Toni Lozica wrote: |
Also some years ago I saw a documenary on some warrior organization somewhere in Middle East, possibly Iraq.They were trainig their hands and arms with broad and heawy wooden logs that had a handle in form of sword hilt. That looked quite impresive. Anything of a sort in Europe at the time? |
That's the ancient Iranian martial art, "Varzesh-e Baastaani." The tradition is easily 1800 year old, dating back at least to the Parthian era, and was intended as training for use of swords, shields, maces, and bows. It also centers a lot on wrestling, which ties in to the thread topic.
In Iran and many of the Central Asian Republics, most of the native martial arts deal with wrestling. The reason is that after two heavily armored warriors closed in on each other, the fight would often degenerate into a wrestling match due to the difficulty in using weapons in such proximity (e.g. close cavalry melee when two horses are immediately adjacent). The winner in these sports is whoever doesn't hit the ground, for obvious reasons.
Another way the Turkic and Iranian steppe cultures dealt with heavily armored opponents was much simpler than trying to open them like a can with polearms or mace. Light horsemen would simply lasso them or throw a net over them and drag them behind their horses. Surprisingly simple and effective. Here's a Mongolian lasso:
[ Linked Image ]
Here's the Persian martial art:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D2ar9_BptM