Rolling and two-weapon fighting

[Michael Navas]

There are two questions I've been having on my mind for a while, and thought this would be the place to ask:

1. What was the practical application of rolling techniques in actual battle? Apart from the obvious falling technique aspect I'm wondering if there was anything to support that, if having fallen, getting up from the ground quickly before someone took the opportunity to run you through was a common consideration. I imagine it was, but I also doubt the ability to do so with any swiftness while wearing armour. Surely that would be quite painful, if even possible in the first place?

2. In the ARMA article "Top Myths of Renaissance Martial Arts" , under Myth 13, it says that two-weapon combinations such as sword & mace/axe/dagger were more common than single weapons and shields. Apart from Daisho, Filipino dual knife fighting and rapier & dagger, I've never encountered any information about this. I have always presumed two-weapon fighting to be an Fantasy RPG construct (not least from personal experience), but is it correct that using two weapons was as common as weileding two-handed weapons? And what of the techniques involved? Does any surviving material exist? Were two-weapon combos truly a preferred mode of fighting on the battlefield?

[Aaron Pynenberg]

hello Mike, thanks for giving us your time, good question.

1st question, rolling in combat is not something that one seeks to do in most cases, but again like any open question about the possible use of any type of movement it is going to depend on the circumstances as a whole. Mostly while the roll is being executed the combatant is going to get it in the back or shoulder or something. The best position is of course on your feet, or mounted, facing, or at an angle to your enemy.

having said that I am a practicioner who owns a Gothic harness, (suit of armor) and have been using it for sometime now, I am capable of rolling in it, without any problems, as they (historical counterparts could have as well). There is video of Casper and I sparring in our suits in the "videos" section. At one point I execute a leg sweep and trip him, he rolls backwards out of it, and recovers in time to block a mortschlag, that I throw at him. Granted we were taking it easy with each other to avoid injuries, but it is a good approximation of what was possible.-so the answer in short is this: rolling=maybe, depending-not preferable, but totally possible in armor.

2nd question- sources indicate that a great many carried knives of all sorts on them all the time. There is no doubt that knives were used as side-arms, in concert with the main arm whatever that would have been, but again like all these questions it depends on, if they had it with them, if they thought to use it, if the conditions of the duel allowed it, if they needed it, if they didn't drop it etc..etc..there are many sources that show the knife, or dagger used with the arms of the day- check the sorce works for more details-

good luck in your journey- Aaron Pynenberg SFS-Study Group Leader ARMA-Appleton

[seneca savoie]

One would hope that proper takedown defense would take priority over learning rolls in the course of ones training.

[Gene Tausk]

One would hope that proper takedown defense would take priority over learning rolls in the course of ones training.

Learning how to fall and roll is a necessary part of any combat art. I guarantee that at least at one point in a person's life he will take a nasty spill, whether through combat or simply the hazards of life. Knowing how to fall and roll will make the difference between shrugging it off as a minor inconvenience vs. a serious injury.

[JeremyDillon]

I've read somewhere (on this very site, possibly) that Spanish sword and buckler men during the renaissance made use of tumbling to get behind the points of pikes and get at the pikemen themselves. I'll try to locate my source on this, I believe it was an essay here.

Edit:
Here it is (from The Sword and Buckler Tradition by J. Clements, http://www.thearma.org/essays/SwordandBuckler.htm ):
"The Spanish sword and buckler men of the early 1500s are among the best known proponents of the weapons. They wreaked havoc up and down the battlefields of Europe, even against the famed Swiss pikemen. A favored tactic was to close against pike formations and try to roll under the polearms then pop up among their clustered opponents where their shorter weapons could wreak havoc."

Also:
"As Machiavelli tells it, the Spaniards at the battle of Ravenna in 1512 fell furiously on the Germans, “rushing at the pikes, or throwing themselves on the ground and slipping below the points, so that they darted in among the legs of the pikemen.”"

