Research and Discussion Forums

Hi Nathan,

The irish stick has a very negative connotation in Irish culture as I experienced first hand during my stay in your country. But the arts that were created for such a pupose are no less complex and effective. Unfortunately today it has become very hard to learn these styles in Ireland ...

Girard in his traité des armes shows how to defend agaisnt a "broken flail" which has seven sections, I cannot answer your question but three doesn't seem that far fetched.

While i'm laughing at the fact that the naginata was primarily a weapon used by women to safeguard the household and the fact that the straight spear, which was the male primary spear, is totally neglected.

No, not really. The weapon, as any other, was predominantly used by men on the ...

There are plenty of binding in many ryuha. The most binding oriented one I can think of is Maniwa nen ryu, the oldest surviving bujutsu school there is (1368). There are no substantial video I'm aware of but here are some pictures:

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You can see that they use the guard to trap. They ...

I have the book at home, and while it is a good read I do not agree with everything. May be Mr. Amrstrong was not aware at the time he wrote the article, but there are historical records of drawing being successfully used in real situations, I can cite one included in Karl F Friday's Legacies of the ...

First, iaido: it is a noncombat activity, according to Diane Skoss, a noted kenjutsu authority. By that she means it was a dojo method not intended for real combat. So don't expect to find European analogs in any of the manuals. Iaido is play, not combat

It's an oversimplification. I doubt she ...

Well even if it's the case, you still have the option of cutting at the head, face, hands (Talhoffer) or even thrusting. And please don't go thinking that there was no knife/short sword/CQ techniques to respond to such situations, there are plenty .

It is true that japanese clothing is in general ...

The Japanese also had squires who would hand them their weapons on the battlefield, or hold their swords while at court, at least if they could afford it.

Always glad to help. I may sound a bit harsh sometimes in my remarks but it's the Internet filter and my limitations in the English language, not bad intentions.

I don't doubt for a moment that there were plenty of practical reasons for being able to attack on the draw, especially when the form of the weapon makes it relatively easier to do so. I just suspect there's a little more to it than practicality alone simply because so many JSA practitioners make ...

There are those two illustrations from Talhoffer that clearly show a drawing technique against a pick or hammer (a technique that is applicable against a wide variety of weapons actually):

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Personally I think there's also a bit of Japanese cultural taste for melodrama involved, and the ...

I agree with you Stacy, like I said a sword is not made to perform under such conditions.

Yeah well, I would prefer my sword to bend a bit than to break. Anyway the sword looks like a basic Paul Chen sword, very low quality and a bit flimsy. It might interest you to see what happened with other swords: m

The rapier didn't fared well, I might say it is very disconcerting for a ...

Body displacement to avoid and anticipation is not the issue. What I'm more concerned about is the slice landing on the under part of the forearms while the opponent is raising to land a slash, which has no corollary in eastern swordsmanship as far as I know (I'm skilled, well read but not ...

I think it was in this thread yes. Manouchehr Moshtagh is doing some research on the subject and it is said he came up with some materials. Why don't we see much here? Well those books are in Arabic, while there are many people in the west that are fluent in west European languages, there are not so ...