Armchair-Warriors vs True Swordsmanship: Critical Analysis 

To clarify a few points. This video is not intended to call out any creators specifically, it's meant to be a resource to my viewers. It's to help consume sword media with a more critical eye, and that includes my own content. Secondly, A number of people have brought up that they feel that full gear is restrictive, and limits or distorts test results. First of all, when I say full gear I mean a puncture resistant jacket, and protection, and a mask. The rest of it is personal preference. I personally use hard shell elbow, knee, shin, and forearm protectors as well as an athletic cup. None of those things hinder my movement or mobility. My reasoning for this is, any small amount of dexterity that I lose with my gear on is minuscule in comparison to compromises you run into when fencing with foam weapons or trying to use steel in such a way that you won't injure a person who's wearing no gear. This isn't to say that low gear and no gear training is bad. It's very valuable! It allows you to get started sparring with less costs, it allows you to drill specific things, and a whole host of other reasons. But it inherently is a compromise. And when you're doing a test you want as few compromises as possible. Thirdly, Though I said this in the video some people seem to be missing it. It is totally okay to be into pop culture swords! And it's totally okay for people to make videos on them. In fact it's vital! It's a gateway into swordsmanship. Pop culture swordsmanship is how I got into swords when I was a kid. My issue is when people can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality. Or people say that they are experienced in swordsmanship, but really haven't trained or no longer train. This can give a warped perspective of the art of swordsmanship to the viewers.

Dude, don't mock armchair warriors. The amount of core strength it takes to swing an armchair is insane. One guy I knew duel wielded a wingback and a swivel like it was nothing.

I guess one could say this video is about the Sword Art Online

I'm catching up on this Shadiversity drama in reverse basically, and I'm honestly shocked. Based on the initial reaction video that Shad put out to this one, I figured that David *for sure* must have called him out by name at some point. Instead, Shad basically self-identified himself as one of these "armchair warriors" and just went on the full warpath.

If a product is pu out for the purpose of entertainment and the swordplay is entertaining then shenanigans are permissible. Once a thing starts to boast of historical accuracy or even presenting itself as a documentary/ factual, then one should be more critical of what is being presented.

seriouisly? this is it? that´s what got shad so mad? this completely inoffensive video expressing a (true)problem in the online swordsmanship community? talk about a self report.

It's worth pointing out that some people who wield swords in their videos might still reach very dubious conclusions. HEMA is wonderful for so many reasons but we've always had a problem with extremely insular clubs and some instructors seeming almost more like cult leaders. After winning gold at Swordfish, I was told by someone that my fencing was invalid because I struck my opponent's legs using descending cuts, his point being that you must only ever strike the leg with an ascending cut as that allows you to cover your head. He seemed to miss that not once was I struck in the head while going for my opponent's legs. And that's not even mentioning all the manuscripts showing descending cuts to the legs.

lol, why did people feel attacked by this video? Not made definitive good or bad statements, not singled out someone directly and most important of all: actually acknowledged that this other "sword-content" has its place as well. I dont get why people are insecure about this.

The main problem with Shad M. Brooks suffers from (aside from everything else) is the fact that he, at least to a extent, suffers from the Dunning-Kruger effect. While he does display some competent knowledge in history and ancient warfare, he's by no means an expert in his field nor is he as skilled a swordsman, an artist or a writer as he like to think he is. He seems like the type of guy who think he can compete in the Grand National just he won 1st place at the Donkey Derby.

Doing a "realistic" experiment to evaluate a technique is actually really quite complicated: even experiments done full speed in full gear aren't completely realistic because both parties usually know what's about to happen so the element of surprise is at least partly missing. On the other hand nailing a technique perfectly in sparring is harder and even if you manage, it might not LOOK as perfect as you'd wanted for demonstration purposes.

I try things I see in fantasy all the time. In Sword fighting its alot of fun I got into Sword fighting because of fantasy

Mercenary Arts here seems to have a lack of self-awareness, calling out other channel's tests as being too broad and too specific at the same time. All the while he is far too focused on "Fencing" as the only sword fighting style.

