive arts where not all of the more damaging, not "nice" techniques are used), and see where you stand with them. If you stand on the sideline and criticize, and do not participate, you will offend. I guarantee it. If you understand this for what it essentially is, the behourd, a plaisance, with the baton, and approach it a different way to approach the study of medieval combat as opposed to a steaming pile of crap, you'll probably get a better reception.

As to the style of practice you witnessed, this is the "bearpit" or "the circle", depending on who's talking about it, and it is largely an exercise in stamina, and in many cases just kind of a social hour. I don't get to many of MM's practices, but if they are anything like us, practice is different depending on who shows up and what they feel like doing. Some nights are more instructional, other nights we just fight. Yet other nights are spent on melee training. I have trained in "tourney mode", we also fight counted blows, and at times we have had fights which go "until honor is satisfied". One of my favorites was between Duke Garick and Sir Attila, and was 7 counted blows at the barrier with the great axe, only taken if they struck in the head. I have trained in a method in which I am not to stop fighting until I have landed five telling blows, so our methods are not nearly as limited as you appear to think. Yes our fights are "short", but then, as I recall, so were yours. You were doing blossfechten, I understand... However we are not there to beat each other to death, we're there to try to land a good blow. That's the convention of the combat. How we "count" those blows depends on what kind of format we're fighting in.

Most of us have other things going on in our lives, so our training is limited to the hour or two a week that we can play at home, and then whatever fighting we can get on the weekends and at "wars", where we can literally in some cases fight every day for a week. I just went through a stretch where I fought 7 out of 9 days because I was attending local practice, "fighter school" in KC, and had a lot of demos going on, so you can fight as much or as little as you can find opportunities. Some of us spend a lot of time thinking about and working on our fighting, others of us just show up to play. There are those like me who struggle maintaining the discipline to be physically fit enough to be really really good, but enjoy the fight and do the best we can with the techniques we can glean from books and each other and participate for the fun of it and the camraderie we experience on the field.

The problem _I_ have (strictly speaking for myself, now) with many practicing WMA who have next to no experience in the SCA is that they criticize it while having little to no knowledge or appreciation for it, or the people in it. There also is a lack of understanding of the role of the SCA in developing appreciation for and interest in the Western European Martial Arts. Many of the toys you play with, swords, armor and so forth, developed from those who studied their arts in/around the SCA. There are a good percentage of your scholars who started here, and either decided it was not enough and continued on to their own way (like Mr. Clements), or who still play here, and continue to develop the rattan game into something more authentic, both in look and feel. The SCA is 40 years old this year. Our people know much more than you and others appear to give them credit for. Yes, there are the lowest common denominators, but I also know a number of people who could engage you in a very intelligent conversation on swordsmanship and a number of other topics about the medieval period. The lack of respect for that accumulated knowledge, simply because, "Oh, it's the SCA" is grating. You might want to take a look around your own website, and find out how many of the books you promote were written by members of the SCA, which you ironically "would never join because of the combat".

So. There's my comments (You asked.). If they sound harsh, I apologize, as I can come off a bit strident when I feel strongly enough that I have something I need to say to actually post. (I mostly lurk and absorb, here, cuz there's a lot smarter people here than me.)

Approach with some measure of respect for what we are doing and what some of us already know, and offer to add your knowledge to the mix, and I'm guessing you will be recieved politely, and may even make a few friends and develop some students and fellow scholars. Come in seeing us -only- as a recruiting feeder, and with an attitude of "I can show you better than this silly little fighting game you all play", and you'll be met with a cold shoulder. As you may realize, we have a limited pool of interested people to draw to our -own- membership, so coming to -our- functions solely to wave your own banner will not be appreciated or honored. Cooperation among groups such as ours lifts all boats. If you decide to simply compete, well, then expect it to feel like a competition. Don't assume the problem is neccesarily them.

-Steve
(SCA: Baron Iamys Makillewray, Companion of the Iren Fyrd)

Im glad you got to see me in action. However, I dont know what doesnt "allow for full contact fighting". Yes we wear fencing masks, but I do that only because I want it to be as affordable as possible. There were no pre-planned moves when we fought. It was all out, no holds barred fighting. If you noticed, we were taking advantage of arm locks, half swording, blade grabs and found ourselves rolling on the ground wrestling. All things that Fiore de Liberi teaches. There were no pulled blows. And of course all this while using steel. I guess the other thing that kinda gets to me is if you plan on being in 16 gauge or smaller armor for "safety" sake, why not use steel. Here I am in a mask, gloves, gorget and bracers only and have had no injuries.
Perhaps at the next faire we can meet up and talk further, although it doesnt come out that way when I am on the net, I really do mean well.

