How Effective is It?

[Sripol Asanasavest]

Since everyone is posting off topic. I thought this video was cool. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gUWTR1IrE0 Like I said. I'd like to see a rapier fighting v.s. this. I think it'll be a fun match. A rapier is just as fast I believe.

[CalebChow]

I've only taken sport fencing for a couple years and some other sport martial arts, but my guess is that a rapier fighter would use the length of his weapon against the Krabi Krabong.

In Chinese there's a saying "Yi Cuin Chang, Yi Cuin Chiang" meaning "one inch long, one inch strong."

But that's just my guess--that's what I've done against fighters with dual, shorter weapons and it seems to be the only way that worked for me. Getting in close against dual, short, fast weapons is suicide in my limited experience.

[Shane Smith]

Okay guys, this thread has gone too far afield. Bring it back to RMA or it will be locked. Thanks.

[CalebChow]

My apologies, I thought using the hypothetical rapier situation was helpful to bring it back on topic (I'm new here.)

In any case, Sripol, I'm quite certain that WMA is extremely effective in what it was meant to do. Due to differences in military culture some techniques or styles might clash resulting in one being more effective than the other, but as just about everyone has pointed out, it's a matter of the fighter rather than the art itself. A good fighter in any art would be able to learn and adapt quickly to whatever his opponent is.

Personally I've taken an interest into RMA because of its practicality and its straightforwardness. No flashy-while-useless moves, many different weapon styles, practical knife and wrestling techniques (that are great for self-defense even in today's society), and my personal favorite: ARMORED COMBAT.

[david welch]

Maybe you guys can answer some of my questions. How effective is the Renaissance and medieval fighting styles?

I get to float around on the periphery of the modern guys who are doing the current state -of -the -art H2H work. These are the guys that train the guys that are teaching the Spec-Warriors, DEA, Undercover police, Black Water and the like. I correspond with quite a few of them, ask them questions, and get their permission to use their work in my own stuff.

They take the stuff that works, and refine it by stripping out any wasted movement, and parts that may be for "spiritual" purposes. Simplify it so it is easy to teach and adapt it for gross body movements instead of fine manipulations. When they are finished there is nothing "artsy" or pretty left.

I told you that to tell you this. A lot of the cutting edge, very very effective modern stuff, is identical to what is in the fight books. And what gets me is not the big stuff... Osoto Gari is too obvious not to be included in everything. It is the little stuff that I see that gets worked out, that I just think "Of course! I have seen that in manuscript X! So that is what it is".

The stuff in the manuscripts is so effective, it is nothing but distilled death.

[Jeffrey Hull]

We ought to learn the martial arts of the Fechtbuecher with their morality & spirituality acknowledged and understood. They had such for a reason. The bad thing about some modern combatives programs & practitioners is that they are bereft of any morality -- teaching, encouraging & learning brutality for its own sake, too often serving the purposes of profit-seeking companies and becoming no more than bully-boy mercenaries. It is quite obvious that Fechtmeister like Talhoffer were not only concerned with the morality of their students, but could teach them effective martial arts which included morality and indeed even spirituality. Although obviously not every knight was perfectly ethical, at least his chivalry had ideals regarding proper conduct that were integrated with his combatives.

[david welch]

We ought to learn the martial arts of the Fechtbuecher with their morality & spirituality acknowledged and understood. They had such for a reason. The bad thing about some modern combatives programs & practitioners is that they are bereft of any morality -- teaching, encouraging & learning brutality for its own sake, too often serving the purposes of profit-seeking companies and becoming no more than bully-boy mercenaries. It is quite obvious that Fechtmeister like Talhoffer were not only concerned with the morality of their students, but could teach them effective martial arts which included morality and indeed even spirituality. Although obviously not every knight was perfectly ethical, at least his chivalry had ideals regarding proper conduct that were integrated with his combatives.

This, like everything else I write, is really nothing but my own opinion.

It's funny, in that I have always considered it completely opposite. Don't get me wrong, I am not against our "spirituality" at all. As a matter of fact, I am an excruciatingly old tradition Catholic and appreciate how important their Christianity was to them. Sometimes if it is just family we even have had prayers to help us learn and to keep us safe before we practice, too.

It seems to me that these in the fight books were also just invocations at the beginning of the works... sort of like having a prayer at the beginning of a football game. I seem to remember reading some of them also talk about being a good leader, but I don't believe that makes them integrated with politics.

What I was really referring to was MAs that were intertwined with their "warrior religions" to the point that they teach techniques worthless from a martial stand point but are included for their desire to encourage "spiritual development". I have yet to see anything in the fight books added just to try and make you a better person. I have seen what I thought was "this is how you kill your enemy", with an occasional admonishment to pay attention to the Church's teachings and learn when and when not to do it. I don't know that I want some cop or SF guy being taught a gun technique that is inferior, because it mimics something from a story in the Bible. I do want them to moral though, and to at least understand the laws of land warfare.