The main issue with realism in movies and games is mainly hema and msot real world martial arts are based arround quick unpredictable attacks but one of the principles of animation is anticipation and when it comes to games anticipation is important for gameplay. Also without anticipation its hard to make it look liek thers a lot of force behind an attack. Addionally modern animation techniques are mostoy based around poses and most animators find aniamtions look better when these poses are exaggerated. Im not an animator at best id call myself an ameture but these are based off the 12 principles of animation that animators widely find people likeand while there based off 2d aniamtion most of it is used for 3d animation. It would seem realistic swordsman ship and the principles of good aniamtion conflict although i would be interested to hear how they may not conflict.

First thing HEMA taught me was how little I *actually* knew about swords

I believe what has happened here is a cultural misunderstanding. Your message in general was fine, which is the key, it was a generalized message intended to educate your audience of HEMA fencers. Which is why you did not call anyone out in particular. I think you were trying to be courteous by not naming names. Unfortunately, that very courtesy is considered very rude in the youtube swordsmanship community that thrives on respectful, specific critique and disagreement. Its like a teacher saying "im not naming names, but if you need to go to the bathroom, please do so before you crap your pants." If a teacher says that in front of the whole school body of 5000 students, no problem, its respectful. But, if they say it to their class of 15 students, its disrespectful, as all the students know who the teacher is referring to. The youtube sword community is like the small classroom. If you want to tell your viewers who you view as the best sources for learning historical fencing, then just give those resources. You could've even caveated it by saying, "you think most of the others channels (such as Shad's) are a mix of swordsmanship and entertainment, and it can be hard for aspiring HEMA fencers to tell when such channels are giving realistic guidance vs entertaining information." But instead, the way you handled this video ended up sounding arrogant, which I don't believe was the intent. EDIT: spelling and grammar mistakes

Also, it's important to take even generally trustworthy points of view with a grain of salt and if there's any doubt, look into sources/try things yourself. I've seen people commenting here who seem to think that the icepick/reverse grip is wrong with any weapon despite dagger having plenty of sources that use it in that way.

I can see where you are coming from with this. I am not a sword guy, but I know combat sports. Specifically, I know Muay Thai and how the mystical aspects of martial arts have skewed peoples' concept of what works.. People act like some of these quick strikes are going to "stun and disorient the opponent", but if you were hit by this in a real fight, you'd probably just muscle through it.. It is like saying you can eye poke your way out of rear naked choke, without realizing they could choke you out before the eye poke makes them release it. People are too comfortable in controlled settings, and it makes them content with less than useful techniques.

This is why I love Tod’s workshop he brings in an archer to perform his experiments. He brakes down the experiment peace by peace.

I've been curious about this for awhile. What is your opinion on the swordfighting in the movie The Mask of Zorro. Some of it is clearly just for show like one scene where Zorro is fighting 2 opponents, one with each hand, but some of the swordplay seem very realistic.

Regarding your point about full gear and also your clarification: Full gear can not only distort test results by being restrictive. It changes your mindset regarding risk and threat and might allow you to move faster and riskier then you might without. This can change how certain techniques may play out. Not that this is always the case but it can be and depends much on the context. If we think e.g. about Meyer: The fencing described by him is (most likely) for a more or less sportive context. So they are fighting without protective gear and without the intent to seriously hurt eachother. If you fought without gear like you would in a HEMA tournament today, someone would get hurt seriously very quickly.

"People that don't know anything about something shouldn't talk about it" Shad: Oh my god how dare he attack me personally >:( i am an artist grrr

wait, shad name isnt even mentioned, lol

Are we trying to reproduce a historical swordfight, trying to choreograph a fun to watch fight, or trying to test and improve our personal swordsmanship? I do most of my training without armor, and have seen enough "accidents" with bokken to be rather reluctant to do "live training" with blunted steel of the right weight, even in "real armor". P.S. One of the goals of my personal swordsmanship is to combine as many different forms of swordsmanship as I can, and figure out which techniques are functional with which blade types. (It's going OK, there's a LOT more schools of swordsmanship than I thought back when I had the silly idea - but I have been able to "cross-pollinate" a surprising number of techniques to a surprising number of different sword types.)

