Okay, here we can discuss the ideas of how real swordsmanship pertains to TRoS and discuss the trials & tribulations of learning to use those wonderful long bits of steel.

Well how could I resist this thread?

I'm really just getting started with researching Historical European Swordsmanship (HES), so as with other aspects of TRoS, it will be good to hear Jake's opinion. He's actually doing all this and one of the many things to look forward to with TRoS is seeing how he incorporates his more recent studies with future versions of the combat system.

Since there seem to be no HES groups in my immediate area, I'm resorting to the wealth of books that are out there on the subject. The organization Jake is affiliated with, formerly HACA now ARMA, has copies of a wealth of older manuscripts published on their site; manuscripts that date from the time when these books were used as part of a curriculum designed to keep men alive in actual combat.

But since I don't read German or Italian, it also helps to have some interpretations of these texts, and some more general texts to put them in context. So in addition to TRoS, here's what I've currently got in the stack on my reading table:

Hans Talhoffer: Medieval Combat
Mark Rector's translation of Talhoffer's 15th century "fechtbuch"

English Martial Arts
Maister Terry Brown's brief introduction to various styles of medieval fight

The Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe
Sydney Anglo. A history of european martial arts of the time; just an enormous amount of great material here. I'm drooling just thinking about it.

The Secret History of the Sword
J. Christoph Amberger. An amazing mish-mash of history, myth, anecdote, and essay--all on our favorite subject. He also has a great website with various essays; an important one of which warns against the dubious scholarship that is one of the hazard's of the information age.

Secrets of German Medieval Swordsmanship
Christian H. Tobler's translation and interpretation of Ringeck's commentaries on Liectenauer's peculiar fechtbuch-in-verse. Lavishly illustrated with photos of Tobler's interpretation of the maneuvers. If you're stuck someplace where you can't get to a HES organization, this work is a terrific resource for starting to learn some of this stuff.

So my question to those of you--and I know there are at least a few--who actually have studied this material, or some form of HES: How does it figure in to your TRoS games?

People new to all this would like to know...


~PO

Um...

Well, in true HES geek fashion, we describe all of our combats in proper German technique.

Jake

Jake Norwood wrote: Um...

Well, in true HES geek fashion, we describe all of our combats in proper German technique.

Jake

Gareth (contracycle) is currently trying to talk me into a Swordsmanship Jargon list for TROS. I think he's just about convinced me. Until then, check out these links:

http://www.thearma.org/historicalfencing_definitions.htm
http://www.thearma.org/terms.htm

You'll see it's a lot of stuff. Still, I think a gross simplificaiton is possible for TROS use.

Jake

To make things really confusing, I'm studying smallsword currently using Donald McBane's treatise on the same so I'm using his Anglicized terms. When I was starting in rapier I originally learned Agrippa (an Italian school of rapeir) and learned the guards using the Italian method of numbering. The German terminology does not work as well as the swords were being in a very different manor and the guards are extremely different.

Since then I've also learned a few other styles (mostly Italian schools of fighting).

As an amusing aside: where I take classes does not teach the German style of rapier for safety reasons.

Ha! Saftey!

Roger de Hovenden said, "A youth must have seen his blood flow and felt his teeth crack under the blow of his adversary, and have been thrown to the ground twenty times..."

Okay, so different times, I know I know, but still...

Jake

Here's what I'm thinking:

A 5-20 entry section on each of the following:

Footwork
Attacks
Counters
Defenses
Miscellany

Sound big enough?

Jake

Hi guys,

Are folks who study non-european sword arts welcome here as well? I'm going to state for myself before some knucklehead runs in and spews garbage everywhere- East/west, don't matter. There's just effective(I'm alive) and ineffective(um, bad) stuff, and its all based on the terrain, weapons, materials, armor, and tactics available.

Ok, that aside, I study a style of Pentjak Silat callled Pukulan Cimande Pusaka. The primary weapons are swords and daggers, with a couple of other nifty weapons as well. Cimande is primarily a close-in art, designed with fast choppy attacks towards limbs with the intent of quick disarm(that is, cut that hand!), followed up by finishing moves. The weapons are usually sharp on one side, with a thick spine on the other side, allowing you to parry with the spine(strongest part) and also brace your hand or arm against it for additional support in cutting.

Um, other than that, it'd be really cool to hear from you european sword guys what's the differences in the various styles?

Chris

Of course they're welcome, in context. For example, when discussing "european" let's hold to that, when "asian" let's hold to that. I can't speak much at all about asian styles, so I'll keep clammed up. Anyone who practices a given martial art and wants to provide a jargon dictionary according to the model I set out up above is welcome to do so. Post it here.

