[W. Schütz]

http://www.lancasters-armourie.co.uk/vids/twinwood05/sat12.htm

Its fun to watch, but i cant help feel that these guys really needs to study their fechtbucher some more..

[Addison C. de Lisle]

Fun to watch yes, except for the guy (the referee I'm assuming) kept blocking the camera. They looked like they were really getting tired toward the end.

[W. Schütz]

I dont really understand this sort of fighting, longsword combat in full armour without half-swording or grappling would leave me feeling quite frustrated..

[Matthew K. Shea]

It's a pretty interesting video, but sadly it stopped playing for me about a third of the way in

From my (extremely limited) experience, it seems like they're doing less fencing and more flailing at each other with their swords. Not to judge them or anything, 'cause I wouldn't know the first thing about sword fighting and what they're doing would be pretty cool to do.

If you guys like this video, you can also check out some other videos from The Academy of European Medieval Martial Arts. Just scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on "General Training Videos" to see a fairly extensive library of short duelling clips. I find that after watching a few videos the site becomes non-responsive for me, but closing the browser and going back to the site after a few seconds seems to remedy this.

[W. R. Reynolds]

W.,

Couldn't get your link to work nor could I do so with the link on Lancaster's site. Without seeing the video, my guess as to why no half swording was done in full armour would be that it allows you to use full speed reasonable force blossfechten techniques without running the risk of serious injury. Another guess and this is from the front page of their website is that it is what the public in general expects a sword fight to look like anyway. Is it correct? Probably not. Is it entertaining? A look at the background on the photo of the 2005 will answer that one.

[Eric Allen]

[W. Schütz]

These vids, and there are a bunch of em, really feeds the prejudice that medieval fighting was just two guys in 50kg steel armour, imovable and just smacking away at eachother..some of these vids kinda remind me of that fight with the black knight in 'the Holy Grail'...

[Elling Polden]

They are slooooooow....
and that's no just because of the armour.
Some groups favour this slow, heavy style of show fighting. Probably because they subscribed to the notion of "heavy knights" when they started out.

[W. Schütz]

[Chuck Russell]

ive done fast steel and staged steel. the public just loves the clang of metal on metal. it doesnt matter.

[Maria Wilkinson]

these guys had a stall at a re-enactors fayre end of last year and so I managed to take a close look at the waepons, they are well made and feel nice to handle. Whilst we were there they had the double headed glaive which they want to authenticate ( it's on the website under "products prices" and then "new products") and they offered 50% discount on it to anyone who could authenticate it. As they had an area cordoned off for playing, I had to have a go with the glaive and just managed to keep it under enough control to prevent it from causing major damage to the rope posts!
they also had this video at the fayre and demonstrated some of their techniques in their arena, it is a slow combat but the guys who where there made it look easy. Too slow for me though

[Matthew K. Shea]

I would like to retract my earlier statement of this "seems like they're doing less fencing and more flailing at each other" and state it outright: they are not fencing, but flailing at each other with swords. I showed this video to a friend, and he said something interesting: what they are doing is swordfighting as much as Olympic fencing is swordfighting.

Why? Because in both the fighters are performing what would be suicidal moves in a real battle situation. Now, I'm not saying anything bad about those who practice Olympic-style fencing (far from it; the skill and athleticism involved is amazing), but when your only goal is to hit your opponent even a split second before your opponent hits back, that isn't a real sword fight. The same thing happens many times in the video: the fighters are hitting each other one after another, without any real attempts at parrying. At least Olympic fencers parry. And get points for hitting first.

[W. Schütz]

That has got to be the single biggest missunderstanding of how combat works - the fact that you have to learn to kill your opponent WITHOUT getting killed yourself i found to be the initial "AHA!"-moment when studying matrial arts - and one can easely see who hasnt been studying..

[Elling Polden]

We have started running our huskarl sparring matches to three hits rather than one to counter just this problem.
It feels better, and is good training.

When showfighting we generally go close to full speed, with larger, more visible blows; When someone is hit, he (subtly) opens himself up to be finished. If noone does so, he is still alive.
This because the audience does not see hits. Damn, I have trouble seeing hits most of the time. What they see is movement, momentum, and intensity. Keep moving, make fast or powerful looking attacks, and give the impression that you are scared of/want to kill the other guy...

[W. Schütz]

When we fight with full armour and sparring-polehammers we have stopped using the 'hit'-system and exchanged it for the 'pain'-system..;/ When using a hard-rubber polehammer you can hit armour hard without getting dents, and you feel the force of the blow depending on how well it hits you - and by that you determin the fight, just like in real combat - the one who hits best wins. So a stunned leg in sparring translates to a cruched bone if we would use real polehammers.

Wotans einherjers surely depicts every true mans dream - to be able to fight and kill your friends every night just to be reborn and ready to battle the next day.

[Matthew K. Shea]

[W. Schütz]

I ment that its very easy to tell when people fight without having done any real studying of the 'art de la mort'.. They tend to not even know the most basic thing, the art of killing without getting killed yourself. And that was the first thing that made me realize that its actually not just a bunch of ways to "use your opponent like a tatami-mat" but rather a true Art of the mind and body.

[Jean Thibodeau]

When it's a game getting a hit in first wins or the total number of hits are compared and the one with the most point wins.

With sharp blades / real fight, the stakes of a mistake are high in pain, permanent loss of function or limb, or death: So I would imagine that would focus the mind and one would not charge in with random thoughtless actions.

Since practising with sharp blades holding nothing back would mean dying or loosing training partners, not to mention legal problems. some sort of scoring system must be adopted and one does learn by one's mistakes.

What is good to remember is that in a real fight you don't get a second life!

Think of a first person " realistic " shooting computer game where you do learn and improve and refined your skills, but think how careful you would be if every " death " in the game came at the price of getting an agonizing electric shock: I would think that one's playing style would be very different than when it just means going back to a save point.

[Matthew K. Shea]

[W. Schütz]

Yea i remember watching these vids back when my computor worked as it should... I remember some awesome vids of guys in full transitional armour fighting with longsword, half-swording and grappling just as much as "fencing". The way it should be.