Calling any samurai?

[Eric Delgado]

Yes, it is a sad but true fact that Japanese martial arts were pretty much gutted during the Meiji Reformations in terms of practical fighting application. Their point now is much more to preserve Japanese history and culture, along with cultivating students of sharp minds, sound morals and fit bodies. The changing of Japanese martial arts from -jutsu to -do (ie. kenjutsu to kendo) was sadly something that they were forced to do during the rapid modernization of Japan. Hopefully, some day the Japanese people will want to see their martial arts as they really were, historically, as practical fighting arts, as you fine folks are doing for western martial arts. I'm not holding my breath for this happening any time soon in Japan though.

Also, you'd be hard pressed to find someone with the actual skill sets that a Samurai would possess. You'd be looking for someone who was skilled in fighting in armor, in addition to being skilled with fighting with the bow, various pole arms and the katana. Depending on what time period of Samurai you were looking at would determine with which of those three weapon groups was their main focus. Not to mention they would be required to be skilled in wrestling, most likely jujutsu or aikijujutsu, as samurai were well versed wrestlers much like knights. This doesn't even begin to take into account samurai that were skilled with more exotic weapons, such as chain weapons.

Sadly, with the way that Japanese martial arts survived to present day it is very unlikely to find anyone trained in such a wide skill set. And thus, getting to see a Samurai fight with a Knight is something that will have to be relegated to the realm of imagination and theory.

Lastly, nice to meet you all. You seem to have a very nice community here.

[Keith Culbertson]

welcome to ARMA Eric and thank you for the Meiji crackdown info---perhaps that information needs to be reinforced among the martial arts community to bring the practitioners East and West closer to the same goals, rediscovering what has been lost rather than promulgating unsubstantiated trails of lineage and claims of mastery.

all the best

[Peter Goranov]

Not to sound cynical but i think the event called for skilled practitioners that could fight in their respective 15th century armour and wield their respective sword. While it's not "calling anyone that can tell one end of a katana from the other" they are not trying to recruit impossibly skilled fighters that could be regarded as modern day samurai (or knights).

It is very surprising that no one answered the challenge, i am sure there are some out there that would not regard this as something that would demean their dojo/sensei/style. Maybe the "gain" didn't seem enough? Could the challenge be worded as a matter of honour perhaps? We don't want to instigate grudges and feuds, but stepping on someone's sense of pride and honour might be the only way..

[John Yukimura]

I think the problem is that very few koryu ever train with armor on. Also, these are guys that have to deal with anime freaks and yard'tards calling them out all the time, so I doubt that any of em would bother helping out unless you actually knew them or something.


I'd do it, but the koryu I study focuses primarily on the naginata, and any sword related stuff is really not so great...hell, I'd put my money on someone who does kendo over the other guys if they were to do isshu jiai in bogu using shinai or other training implement.


Also, pretty much nobody who does JSA will ever refer to themselves as "samurai" since the social class was kinda disbanded.

[Peter Goranov]

So the experiment never carried out? Disappointing to say the lest.

[Charles Murdock]

Hi all this is my first post here.

Has anyone looked into schools that do Yoroi training. I have seen some schools in the US that train in samurai armor. I have also heard of Japanese schools that do more intensive armor training such as treading water and swimming while armored. I do not know how much these folks train in free sparring while armored nor if anyone in the Japanese mindset would be willing to take on the burden of representing the samurai in such a contest. Hope this helps a bit.

-Charles Murdock

[Benjamin Parker]

I've read that medieval knight's were also trained to run, jump, swim, climb, and to vault into their horse's saddle.

[LafayetteCCurtis]

I've read that medieval knight's were also trained to run, jump, swim, climb, and to vault into their horse's saddle.

This kind of training seems to have been pretty universal among horse-mounted elites (take the original Roman equites for example), so I'd be quite surprised if the samurai didn't have such routines as well....

[Brandon Paul Heslop]

What, no takers? No what so ever? Big surprise. Mwwwaahahahahaha!


-B.

[Benjamin Parker]

Speaking of knights and samurai does anyone think it would be possible to start a knight vs samurai thread or is that a really bad idea?

[CalebChow]

Speaking of knights and samurai does anyone think it would be possible to start a knight vs samurai thread or is that a really bad idea?

I think the article section has addressed that enough as it is

Well, words-wise at least.

[Nathan Calvert]

When will the public be able to see this fight

[Benjamin Parker]

Speaking of knights and samurai does anyone think it would be possible to start a knight vs samurai thread or is that a really bad idea?

I think the article section has addressed that enough as it is

Well, words-wise at least.

No I mean in a seperate article. To any Moderators and Administrators out there is that possible?

[Peter Goranov]

I beleive it's been made clear that ARMA is not against the EMA or Samurai or Katanas from history nor the practitioners that take them seriously today. ARMA is against the Hollywood imposed nonsense "katana win all it bes sward evar!!111".

It has been clearly stated that in the past, both Knights and Samurai were above all, professional warriors. They lived in different parts of the world and had to adopt to different types of enemies, weapons and terrain. But there is no clear way to say which one would be the better warrior.

One could argue that the best suits of plate would make it hard for a Samurai to beat a fully clad knight simply because he would lack the experience to do so. But that's just theorizing and there is no way to know. This is one of the reasons i wanted the experiment this thread was created about to be carried out.

[Chris Ouellet]

That's a damn shame, I've been very busy of late and havn't checked these forums in awhile. I've practiced korean gumdo for over a decade and would have greatly enjoyed participating in such an event as a representative of "EMA" as you guys term it.
Gumdo if you've never heard of it is essentially a modern korean bastardization of kenjutsu - but that doesn't mean it isn't effective or representative.
The purely historical angle in such a contest of course would be lost, which I think is the primary interest. I'm surprised with the many New-York based ryu that no one came forward. I'll be attending your invitational this summer.