Hope that helps

[LafayetteCCurtis]

2. In the ARMA article "Top Myths of Renaissance Martial Arts" , under Myth 13, it says that two-weapon combinations such as sword & mace/axe/dagger were more common than single weapons and shields. Apart from Daisho, Filipino dual knife fighting and rapier & dagger, I've never encountered any information about this. I have always presumed two-weapon fighting to be an Fantasy RPG construct (not least from personal experience), but is it correct that using two weapons was as common as weileding two-handed weapons? And what of the techniques involved? Does any surviving material exist? Were two-weapon combos truly a preferred mode of fighting on the battlefield?

I think the focus here should be on the word "Renaissance." The presence of fully-developed suits of plate armor on one hand and the penetrating power of the new firearms conspired to render shields rather unpopular, and we seldom see the wartime use of shields or bucklers in this period except for siege operations (where swordsmen were still considered to be valuable additions to sorties and forlorn hopes). Most of the remaining foot soldiers would have carried either firearms or two-handed weapons like the pike or the halberd. Even among the cavalry, the wearing of shields did not come back into fashion after the men started abandoning horse armor and abbreviating their personal armor; the notable exception, again, being Spanish light horsemen during the early years of the Italian Wars.

I'm not sure that the two-weapon assertion is true for battlefield use, but it's certainly true for the civilian dueling styles that began to flourish in this era. The styles varied widely from rapier and dagger to rapier and cloak to "case of rapiers" (wielding a sword in each hand) and occasionally more bizarre combinations. Techniques for these weapon combinations can be found in just about any Italian fencing manual of the 16th century and in many of the 17th. Of course, these techniques are dueling techniques, not military/battlefield techniques, and I can't speak about their applicability to massed battlefield situations.

I've read somewhere (on this very site, possibly) that Spanish sword and buckler men during the renaissance made use of tumbling to get behind the points of pikes and get at the pikemen themselves. I'll try to locate my source on this, I believe it was an essay here.

Edit:
Here it is (from The Sword and Buckler Tradition by J. Clements, http://www.thearma.org/essays/SwordandBuckler.htm ):
"The Spanish sword and buckler men of the early 1500s are among the best known proponents of the weapons. They wreaked havoc up and down the battlefields of Europe, even against the famed Swiss pikemen. A favored tactic was to close against pike formations and try to roll under the polearms then pop up among their clustered opponents where their shorter weapons could wreak havoc."

Also:
"As Machiavelli tells it, the Spaniards at the battle of Ravenna in 1512 fell furiously on the Germans, “rushing at the pikes, or throwing themselves on the ground and slipping below the points, so that they darted in among the legs of the pikemen.”"

Hope that helps

Without lessening my respect for JC, I'd have to say that the intepretation of the rodeleros tumbling beneath the Swiss pikes and springing up at close range sounds a little suspect to me. As far as my reading goes in the histories of the Italian Wars, the rodeleros were initially steamrolled by the Swiss pike formations, and only managed to pay back the insult when the Spanish adopted plans that relied heavily on the use of field fortifications and interlocking fields of fire to break up the French and Swiss formations so that the rodeleros--being essentially light infantry with a penchant for loose formation and small-unit fighting--would be able to overwhelm these penny packets of Frenchmen and Swiss. Even then, the tactical value of the rodeleros still fell rather steeply in Spanish eyes, especially since we see a sharp decline in their numbers after the first couple of decades in the 16th century.

Not to mention that we must be very careful in treating Machiavelli as a primary source, since he had an ulterior motive--his Art of War advised the Italian princes to build armies principally composed of sword-and-target men, so of course he'd be prone to select examples that would favor his tactical theory.

Ah. I forgot to mention one important thing: the Spanish rodeleros were sword-and-target men. They had large shields strapped to the arm, not small bucklers carried in a fist grip. This is a correction I shall never tire to repeat as long as the mistake persists in the World Wide Web.

[Jay Vail]

One would hope that proper takedown defense would take priority over learning rolls in the course of ones training.