Mike

A few questions then. Do you use full force thrusts? Do you use full force blows to the head, body or anywhere else? Wrasslin' not withstanding?

Joe or Odo in the SCA

mike mercier wrote:Im glad you got to see me in action. However, I dont know what doesnt "allow for full contact fighting". Yes we wear fencing masks, but I do that only because I want it to be as affordable as possible. There were no pre-planned moves when we fought. It was all out, no holds barred fighting. If you noticed, we were taking advantage of arm locks, half swording, blade grabs and found ourselves rolling on the ground wrestling. All things that Fiore de Liberi teaches. There were no pulled blows. And of course all this while using steel. I guess the other thing that kinda gets to me is if you plan on being in 16 gauge or smaller armor for "safety" sake, why not use steel. Here I am in a mask, gloves, gorget and bracers only and have had no injuries.
Perhaps at the next faire we can meet up and talk further, although it doesnt come out that way when I am on the net, I really do mean well.

Mike

When I was in grade school, I was defensive team captain on a football team than went 10-0-0. I have wrestled for a State Championship team, in High School. I have participated in SCA combat for over 25 years, the last 10 at a very high skill level. I have studied a little Tae Kwon Do and I have been to three of Bob Charron's Fiore seminars, including one concentrating on grappleing and dagger. My skill level for Fiore is probably around Advanced Beginner.

I am quite content for me and my friends to go "all out" in all but the last one. If I were to work Fiore's plays "full contact" the way I have participated in all of my other sports, I would break my friends, if they didn't break me first. I have to hold back, reduce my force, not completely finish the plays, limit which plays I use, reduce my speed or all of the above. This changes it from a sport to a very interesting and fun history lesson. If done at full ability, Fiore is not a sport, it is warfare.

To be truthful, I do have to sometimes do the same in the SCA, but not nearly as much, and only with novice fighters. With another skilled fighter, I can give him every thing I have and we both will survive to fight again.

Regards,
Richard
Ansteorra

mike mercier wrote:Wilmot, I have tried it and find it just isn't realistic. Nothing behaves like steel weapons no matter how hard you try and if someone was to attempt the same manuevers with rattan they would find them ineffective and probably kill themselves in the process.

This is where you loose credibility with those of us who *do* play with live steel. There are some minor differences to account for, such as the narrowness of the blade, weapon locking with poleaxes, and lack of bounceback, but I can't really think of a maneuver that works in rattan that does not also work with steel or which we would kill ourselves.

A fight is a fight is a fight. Training full speed and full force is important, though most SCA folk do not fight full power in any case -- unless you are very small and/or have bad technique.

We normally do most of our practice in the SCA, with SCA form, with SCA weapons (which of course can have the same weight and balance of steel weapons), with less practices with steel. This allows more room for mistakes for sure. For steel combat, we throw full speed but just drop off the follow through. Easy enough not to push through a blow. We wear full armor, with perf covering any large opening, so that tips can't get in to the eyes. Weapons include all period medieval weapons, those with thrusting tips have 1" diameter hammerhead style tips on them, so thrusting is still allowed with both long sword and single handed sword.

The local fighters are active in both SCA for Rattan and Adria for steel fighting, and have some some light study on various period manuals, such as I.33, fiore and Lichtenaur, and have incorporated those moves into their styles/weapons type/mix where it makes sense.

To date I have not seen a period heater and sword weapons manual which is the primary SCA form.

It is a major myth that SCA styles are ineffective with real weapons.

Don Giacomo, the local Master of the Tattershall academy once pointed out that a sword is a sword is a sword and that one is not wise to discount the mastery of any form.

A Japanese college exchange student showed up at out last Adria practice. He had 5 years of Kendo training. My husband went out against him using shinai, took up that style and they both had a lot of fun, but in the end, my husband thrashed him soundly. My husband has never had Kendo training, but is an SCA knight. The student complemented him in the end, and said, "I am thinking you are a great sword fighter." A high complement indeed, because it was clear that though he took no credit as being a Master, this was a very experienced student of clearly a high level. The concept that my husband could take on that form spontaneously is not surprising to me, because that is the case with any SCA Knight I know of.

