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Craig Johnson
Industry Professional
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 Posted: Tue 29 Sep, 2009 6:55 pm Post subject: Re: Some thoughts |
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| Randall Pleasant wrote: | | Craig Johnson wrote: | | I look forward to seeing what John has found and see how it interacts with the texts and others interpretations. It sounds like it is along the lines of what several others have been working on. |
Craig
I highly doubt others are doing what John Clements is doing. For example, later this week or next week John will post another article on the "Vagge Footwork". This footwork is described in the historical manuals and is clearly seen in everything from I.33 to some of the rapier manuals, yet everybody has totally missed it. Of course, we do expect some to say, "We been doing that for years" even though they can't explain it, haven't talked about it, and haven't written about it. The truth is nobody outside of ARMA and a few ex-members are using the "Vagge Footwork". Likewise with John's interpretation of the Krump, it looks nothing like what anyone is doing, plus it actually breaks Ochs.
Ran Pleasant
ARMA DFW |
Evenin Randall
Please do not take offense at what I wrote I did not declare or state that anyone was doing the same as John. I only made the observation that I did not agree with your statements about the current state of the greater WMA community of which ARMA is but a part. If there was something you feel degraded you or the organization I apologize.
As you state above "This footwork is described in the historical manuals and is clearly seen in everything from I.33 to some of the rapier manuals, yet everybody has totally missed it." If this is as clear as you state, is it not possible some one else has had the insight as well as John? The style that John likes to move in is distinctive and he feels is based on the material he has studied. It maybe that others have valid interpretations that differ. I doubt any one has the "whole thing figured out" at this point of the process.
Especially on the northern european manuals I would be weary of saying it is always this or that. The texts themselves vary with different emphasis and the language is quite straight forward but not equivalent to modern German. In fact the dialects and word structures can tell one quite a bit about where and how this material evolved.
While declaring that "we do expect some to say, "We been doing that for years" " and just have not talked about it. I doubt this could happen as most people with a solid reputation for doing good research and interpretation have done classes and study with many others and it would be quite clear that they have or have not had something in the repertoire. Thus if one where to claim such they would have corroborating witnesses and evidence.
I look forward to John's article on footwork and once we have something concrete to discuss I look forward to exploring the material with all who are interested. I would expect that in the area of the Krump hau it may prove useful to check where many are now in relation to its interpretation. It works quite well to break Ochs and other positions. I am not sure what your interpretations are but know the way we are looking at this is working very well and is a solid technique.
Best
Craig
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Chad Arnow
myArmoury Team
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| Posted: Tue 29 Sep, 2009 8:06 pm Post subject: |
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Everybody,
Feel free to question the work being presented, but do not stray into the realm of personal attacks on anyone, including Mr. Clements.
Thank you.
ChadA
http://chadarnow.com/
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Steven H
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| Posted: Wed 30 Sep, 2009 9:28 am Post subject: |
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Extraoridnary claims require extraoridnary evidence. This post includes no evidence. Therefore its claims are ignored until such time as evidence is presented. To expect anything else is folly.
The essay starts out like the advertisement for a book, which, if you read to the end, you discover it is. And so we can trust it no more than we would any other advertisers statements. Unless it is backed up with evidence.
To suggest that no one else seeks the bind is simply ridiculous.
To suggest that everyone else relies on parry-riposte is a combination of willful ignorance of those who do and plain ignorance of those traditions which emphasize the parry-riposte.
To suggest that no one else closes to grappling is ridiculous. If nothing else the grass stains on my training gear will attest to the contrary.
To suggest that no else understands fuhlen and indes is to be illiterate. Tobler and others wrote about it in published books years ago.
That the SCA, LARPers and stage combat directors do not understand HEMA is a given. They do not attempt to and do not make any such claims.
But amongst those groups whose stated purpose is the study of HEMA the statements made in that essay are unsupportable, unjustified attacks.
-Steven
Kunstbruder - Boston area Historical Combat Study
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David Teague
Location: Anchorage, Alaska Joined: 25 Jan 2004
Posts: 409
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| Posted: Wed 30 Sep, 2009 10:22 am Post subject: |
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| Steven H wrote: | That the SCA, LARPers and stage combat directors do not understand HEMA is a given. They do not attempt to and do not make any such claims.
