Yeah I understand the reason for the tournament rules but I didn't take part because I didn't think I could fight to that rules set. Also I have a puritan martial artists distaste for point scoring competition (I blame Koyo for instilling in me). However, that being said the three best longsword fighters at the event (in my opinion) took 1st 2nd and 3rd. So perhaps he was doing something right afterall. The Bear.
my biggest issue with the point scoring has always been the pittypat hits that get scored as hits when they wouldnt have wounded a gnat. Am not advocating full on mayhem (I spend enough time in A&E as it is) but there should be some decent contact of the edge or point to score. Having seen the flat 'score' a hit in some scoring systems, its enough to make you weep ... :jawdrop:
Well, I do allso think that Fiores system is correct for his time and situation in Italy (as he was living there, providing his services). But he writes himself that he learned ma from german masters (and there were plenty of germans in italy as well, so wether he travelled to present day germany, or learned ma from german masters living in italy, isn't easy to know for sure, allthough most people I've met that have studied Fiore tends to think he travelled to present day germany. My point is that Italy wasn't united at all. Culturally and language-wise, yes, but politicaly and fasshionably; no. Fiore was living in a Europe where Venice were fighting Milan as fiercly as they would have been fighting any "Germans" or "French". My point is that we shouldn't fall into the trap of thinking about modern borders when we talk about theese old sword-systems. A German system to me, merely indicates that the dude behind it had a german sounding name, and vice versa for the so called Italian manuals. Granted; armor tends to differ somewhat between italy and germany, but that becomes more evident after Fiores time.
Uncle Johannes got his style from boiling down other masters techniques from poland, the holy roman empire, france and northern italy. Its the style thats important, not the name or the national border. We do 'GERMAN' at the GCoD but you could call it 'Partick Chibwork' and it would still be the same techniques. The tag german or italian is just an easy way to diferentiate the styles. Had Fiore been german and liechtenaur been itailan ... I would currently be touting italian as WAAAAAAAAAAY better than german although I would be struggling with the language a lot more than I do with the german and I wouldn't put on so many silly germanic accents in class.