Watching this video i really dont understand why shad went off. There are specific comments about youtubers which is clearly not about metateon, shad or skall. Most people who watch them know that they do fence in their spare time or did some martual arts before. Also it was mentioned that this is for pwople who want to know about swordsmanship and that they shouldnt watch about video games or movie fencing, it was not said that youtubers who do that are in "wrong"

This is why I've started recording my bouts and uploading them. Mostly for shits, and to review my technique, but also, there should be more available footage of the "real" thing for people to see.

5:32 im trying to figure out who you are talking about. Cuz at least in my opinion everyone who is well known in the sword community does this. I think thats why shad made his response video. All the big channels do the same which is why they are doing so well. I can see you pointing to master ken or some other satirical character who fakes everything and takes it as fact. Myself, was a small 10k youtuber who reacted to anime but occasionally got really indepth about sword fighting cuz alot of the stuff you see jus cant happen. Ive only ever sparred with steel once. By your metric i shouldnt talk about something in Passionate about? I have experience, its jus not standard experience and its not recorded sadly. But who are you talking about? Shad's initial point is that due to the muddy water effect here he feels like you are pointing at him. I completely understand why. Maybe you dont want to point fingers and thats where the miscommunication was and you truly didnt mean to talk about shad directly. But cuz there are no examples here you could be talking about anyone. Everyone goes through the same foam experiments cuz its safer, spars with steel if it can be done safely, takes thier pot shots at fantasy cuz writers and animators are the real armchair warriors who dont understand mechanics and sword arts. I can see where shad is coming from. I can see your point that certain things should be taken with a grain of salt and i appreciate you saying to even put yourself on that standard, and most people are so wheres the issue?

Reminds me of the guy from the Royal Armories Museum who would review firearms from video games. It all looks cool, and some of it is even based on the real deal, but almost all of it is parody for entertainment value only. Swords and the use of swords in media is just the same, only it’s harder to see it because they aren’t as prevalent as firearms are.

You made an incredibly informative, accessible and respectful video that brings down swordbros back to reality while encouraging them to be more critical when consuming media, and the manchildren HATED you for it. Who watches this and thinks they're being attacked?

Shoutout to channels: Federico Malagutti's channel (of the same name as him) and The Exiles. If one's interested in Fiore, they are great channels.

I've seen some of the video angrily responding to this one and after seeing this and then readiong the transcript to make sure I didn't miss 15 minutes of a 9 minute vid, I can't help but suspect someone voluntarily identified with a statement that did not specify them. Last year I made a comment about how modern f@sc!sts will be remembered exactly as the old guys were, and that they don't HAVE to be garbage, they can stop, they can change. I got one angry reply demanding to know why I was calling him garbage, and I pointed out that all I did was call out f@sc!sts and he, specifically he, got offended.

I "train" with a lightsaber, i go outside when I have time and spend half an hour to an hour just kinda practising spins and cool moves, i would never say I know how to properly sword fight, I don't know how to truly attack or defend all I really know is how to look cool lol

Can we take a moment and give a round of applause for Sellsword's medieval drip - stylish my dude.

Question unrelated to the subject. What is that beautiful saber you are holding?

This video is so tame I'm actually surprised it is getting backlash. I suspect it is because it pissed off bigger channels that would in turn bring bigger angry mobs to the video. After all what you are basically saying is if you want to know how the food is made listen to the chefs not the food critics. It is a simple concept and nothing to get angry over.

Hey Sellwordarts, could you please make a discussion together with Shadiversity in order to clarify things and cool this situation down? I believe they took this VERY personal and there definitely has to be some common ground between you guys in order to not fan the flames of these communitys clashing together like a medieval frontline. Please?

It's a shame that you don't mention specific content creators and what you criticise specificly. Now we don't know who and what you are talking about and the creators are not able to respond to your criticism. You say pop culture is not grounded in reality. ich can tell from my experience, a lot of martial artists and martial arts are nor grounded in reality as well. There is a lot of fantasy in a bunch of martial arts, that is why we need testing to find out, if the techniques actually work and in what circumstances. These tests can only be compromises, because if you wanted to test as close to reality as possible, you would have to be in full gear with real wepons trying to kill somebody who is trying to kill you. That is obviously not ethically doable.

