Sword-Fighting Restaurant Owner Defeats Robber

What I really like about this story is that it makes no attempt to explain why there was a sword around.  Why would it be newsworthy to find a sword in the restaurant?

The other thing about it is the sidebar listing similar stories of sword attacks.  There are a dozen of them from Florida alone.

Via FARK (of course).

Heh.

Bladework and related subjects:

I found the following list at a group called "Western Martial Arts" on Facebook.

So, as it says:

Here are some links for your reading pleasure:

Info and Forums:

http://www.myarmoury.com
http://www.swordforum.com
http://netsword.com/
http://www.thearma.org/forum/
http://www.bladesignforum.com/
http://www.oldswords.com/
http://www.sword-buyers-guide.com/
http://www.armourarchive.org
http://www.fioredeiliberi.org/phpBB2/index.php

A HEMA print periodical:

http://www.wmaillustrated.com/

To save me typing out the rest of them go here to find more links to many different websites and groups who study HEMA/WMA:

http://www.myarmoury.com/links.html

Groups represented in WMA (many of them have websites and you know that http://www.google.com is your friend ;-)

KdF - UK, Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden
http://www.swordfighting-kdf.org/

Schola Gladiatoria - UK
http://www.fioredeiliberi.org/

The Grange - UK
http://www.suspensionofdisbelief.co.uk

European Historical Combat Group - UK, Denmark, Sweden, Eire and Germany
http://www.ehcg.net/

Boar's Tooth Fight School - London
http://www.fightmedieval.com

Selohaar Fechtschule - USA
http://www.selohaar.org/fechten.htm

The School of European Swordsmanship - Finland
http://www.swordschool.com/

Schola Saint George - USA
http://scholasaintgeorge.org/

Academia Duellatoria - USA
http://academiaduellatoria.com/

Academy of Historical Fencing - UK
http://www.historicalfencing.co.uk/

Dawn Duellists - UK
http://www.dawnduellists.co.uk/

Association for Renaissance Martial Arts - USA and Europe
http://www.thearma.org

Society for Medieval Martial Artists - USA

Ottawa Medieval Sword Guild - Canada
http://www.ottawasword.com/

Academy of European Medieval Martial Arts - Canada
http://www.aemma.org/

Melbourne Swordplay Guild - Australia
http://www.msg.swordplay.org.au/

Summer Knights (childrens summer camp) - USA
http://www.summerknights.com/

Western Swordsmanship Technique & Research - USA
http://www.westernswordsmanship.com/

De Taille et d'Estoc - France (Holders of the famed International HEMA Gathering)
http://www.detailleetdestoc.com/

British Quarterstaff Association - UK
http://www.quarterstaff.org/

GHFS (Gothenberg Historical Fencing Society and hosts of the hopefully soon to be annual Swordfish HEMA event) - Sweden
http://www.ghfs.se/

Saint George Fencing Group - Serbia
http://www.akademija.co.yu
http://www.youtube.com/user/SaintGeorgeFencing

PBSMCS - South Africa
http://www.swordfighting.co.za

Society for the Study of Swordsmanship - UK
http://www.ssswordsmanship.co.uk/

The Company for Historical Combat - UK
http://www.mymartialheritage.org

Academy of Historical Fencing - UK
http://www.historicalfencing.co.uk

Aisle O'var Backswording Clubbe
http://www.backswording.co.uk

Medieval European Martial Arts Guild - USA
http://www.memag.net/

Academy of European Swordsmanship - Canada
http://www.the-aes.org

Frie Duellister / Free Duellists Norway, Bergen.
http://www.frieduellister.no/

New Zealand Schools of European Martial Arts
http://www.swordsmanship.co.nz

Academia della Spada - USA
http://www.academiadellaspada.com/

Martinez Academy of Arms - USA
http://www.martinez-destreza.com/

Northwest Academy of Arms - USA
http://www.northwestacademyofarms.com/

Chicago Swordplay Guild - USA
http://www.chicagoswordplayguild.com/c/

English Fighting Arts - UK
http://englishfightingarts.com/

Company of Maisters
http://www.maisters.demon.co.uk/

Facebook Classical Fencing Group
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=24902207605

Kuzgun Spor Turkish Hema Group - Turkey
http://www.kuzgunspor.com
http://www.kuzgunlar.tr.gg

Kuzgun Spor Turkish Hema Group Facebook
http://www.new.facebook.com/groups.php?ref=sb#/group.php?gid=38490005866

Willington Backsword Club - USA (looking for Rapier enthusiasts in New England Area)
http://www.new.facebook.com/group.php?gid=25336021161