But amongst those groups whose stated purpose is the study of HEMA the statements made in that essay are unsupportable, unjustified attacks.
-Steven |
Hello Steven,
My only bone with the sweeping statement from the article about people who pursue Living History,reenactment, SCA, et al is that it discounts anybody with those backgrounds as suffering from "poor training habits and weak reconstructions" and follows with "When pointing out the reality of historical violence serious martial artists cannot be bothered if they offend costumed role-players and stunt fencers." Why does this bother me? Two fold, first is the fact that I study WMA as a martial art and I show historic techniques to the general public in a living history format (and we cover the " reality of historical violence" in graphic detail) , second, many of the top names in the WMA field hail from a SCA (or something of it's ilk) beginning.
I run classes for the general public , train in modern clothing 52 weeks of the year, but just because I give demos in a historical content on 3 weekends yearly I'm dismissed as a wantabe  . (Ran and I have gone around on this subject before on the net).
JC dismisses most of us in that short sentence.
Cheers,
DT
This you shall know, that all things have length and measure.
Free Scholar/ Instructor Selohaar Fechtschule
The Historic Recrudescence Guild
"Yea though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou's sword art is with me; Thy poleaxe and Thy quarterstaff they comfort me."
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Tom Leoni
Industry Professional
Location: Alexandria, VA Joined: 19 Apr 2004
Posts: 12
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| Posted: Wed 30 Sep, 2009 5:21 pm Post subject: |
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I have to agree with most everyone here.
The article offers no details on this "revelation" and reads like a ham-handed infomercial. The few details we get are vague, and some downright wrong (unless worded poorly). For instance, the already-mentioned negation of parries and ripostes as anachronistic before the late-17th Century is demonstrably wrong, especially when prefaced by:
"Regardless of weapon or source teaching, there are a handful of vital components that absolutely must underlie all study, and they cannot be restructured or reformulated away from their holistic origin. Yet, they have been entirely missed and overlooked by those doing this subject for more than a century (!)."
Parries and ripostes are VERY MUCH part of Italian systems from Fiore onwards. And before anyone plays gotcha by saying that a parry-riposte in Fiore or Marozzo is not done exactly like (say) in Marcelli or Di Mazo--let me say that a parry-riposte is a clearly-defined action, called such in the treatises (parata e risposta) as far back as the 1500s. The Masters speak very clearly of the footwork, bladework, tempo, often even size of motion and strength required--and to say that everyone missed the obvious except for the article's author is only indicting of the author himself.
I'm not kidding: I have Marozzo open on my desk, and I didn't even have to turn the page to find at least 4 instances of parries and ripostes, together with a very detailed and crystal-clear instruction about what to do with your feet as you perform them. I'd like to know where I'm going wrong with my understanding of my own language.
Another thing that greatly weakens the argument is the constant invocation of strawmen--such as LARPers, SCA, theatrical fencers, etc. Unless I'm hanging out with the wrong people (i.e. outliers), I don't know of a single person in WMA who's unaware that SCA, theatrical fencing and LARP are different beasts only tangentially related to their own discipline.
I think it would be wise for John to let this one go.
A slightly softer strawman is the practitioner who pulls blows, modifies actions to "make them work," etc. Sure, there are some who do, but to always compare yourself to these sets the bar pretty low for yourself. It's like being a music student and gloating about being better than those who can't play a piece in the correct tempo: how about you compare yourself to those who can? And believe me, there are countless practitioners and schools who practice and fence at speed--I have just seen a high number of them at WMAW 2009.
What I find irking is that there needs to be a constant drive to compare ARMA to other groups--"we're better, we're the real thing" etc. I know for a fact that ARMA is a good school with some darn good practitioners, but honestly, this constant in-your-face reminder comes across as very insecure.
Just my 2 cents here--sorry for not pulling punches, but we are martial artists and not ballet-dancers. I hope we can speak as frankly as we train.