HEMA is a complex topic. It was started by historians who wanted to faithfully recreate historical sources. These "older" generations are now complaining that modern HEMA ist too much sparring and too little working with sources. They might criticize you as much as you criticize other people. I feel like most "experiments" are done for fun, and the creators do not pretend to be perfect scientists. They deliver proofs of concept, not perfect answers. It isn't their fault if their audience is not critical. Some of these "armchair historians" do not even focus on modern fencing, but fantasy or armoured fencing, which you do not represent. I got into HEMA because I watched Matt Easton, Skallagrim, and Shadyversity talking about weapons. I wasn't looking to be an athlete. Now I go to tournaments.

I guess one benefit of the drama is I found your channel as a result. I appreciate the video because when I was first approaching historical fencing I didn't have a good framework to know who/what to trust on what's 'realistic' in fighting, and I didn't (still don't, thanks to scheduling, trying to keep up on sabre & greatsword on my own) have thorough practice. I was also trying fantasy tabletop for the first time so I was trying to figure out how to describe combat actions more interestingly. But around that time I watched Conan the Barbarian (1982) for the first time, and that movie made me realize I didn't actually care for realism in fantasy media fights. I cared for fights that acted as a device for the narrative. All the fights in the movie are about as unrealistic as can get, but the choreography (while clunky/simple) serves to show characters utilizing their individual strengths/intelligence and to extend the presented themes into the action. There's an antagonist Heavy with a classic comically oversized hammer, for instance, but I don't mind because he's both the only character stronger than Conan and also dumb as a box of rocks. The unrealism servers a purpose. That was back in college and made it much easier for me to not try to conflate realism/historical accuracy with grounded narratives.

I play fantasy video games, but I fully get that fantasy isn't reality. I absolutely LOVE fantasy movies that are set in medieval times, yet I don't find the sword fighting in them as enjoyable as actual realistic swordsmanship. When I saw you guys do your "A History of Violence" it was the coolest martial arts I have ever seen. I personally do hand to hand martial arts, but any martial artist knows that if you fight like your favorite fantasy character, your chances are heightened that you will get hurt. I have gotten so REALLY dumb injuries from sparring, even when I was using pretty good form, and they were often my fault rather than my opponent's. I cannot count the amount of times that I have had to tell new students to point their toes while doing a roundhouse kick so that they do not jamb anything. My point is, do not trust Hollywood to teach you how to be the next master. It's fantasy and nothing more. Keep up the great work David!

This is not a channel I regularly watch, and was directed to this video by a channel i do watch having a defensive reaction to it. Bringing all of that bias into watching this I find the comment section here to be the biggest issue. If you are replying to this video saying he is attacking other creators you either did not watch it, or have allowed your defensiveness and bias to deafen you to the countless times in this video that he offered caveats to everything he was saying. I will admit I think the statements that people who do not currently paractice can't talk about the realities of the sport come off as very dismissive and i do not think you need to be an expert and I also think that being retired from a sport does not invalidate your experience in it. But I think this is honestly just a case of poor communication. When taken in context I think its likely that he is referring to specifically videos talking about historically accurate swordsmanship, as he is constantly using past tenses and referring to organized fencing. A video about how a double sword would work, is obviously irrelevant to the topic of how historically these things worked because people didnt use them. Maybe i am wrong, but that seems to be the most obvious point of reference to me. And while i do think it is on the creator to be more explicit in their wording when discussing this I also think its on the view when triggered by something to hear the person out and question wether there is something they missed. Communication is imperfect and when you are making several videos a day there are bound to be communication errors. If you want to engage with online content you need to learn to accept this and develop the maturity to cut people a bit of slack and not immediately assume the worst interpretation of their words. Just my two cents, obviously.

Bro really said let me get dripped out first before I explain what true swordmanship is. keep up the great content

How to make a Shadaversity call out without saying Shadaversity. LOL

People seem to forget that the current state of HEMA is in constant need of historical validation. The only difference now and a few years ago is blind leading the blind not happening as much

Very well spoken. Shadiversity is more and more of a fraud. I used to watch his material way back, but the more you watch the more you see a highly conservative, close minded, incely type of content with high horses and a generally bad manner of behaving. This, on the other hand, is balanced and clear. Thank you.

