Trailer to forthcoming documentary Reclaiming the Blade. Featuring Viggo Mortensen, Karl Urban, Bob Anderson, and many more. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxcBWl8-d0E"]Reclaiming the Blade: Official Trailer - YouTube[/ame] Louie
Pretty much everyone I've ever met in film who'd had theatrical sword fighting experience and skills was from the Bob Anderson school. Interesting stuff.
I'll judge it when I'll see the documentary, but from all the teasers and trailers I saw, it kind of looks like a tribute to Hollywood swordmanship. This trailer is actually the one with the most HEMA sequences I saw to date... I suppose this is to give some interest to the crowd in general.
Not holding out much hope. Lots of HEMA people playing with sticks as swords. As the Bear says if it ain't steel it ain't real. The Bear.
as a WMA type I have no issue with film swordwork ... as long as every one remembers its for entertainment. Likewise using sticks to represent steel is for entertainment. its not real and is not a good representation of moving metal in three dimentions. Using blunt steel to represent steel is as real as we can get ... using anything else and pretending its WMA is simply people playing themselves. Having said that YAAY for ARAGORN!
Historically, wooden wasters were frequently used for practice and sparring. And not just for Sabre/Singlestick either. There are documented references to the practice going way, way back in HEMA, even into the longsword era, ims. Peace favor your sword, Kirk
Again, wooden wasters are historically accurate. Live Steel Magazine (a short lived WMA focused magazine published through Lulu) had a decent two-part article on the topic. Well documented. Peace favor your sword, Kirk
Accurate but rubbish and used out of necessity rather than choice. If you have used wasters you quickly learn that. Dave Rawlins was trying to punt plastic and nylon swords to us at the BFHS event and they were awful. The fight with them was deader than crimpoline suits. Nothing feels like steel, performs like steel or gets you focused like steel. Which is why we only use steel from day one you join the GCoD, your handed a steel sword. The Bear.
Not to be contentious, but is this an assumption of yours or do you have some sort of historic documentation you can point to that states this? Based on various sets of Tournament regulations from the (ims) 16th C. I saw and the use of rapier wasters in the Renaissance, I'd say that steel was available and wasters were used by choice. I practice Military Saber so I use Singlesticks regularly. I agree that there are clearly handling differences, particularly in any blade-to-blade engagement. However, my experience is that it's not so overwelming that it negates the "training value" of the waster. I concur with this statement. Even aluminum "feels" different. We use rebated steel for certain Saber and Bowie drills. That is, of course, your choice and I understand that you have your reasons for it. However, I respectfully disagree with your earlier stated sentiment that, "If it ain't steel, it ain't real." I just can't agree that it is accurate either historically or for modern training. Peace favor your sword, Kirk
No but cost is the obvious answer. And neither is there written the motivation for use of wooden weapons. Sharp steel would have been available but how many blunt steel tournament rapiers would have been about? No but why bother if you have access to steel. If for some reason I couldn't use steel then I would but I can use steel every session so why bother with an inferior training tool. With cheap safe steel weapons available there really isn't a need to use wooden weapons. If you are training for singlestick then of course you would use a singlestick. As is your right. However, all our freeplay is conducted with steel weapons. I would not be happy letting someone loose with a steel weapon that had mostly trained with wooden weapons. It wouldn't be safe. Therefore we train with steel to ensure our students are trained and properly conditioned for the type of martial experience they will face. The Bear.
If you learn to fight with wood .... you've just learned to fight with wood. Swords were expensive and you trained with wasters to save the swords for the more important training later ... thats why the wood weapons ARE wasters ... they get wasted. Again singlestick was to allow training without a blade ... but you are learning to fight with a stick. It approximates a sword but no more. You still have to wield steel to understand what steel is and can do. ps a rapier is a point on the end of a length of steel. even by blunting it the nature of the beast is dangerous thus the use of simulators. But the rapier was a civilian defense weapon so you didn't actually expect to kill anyone with it. if you want to know how people fought with STEEL weapons as we do (not understand how people warmed up to steel), you fight with STEEL weapons ... everything else is just warming up for steel.
One a second point we in the UK are fighting very hard to retain the right to have steel swords, when people come along and say well wooden/plastic/nylon weapons are the same as steel or near enough it really annoys me, as it give ammunition to those that would strip us of our last ties to our martial history and culture. The Bear.
And the Tournament rules? Are you thinking, maybe, about a Smallsword? Most rapiers were more than broad-bladed enough. Draw and push cuts were pretty standard movements for them. Heck, Meyer's Rapier material even includes moulinets. Early "transitional" rapiers were essentially arming swords with complex hilts. And illustrations from the many Rapier manuals clearly show plenty of deaths (my favorite being a skewered skull). I don't think that such a definitive, concrete, distinction between the two training/fighting methods is historically accurate. Historically we see that even advanced students and teachers continue to use wasters well past the point where one could argue that they'd been "warmed up" to "real steel" weapons. BTW, I hope I'm not coming across as too antagonistic here. I'm honestly not trying to be a wang, but, instead, to engage in healthy, polite, debate. Peace favor your sword, Kirk
Believe me, I completely understand the sentiment. For the record, I'm NOT saying, in any way, shape or form, that steel is unnessasary. I firmly believe that it is. I sympathize with your fight and have participated as much as possible for a non-citizen to particpate in the Save Our Swords campaign (which is mostly limited to statements of solidarity). However, statements rejecting the utility and historical preceedent of wasters is both inaccurate and boarders on dishonest imo and it gives just as much ammunition to the banners by presenting them with opportunities to describe HEMA enthusiasts as hypocrits and intellectually dishonest. And, let's be honest here, HEMA practicioners are ALREADY marginalized and painted as D&D wannabes. For that reason alone, scholarship should be impecable and beyond reproach. Yes, you absolutely need steel. But to say that if it's not steel it's not real is simply not accurate. Peace favor your sword, Kirk
Well no Kirk I disagree. We don't really know the scale of waster use and the opinion the masters had on them. So actually you could argue that those pushing for the importance of wasters could be over extrapolating from the sources. We don't deny that wasters existed and were used therefore we aren't being intellectually dishonest at all. Also wasters as you stated were used in tournament fighting as well, however, our club is a martial arts club and not a sports club and our focus is not on winning tournaments but becoming better swordsmen/women. I feel our choice and position is being intellectually honest from our perspective. And anyway steel is cooler no matter how nice a waster is carved a steel sword is always cooler. The Bear.
Dont worry, me n bear are belligerent enough for all of us! .. :argue: .. but we do have very definite views on wma.
Fair enough. I've stated my peace anyhow. And, like I said, my purpose is not to be antagonistic. (well, not on THIS forum anyhow) I can't disagree with that. Peace favor your sword, Kirk
