Hello All,

This is a off shoot thread from the "The Naked Truth About Cutting - A Few Bare Facts" thread.

What constitutes "Good" cutting vs "Bad" cutting in my viewpoint? It comes down to my personal criteria as a historic fencer and instructor.

What is that criteria? Fair question. You can look at cutting two ways:

the simple act itself

Or

As applied using historical techniques from a system as if in a fight.

So from the simple act itself, a cut can be "good" yet very "bad' from my personal view because of the simple fact I look at all cutting vids from the view as if they were in a fight. Now in some ways that's quite unfair as many cutting vids are done by sword owners who don't know historic fencing and are only trying to show off how well their beloved sword performs. The cuts they achieve can be quite good from the simple act itself yet fail quite badly from a martial arts viewpoint. The lack of foot work, failure to enter the fight behind the sword, or various other problems that my trained eye can see from a martial arts viewpoint that would put the fencer at risk. That makes a "bad "cut vid IMO.

Now, a cut from using historical techniques from a system as if in a fight can be "bad" yet "good' if the student didn't cut the target cleanly yet entered measure behind the sword, cut, and withdrew without exposing themselves. "Bad" cut, good fencing . I call that a "Good" Cutting vid yet the student needs to work on their cutting forms to get better, but... a proper "Good Cutting vid" has both a proper cut and martial art form.

Now, my pet peeve is when fellow fencers I know (Not you, Michael) throw all of their fencing skills out the window and cut with "devices" that would get them killed in a period swordfight. I would rather use my historic system to cut and work on perfecting that cut than to add "devices" that allows me to skip building proper cutting skills and go for the thrill of just cutting.

I think proper cutting is a major component of a well rounded historic fencing curriculum (even for you small sword guys) and frankly most of us don't do enough of it. Michael Edelson and the New York Historical Fencing Association have been leading the way for a while now. It's time for the rest of us to try to catch up.

In closing, the purpose of this post is not to offend anyone(especially those of you who love swords, cut with them for the joy of cutting but don't study a period sword form), but to explain my personal viewpoint on what I call "good" cutting vids.

Cheers and Best Wishes,

David

I think this is a great post, and I think a discussion of this topic would be very good for the HEMA community, and maybe the collector community as well. If given the option, who wouldn't want to test their swords closer to the manner they were intended to be used?

I do want to add a small caveat about devices...they are not universal. Entering behind the sword can be interpreted many ways, and some systems give us a lot more information about this than others.

Fencing concepts such "true times" are far from universal (just a random example). The Bolognese arts have many actions that explicitly violate "true times", quite on purpose. There are many other examples of concepts in one art that are violated by another art. If these arts didn't work, they wouldn't have been used, which shows us that there is more than one way to skin a cat. For the art I practice, none of this is given to us, and we are forced to us frog DNA from other arts. I have chosen Japanese arts, others chose Silver, etc.

I do not put much stock in entering behind the sword, but I do put stock in entering behind a threat. That means that while the sword does not have to physically in front of you, it has to be moving at a high velocity towards your opponent. My view and David's view may differ only semantically, or there may be an actual physical difference, but either way, it is not important.

What is important, I think, is to evaluate cutting based on the interpretations of those doing them, and to use that to help evalualte the interpretations themselves.

I firmly believe that all interpretations must be vetted by "the great triumverate"...full intensity drills, artifact-free (or as close as possible) free play and test cutting on realistic targets.

I'm honored by what David said about me and NYHFA, and I look forward to the day when cutting becomes an integral part of every HEMA curriculum.

Michael and David


Not trying to be off topic here in any way, but perhaps you two should just chose seconds,
and meet at dawn on Saturday at CW10.

just my opinion I could be wrong.

There is no need for a duel (although it would be fun to watch ;) ). They basically agree, it´s just the details.

Well, wish I could see you two cross swords, but I won´t be able to make it. You two play nice now hehe :) .

Hm. I do understand the point of excecising cutting from a martial arts standpoint. But that said, I think a lot of people who practice cutting do so specifically because they like cutting stuff in half, and not necessarily to hone their practical fighting skills. As the thread starter point out himself, it isn't fair to ask those people to perform a "bad" cut for the sake of propper defence, etc. It depends on what goals you have with the excercise.

Personally, I would probably go for something in between. If I ever take up cutting, I wouldn't mind making my cuts sensible in a martial context, but I think I would still focus on maximizing my actual cutting performance. Your milage may vary.

I find myself trying (probably not as hard as I should) to be able to do anything as needed. That includes strong cleaving cuts over one step, shorter protective cuts worrying more about self-protection than magnitude of wound, slices, thrusts, even striking with the flat... Learn to use the versatility of the sword to the max (whatever the sword). It's the situation that makes a given cut good or bad, not just the form.