Haven't watched the full video yet, but as a game dev, yup. Even the most realistic (be it in style, fidelity, or what have you) video game isn't going to be able to (or want to) portray actual swordfighting. While a game may take a ton of reference from actual swordfighting, so much gets changed to make it fun and readable for someone who isn't actually a sword fighter (or whatever). And that's kind of the thing - a video game isn't trying to simulate the thing, it's trying to give the player the experience of doing that thing - and often times, the experience of what the player THINKS doing that thing is like eg. the fantasy of X/of being an expert X. And some of the times, that fantasy is itself based off other media. But otherwise, it's just asking the player to actually be an expert in things that take YEARS to master be it fighting, climbing, etc. which most don't want because it's time consuming and there isn't the control options available. It's why VR games have to thread a careful needle in this regard - while yes, VR could re-create very real swordfighting... well, again, most people can't actually swordfight. Edit: Adding paragraph breaks for clarity

when i was 16 i started in the hobby of hema full steel no protection trying not to hurt an opponent. i quit when i was 27 due to personol reasons. in those 11 years the thing that botherred me the most was other people in the hobby telling me i was doing it wrong because it was not in a book or not the way they did things. You sir are the type of person that makes the hobby less fun for others just because people dont share your view.

I love leg and kidney shots when fighting in buhurt (armored combat)

Love you’re channel but honestly the art is so broad and complex there really isn’t one set of rules of how to be a good at HEMA or fencing… there is what works for you and what works for others… and on that basis it is very condescending to stand on a pedestal and judge others work just because they do it differently than you do… because what we do has no defined rules or standards, it becomes challenging to objectively measure or validate expertise. Genuine expertise is often associated with a mastery of specific skills, knowledge, or practices, which are difficult to evaluate without clear criteria… even in our sport when someone is defeated in a match… does that mean that person is a master at his craft and the other is just some noob swinging a stick? Should we blindly follow those who win more matches and completely ignore those who haven’t won as many? The way of thinking you’re promoting sounds reductive and honestly doesn’t sound like someone who comes from a teaching mindset; rather someone who is in this to show off.

Just a note on the reverse grip in HEMA. Variations of it do exist. Giuseppe Cerri includes a reverse grip thrust in his bastone system. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-FZe0NUUCvJw.htmlsi=pGdBp-PcpcmvSSNG Albrecht Durer's fechtbuch (likely Augsburg tradtion which overlaps with, but is separate from Lichtenauer) illustrates it. Have a look at 2:30 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-eDP2maXCzt4.htmlsi=guY0lwj_gIT7U8SW Also spins and jumping attacks, they do exist, for big weapons such as the spadone, spada dui mani and bastone. These are covered in the Bolognese sources and in Cerri.

Too much LARPing. There... I said it.

I hear ya on Hollywood part. By my name I also have a foot in gun culture as well as sword (also in unarmed martial arts) and I essentially other than fighter jets or tanks or vehicle fighting whwre i have no training I cannot watch ANY fight scenes or have to just turn my mind off. The second part though about needing to do it with steel... yes and no in a sense that one thing the gun culture has issues with are something called "Fudds" it comes from Elmer Fudd who only used a shotgun. So these were thr people in gun culture who only saw hunting as legitimate and thought the rest is not necessary or the average person. This spread the definition to Fudds who were "Military and Police" so only people who served in some capacity can and ought to use guns. Sparing you all my 2nd Amendment rants here, basically it was a form of Elitism that came up thst ultimately destroys and divides. I would just caution we don't turn into HEMA Fudds. In the gun culture side , we get ALOT of people interested because of video games. Great! Now let me show you how to safely use these tools and feel free to experiment and to press against common knowledge just as long as you are safe. I hope to avoid in the sword community what I see there. To some extent I've seen thr division between HEMA and SCA which is sad as my HEMA group trains with and cross pollinate with the SCA group. Let's be honest we're in HEMA because we wanted to be a sword fighter, we just happened to focus on the fighting part. It got to the point where I saw some of thst HEMA elitism happen amongst some of my students - though I squash it as much as I can when I see it pop up (for one thing, I essentially teach dueling - SCA will teach fighting in formation and groups, and sieges, and etc.). Imo, any division or elitism takes away from the joy of the martial art and really gives powers to hoplonphobes - those who do not like weapons altogether and don't see it as a beautiful art form. THAT is where we need to focus our derision and welcome ANYONE excited about the art as long as they are being safe. Because trust me, today they're attacking gun culture, but we only need to see the UK and all the silliness poor Matt Easten needs to deal with there to know that blades are next.

