Excellent, Mr Chan!!

I am going to make this video 'required watching' for everyone in my class!!!

Lancelot:

I absolutely agree with you. Powerful cutting has its place but that is only a small part of swording. With in the Toyama Ryu system, you will notice that the cuts are extremely basic and short. The idea is to cut into the opponent's soft tissue only about 2-3", not to cut them in half.

I gave been sparring for 10 years and cutting for 6. Since I mostly cut bamboo, I unfortunately have developed an overly exerted stroke. When I recently when for further rank training, I performed not to my expectations on the tatame omote. Too much power and not enough control. In other words, you are right!

In addition to the controlled cutting arc, a controlled tip should follow. You demonstrated a good example. When you cut the opponent's left arm, he also went in for your midsection. Because you kept your tip on him, you were able to deflect his attack. Superior knowledge of the tip location will yield superior results in sparring.


Thank you

Thank you for sharing, Mr. Chan.

I agree that brute force isn't the only way to effectively strike. As has already been pointed out it often comes at the price of over telegraphing your attack and slows your response. However, I have to wonder about the effectiveness of slight cuts the likes of which is demonstrated at the very end of the video clip in which the opponent's upper arm is "slashed." In that particular scenario I'm inclined to believe that the opponent would have still been able to deliver another attack immediately would it have been a real encounter. Under those conditions adrenaline can enable an individual to fight effectively before succumbing to that type of injury. It would have been different, of course, had the cut severed the nerve complexes responsible for the motor control of that arm.

I guess my point is that, assuming one's goal is to take the fight out of his opponent ASAP, softer attacks are also of limited use requiring the swordsman to have a sound knowledge of which areas of the human body are best targeted for softer strikes.

I have essentially no experience in sword sparring, so I'm very "teachable" on the subject. I'll be happy to learn from those of you with experienced-based knowledge.

It is interesting to note that the transition from armored battlefield combat to unarmored single combat was a key factor in changing the curriculum of some Japanese ryu. During the Tokugawa era, some ryu styles changed to deemphasize heavy cuts to lighter faster cuts with the tip of the sword. The objective in some schools changed from 'winning at all costs' to a more defensive style where the objective was to survive while disabling your opponent.

It also should be mentioned that heavy armored battlefield combat statistically featured the bow and the spear as the major killers instead of the sword.

Thanks, Lancelot. I think we need a lot more of this kind of thing. The "reality" of using a blade has been overshadowed by film nonsense and just plain uninformed people.

I remember seeing a documentary on martial arts some years ago where they belabored the point of difficulty in drawing the sword from the leading leg (ala SSGB #11) and the forward lunge/thrust. Not exactly "expert" moves in most sword schools.

Keep up the good work! And I encourage everyone else to post videos refuting martial nonsense wherever they find it.

La pointe du'ne e'pe'e est une re'alite' qui fait disparai^tre bien des fanto^mes.
-Bazancourt

(I can't figure out how to include accent marks on this thing. French speakers, please excuse me.)

"La pointe d'une épée est une réalité qui fait disparaître bien des fantômes."

The sword's tip is a reality which easily makes ghosts disappear.

It's too bad Secrets of the Sword is becoming so hard to obtain again. I feel Bazancourt's insights into swordwork are invaluable to any student of the sword.

Thanks, Charles!

Pas de problême.

Are you sure it's such a bad thing that knowledge (along with recorded instances) of how sharp metal destroys human flesh is becoming rare?

Thanks again to Lancelot Chan (it's a shame, I've lived in Shanghai for the last 10 months and I regret not finding the chance to visit HK and perhaps look you up, or go to Korea for that matter).

I think about this a lot. Perhaps part of it is wishful thinking to justify my power-heavy HDGD training, but I'm still not completely satisfied with the analysis for a couple reasons.

First, are we sure we should be training for unarmored combat? This is a huge question that will dictate training to a large degree. The problem is the only answer to this is the one you make yourself. I don't plan to ever get into a real sword fight. I think the closest thing I'll ever have is if someone breaks into my house or if I have to defend myself with a pocket knife. Of course, these encounters will lack any significant armor. But, as a weapons martial artist, I live largely in historical fantasy so, throughout my training, I always assumed there would be at least some light armor on my opponent. I don't know, but maybe you could train with both in mind. Is muscle memory so fickle to not allow for both mind-sets within one person's lifetime training? Is there any reason to assume one style of thought over another?

Number B: As Casey noted, fights don't end upon "point" like Olympic fencing does. For example, The Knife Fighting Encyclopedia by W. Hock Hochheim opens with an image of someone who had more than 40 cuts to his neck, chest, arms and belly, even with some intestines hanging out. Hochheim notes that this unfortunate guy actually won the knife fight. The sparring at 1:00 of your "Hard or not too hard, that's the problem" video shows where I don't think fights would end. I wouldn't have swung as wildly as the guy on the left did, but I think I would rather close in and try to crash into the guy on the right (that's you, right Lance?) and make heavy cuts to the torso. In your RSW sparring, what do you do when sparrer A makes a light tap to the arm but sparrer B makes a huge slash across the chest 1 second later (kind of a long time in sparring terms)? Do you really award sparrer A the fight? This is a tough question because it maybe a small arm cut would make sparrer B instantly lose all power with his sword, but then again maybe it wouldn't. This just comes back to the difficulty of simulating real sword fighting without anyone getting hurt.

As with Casey let me note that my sparring experience is rather limited. I've mainly used what I should call NRSW (Non-Realistic Sparring Weapons), that were either too light or were home-made SCA boffers.

Again, thanks for the thoughts. I look forward to seeing more from you guys, now that getting a video online is as easy as uploading it to Youtube.

EDIT: Looks like I replied to this 6 days too late, as Mr. Chan already modified RSW sparring rules a bit. I had actually watched the new videos but I payed more attention to the queuing system than I did to how small hits weren't counted. That pretty much solves my 2nd point in this post, but if anyone would like to comment on the first portion, I'd like to hear it.

Since I am in transition, my library is locked away, but I believe it is in J. Christoph Amberger's, The Secret History of the Sword, a good account of vikings having limbs cut off and continuing to fight in battle, albeit not with THAT limb and not for too much longer. This seemed rather characteristic for vikings. However, having tendons and muscles sliced, characteristic of the type of cuts exhibited in Lancelot's vids, can be just as debilitating as losing a limb. If the engineering is screwed, it's not going to work, no matter how tough you are. The cut has to be just deep enough to strike the target. Armor was designed to protect vulnerable areas but technique was created to circumvent armor.

We in the West can thank the Spartans and Thermopylae for the heavy armor mindset that exists even today as a part of our military strategy (although with the new "surgical strike" capabilities, we may be moving away from that mindset and toward more "technique" oriented tactics).