-J

[quote="mike mercier"]I think the main reason I would probably never join the SCA is because of the combat and the associated rules on fighting. Having trained in historical martial arts and now run my own school I cant imagine using anything other than steel as well.
Of those member here that are in the SCA, I have a few questions maybe some of you can help me with.

How many of you have experimented with steel fighting? What were the outcomes?

Why do I get such a negative response from the local SCA members when I try to promote my school and the amazing things you can learn from western martial arts?



Hi Mike
SCA ettiquette 101
If you criticise someone elses clothing - yours had better be superior in execution
If you criticise someones armor be prepared to show him why your gear is better / more authentic
If you want to criticize someone elses fighting you'd better be able to beat them
So with all respect - I fight in a harness. I have trained so that I cam move well in sixty to eighty pounds of armor, while fighting effectively
You are fighting in a fencing mask and medeivally sort of clothing -
Whatever it is that you are doing you can work safely without serious gauntlets while using steel weapons.
Theres a difference between what we're looking to get from our studies - lets leave it at that

wilmot wrote:Russ,
What is not true about my last statement.

VERY LONG CLARIFICATION FOLLOWS

There are and were folks around doing this research who weren't SCA. I was one of them. There are living lineages, albeit few (and none medieval), and a number of the manuscripts now commonly studied that are out there directly as a result of my archival work in collusion with a Silesian colleague of mine, before I had the foggiest clue how the SCA worked. My first thought that the SCA might be relevant was when somebody saw one of the false-edge blows I throw in my sabre method and I then replied to them "what does 'wrap shot' mean?"

The other side of that coin, is that a majority of the people who were involved in doing serious manuscript-grubbing, and therefore allowing wma to take off as a field (to the extent that the term is so synonymous with manuscript reconstruction that even many of its practitioners are barely cognizant of living western lineages, or, unfortunately, wanting nothing to do with them due to the piss-poor behavior and posturing of a few outright fakes in the past couple of years.), was the direct result of individuals either in the SCA or closely affiliated with it. A couple of the manuscripts I dug up were only made aware to me because of conversations with SCA guys trying to get research done. I won't go into the history of HACA/ARMA as a discussion locus -- since it's well-known that I've been publicly threatened by several of their members, there's no way that anything I say can really be taken as an objective voice. But the public foundation work, forming the core of knowledge upon which folks have been relying, they included, has mostly been pushed by SCA guys.

I've played with live steel, dull steel, stage blunts, wood, boffer both crap and excellent, and a little bit of rattan. I've even been stupid enough to play half power with live steel and partially restricted targets. Are there SCA rules that are weird? Yes. Imho, the lower-leg rule, and the refusal to allow haft striking seriously limit what can be played with some of the weapons (spear and greatsword particularly, since it completely removes the high-low threat). Are there things that rattan doesn't simulate well compared to steel? Sure, binding actions are slightly different. But what does that matter for folks playing with the mace in the tradition of nihayat al-sul? On the other hand, "martially," as folks like Mercier are so fond of saying, the SCA is miles above most of the other organizations I've seen, because everybody who cares to gets a solid grounding in body mechanics and footwork, judged in a Darwinian system of "does it work" that is no less martial than the whole mixed martial arts phenomenon, in a much more polite sporting atmosphere.... whereas in wma where I mostly live, it's common to find folks going out and teaching without the foggiest foundation, founding schools after only a year of study, trying to teach advanced fighting techniques with utterly remedial body mechanics... I can drop big names in WMA who I've heard talk about how "~techniques don't work" ... because these folks don't move in the manner required to make them work. And there are very good reasons for a lot of those phenomena: "pure" manuscript WMA is a minimum of twenty years behind the SCA in terms of developing its pedagogy and methodology, and its quality proponents admit that readily.

And when it comes to realism, anybody who says that the SCA game is divorced from reality is simply proving that they don't have the foggiest damned clue what they're talking about. Anybody who's actually read age-of-mail chronicles knows that the warriors of that period BEAT THE HELL out of each other, often striking right into or through through their opponents' helms and mail. Thus, the SCA may fight blossfechten, and using safety rules (just like the rest of us), and using nonmedieval safety equipment (just like my nonmedieval padded weapons), but the way they're fighting and learning to generate real force, for real striking, has plenty to recommend it.

Not to mention, the people tend to be really nice guys, which counts a lot more than technical mastery in my book. I've been fortunate enough to know not one but several true top-1% martial arts instructors, guys who can do the kind of stuff you typically see in movies... I've abandoned study with not one, but TWO of them, on the basis that they were total jerks. For folks with real-world priorities in life, "virtue," for lack of a fuzzier term, counts.