The point about historians not understanding how weapons work without trying to use them is extremely valid, but not obvious at first. Historic fencing manuscripts are definitely useful, but learning from them directly involves a lot of playing around with the weapon. For anything other than the simplest move you probably can't fully understand just by reading about it.

I'm genuinely confused. Why are people getting upset over this? It all seems fairly innocuous to me

Hey, just found your channel. Watching this presentation, I was wondering, have you heard of a game called Hellish Quart? If so, what do you think of it? If not, you should check it out. It's essentially a 17th century fighting game using (mostly) historically accurate weapons.

Man I went down this rabbit hole and this is just one thing piling on another that is making me increasingly dislike Shad. This is what he considers an attack on the sword community? This is reminding viewers about reliable sources and academic integrity. I think Shad is just insecure because he has shown in the past he is bad at HEMA. This isn't the first conflict he has gotten with other CCs and now I'm questioning how genuinely he represented others in the past.

1:52 OR, or, you can just study historical accounts from people who actually used the real weapons in battle and actual duels, to learn how they work. You don't HAVE to fence to know how to read and study. I get what you're pitching but you hit the batter in the nuts with this one dude.

Been a longtime follower of the channel. Just wanted to respond to some of the backlash you’ve gotten recently. You and your crew are such an inspiration to me. I’ve really been struggling to find history creators that I feel comfortable supporting. There are many who have changed and become really nasty in their demeanors towards others in the HEMA and history community here on RU-vid. So when I started following you all, I was blown away by the positivity, vibes, and humility demonstrated by everyone. You all are amazing and I am so happy to continue to watch and support an amazing channel! ⚔️

Swinging a colossal sword is real though, just because you don’t have the strength and lack the stance and form to swing them fast. Doesn’t mean it’s just fantasy ☝️ Some of is can now actually swing colossal swords fast and easily 🤷 We don’t go around and rant about hema elitists though 😤 I don’t hate hema elitists, they can do their thing and limit themselves only to old treatises.

The thing about Shad that amuses me - and of course we are talking about Shad - is just how many completely unrelated sub cultures he has managed to completely alienate often for completely unrelated reasons. I was doing some shallow dives because I didn't at the time realise his... problems with HEMA are actually years old and the amount of other cultures that now have beef with him seem to grow by the month. The latest seems to be the art community after Shad suddenly decided as well as being an Expert Swordsman, and a skilled novelist, and a part of the nu-media/independent creators, and a comic creator (say Shad, rather than turn your novel into a comic, are you going to ever write and publish book 2?? Been four years mate. Just wondering), and having the religion justified answers to the LQWERTY questions and just generally shouting over people AND being a Victorian, that Shad was going to starting doing professional level AI art and that AI art was REAL art cause he had to spend time clicking his mouse afterwards. There is this entire sub culture of creators who seem to be turning out a lot of content point out that possibly, just possibly, Shad has a narcissism problem. Many of these sub groups I would not otherwise pay attention to. Some of these sub groups I would say I am borderline hostile towards. But all drawn together based on a common theme. It is like Mozza has said, Through Hate We Love. Shad is truly an... interesting person.

Definitely agree that if you're going to make commentary/criticism towards sword combat/techniques then you should at least have some study or practice related to sword combat. Like you said either historian or practitioner. My only issue with critiques like this video is that I find them trying to toe the line between being open minded and being dismissive. I don't think you're doing this intentionally, if anything it might be a lack of perspective. Because as annoying as it can be that pop culture doesn't perfectly replicate historical techniques, you're ignoring all the times anime and video games actually DO replicate or are inspired by actual techniques. Demon slayer is a great example of countless little details all pulled from actual historical techniques. I think since you typically study western swordplay you just have trouble recognizing eastern inspirations. Also I fully disagree with NEEDING to be be fully geared up in order for any experiments to be valid. It doesn't even make sense within a historical context. Not every technique is meant to be done in full armor. Usually you have separate techniques for armored and unarmored combat. I finally started making videos for this very topic, first one was on spin attacks, next will be about a novel interpretation of the reverse grip

Your channel deserves more views and subs!!