Just state what your art is and what regions of Weyrth/earth it's pertinant to, as well as time period. A single paragraph should suffice. For non-euro styles, a discussion of what TROS manevuers are particularly appropriate (or not) would be helpful as well.

Jake

Hi Jake,

Cool. Well, let's see here...

Cimande is a style developed from the Indonesian islands, tropical and jungle everywhere, rough, uneven terrain. Most likely we're talking jungled mountainous areas around Shiragi, Kudara, Svarastra and maybe even Savari. Cultural influences are native shamanism, Hinduism, Islam, and a hint of Buddhism, in that order. Obviously the native religions and the Prophet are part of the scheme.

The style was developed highly on skirmish combat, not field warfare(jungles right?), although there's lots of training based on manuevering yourself to deal with multiple opponents. One of the training philosophies is "Attacks come when there's more of them, they're armed, and its an ambush", so there's a good focus on that. The hacks to the arms and legs presuppose little or no armor(jungles again), although there's a good amount of grappling and limb breaks available as well.

Specific stuff that makes Cimande in TROS:

Cut and Thrust, Dagger, Pugilism, Wrestling

Manuevers:

-Terrain Manuevers(a lot of)
Ground fighting, being mobile on the ground, multiple opponents, lots of training here.

-Cut
Snappy cuts with other hand supporting it, and/or whole body whipping into it for maximum damage.

-Grapple
Usually a set up followed by a breaking action

-Cut and Thrust manuevers
Pretty much everything else there, particularly Feints and Counters, Silat is a sneaky sort of thing.

Chris

Jake Norwood wrote: Ha! Saftey!

Roger de Hovenden said, "A youth must have seen his blood flow and felt his teeth crack under the blow of his adversary, and have been thrown to the ground twenty times..."

Okay, so different times, I know I know, but still...

Jake

Ashton wrote:

Jake Norwood wrote: Ha! Saftey!

Roger de Hovenden said, "A youth must have seen his blood flow and felt his teeth crack under the blow of his adversary, and have been thrown to the ground twenty times..."

Okay, so different times, I know I know, but still...

Jake

*shrug* Not my rules, and I'm not the one that has to pay insurance on the space, so I'm not complaining. Still, it is hard to accurately spar when using techniques like "After binding out your opponent's blade, step in and punch the pommel into the hip joint". Besides, I'm allergic to hospitals.

It's also the only style I know that advocated the occasional placement of the free hand on the pommel for added thrust power.

Jake Norwood wrote: Ha! Saftey!

Roger de Hovenden said, "A youth must have seen his blood flow and felt his teeth crack under the blow of his adversary, and have been thrown to the ground twenty times..."

Okay, so different times, I know I know, but still...

Jake

Heh...

I train pretty hard, but I don't want anybody's teeth cracking. Just givin' you a hard time, Ashton.

Jake

Some of these are German, some Italian, a few are modern, some are modern translations of the above languages, and some are from english fighting schools. This is the "daily" jargon that isn't covered in TROS's main rulebook.

Footwork
Passing step (step where one foot passes the other, forward or back)
Simple step (front leg moves forward, back leg follows)
Great Step (as a simple step, but almost twice as far)
Backstep (as a simple step, moving backwards so that the back leg moves first)
False or Stolen step (back leg comes up to the front leg, which in turn moves forward. May be reversed to go backwards, often with a leap)
Cockstep (fore leg kicks forward as the back leg leaps off. Best combined with false steps. A false and two cock steps is pretty much a Balestro)
Traverse (steps off the line)
Crooked steps (used to traverse)
Volte (a turn...there's lots of these)
Pivot (a kind of volte)
Leap (Like a great step, but even bigger)
Void (to move back or out of the way)
Slip the leg (to pass back as a reaction to a leg attack)

Sword Anatomy
Blade (ricasso, strong, weak, point, long/true edge, short/false/half edge)
Hilt (pommel, grip, cross)
Long or True edge (the forward "knuckle edge." Single-edge swords only have this one)
Short or False edge (the back edge)
Cross (later called quillons)
Point (the tip...)
Pommel (the "little apple" at the bottom of the hilt)
Strong (called "stark or forte; the half of the blade closest to the hilt; used in defense and binding)
Weak (schwech or foible; the half of the blade furthest from the hilt; used for cutting and killing)
Ricasso (the few inches of the blade closest to the hilt; often very thick or covered in leather)

