[Gabriele Becattini]

hello to everyone,
someone can suggest me a good practical manual for study the medioeval sword and buckler
techiniques and a good sword for doing a serious training ? ( with medioeval i mean the i33, but suggestions for a good study covering also the various 15th century manuscripts are welcome) thank you very much

[Chuck Wyatt]

This book is a great place to start

MEDIEVAL SWORD AND SHIELD
The Combat System of Royal Armouries MS I.33
Paul Wagner & Stephen Hand
http://www.revival.us/index.asp?PageAction=VI...ProdID=112

I also saw a translation of the original manual on the Internet . The URL I cannot recall

Chuck

[Randall Pleasant]

The following link is to an online translation: http://freywild.ch/i33/i33en.html


Ran Pleasant
ARMA DFW

[Bill Grandy]

[Gabriele Becattini]

thank you for yours answers, i have found the link with the translation of the entire manual very useful,
any suggestion about the best kind of sword for sword and buckler use, in terms of handling and dinamic?
i have take a look at albion squire and maestro line, as well angus trim and del tin, what do you think about?
thanks to everyone

[Lucas LaVoy]

I know that some have drawn the connection between I:33 and the type XIV (see Albion's Sovereign for an example). I actually a lot less sure of where someone is supposed to get a functioning buckler, much less which model is going to be better to train with. ARMA seems to use S&B pretty extensively, so they might have a better idea than I.

[Randall Pleasant]

Lucas

Take a look at the bucklers from Crescent Moon Armoury (http://crescentmoonarmoury.com/shields.htm). These are used by all members of the ARMA DFW study group and by a number of other ARMA members. These bucklers work well with padded, waster, and steel blunts. ARMA scholar Brian Hunt also makes a very nice plastic buckler, while not historical it is a little easier on the budget.

[Jesse Eaton]

If you really want to learn to fight, not just do the move, you'll need a partner and some sparring gear. Unfortunately there are very few really good wasters for full speed full contact sparring. Some options that I and others have used include weighted shinai with padded tips for thrusting, RSWs from the realistic sparring weapons site, and the ARMA padded sparring weapons. However, all of these have draw backs. It is difficult to get padded weapons to act like steel without making them dangerous. The RSWs are the best at imitating steel, but are a bit pricy and have aluminum rods underneath the padding and they wear out rather quickly.

There are padded wasters from purple heart armory, but these are way too clumsy, poorly balanced and unsafe for use. The tips break off and the padding deteriorates leaving the solid core exposed and dangerous.

The ARMA padded swords are tough and cheap but stick on the bind and don't flex on impact. The arma wasters are the best 'buy' but you make them yourself so these lack the production value of the RSWs.

But all of the above have the fault of padding that wears out rather quickly, but weighted and 'tiped' shinai will last and last. My last one went 2 years of weekly abuse before I replaced it with my own padded sword design.

I'm currently working on a waster that will be realistically weighted, slick (so it won't stick on the bind), durable, and, most of all, safe. My current version is only lacking a padded hilt for hilt strikes. The blade is nearly indestructable polycarbonate, and the padding is cheaply and easily replacable. If you, or anyone else, is interested I'll post more about it. Currently, I don't have any pictures, but I'll remedy that soon .

[Sam N.]

[Andrew T]

Hi,
I have recently joined a club that specialises in I.33. I asked the master about a sword for practicing and he recommended the Hanwei Practical Knightly Sword as "cheap and usable" - you can find them from £60. They are pretty basic but ok, check battlesword.net for a review. Otherwise the Valian / Atrim 'practical' swords that have just hit the market look good, and there is a new Hanwei / Tinker sword that looks superb out in a few months. The master uses an Albion Maestro Line I.33 but these go for about 400 dollars.

But this is for solo practicing at home. At the actual practice session we train with nylon wasters (from http://www.ferruza.com/nylon/en/index.html) which are effectively a plastic blade with metal pommel and crossguard. They are far better than wood, right weight, good balance and they feel safe because of a degree of flex. I am far happier using them than wooden wasters, and would recommend them to anyone. I dont have any business interest in them...I'm just very impressed!

Bucklers can come from many places, try Get Dressed For Battle or even make it yourself from wood and a re-enactment shield boss...there's plenty of online instructions on shield making out there. Our club uses leather bucklers made for Gatka, the Sikh martial art which are very low priced though not strictly the right shape.

One thing I cannot stress enough is to FIND THE NEAREST CLUB !!! The tuition, practice and encouragement from others is worth so much. Hope this helps, Andy

[M. Eversberg II]

I second The Medieval Sword and Shield.

Also, look up "Hammaborg" on You Tube. They have a number of videos on MS I.33, and at least two of the members are active on the Sword Forum International forums.

I have a Hanwei Practical Knightly, but I have yet to use it in any steel on steel practice. I use a buckler from Merc Tailor. I am contemplating selling it and buying materials to make two somewhat smaller wooden versions (wood bucklers are more common than metal). If you're interested, let me know.

M.

[Stephen Hand]

Dear Gabriele,

A couple of people have recommended my book Medieval Sword and Shield. If you get that, please get a copy of the volume Spada II as well. Spada II is a collection of papers on various aspects of historical swordsmanship. It includes a paper by me discussing and expanding the interpretation that was published in the earlier book. Interpetations are modified over time and in this case you will be a lot better off if you get the original book AND the updated material in the Spada II paper.

I also second the recommendation to look at the Hammaborg material. They're doing some quality research on I.33.

As for what to use, with reasonable control all the moves in I.33 can be done at full speed with blunt steel swords with a reasonable degree of safety. My beginners use shinai, but as I don't teach I.33 as a beginner's weapons combination, all of my work in that system is done with steel. You will need a fencing mask and vambraces (as the arm is a principal target).

Cheers
Stephen