Learning how to fall and roll is a necessary part of any combat art. I guarantee that at least at one point in a person's life he will take a nasty spill, whether through combat or simply the hazards of life. Knowing how to fall and roll will make the difference between shrugging it off as a minor inconvenience vs. a serious injury.

So true. Of all the things I have learned in martial arts, falling and rolling have been the most important. Those skills have saved me from really nasty injuries during falls in daily life.

[seneca savoie]

One would hope that proper takedown defense would take priority over learning rolls in the course of ones training.

Learning how to fall and roll is a necessary part of any combat art. I guarantee that at least at one point in a person's life he will take a nasty spill, whether through combat or simply the hazards of life. Knowing how to fall and roll will make the difference between shrugging it off as a minor inconvenience vs. a serious injury.

Breakfalls are definately important as far as martial arts training in general, but learning how to roll out of a throw or lock is I think secondary to learning how to counter takedowns in the first place. Think of a HS wrestling team, which you have magically found yourself coaching- do you first teach them to backward roll in response to a shoot, or would you instead spend hours drilling the sprawl in order to stay up?

[Stacy Clifford]

Sounds to me here that rolling should be considered a necessary skill, but not a preferred tactic. That's perfectly reasonable to me.

[Jaron Bernstein]

I have had occassion to throw folks who know how to land and those who don't. I have also been thrown many times myself. If you know how to land, it can be done safely. If you throw someone without that skill the results are spectacular and it can certainly take them out of the fight. A neccessary survival skill, even if the first option is obviously to stay on your feet.

[Gene Tausk]

One would hope that proper takedown defense would take priority over learning rolls in the course of ones training.

Learning how to fall and roll is a necessary part of any combat art. I guarantee that at least at one point in a person's life he will take a nasty spill, whether through combat or simply the hazards of life. Knowing how to fall and roll will make the difference between shrugging it off as a minor inconvenience vs. a serious injury.

Breakfalls are definately important as far as martial arts training in general, but learning how to roll out of a throw or lock is I think secondary to learning how to counter takedowns in the first place. Think of a HS wrestling team, which you have magically found yourself coaching- do you first teach them to backward roll in response to a shoot, or would you instead spend hours drilling the sprawl in order to stay up?

Of course learning how to counter a throw or lock is important, but learning how to fall and roll I consider to be of primary importance. It should be practiced every grappling class. As I said, it is inevitable that one will fall or be thrown if one is practicing any kind of fighting art. No matter how good a person is breaking holds or countering takedowns, it will inevitably happen that someone is better at placing you in a hold or taking you down. Even the great Alexander Karelin had his share of being thrown, and he had to absorb a fall.

[Jay Vail]

One would hope that proper takedown defense would take priority over learning rolls in the course of ones training.

Learning how to fall and roll is a necessary part of any combat art. I guarantee that at least at one point in a person's life he will take a nasty spill, whether through combat or simply the hazards of life. Knowing how to fall and roll will make the difference between shrugging it off as a minor inconvenience vs. a serious injury.

Breakfalls are definately important as far as martial arts training in general, but learning how to roll out of a throw or lock is I think secondary to learning how to counter takedowns in the first place. Think of a HS wrestling team, which you have magically found yourself coaching- do you first teach them to backward roll in response to a shoot, or would you instead spend hours drilling the sprawl in order to stay up?

Seneca, Gene is a sambo guy with lots of grappling experience. If I were you, I would be really really careful about lecturing him on this subject.

[AlexCSmith]

For my part if I am training beginners I am going to teach them to fall first precisely because they do not know how to counter a takedown or throw.

After that we are gonna work on body state and try to build a strong athletic base because without one you won't be countering anything anyway.

Regardless we will still hit both topics in every single class.

As to rolling in a sword fight I'm firmly with the "I wanna know how but I don't wanna have to" crowd.

[Brian Hunt]

I agree with Gene,

when I teach Ringen, one of the first things I teach are break falls. If you don't know how to fall, you are going to get hurt learning throws and counters.

Brian Hunt
GFS