Attacks
Zornhau "Wrath Strike" (downward diagonal cut)
Scheitelhau "parting strike" (downward vertical cut)
Oberhau "over-strike" (any downward blow)
Unterhau "understrike" (any upward blow)
Krumphau "crooked strike" (downward strike with crossed arms and crooked steps)
Mittelhau "Middle strike" (lateral cuts)
Zwerchau "traversing strike" (high lateral cuts to the ear with the false edge from the right, and the true from the left)
Ort (thrust)
Zorn Ort "wrath thrust" (a long extend thrust)
Das Gayzlen "the spring" (a single-handed cut at the legs with wicked extension)
Ringen am scwert "wrestling at the sword" (grappling, etc)
Bind (when two swords are in contact)
Winden "winding" (the crazy stuff that happens while in the bind, consisting of winding the blade from position to position)
False (a feint)

Counters
Hengen ort "hanging point" (a sloping position with the hilt high and the point low, in front of the head...very useful)
Coverta "covering" (using exsiting guards and positions to cover openings
Absetzen un schnitt "setting aside and slicing" (title says it)
Versetzen "displacement" (displacing your blade, his blade, or your body)
Nachreisen "travelling after" (counter-cutting just after a blow)
Kron "the crown" (using the hilt in front of the head to catch and re-direct an attack
Meisterhau/Volerica "master cut/the jewel" (counter cutting a split second after your opponnent, deflecting his blade and landing your strike in one motion. Very difficult, very effective)
Redoppio "redoubling" (striking down at an incoming attack from any direction)
rota "the wheel" (an under-cut followed by an over cut, where the first beats or deflects and the second kills)

Stances
High/wrath/di donna/vom tag (high guards over the head or shoulder, point back)
Low/alber ("the fool")/middle iron door (low guards with point forward)
eisenpfort/True iron door (low guard, point sideways...there's picture of this in TROS p. 75)
nebenhut/Low lying tail (like iron door, but point back; picture on p. 52)
short/middle/pflug (middle guards with hilt at hip level, point at opponent's face)
Ochs/finestra/prima (high guards with the hilt by the head, point forward. There a picture of this (sort of) on p. 74; hengen is similar to this, with the point down)

Miscellany
Gaukler/buffalo/dance-fighter/clown-fighter/juggler (derogatory terms for fighters without skill or who "Play fight")
Fechtmeister "fight-master" (a master fighter and teacher)
Sharps (sharp swords)
Blunts (blunted swords)
Federn "feathers" (steel practice swords)
Wasters (wooden practice swords)
Playing the Prize/Prizefighting (public bouts for money or titles)
Fechtschule/salle d'armes/school of defence (names for fencing schools that taught all manner of weapons)
Blossen "openings" (the 4 targets on a human body--upper, lower, inside (usually right of the opponent), outside (usually left of the opponent)

What else are we looking for?

Jake

What else are we looking for?

Um, okay. Here's a short one from last week (as best as I remember) in TROS form, with above terminology.

I'm fighting Mike Van Dusen
First few exchanges white-white as we circle. I'm in vom tag (high guard) and he's in pflug (middle guard). I'm in an agressive stance, he's in a neutral stance.

Round one
I drop red (go in for attack) and cut zornhau from my right (downward diag) at the full arm (read: about half of my dice or so). He voids (partial evasion) and traverses (crooked step) and cuts zornhau from his left, which I choose to counter with a hengen and a pivot out, point sloped to the right. I'm successful, but not full prepared and I don't pull the move off perfectly (I fail to receive the attack on the Stark, or strong portion of the blade), so we "tie" in TROS terms. He keeps offense.

Round two
He cuts scheitelhau (downward vertical) with a simple step. I counter with a redel (a kind of wheel over the head, resulting in a displacement, or versetzen) and follow up with a a right zornhau again for whatever dice I've got left. He fails to void or cover (coverta) and the blow lands on the side of his head. I have offense.

Round three
I void back to make sure that he acknolwedges the hit as good and doesn't just strike me back (there's very little CP loss with sparring gear). He acknowledges. Fight over. If it were "real" I wound have struck again, probably straight down or from the other side diagonally.

Short fight. Once we moved in, about 3-5 seconds, if that.

Here's another fight. The next one, in fact.

We'll skip circling...

Round one
I open the fight with a massive left-to-right zornhau; this requires that my feet pass to the right somewhat. Mike voids to his right (partial evasion) and strikes me with a rising zwerchau (false edge overhand or lateral cut...you have to see it to get it) right in the chin. End of fight. Beautiful.