In the martial arts world, I've heard legitimate gung-fu grandmasters say "you can get a lot out of the SCA." I've heard the same said about very specific wma teachers, with some caveats. I've heard some wma guys beam like munchkins at Christmas to be told "you're not real yet, but you're really starting to get there." I've benefitted some SCA guys' game by helping them with wma. I've seen those same SCA guys turn around and give very, very good assistance to wma guys who didn't know where there feet ended and their ribs began -- all in the same "Evil Bob(tm)" seminar.

In short, I may not be God's answer to the nighttime prayers of martial artists and fencers, but I find any wma/SCA "divide" to be infantile. Just like there's nothing keeping a wrestler from having a grand old time playing judo or shootfighting, one may handily benefit from both

.... without condemning water polo simply because the goalie doesn't move a single square in any direction, so long as moving to that square would not place the goalie in check.

mike mercier wrote:Wilmot, I have tried it and find it just isn't realistic. Nothing behaves like steel weapons no matter how hard you try and if someone was to attempt the same manuevers with rattan they would find them ineffective and probably kill themselves in the process.

It is nice to know that a technique can be both ineffective AND deadly.

Just a quick comment Mr. Mercier, And I hope this dosent come out the wrong way, but. I don't think you will ever fully grasp the art you are pursuing WITHOUT applying some sca-like rules and equipment. I don't think you will be as fully rounded and complete a martial artist WITHOUT being able to go full force full speed in harness. If you feel that you can do this safely and without death and perminant injury with steel swords than more power to you. But I just can't see how that is possible.

I guess what I am saying is you will never grasp the "big picture" without putting ALL the pieces together. And your current attitude is preventing that.

If your using only fencing masks for protection and using weapons stouter than a fencing epee without knocking each other out cold, then you are not fighting "full force" by SCA definitions.

We've had a lot of live steel guys come out with the impression that what they did was comparable to what we do and they always change their minds quickly. We had one last year that I though was going to keep coming out. He was working on SCA-suitable armour (his full plate dented too easily) but I think in the end he decided he'd rather focus on the equipment for the game he'd already invested so much in. Most hobbyists are not in a position to have multiple full kits.

Do you have to hit as hard as we do to have a good sense of martial combat? Of course not. However one should not discount the value.

Another thing not to be overlooked is the area of mass combat. No other group can compete with the SCA in terms of safely conducted, fully competitive mass battles. I did traditional martial arts for many years and considered SCA fighting a bit of a novelty and relaxing distraction from "real" martial arts study right up until the day I fought in my first SCA war. That is a whole different critter.


Gaston

Russ,
Thanks for the reply, the point I was attempting to make (maybe not as well as I would like) is that I have had to deal with people like Mike who seem to dismiss the SCA for a very long time and have devoloped a "hot button" for them. I ran a business called Rough from the Hammer for years (which I sold to Cet who mainly does SCA but does some of the WMA stuff) and had to deal with almost every group out there and received countless emails where these people would talk about their group being better than the SCA so you can see I got a little tired of it.

Posted by Russ;
" but I find any wma/SCA "divide" to be infantile."
Thank you, as I have in my previous posts, I have no problem with whatever you do as long as you don't trash other peoples games.

Ronald

A couple of points:
-Full force. In my experience the SCA and WMA disagree on what this means. They both think it means "hitting as hard as you can" but that's were the agreement ends. WMA tries to incorporate blow mechanics that include the slice. SCA focuses entirely on impact. So a WMA person may be hitting as hard as possible, but their technique does not optimize impact so it feels considerably lighter. The jury is still out on this one, but the evidence I have seen or heard related to me has indicated that a blow that incorporates a slice is far more effective at cutting an opponent than a simple impact blow. Anyone seen anything that supports or refutes this? I have personally tried cutting with an Angus Trim sword supplied by All-Saints Blades. When I hit it using SCA power generation techniques I dented the bejeezus out of the target. When I hit it using WMA technique (I was trying to cut in the style of Fiore) I sliced the target in half using a great deal less force. Of course, the flip side to this is that even in period people were going to fight guys who didn't know how to optimally cut with a sword.