Even understanding the exact power and limitation of devices that seem to make a bad move in a given system is an interesting learning tool, and you can't have that unless you train at least a little bit in them. Between two extremes there are generally a lot of good places to be in :)

Regards,

Hi Bill,

Yes, I am aware of the debates on the menaing, though honestly I couldn't care less...true times and Silver have nothing to do with German longsword. As for the Bolognese, Steven is the expert, I'm just paroting things he said in other threads. Squack. Mikey want a cracker.

Steven,

Yes, that is exactly the point I'm trying to make...your interpretations need to inform your cutting, and your cutting needs to inform your interpretations. Otherwise one or the other, or both, are wrong.

Vincent,

Yet another agreement on my part...there ware many ways to cut. The goal of the cut should define the type of cut used.

Anders,

The goal of test cutting is learn how to cut (there are others, but this one is prime for me). To learn how to cut, you have to understand what you are cutting, how much force it will take, how your sword performs, and the hardest one, how you perform and should perform. To learn these things, you need to practice a lot of different cuts on a lot of different targets. Small cuts, big cuts, medium cuts, etc. When you get into cutting, don't limit yourself to one particular type of cut, and don't skip the big sweeping cuts. These cuts are you primary learning tool. Learn these, and the rest will follow.

David Teague

Quote:

What is that criteria? Fair question. You can look at cutting two ways: the simple act itself Or As applied using historical techniques from a system as if in a fight.

I look at this with two seperate eyes. For instance if I am going to turn on Lord of the Rings I know that I am seeing something non-historical. I therefore simply enjoy the movie as it is (So much of the movie has historical basis, though has been adapted to a complete fantasy presentation)

With the other eye, if I am watching a presentation about history and I see something that is obviously non-historical. I become very irritated and I usually stop watching.

I have been in training towards the pole axe and therefore cannot comment about the sword aspect of things. True time is an item that is apart of my training atm. When I see a presentation on the internet or television about the use of a pole axe and there is clear and presice evidence that there are flaws in the presentation (I do take into consideration that I have not had a complete study of even half of all the historical manuels and books about the use of the pole axe, I keep an open mind to study and find out if something is wrong or right) I can't stand it at all. However if I am watching an sca match on the internet... I simply giggle and chuckle about how silly it all looks.

Just like fiction and non-fiction media. I have have to turn my attention on or off if it is historical or non-historical.

Hello David,

Sure, in a fight, if you cut half way through a mat, you've basically killed someone. Likewise, in a gunfight, if you miss center mass but hit an artery in his leg, you've also killed him. But when you train, you aim for a specific target, and when you train cutting, you should train to defeat your target in a manner of your choosing, based on your criteria for your art. That could be cutitng into a mat, or cutting through one. But before making that decision, you should know what a mat represents and how that translates to a human being.

General (non-David specific) response:

[cutting police hat on] One mistake people make is that they assume cutting cleanly through a tatami mat is some major accomplishment and that you don't need nearly that much force in a fight. This is not true. First, it doesn't take much force at all to cut a mat (unless your technique is not sound, then you have to compensate by adding force). Second, a tatami mat offers less resistance than a man in clothing, or a skull covered in a woolen hat.

When setting out to do cutting, people should not view cutting clean through a mat as some Conan the Barbarian super feat. With a diagonal oberhau, it should be child's play, and anyone should be able to do it. That is how you should look at it.

Remember...it's not force that cuts. It's technique.[cutting police hat off]

Another thing I want to say in reference to seeing if your system's cuts work. let's not forget that for the most part, you made those cuts up (I speak of the general collective you, including myself). Maybe you studied a different art, maybe you read some books, maybe you tried to apply some theory, but at the end of the day, you made them up.

So seeing how well your system's cuts work should be secondary, in my opinion, to refining those cuts you made and making them better. Here is where we should seroiusly heed David's cautions. When adjusting your cutting mechanics, be very mindful of maintaining a martially sound technique (yes, David, I like martially sound, I think it works well, thank you.)

To that end, there is one more important thing to keep in mind...cutting from standstill is artificial. When I cut from standstill, there all sorts of telegraphy artificats present in my cutting that I do no intend to be there in free play or even serious cutting. However, all of these disappear when the cut is done in motion...as in approaching your target. A cocking back of the hip, for example, is really obvious when I'm standing there not moving, but if I'm walking towards you, it's lost in my previous step. Same thing with lifting the hands, cocking back the sword. If I'm standing still, it's whack a mole time, but if I'm moving, this is done out of measure and seamlessly with the step that puts me in measure.

Just things to think about. I should write a book so I don't have to keep typing this. :)