I just came across this news on the site of my WMA group. Maarten Kamphuis, a Dutch student, has engineered a new type of trainingsword specifically for WMA practice. It's a steel sword with rubber edges of some sort. It just won a prize for most innovative sports product in The Netherlands.

Full article: Dutch / Google Translate

When I find some images, I'll post them here.

That's interesting news, Sander!

Have a look here, where I've found another article: It says, the blade slides back upon thrusts. But still we are lacking a photo.

http://www.tudelft.nl/live/pagina.jsp?id=5a33...mp;lang=en

Thomas

edit: http://mblades.com seems to be his site, being under construction. Guess, we'll have simply to wait.

This is very interesting news indeed! I'd love to see exactly how he engineered the blade to slip 10cm into the hilt for thrusting safety.

Ah yes he's been to the last Dijon event I believe, sadly I missed his presentation, I wasn't there that day :(

I think I've seen his prototypes later during the event, but I'm not sure. Seemed quite complex with a lot more of moving parts than what we're used to see on swords ;) Will be interesting to see how it plays out...

Regards,

Take a look at this; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9Xe8-crwps

A video with some more information (in dutch ;) ) But I guess most of you are interested in pictures, moving objects and stuff like that.

It's very interesting indeed. Although I doubt it will ever be on a large scale production, therefor the price would be to high. But truly a great PR for WMA :D

Let me quote Master Obi-Wan:

"That's no sword. It's a space station!"

... this thing is kinda awesome. :eek:

Gah! No flash here. I can't watch that movie. Shame on Adobe for not providing a PPC version of flash...

I'll view it tomorrow on one of my other PCs.

:eek: :eek: :eek: :wtf: How cool is that! Hope they work!

Whohoho! Funny one. If they work, if they are robust enough and if they are not too expensive, this is going to be a very interesting development for Blossfechten.

Hi everyone,
I had the oppertunity to actually fight with the sword as a test. here are my thoughts!

The Looks are a bit different, I mean it looks like a sword but in my eyes not quite as a weapon. When I fought with it some parts like the pommel were still hold together by tape. Indeed there are a lot of moving parts. Especially the blade, the point part slides in the rest of the blade. There is indeed a rubber side accros the point part of the blade. the pommel and the crossguard.

It handles very well! Light weight, it weighs the same as a historic longsword. The sword is very well balanced, difficult to explain it is as if the sword knows what you want to do so it is easier to do so. The sword doesnt tilt forward. Like I said, very well balanced. With all this the version I fought with behaves very well in combat. It makes it easier to do techniques that you couldnt normally do with shinai or wood. Because they bouns on impact.

Some drawbacks? No not many. The rubber on the point part of the sword could interfere when you are in a bind with another sword. This because the material doesnt slide that well like the steel does. Although this was the case with tje version I fought with, maybe they found something for that. And maybe the price, but thats comming from a guy with no money to buy anything:-P

I hope everyone understands what I just wrote:-)

Kind regards,

Thanks for sharing, Sander. What a treat to be able to handle such a toy! When most of us spend our time attempting to recreate objects as they were hundreds of years ago, it's interesting to have a 'technological breakthrough' in the field of medieval studies.
You said the price might be a sticking point for some. Do you have any estimates as to how much they might go for to start?