About modern combatative programs... I have actually heard some of them come pretty close to saying outright they are teaching combat techniques and if you need lessons on spirituality go to Church. I would almost imagine this is exactly what the Fechtmeistern taught, and have basically told people the same thing when asked if what I was doing has a spiritual component like some of the EMAs do. Further, I would say the guys going around teaching H2H/Knife/Gun transition training seminars to soldiers and law enforcement ARE the inheritors of the modern title of "FightMaster". And funny enough... they try and weed out the criminals, psychos and dirt bags from their training and a lot of them won't teach you if you have ever been convicted or are awaiting trial or if they don't think you are a moral person. I suppose there probably are some you could find that are in it for the money, but the problem is that you can learn a lot of the essentials in a long hard weekend, and then it is just practicing them over and over again. You can teach yourself the H2H part of "Kill or be Killed" in a day... it's hard to make a lot of money like that. It's a bunch easier if you can keep somebody coming back by holding the "secrets" over their heads in a drawn out process and make them beg to pay for the next belt. Even if you wind up with a 6 year old "black belt".

As far as "encouraging & learning brutality for its own sake", I don't know there has never been anyone train with one of the top level guys (Shivworks, OPS, RBSD, etc...) and then go on a crime spree. But I do know people that have used the training to keep them or their family safe.

[Jay Vail]

Maybe you guys can answer some of my questions. How effective is the Renaissance and medieval fighting styles?

A lot of the cutting edge, very very effective modern stuff, is identical to what is in the fight books. And what gets me is not the big stuff... Osoto Gari is too obvious not to be included in everything. It is the little stuff that I see that gets worked out, that I just think "Of course! I have seen that in manuscript X! So that is what it is".

The stuff in the manuscripts is so effective, it is nothing but distilled death.

Quite so.

In fact, if you drill down in the Asian material and eliminate all the dojo techniques, most of what remains is stuff right out of the fight books. In fact, there is very little I've found in the fight books that doesn't exist somewhere in an Asian system -- including osoto-gari, which is in Auerswald. (Imagine my astonishment to open Rector's Talhoffer and find uchi mata!) The trouble with the Asian systems is that the really effective stuff, the fight book stuff, is often disguised, hidden under layers of other frequently useless material. (That's not always the case; depends on the dojo you frequent.)

Personally, I find the Medieval distillation of dagger fighting material to be the best compilation of useful techniques you can get anywhere. They seem to take into account as best as humanly able the realities of edged weapons attacks, and how to defend against them. None of that is easy or certain, but if you have to bet your life on a battery of techniques, this is where I'd put mine.

[david welch]

Personally, I find the Medieval distillation of dagger fighting material to be the best compilation of useful techniques you can get anywhere. They seem to take into account as best as humanly able the realities of edged weapons attacks, and how to defend against them. None of that is easy or certain, but if you have to bet your life on a battery of techniques, this is where I'd put mine.

Shoot yeah, Jay.

As a matter of fact I Guess I really filter all my personal SD stuff through the fight books. I really like it when you get two or more competing ideas to decide from. I just go with the one that seems to get the consensus in the fight books.

But back to how effective they are, I think a lot of what gets missed is that almost anything is effective if properly applied with the right aggressive mind set, and that is hard to learn from any book.

The closest I can come to it is explaining that modern table manners came about because these guys were so preemptive and fought so aggressively, that if you picked up your fork the wrong way the guy across from you would try to kill you before you had the chance to say "excuse me".

Now THAT is "indes".

[LafayetteCCurtis]

That actually has become something as a joke among my friends. We say that if you study both aikido and Kampfringen and you can't find an equivalent to a given aikido technique in the Ringen manuals, then you must be either a very bad aikidoka or a very bad WMA practitioner. Or both.

And somehow, I don't think it's really just a joke--it probably carries more than a grain of truth behind it.

[Jay Vail]

That actually has become something as a joke among my friends. We say that if you study both aikido and Kampfringen and you can't find an equivalent to a given aikido technique in the Ringen manuals, then you must be either a very bad aikidoka or a very bad WMA practitioner. Or both.

And somehow, I don't think it's really just a joke--it probably carries more than a grain of truth behind it.

I am still looking for kote gaeshi, although I think Huntzfeld has something that may be close.

[Sripol Asanasavest]

I had no idea that Japanese art is so similar to European arts. Interesting stuff!

Then does anybody know the difference between Japanese and European.

[LafayetteCCurtis]

Kote-gaeshi? I think I saw something quite similar among the plates in Paulus Hector Mair, though I was too lazy to examine the text. If my memory serves me well, the Mair version uses a rather more direct and forceful movement compared to kote-gaeshi, but the principle behind it is identical and someone who can do either technique would be able to do both.

As for the difference between the Japanese and European systems, I don't think it's possible to summarize it within the limits of a forum post because neither system is a monolithic martial art--rather, each of them is a collection of many different but interrelated styles. Dealing with them one by one would require a multi-volume book!

[Jon Wolfe]

A damn interesting book though. Hint, hint authors and publishers out there.

[david welch]

As for the difference between the Japanese and European systems, I don't think it's possible to summarize it within the limits of a forum post because neither system is a monolithic martial art--rather, each of them is a collection of many different but interrelated styles.

After talks I have had with Jake Norwood, I tend to agree the basic, rough differences as a whole is that the EMA tended to take advantage of their lower COG, and the WMA their greater hight, weight, and upper body mass.

That is very broad though, and you will be able to find instances in both where they don't stick to the "rule".