Tom
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Bill Grandy
myArmoury Team
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| Posted: Wed 30 Sep, 2009 11:18 pm Post subject: Re: Some thoughts |
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Randall,
I'm not sure how you can say people today are doing Fiore just as Bob Charron was teaching it in 2002... if you were really taking part of the community, you'd know that even Bob Charron himself doesn't do Fiore *at all* like he was in 2002, let alone anyone else. To be honest, one of the huge red flags about John Clements's claims is his rather poor article about Fiore that he published in the recent ARMA book through Paladin Press. His article about Fiore was shockingly riddled with errors, since so many of his statements could be directly refuted by Fiore's words himself. You may recall Ilkka H. making a step by step criticism of all of the factual errors in the article. Nevermind other misconceptions I've heard about Fiore from Clements, including the dubious claim that Fiore is also known as Massimo Malipiero (for anyone who doesn't know: Massimo Malipiero is a modern man who republished Fiore's work in Italy a couple of years ago... that's kind of like me saying that Charles Dickens was also known by the name of Penguin Books). So I hardly think its fair to make these insinuations that John Clements is doing something new with Fiore in particular, or that everyone else has it wrong when the public record seems to show that its the other way around.
And even if there hadn't been anything new, how does that automatically equal something bad? As Christopher H mentioned about, that's the "appeal to novelty" fallacy. After all, there haven't been any new advances to the law of gravity in quite a while. Should I write an article about how everyone has it wrong, that gravity actually pulls away from the earth, and that anyone who clings to the old way of thinking is flawed?
| Randall Pleasant wrote: | | Likewise with John's interpretation of the Krump, it looks nothing like what anyone is doing, plus it actually breaks Ochs. |
If this is the same krump from the video you posted before, then there's a good reason it looks nothing like what anyone else is doing right now. As I said to you in the previous thread where this came up: People (that is, non-ARMA people) have come up with this before, and have realized that it simply doesn't fit what the texts say. At all. Even when I asked you to justify how it fits the text, right on this forum, you couldn't answer me. The fact that you refuse to believe that anyone else has thought of it, even after I told you, suggests to me that you really don't have as much contact with the greater community as you may think you do. I don't mean this to be an insult. You keep bringing up WMAW 2006 quite a lot as your experience (here and elsewhere), as if the one event in that one year somehow represents the entire world of WMA pracitioners, but if that's the only event you've been to outside of an ARMA event, then I don't see how you can say you're well aware of what's going on outside of ARMA, because there's a whole planet of people whom are doing some fantastic work that you wouldn't have met there, particularly that year.
I'm not trying to be confrontational, Randall. I'm really not. I'm definately not trying to kick up dirt or start a fight. But you're making some rather hard-to-swallow claims here, and when people challenge you, you respond with a lot of veiled insults about unnamed groups and practitioners. I look forward to seeing these videos John Clements plans on doing, but I'm not exactly holding my breath for anything revolutionary, and I'd be happy if these can be done without the usual "no one else does this right" diatribes that have become the norm for his presentations. Nonetheless, I'm always wanting to compare notes on training methods with anyone who might have good ideas to share, so I'm hoping for the best.
HistoricalHandcrafts.com
-Inspired by History, Crafted by Hand
"For practice is better than artfulness. Your exercise can do well without artfulness, but artfulness is not much good without the exercise.” -anonymous 15th century fencing master, MS 3227a
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William Carew
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| Posted: Fri 02 Oct, 2009 6:05 am Post subject: |
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| Randall Pleasant wrote: | | Steven Reich wrote: | | However, there is a lot of statements that basically say, "I know the right way, and no one else does." Sorry, I just can't agree with that. |
Steve
Then how are we to ever make any progress in re-creating the lost Medieval and Renaissance martial arts? To move forward someone has to stands up and says, "Hey, I got new interpretations, it invalidates what we have been doing, but it moves us forward" Is that not the foundation of science? In the article John Clements warning against "approved consensus". Where would the sciences be if they only had "approved consensus"? Do remember that Europe had a nice "approved consensus" about the shape of the Earth before 1492. We must question the everybody's work. Please note that the first interpretations that John Clements had to challenge was 20+ years of his own work!
