My interest in historical arms and swords has grown and now mereged with my interest in martial arts. Both are hobbies that I would like to begin and this led me to an interesting question: are there forms of European martial arts still practiced today? I am interested in martial arts mostly for reasons of physical fitness and self-defense. Asian martial arts dominate this sort of category, but If anyone has any suggestions on a European martial art that would fit the bill, please let me know! I would love to learn to fight with a sword and my hands/feet in the same school if possible. Thanks for the help.

do a search on western marshall arts. there are tons of groups that practice today with weapons etc, and base most if not all on historical techniques

Dear Jared,

European martial arts are growing rapidly, both sword arts and others (unarmed, dagger etc.) There are an increasing number of practitioners of varying degrees of seriousness and ability (both in the scholarly translation and interpretation of the old texts that these largely lost arts are recorded in, and in the practical application of these). You can get some idea of the numbers of groups by looking at the links page on the Stoccata site, www.stoccata.org There are also an increasing number of books and DVDs on the subject. The main publisher is Chivalry Bookshelf www.chivalrybookshelf.com but Greenhill and Paladin also publish some good titles.

Swordsmanship isn't really a practical art for self defence, but certainly the skills you learn in swordsmanship can be applied to self defence situations.

Cheers
Stephen

And don't forget to check out http://www.thearma.org/ as well. There are a number of resources there, as well as contact information if there is a study group near you.

Good luck!
:cool:

For self defence I would recomend the unarmed training of "Kampfringen" in the manuals and daggerplay from the same, for the reson of practiallity, not so many swords and rapiers around on the streets today. Then of cource there is the modern progenety of this in wrestling and boxing, witch is also WMA. Nowadays there is lot´s of MMA around too that starts to take a intresst in what we in the Historical fighting buissnes do! A friend of mine in florida also have a pancration project going.

A good website for some of the historic manuals is this one: http://www.schielhau.org

Jared,

Where abouts are you located? It may be there are WMA practitioners in your area you could get in touch with and train with.

David Kite
GFS, ARMA in IN

Ask around about any groups your might want to join though, but don't do it in an open fourm, as that leads to flame wars if anyone has anything negitive to say. I recommend asking the authors of the books from Chivalry bookshelf, as they tend to have been around long enough to have a very good idea. (And they post here and on swordforum.)

As to learning, if no one happens to live near you, get a few friends, and a few copies of any book from Chivalry bookshelf, and you are set.

http://www.chivalrybookshelf.com/

I recommend Tobler's "Fighting with the German Longsword" as being the flat out best guide for someone who is forced to work alone, and still one of the best if you have a group.

Another set of excellent guides are David Lindholm's translations of Ringeck: http://www.paladin-press.com/detail.aspx?ID=1008 and http://www.paladin-press.com/detail.aspx?ID=1357.