It's a pretty good likeness.
Ah, said Turquine, Launcelot, thou art unto me most welcome that ever was knight, for we shall never depart till the one of us be dead. Then they hurtled together as two wild bulls rushing and lashing with their shields and swords, that sometime they fell both over their noses. Thus they fought still two hours and more, and never would have rest, and Sir Turquine gave Sir Launcelot many wounds that all the ground thereas they fought was all bespeckled with blood.
THEN at the last Sir Turquine waxed faint, and gave somewhat aback, and bare his shield low for weariness. That espied Sir Launcelot, and leapt upon him fiercely and gat him by the beaver of his helmet, and plucked him down on his knees, and anon he raced off his helm, and smote his neck in sunder.
I guess. No real sword play. More like wrestling in armor.
ReplyDeleteWrestling was one of the foundations of medieval training. Tools had a greater range but as a result of their leverage and force multiplication, much of it couldn't be used for safe sparring. Wrestling, as a non lethal training, gave far more hours of practice with range and leverage, for little cost.
ReplyDeleteStill no real sword play.
ReplyDeleteThat's what strikes me about swordfighting in Malory, though. Here's a guy who watched it and participated in it both at tournament and at war. But the way he describes it is consisently: 'They lashed at each other like bulls or boars, for hours. Finally, one of them threw the other one down and raced off his helm.'
ReplyDeleteThe stuff we do in HEMA is way more sophisticated, but I have a feeling Malory was accurately describing what more usually happened.
The Sagas have some interesting tales of single combat. Lot's of shield hewing. Sometimes they would go through two or three of them.
ReplyDeleteDo people think of guns and marksmanship as "gun play"? It's a curious pov on arts and skills no longer passed down via family lineage or modern day practical use.
ReplyDeleteIn modern parlance, it would be phrasing chainsawing down a tree as "chainsaw play" or while operating on human organs ala that black politician what's his name something great neurosurgeon that didn't know how to separate conjoined twins and so prayed to god for inspiraton and received it, then succeeded... anyways. It would be like if that surgeon and others referred to their god technique or surgical technique as "god play" or "surgery play".
Certainly medieval play, horsing around, in sparring was conducted, since animals and humans learn the most from first playing around with something for fun. Once their passion and interest are fired up, they can learn more via more methodical teaching/learning ways.
If people are just playing around, they have no need for real swords, thus there's no difference between "real sword play" and fake/fun/emulated "sword play".
That American sniper's "marksmanship and sniper play" was what made him famous, though, right?
But the way he describes it is consistently: 'They lashed at each other like bulls or boars, for hours. Finally, one of them threw the other one down and raced off his helm.'
A lot of training is idealized, in order to train for success, so that the brain recognizes when you have success. But in a life and death conflict, everybody is using a technique, so every time a person's technique or defense/attack fails, they adjust. So it ends up looking not idealized. If it does end up looking idealized, such as Japanese sword dramas, then that's an example of a god technique or a human super power or some kind of excellence.
That's why Target Focus Training was rather direct when I studied it. All of the previous struggles and surprise ambushes are excised out of the training, all of that was assumed to have happened before. They start at the point where the balance shifts. When one person achieves an overwhelming or minor advantage, takes advantage of it, and crushes the enemy's capability to fight back. In the video, it would be knocking on the head, causing a combo chain as the person's defense flail and fail. In medieval fighting, perhaps the sword isn't effective against each other's armor, so they get closer and closer, until someone gets a wrestling leverage grip, and just bludgeons the enemy to death. While that was a fight, the moment when the fight was decided was at the pivotal point. There are counters for being on the weak side of a pivot point as well.
The stuff we do in HEMA is way more sophisticated, but I have a feeling Malory was accurately describing what more usually happened.
ReplyDeleteHow much test cutting have you vis a vis HEMA done so far? Such as against hard wood, bamboo, soft materials, etc.
Without training cutting techniques, a lot of people use the sword just like a normal bludgeoning tool, i.e. baseball bat.
Quite a bit. Enough to completely destroy the pell I built.
ReplyDelete"The Sagas have some interesting tales of single combat. Lot's of shield hewing. Sometimes they would go through two or three of them."
The Sagas really do, although they also have some similarly pragmatic tales of what war looked like. My favorite account of battle is in the Heimskringla, the battle of Svolder. That's the one where Einar Thambarskelfir is shooting his bow from the back of Olaf Haraldsson's ship. When the bow breaks through the middle, the king asks, "What broke so loudly there?"
Einar answered, "Norway, king, from your hands."
great stories- I have only read some excerpts, like this one-
ReplyDeleteVebjorb, shieldmaiden, attacked the champion Soknarsoti,she dealt the champion heavy blows and attacked him for a long while, ,and with a blow to his cheek cut through his jaw and chin; he put his beard into his mouth and bit it, thus holding up his chin.
from the Sogubrot.