All the best,
Ran Pleasant
ARMA DFW |
Hi Randall,
I would love to question my current assumptions on the principles of German longsword, including footwork, in light of John Clement´s new insights. Unfortunately there is no detail and nothing new in the article, just a good deal of repetitive hyperbole. Peer review and progress in the `craft´ as John likes to call it, is definately essential to keep the discipline advancing, but it requires a willingness to openly share one´s research in the public marketplace of ideas - simply telling everyone you have uncovered the Rosetta stone to HEMA, but you cannot actually explain it because everyone else is too ignorant or too stupid to understand it adds absolutely nothing of value to the HEMA field.
| Quote: | | I highly doubt others are doing what John Clements is doing. For example, later this week or next week John will post another article on the "Vagge Footwork". This footwork is described in the historical manuals and is clearly seen in everything from I.33 to some of the rapier manuals, yet everybody has totally missed it. |
Die vaage (the scales) is not as much a mystery to the rest of the community as you imply Randall. Die vaage is mentioned explicitly in a couple of places, including the Codex Wallenstein, where IMHO it relates partly to being able to manipulate the distribution of weight (loading) between the feet to ensure effective balance and fast, unpredictable and non-telegraphed stepping under the centre of gravity (for e.g. one would bend the left knee deeply and have one´s weight loaded over the front left foot when at the edge of wide distance if one wanted to ensure the right foot was unloaded and thus able to step freely, swiftly and non-telegraphically forward and/or to either side either in attack or in response to an attack).
In the same passage within Wallerstein (I´m typing from an internet cafe in Berlin, and so don´t have sources to hand to quote) the scales are associated with how to emply correct posture, including a low and deep stance, to make oneself `small in the body and thus great in the sword.´ Stepping as if on a scale is also mentioned explictly in Hs.3227a in relation to footwork being well balanced, measured and precise. Other masters, such as Fiore and Vadi (with their allegorical descriptions of footwork and balance, including rocks and suns, elephants and keys which open and close) and Joachim Meyer (who clearly shows a preference for a low body position and single loading with the weight over a bent knee) also have related and relevant insights into footwork which many researchers around the world are well aware of. Now, John may have many more and different insights, and I look forward to seeing them, but to say everybody has missed these concepts is simply rude and uninformed.
I eagerly await the detail in the forthcoming article on footwork from John. Then we may be able to at last see what John and you are so excited about - hopefully it will lead to new insights for the rest of us.
Cheers,
Bill
P.S. as already noted by another poster, in relation to your comment here:
"Do remember that Europe had a nice "approved consensus" about the shape of the Earth before 1492."
Learned Europeans were well aware the earth was a globe and had been for centuries - they just underestimated the size of it.
Bill Carew
Jogo do Pau Brisbane
COLLEGIUM IN ARMIS
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Randall Pleasant
Location: Flower Mound, Texas Joined: 24 Aug 2003
Posts: 333
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| Posted: Fri 02 Oct, 2009 9:20 am Post subject: |
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| William Carew wrote: | | Die vaage (the scales) is not as much a mystery to the rest of the community as you imply Randall. Die vaage is mentioned explicitly in a couple of places, including the Codex Wallenstein... |
Bill
Of course Die Vaage is explicitly mentioned in the historical documents. Where else would the concept of Die Vaage come from if it was not? Without doubt many people have read about Die vaage in the Codex Wallenstein. However, we have not seen people implementing it concept. Yes, people do talk about balance and the Elephant, yet we have not seen Die vaage in publications, their online articles, their pictures, or their videos and rarely do we ever see anyone take a wide stance. Remember the first time you and I talked about the wide stance seen in Meyer on another forum others were thinking it was probably artistic licence. Is it a mystery to the community, maybe, maybe not, but with the exception of yourself it has not been implemented by the community. In any case the cheese has been move, now everyone will run to it and say, "It's mine!"
Ran Pleasant
ARMA DFW
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David Teague
Location: Anchorage, Alaska Joined: 25 Jan 2004
Posts: 409
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| Posted: Fri 02 Oct, 2009 10:19 am Post subject: |
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| Randall Pleasant wrote: | Remember the first time you and I talked about the wide stance seen in Meyer on another forum others were thinking it was probably artistic licence. Is it a mystery to the community, maybe, maybe not, but with the exception of yourself it has not been implemented by the community. In any case the cheese has been move, now everyone will run to it and say, "It's mine!"