Pirate Dojo - USA
http://www.new.facebook.com/group.php?gid=13646587031

Virginia Academy of Fencing - USA
http://vafinc.com/programs/hist.htm

The Academy of Arms - USA
http://www.AcademyofArms.com

MACS (Medieval Armed Combat Society) - South Africa
http://www.armoury.co.za/

Mid-Atlantic Society for Historic Swordsmanship - USA
http://www.mashs.org/

Academie Duello - Canada
http://www.academieduello.com

Roanoke Valley Sword Guild - USA
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=31188018702&ref=mf

HEMA cph - Copenhagen, Denmark
http://www.hema-cph.dk

Die Schlachtschule - USA
http://www.schlachtschule.org

Meyer Frei Fechter Guild - USA
http://federfechter.com

Krigarenve - USA
http://www.krigarenve.com

LaFratellanza della Spada - USA
http://www.lafratellanza.com/
http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/FratellanzadellaSpada/

Glima - Denmark
http://glima.dk
http://internationalglima.com

Durban Sword and Shield Club - South Africa
http://www.swordclub.za.org

Jojo de Pau Club - Portugal
http://www.jogodopauportugues.com/

Historical Fencing School - Vienna, Austria
http://www.klingenspiel.at/

Loyal Order of the Sword - Phoenix and NY, USA
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=info&gid=78328979429#/group.php?v=info&gid=78328979429

School of Traditional Medieval Fencing - UK
www.ringeck.org

Ochs - historische Kampfkünste - Germany
http://www.schwertkampf-ochs.de/

So, if they take our guns away, can we use swords instead?

They appear to work:

Hours earlier, someone had broken into John Pontolillo's house and taken two
laptops and a video-game console. Now it was past midnight, and he heard noises
coming from the garage out back.

The Johns Hopkins University undergraduate didn't run. He didn't call the police. He
grabbed his samurai sword.

With the 3- to 5-foot-long, razor-sharp weapon in hand, police say, Pontolillo crept toward the noise. He noticed a side door in the garage had been pried open. When a man inside lunged at him, police say, the confrontation was fatal.

Grim will approve.

Rapier wit.

SEATTLE — The golf cases propped up against the walls are full of swords, daggers and the occasional bit of chain mail. The halls of the community center ring with the clash of steel, the thud of shields and the quick snip-snip of rapiers. The books quoted are as often as not in medieval German or Latin.
Welcome to a Western martial arts conference. Not a cowboy or lariat in sight. Western in this case is Western European, as opposed to the better-known Asian variety.

These are the arts of warfare and self-defense of medieval and renaissance Europe. Also called historical martial arts, they employ bare hands, pikes, a variety of swords, daggers and rapiers in the way that practitioners of Eastern martial arts might use bo staves, Katana swords and Tanto knives.

Unlike in the East, these fighting traditions died out in Europe in the 1600s with the introduction of gunpowder-fueled weapons.

But now they're making a comeback.

"Eastern" martial arts were never supplanated by gun-powder weapons the way it happened in Western Europe. The Japanese, although very happy to use gun powder weapons, made a conscious decision to de-emphasize them (and cut themselves off from the world) which worked pretty well from the 17th century to 1868. This allowed the knowledge to still be there in living memory once people started getting interested in the subject after WWII. China, although a very early adopter of gun-powder weapons, managed to shamble along till nearly the 20th century using a polygot mix of pretty much everything, and again living memory was available to reinvigorate a what was basically a living tradition.

Western Europe for better or worse, went a different route. The immediate spread gun powder weapons starting in the 13th or 14th centuries (The English supposedly had artillery at Crecy) had, by the 1520's made guns the missle weapon of choice. At Cerignola in 1503, at Bicocca in 1522, at Pavia in 1525, men armed with guns shot down their opponents armed only with cold steel. I suppose it is tragically fitting that the Chevalier Bayard died from a arquebus ball. In someways, Chivalry died with him.

But not in others. That quote from Henry V that found the other day has another interesting little marker. "Art thou Officer?" Not knight or gentleman, although certainly that helped, but an officer. It shows how the thinking had changed even by 1600. The nobility of the west walked down a different path.

Certainly, some of the best fencing manuals date from the 16th and 17th century, but that declined over the course of time to where sport fencing was just a faint echo of the past.

The demise of birth based nobility also had something to do with it, and although there was a slight revival of things medieval in the late 19th century, that pretty well got wrecked in the general destruction of WWI. (As I like to point out).

I've noticed the growth of this over the past couple of decades. It is probably, something else in which Gygax and his game was a factor.

(via FARK, believe it or not)