-The SCA has helped WMA. Yes. The SCA has created a market that sustains many people and allows them to pursue research. The reason that medieval manuscripts are not scanned, translated, analyzed, and available on the WWW is that there is no money in it. The market that the SCA (and other groups) sustain helps put money into this effort. I also know that I would not have gotten interested in WMA but for the SCA. The flip side of this is that I never even heard of historical manuals regarding combat until I ran out of time to fight and went looking for sources to improve my knowledge of theory for when I could return to active fighting. One early account I have read claims that photostat copies of Talhoffer were being passed around early on and the accounts on the West Kingdom history page make it clear that some of the early participants approached this as a way of 'learning how it was really done'. But I honestly haven't seen much of that in my time in the SCA. Maybe I've been running with the wrong crowd. I do know that many of the SCA-inspired people studying WMA have gone outside the SCA to study WMA not because they want to, but because they had/have to.

-Fighting with steel. WMA groups do not throw people into gear and turn them loose on the field to fight full-speed with steel. AEMMA has a training regimen. Adrian Empire has phased qualifications that lead up to steel participation, as does Markland. SCA fighting is remarkably safe. We can turn a 40 year old, out of shape woman loose on the field with half an hour of instruction and ill-fitting loaner armor and her greatest risk of injury is from twisting an ankle or knee and/or injuring herself while throwing a blow. The SCA could gear up for full contact fighting with blunt metal weapons, but chooses not to. Will this change in the future? Possibly.

Actually, Grzegorz Zabinski has one wma analytical work available at my site online (which is in its infancy, looking for submissions), though it's probably not very well known yet. http://www.scholarsvoices.com A work on Leckuchner's messerfechten is to follow. I created and am paying for that site as a venue to support this sort of thing... whether there's any actual money in it can only be told by time.

Regarding force, it's primarily what you do on impact. I've seen the same thing that you have. On the other hand, swords weren't the only weapons used on a medieval battlefield, by a long shot... they're just the sexy ones people wrote books about...

(edited to remove weird formatting tag)

I would agree that a slicing movement would work very effectively, against unarmored opponents. It would do next to nothing against an armoured opponent in say a transitional harness. Chain makes quite a bit of difference (which is the standard for the SCA, whether actually worn or not) and even less against an opponent in full harness, with some exceptions.

I am so out of touch with WMA standards that I could only assume what their standards are and what conventions they use. I do understand your points on cutting vs. blunt force though.

Odo

jester wrote:A couple of points:
-Full force. In my experience the SCA and WMA disagree on what this means. They both think it means "hitting as hard as you can" but that's were the agreement ends. WMA tries to incorporate blow mechanics that include the slice. SCA focuses entirely on impact. So a WMA person may be hitting as hard as possible, but their technique does not optimize impact so it feels considerably lighter. The jury is still out on this one, but the evidence I have seen or heard related to me has indicated that a blow that incorporates a slice is far more effective at cutting an opponent than a simple impact blow. Anyone seen anything that supports or refutes this? I have personally tried cutting with an Angus Trim sword supplied by All-Saints Blades. When I hit it using SCA power generation techniques I dented the bejeezus out of the target. When I hit it using WMA technique (I was trying to cut in the style of Fiore) I sliced the target in half using a great deal less force. Of course, the flip side to this is that even in period people were going to fight guys who didn't know how to optimally cut with a sword.

-The SCA has helped WMA. Yes. The SCA has created a market that sustains many people and allows them to pursue research. The reason that medieval manuscripts are not scanned, translated, analyzed, and available on the WWW is that there is no money in it. The market that the SCA (and other groups) sustain helps put money into this effort. I also know that I would not have gotten interested in WMA but for the SCA. The flip side of this is that I never even heard of historical manuals regarding combat until I ran out of time to fight and went looking for sources to improve my knowledge of theory for when I could return to active fighting. One early account I have read claims that photostat copies of Talhoffer were being passed around early on and the accounts on the West Kingdom history page make it clear that some of the early participants approached this as a way of 'learning how it was really done'. But I honestly haven't seen much of that in my time in the SCA. Maybe I've been running with the wrong crowd. I do know that many of the SCA-inspired people studying WMA have gone outside the SCA to study WMA not because they want to, but because they had/have to.

-Fighting with steel. WMA groups do not throw people into gear and turn them loose on the field to fight full-speed with steel. AEMMA has a training regimen. Adrian Empire has phased qualifications that lead up to steel participation, as does Markland. SCA fighting is remarkably safe. We can turn a 40 year old, out of shape woman loose on the field with half an hour of instruction and ill-fitting loaner armor and her greatest risk of injury is from twisting an ankle or knee and/or injuring herself while throwing a blow. The SCA could gear up for full contact fighting with blunt metal weapons, but chooses not to. Will this change in the future? Possibly.

