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Aurélien Liégeois




Location: Belgium
Joined: 02 Apr 2013

Posts: 9

PostPosted: Fri 20 Mar, 2015 2:12 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

When I will have my sword, I guess I can try to interpret and study de Figueyredo's Montante alone in my garden... without a Montante! This system seems especially useful to fight several opponents. Do you think that the fifteen rules of the Montante can be combined to a more complete tradition such as Fiore dei Liberi or Johannes Liechtenauer? I watched some videos on You Tube and, to my untrained eye, this style seems not so different, except that it emphasizes the cut and ample circular movement. Also, would you know any interpretative work on de Figueyredo's Montante? I am totally unfamiliar with spanish fencing and spanish fencing terminology (and I don't speak a word of Spanish!)

As for the wrestling, let's take another approach then. From what I read, there are again two main traditions for wrestling during the XIVth-XVth centuries: the italian tradition impersonated by Fiore dei Liberi and Filippo Vadi and the german tradition impersonated primarily by Ott Jud and Fabian von Auerswald. Could you tell me if there are any significant differences between them? Or which would be the simplest to learn for a beginner?
As I said, I am not very flexible physically (especially when it comes to my legs) and... I would like to avoid, if possible, any medieval wrestling style relying too heavily on hip throws and leg sweeps. Those are really not techniques suited to me... that's why I talked about searching a style more similar to aïkido than judo.

I won't probably study much medieval wrestling, but I think it is nevertheless necessary to have a basic working knowledge of wrestling and dagger fighting to study medieval fencing. All those techniques were required as a whole to make a fencer out of you. Being able to fight with a sword while being unable to defend yourself with dagger techniques or unarmed techniques is a bit silly... considering the sword is a close quarters combat weapon.
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Matthew P. Adams




Location: Cape Cod, MA
Joined: 08 Dec 2008
Likes: 8 pages

Posts: 462

PostPosted: Wed 25 Mar, 2015 5:34 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

This is the montante translation.
http://www.oakshott.org/Figueiredo_Montante_T...ick_v2.pdf

Montante would have been learned after Longsword, so think of it as layering over Armazare or KDF.

And I practice Aikido too, and there is definitely overlap between it and Fiores abrazare, but I would think KDF would share similarities also.

Ken Mondschein's "the Art of the Two Handed Sword" is worth a read.

"We do not rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training" Archilochus, Greek Soldier, Poet, c. 650 BC
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Aurélien Liégeois




Location: Belgium
Joined: 02 Apr 2013

Posts: 9

PostPosted: Sat 28 Mar, 2015 10:33 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I already have found this translation by Eric Meyers, but I thank you all the same. And I am indeed of your opinion that a greatsword like the Montante (or the Spadone) would have been learned after the longsword. So, studying Fiore's Armizare or Liechtenauer's Kunst des Fechtens shall come first! Of that at least, I am certain. I am also sure about studying Fiore's Abrazare rather than Ott's Ringen. I have more material on the former, anyways, and his wrestling style would suit me better I think.

Now, since you mentioned Ken Mondschein's The Art of the Two-Handed Sword, I wonder if there are significant differences between the Montante and the Spadone style of fencing. Does Alfieri's Spadone fencing use mostly circular motions such as the Montante? Because, if yes, I might as well go all italian and study Fiore dei Liberi mixed with the greasword techniques of Francesco Alfieri. Maybe it would be a more homogenous way of studying the medieval fighting arts.
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Lafayette C Curtis




Location: Indonesia
Joined: 29 Nov 2006
Reading list: 7 books

Posts: 2,698

PostPosted: Wed 01 Apr, 2015 7:59 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Aurélien Liégeois wrote:
As I said, I am not very flexible physically (especially when it comes to my legs) and... I would like to avoid, if possible, any medieval wrestling style relying too heavily on hip throws and leg sweeps. Those are really not techniques suited to me... that's why I talked about searching a style more similar to aïkido than judo.


If what you really mean is that you prefer to practice a more "distant" style of grappling with minimal or no body-to-body contact, I think Fiore's material has more of that than, say, Ott or Auerswald. I had the exact opposite reason for picking the latter over the former -- I wanted to study a new grappling art whose body mechanics appear to be substantially different from aikido's so that I wouldn't get the two too badly mixed up when I practice them.


Quote:
Now, since you mentioned Ken Mondschein's The Art of the Two-Handed Sword, I wonder if there are significant differences between the Montante and the Spadone style of fencing. Does Alfieri's Spadone fencing use mostly circular motions such as the Montante? Because, if yes, I might as well go all italian and study Fiore dei Liberi mixed with the greasword techniques of Francesco Alfieri. Maybe it would be a more homogenous way of studying the medieval fighting arts.


Fiore's art isn't exactly Italian. It'd be more accurate to call his tradition "Imperial" since many of the other related manuscripts in the tradition came from Austria and SE Germany -- roughly the lands under more-or-less direct Habsburg control. Fiore himself might have been ethnically German. More importantly, there aren't that many similarities between his longsword work and the montante or spada a due mani work of later Italian authors. If you're interested in Fiore, you probably should just focus on him for the time being. He has more than enough material to keep you busy for years. (For that matter, so do the later Italian writers if you choose to focus upon them instead.)
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