For some really insane descriptions of this stuff read Joachim Meyer's Fechtbuch from 1570, in translation at www.schielhau.org. You'll recognize some of the art there, too.

Jake

Interesting. As I look at the Fechtbuch, I see stances very similar to the kenjutsu that I was studying. (Come to think of it, I think that my sensei made the comparison between kenjutsu and German longsword himself.) The Ox stance looks like haso, the Plow and Fool like gaidan, the Roof is jodan, and the Long Point like chodan. The theory and techniques, from what you describe, seem quite similar as well. Goes to show that, once the mystical elements are removed, even the Eastern martial arts are about "what worked".

Thanks for the link, BTW.

Seth Ben-Ezra
Great Wolf

Jake Norwood wrote: Here's what I'm thinking:

A 5-20 entry section on each of the following:

Footwork
Attacks
Counters
Defenses
Miscellany

Sound big enough?

Jake

Um, I did it allready. It's 5 posts up...

Jake

Jake Norwood wrote: Um, I did it allready. It's 5 posts up...

Jake

Jake Norwood wrote: Heh...

I train pretty hard, but I don't want anybody's teeth cracking. Just givin' you a hard time, Ashton.

Jake

Guuarh! I rolled to resist and I failed!

I'm ignernt as to German rapier. Why couldn't you practice it 'for safety reasons'? I understand perfectly well not practicing certain techniques or practicing at lower speed/power until a certain level of control/ability is developed...but not at all? What am I missing here? My curiosity has the best of me.

And...

Don't want to get all oriental again, but I agree with Seth... I can think up approriate japanese labels for a fair amount of the lexicon Jake threw up (limitted by my beginner's understanding of kendo/iaido). As a wierd example: If I'm reading the description right, in Aikido we'd call the Cockstep/Balestro a Zeshin-Koshin "Forward Movement-Backward Movement", heh, or a Tohei Hop. The backward part shows up in jo (5' staff) work a lot, to evade or cover ground; both directions show up in throws; I haven't seen it show up in sword work as of yet. The sword work in Aikido is admitted narrow in scope, however. To me, it seems like the primary sword tactic is Meisterhau/Volerica, but I guess you could say that about the whole art. Just an interesting comparison to me, nothing more.

We practice German stuff out here constantly, with a large dose of control. I'm not sure what ashton's coach's reasons are, but liability might be one. We don't worry about it, especially among the senior students, where we really get rough.

Jake

Jake Norwood wrote: Gareth (contracycle) is currently trying to talk me into a Swordsmanship Jargon list for TROS. I think he's just about convinced me. Until then, check out these links:

http://www.thearma.org/historicalfencing_definitions.htm
http://www.thearma.org/terms.htm

You'll see it's a lot of stuff. Still, I think a gross simplificaiton is possible for TROS use.

Jake

I'm ignernt as to German rapier. Why couldn't you practice it 'for safety reasons'? I understand perfectly well not practicing certain techniques or practicing at lower speed/power until a certain level of control/ability is developed...but not at all? What am I missing here? My curiosity has the best of me.

Ashton wrote:
Part of it is just that so much of German rapier technique (i.e. the majority of it) is grappling, punching, and using the entire weapon offensively. We also have a decently high turn over rate which is good in that we always get new people in the class, but bad in that you almost always have a substantial portion of the class that lacks the necessary control. That and we take a style at a time and in the past year and a half we've worked through an early Spanish style, Agrippa, Capo Ferro, some Fabris, Angelo (smallsword), and McBane (also smallsword)
which means that something has to get cut.

Ashton wrote:
Part of it is just what the coach feels like covering. Oh, and our class is held in an honest-to-God fencing academy that generally caters to sport fencers. So it has fencing insurance, which is a very different beast from martial arts insurance (different types of incidents and accidents are covered). Hope that answers your question.

Ashton wrote:
Probably the biggest disadvantage to learning rapier is always not having the proper weapon to train with. The various rapier styles were designed around significantly different styles of weapons. There is no good way around this, unless I had the funds to go out and buy a new trainer each time we switched styles.

Sounds like a well rounded education in regards to fence with Rapier and Small Sword. Does your schola cover other stuff as well?

Now that is something I did not know. How interesting. So the best bet is to stick with a certain style and the resultant national version of the rapier, huh? Is there any crossover between the styles? Do certain weapons cross over as well? I am just so keen because after the long sword my instructor will be going into the rapier with us, and then maybe sword and buckler.

Do you own any weapons, Ashton? Just curious, if you don't want to answer, I apologize and understand...

Ashton wrote: Hope that answers your question.