SirAngus wrote:I am a knight in the SCA and I run a WMA fiore based school. I have also been very successful in steel tournaments in the US and Europe.

Honestly, the principles of fiore unarmoured longsword can be applied to sca longsword combat. It's core principles can be applied to all combat. No rattan does not behave like steel but I think that any good steel practitioner should be able to make the simple corrections to what they do to make them work.

Most of Fiore's giocco longa plays are easily done or addapted to sca combat. The most important thing to remember is that the plays in Fiore are what to do after your perfect swordsmanship has not worked and you have ended up in a neutral position. I think many WMA practitioners forget that part and think of WMA as only the plays.

Here you have hit on something I've found very frustrating when speaking with some WMA people. When I look at longsword plays in manuals, I frequently see things that I've already been taught or discovered in the course of my years of SCA fighting. Some techniques are clearly outside the SCA's ruleset, but many not only are within our rules, but are used.

Yet, I've been told in no uncertain terms that SCA doesn't use any period techniques. Statements like that leave me wondering what the speaker has seen, and how well the speaker is able to perceive what is happening in a combat.

Gavin

Odo wrote:I would agree that a slicing movement would work very effectively, against unarmored opponents. It would do next to nothing against an armoured opponent in say a transitional harness. Chain makes quite a bit of difference (which is the standard for the SCA, whether actually worn or not) and even less against an opponent in full harness, with some exceptions.

Well, IMHO it might work well against someone unarmored in modern clothing or a peasant dressed down to their underclothing for harvesting work, or perhaps against unarmored legs in hose, or a head cut with a hatless person, but cuts without driving force are not necessarily going to be that affective against period clothing with all its layers of wool and linen (yes, we goofed around with this with sharpened Atar blades.)

One needs to compare unarmoured effectiveness against the average clothing one would be wearing for the time period of the manual. Most are 15th and 16th c, during which times, one would normally wear shirt, underdoublet and cote, all consisting multiple layers of linen and wool as their normal dress. For a test for those who don't have worn out authentic period clothing to destroy, just take a light wool army blanket and layer it over a few layers of linen, it just doesn't "slice" that easily, now worn, the clothing drapes off also providing air space between body and garments. This minute gap will often allow an experienced fighter time to move out of a blow.

Slices (draw cuts?) against an armored opponent IMHO would be ineffective. Even in Japanese martial arts, the sword edge hits with penetrating force before the draw.

Juliana

We're beginning to slip into the already hashed out discussion about the effectiveness of swords against harness.

I was at some I.33 training the other night, and I was in the middle of doing it thinking to myself, "The assumptions are all for unarmored combatants..." and kinda not getting it, until I went, "Oh...the maneuvers are all for unarmored combatants." Duh... Then everything was fine, the draw cuts, everything.

Armored combatants get the mace, the bec de corbin, the rondel dagger, the foot lance, the hache, or the poll axe. Now that I know what I think I know, I would be much more remiss about drawing a sword to "git 'er done."

Jehan de Pelham, esquire and servant of Sir Vitus

Jehan de Pelham wrote:We're beginning to slip into the already hashed out discussion about the effectiveness of swords against harness.

I was at some I.33 training the other night, and I was in the middle of doing it thinking to myself, "The assumptions are all for unarmored combatants..." and kinda not getting it, until I went, "Oh...the maneuvers are all for unarmored combatants." Duh... Then everything was fine, the draw cuts, everything.

Armored combatants get the mace, the bec de corbin, the rondel dagger, the foot lance, the hache, or the poll axe. Now that I know what I think I know, I would be much more remiss about drawing a sword to "git 'er done."

Jehan de Pelham, esquire and servant of Sir Vitus

Jehan,

Do you have any pics of the Foot lance? I have seen this term before but I have never actually seen pictures of one.

TIm

PM sent to avoid derail.

Jehan de Pelham, esquire and servant of Sir Vitus

Wow, I'd like to say that there are some excellent responses.

Iamys, yours was top notch. Have we met? If not I'd like to.

Russ, I know I've met you, but your response was awesome to.

Mr. Mercier, please give it a try. Most people will give you credit when its earned. If you step up and whup on people with your techniques, the fighters will listen. Intently. Pointedly.

Cause like others have said, the SCA worships at the altar of "what works" when it comes to fighting. The biggest rewards still go to prowess, and the good fighters are very effective at saying "this doesn't work... goodbye".