Ran Pleasant
ARMA DFW |
If the deep stance of Meyer and Jakob Sutor isn't being used anywhere else (other than ARMA and William Carew) how did Arne Koets of the Royal Armory (Leeds) kick my @ss during a bit of fun freeplay 2 years ago using that very deep stance and Die vaage footwork?
Turns out he's a longtime Sutor student. 
A few of us were just discussing the changes in stance at the WMAW over the 200 plus years of the German system. Nobody in the group I was chatting with thought Meyer/Sutor's stance was artistic licence. The general conclusion was the upright small frame stance of the early work goes hand in hand with the wearing of a full harness. The full harness was no longer the battlefield standard by Meyer and Sutor's time so it allowed the use of the deeper stance and larger steps. Also, the longsword had become the "fencing foil" to teach the basics of German swordplay (ok, the art of fighting if you wish) . The deep stance of Meyer/Sutor's longsword is what becomes the base for learning the stance for the real killing weapon of the era, the sidesword aka the " Meyer 's rappier".
But... you must know all this as I'm pretty sure we both have the same set of historic fight books on our shelves.
You wall yourself in, make grandiose statements unsupported by any facts and yet when we point out some of steady improvements in our craft , you cry out " In any case the cheese has been move, now everyone will run to it and say, "It's mine!"
This you shall know, that all things have length and measure.
Free Scholar/ Instructor Selohaar Fechtschule
The Historic Recrudescence Guild
"Yea though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou's sword art is with me; Thy poleaxe and Thy quarterstaff they comfort me."
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Jean-Carle Hudon
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| Posted: Fri 02 Oct, 2009 2:10 pm Post subject: Rosetta stone??? |
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I won't get into any details abouts stances nor binds, but do wish to point out how offensive to some,and misleading for others, the claim to have produced a '' Rosetta stone'' for the understanding of any art form, language, or in this case martial art system.
The Rosetta stone allowed modern europeans (XIX century french, Napoleon's gang) to first unlock the meaning of hieroglyphs in Egypt... before the stone, they were just funny stick drawings on stone or in tombs. Thus the claim to Rosetta stone equivalency is tantamount to declaring that all which came before was muddled guesswork, not very conducive to a friendly discussion amongst peers who share a common interest and a common goal. As for ''epiphany'', well we all enjoy our private talks with angels or the Power Above, but this also usually throws a cold shower on an ongoing conversation, or exchange of views... yup, my epiphany, coming from where epiphanies come from, sure trumps your years of study and experimentation...
I conclude in saying that the original text of this thread should be reworked, using a vocabulary more in touch with reality and the value to be given to one man's opinion, however highly he might think of his own opinion.
Bon coeur et bon bras
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Randall Pleasant
Location: Flower Mound, Texas Joined: 24 Aug 2003
Posts: 333
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| Posted: Fri 02 Oct, 2009 3:55 pm Post subject: Re: Rosetta stone??? |
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| Jean-Carle Hudon wrote: | | I ... do wish to point out how offensive to some,and misleading for others, the claim to have produced a '' Rosetta stone'' for the understanding of any art form, language, or in this case martial art system. |
I truely regret the deep intense emotional distress you are feeling. 
However, in regard to John Clements being misleading, might you want to hear what he says first?
Ran
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Jean-Carle Hudon
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| Posted: Fri 02 Oct, 2009 4:02 pm Post subject: distress |
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Randall,
I didn't realize that you were responsible for Mr Clement's texts, now that is distressing, but with regards to emotions, it rather leaves me cold...
Bon coeur et bon bras
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Steven H
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| Posted: Fri 02 Oct, 2009 5:28 pm Post subject: Re: Rosetta stone??? |
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| Randall Pleasant wrote: |
However, in regard to John Clements being misleading, might you want to hear what he says first?
Ran |
He has already said things in this article that are demonstrably false, as Bill Grandy and Steven Reich already described. Some other things he says may be true, but some are provably false. So he is being misleading.
Perhaps if he used fewer sweeping statements and bold declarations he could avoid being misleading. But he didn't.
Two of the earliest responses in this thread were about glaring errors in this essay. Will you address those errors? Will John Clements? If those errors are not addressed, you must expect this kind of criticism. Refusing to admit mistakes, or address errors is John's problem - not a problem with the rest of the community.
I'll be glad to see what John has to contribute to the community with his follow-ups to this essay. But, I too, will not expect to see a revolution. I expect to see incremental change. Incremental change is the norm in science.
Cheers,
Steven
Kunstbruder - Boston area Historical Combat Study
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Mike Cartier
Location: Florida Joined: 28 Aug 2003
Posts: 5
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| Posted: Fri 02 Oct, 2009 7:44 pm Post subject: |
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Randall your problem has always been your blind defense of even John Clements most outlandish statements . You should wake up and realise that if JC wants to make outlandish statements in his articles he should either back them up with facts in the article or at least give you the facts to defend them or hell , even come here and defend them himself.
Simply ask him to make another article to outline why he is thinks all these things. Being intentionally vague even as he makes wildly arrogant claims that literally insult the entire HEMA community is of course simply an attempt to create more drama and political intrigue rather than address the facts so he can once again claim he is the martyr of HEMA .. Lay them out, support them, defend them. Simply do what anyone else here would have to do if they released an article on a subject.
Its is a very arrogant article and has little facts involved, lets see the facts already, many of us here spend lots of time on manuals so we are perfectly capable of understanding. I think you can understand why most of us would have little reason to take his claims on faith. The manuals are the true authority not modern organizations or personalities, so simply lay out your sources and conclusions, its not very hard really.
-mike cartier FIMAS
Meyer Freifechter Guild
www.freifechter.com
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Benjamin Fredrick
Location: Richmond Joined: 02 Oct 2009
Posts: 4
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| Posted: Fri 02 Oct, 2009 8:02 pm Post subject: |
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I've been quietly watching RMA for a couple of years now and although I'm certainly no expert in the field I have some general observations over this discussion of Die Vaage . I have seen no one school and certainly no general movement that publicly stressed the importance of this stance that is until I read Mr. Clement's article. In fact I haven't seen this stance (Die Vaage) demonstrated consistently in any of the videos made available to the public on the web with exception to those put out by the organization ARMA. Not to say that its not out there but if it is, it isn't being touted to the extent where I can find it.
So I have to surmise that from my viewpoint either Mr. Clements is on to something that the rest of HEMA either missed or dismissed as unimportant or the rest of HEMA is not disclosing the importance of Die Vaage to me who has been seemingly left in perpetual ignorance. Now if Die Vaage starts showing up as the new standard, then I will know something. I see a man who has made some sweeping statements, but I have also watched him being dismissed before he's really had his say. If he wants to wait to have his say until he has published his book, then good for him.
I am not a member of any of the organizations represented on this thread. Sorry to be the contrarian.
Ben F.
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Chad Arnow
myArmoury Team
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| Posted: Fri 02 Oct, 2009 8:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Mike Cartier wrote: | Randall your problem has always been your blind defense of even John Clements most outlandish statements . You should wake up and realise that if JC wants to make outlandish statements in his articles he should either back them up with facts in the article or at least give you the facts to defend them or hell , even come here and defend them himself.
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Mike,
This is the last reminder: attack the work if you must, but do not get personal. That goes for everyone participating in this thread.
ChadA
http://chadarnow.com/
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Nat Lamb
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| Posted: Fri 02 Oct, 2009 8:24 pm Post subject: |
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| David Teague wrote: |
If the deep stance of Meyer and Jakob Sutor isn't being used anywhere else (other than ARMA and William Carew) how did Arne Koets of the Royal Armory (Leeds) kick my @ss during a bit of fun freeplay 2 years ago using that very deep stance and Die vaage footwork?
Turns out he's a longtime Sutor student.
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Interesting how a bold claim is far more palitable when the one making it was on the recieving end of the revalation. "Aproach X works, and I discorvered it" sounds arrogant (whether it works or not), "Aproach Y works, I know cos someone used it on me very effectively" sounds rational and admarably honest.
BTW, this post is meant not to through extra fuel on the fire, just as a tip of the hat to David to say "it takes a good man to admit when he is wrong, and a great one to admit to an arse kicking that he learned something from"
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Mike S.
Location: New England Joined: 29 Sep 2009
Posts: 2
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| Posted: Fri 02 Oct, 2009 9:05 pm Post subject: Re: Rosetta stone??? |
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Hello again, Randall!
| Randall Pleasant wrote: | | However, in regard to John Clements being misleading, might you want to hear what he says first? |
Indeed, we would!
Unfortunately, as I mentioned explicitly in my previous post on this topic, he hasn't said much of anything yet, and that which he did has already been disproved. It's not that John's article is misleading. It's just that it's lacking any information whatsoever.
To everybody participating in this conversation.
Until some actual information regarding this "Rosetta Stone" becomes available for review, we are all better off leaving this topic to rest. We are, in essence, debating over nothing (which just about sums up the contents of the original article.) and this entire thread is quickly leaving the HEMA ring in favor of the poo throwing arena. I think it would be better for all parties involved in this thread to just let it die.
We can reconvene for another session once an actual piece of work becomes available, perhaps the promised "Vagge Footwork" article. Hopefully this article will have actual content we can apply rational discourse to instead of the "I'm right, you're wrong, but I can't tell you why; it's a secret." which sums up the last article.
So until there is actual work to discuss, please, everyone, take some time to yourselves, relax, and forget this thread, so that when an actual article is published, we can come to it with a fresh, open mind, and not the hostility that's been building up here.
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Mike Cartier
Location: Florida Joined: 28 Aug 2003
Posts: 5
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| Posted: Fri 02 Oct, 2009 9:05 pm Post subject: |
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Mike,
This is the last reminder: attack the work if you must, but do not get personal. That goes for everyone participating in this thread.[/quote]
Well my apologies, I am certainly not trying to attack anyone. However i have not been warned of anything.
Regardless I agree we should keep this to the facts as much as possible, my apologies if my post seemed to stary from this goal.
-mike cartier FIMAS
Meyer Freifechter Guild
www.freifechter.com
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Luke Zechman
Location: Lock Haven Pennsylvania Joined: 18 Jan 2009
Posts: 278
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| Posted: Fri 02 Oct, 2009 10:27 pm Post subject: |
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Ok this is a pretty heavy topic and I am a complete newbie to Western martial arts, and any communities dealing with such, but I wanted to say a few short things. I understand that a lot of us are really into being historically accurate. With some things that may be possible, but with others it may not. I know there are some surviving documents that contain the teachings of masters from times past, but how practical is this really. Imagine actually going back to a battlefield from a past time and having the equipment to engage and possibly kill someone. How many of the men ( and I am even including the ones that where great at winning/killing other men on the battle field) in any given battle do you think where actually taught and trained by one of these "masters". I am not trying to evoke any anger here but want to make a point. Eastern martial arts have been better preserved then Western ones have. With that said I can pretty much guarantee you that they have changed substantially from then till now. Martial arts, like language, like species, like styles, like so many other things change over time. How many of the people engaging in this thread have actually picked up a sharp sword, suited up for battle and gone out on the battle field and killed anyone? I commonly engage in similar arguments that crop up in the scientific community. "Well I think T-rex had feathers" ... "Well I think T- rex didn't have feathers" There is no right answer, when the real answer is unobtainable! I say appreciate each other form being interested in the same sort of things. Take what works for you and use it well, and enjoy yourself. Life is to short, and time is to precious to squabble over things that will never be resolved. I hope I haven't made any enemies by posting this thought. Live in the now and realize that the art of fighting with a long sword or flail or mace is HISTORY. In the mean time, for those of you waiting for the anarchy to rear its ugly head, keep doing what you do and maybe just maybe you will get to see if you are right.
P.S. I am not taking any sides here, nor looking to make any enemies. I am just trying to engage in a civil, intellectual conversation. Keep being passionate about what you do.
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