Wow the Shadmobsters are here in force.

This guy is a Chad, the other is a Shad

I appreciate this video because I am an amature swordsman that also writes fantasy novels. I try to reflect true swordsmanship in my novels and this has been tough to do at times.

After seeing your response then coming to this, I agree with you 100%. It just seems like people want to just have drama now days.

These same things can be said about firearms, BJJ, boxing, or any other martial art! Well Said Sir!

I think one of the issues with historical swordsmanship is that swords were generally less effective throughout history than other weapons, and were nowhere near as common as slings, spears and bows. Many of the truly historical fighting channels I've seen on RU-vid in particular go over swords heavily, but they're not the main focus because swords weren't the main focus in history. Not to say they're aren't exceptions and there's definitely very good historical sword heavy channels out there but swords were definitely a small part of history. And many historical channels focus on a much broader range of topics than just swords.

Great video, but the one thing I get hung up on is saying that fencing is important to understand how the weapons would have been used. And while I can see why that may be part true, I also have to be critical and think that fencing is more akin to paintball or airsoft. Yes there is some crossover of strategy and tactics, but it can’t really simulate how things are when life and death are on the line. Is there good literature out there that says most sword duels were over in a few quick moves? Fencers seem to take a lot of risk because the price of failure is just a score change and not a painful disfigurement. Maybe real swords duels were a lot more defensive. Also I’d have to imagine swords were used a little differently in formation battles compared to how they might be used in a one on one duel.-

I want to see you and shadiversity duel I an arena. From fencing to armoured larping combat. Let’s see how it plays out.

The parallels between the firearms community and the sword community are immense. Nothing you said here was unreasonable. People can enjoy entertainment. But if I want to know about firearms techniques I’m going to people with the competition scores to prove it or operational experience using them. No one is operationally using swords now. The only people that really know are the ones competing with them. If I really want to know how to use a sword, why would I go to anyone who doesn’t or hasn’t ever competed?

waiting for the enraged 20h Shadiversity reaction 🤣🤣🤣 Edit: Oh, it already happened and he clowned himself.

Honestly, I couldn't hear anything, I was too busy following the movements of the saber

I hope you don't feel too bad. I started in fantasy and over time it made me seek out martial arts of all methods and each and everyone of them have been fun and I've learned something. But it is true that if you are trying to produce content it does need to be modified in terms of popularity. A lot of people just aren't into the technical aspect of these arts whether it's weapon based or empty hand. Strategy and tactics can be boring to most myself included sometimes. Anyway, thank you and your team for all that you do!

Here's a fun fact: listening to and watching passionate people with (more than) sufficient experience discuss things that are fun is a damn sight more entertaining and engaging, and thus more educational, than, say, listening to and watching arrogant gatekeeping pricks prattle on about their own authority on a subject

Shad, Jensen and Skall are occasionally worthwhile too

I do find it very interesting when you are talking about the right gear and experience when you, to my understanding, limit yourself to HEMA. I love HEMA, but it's scope is exceptionally narrow. It's lack of weapon diversity, team combat, or historical based armour has a tendency to make it primarily useful in understanding historical duels and has huge missing sections. I love HEMA, and I love what you do, but I think you have blind sided yourself with some assumptions on this one.

I am curious as to what you think about Skallagrim. I personally love his content and i find him to be very well informed and knowledgeable. He also does practice HEMA, though hes fallen out of the practice some recently. I personally feel like he deserves a bit of a shout out because of how good he is and how long hes been doing it.

4:00 this is the part that shad seems to ignore

By that logic if I played football I should be allowed to coach.

Look alot of us don’t understand what your saying but you made our favorite sword larper mad and that makes us mad too. So stop it he is sensitive.

Youre not saying much here. "Some people do some things that could be better" is pretty vacuous. The other things worth pointing out is that it is unlikely that you consume the full breadth of content made by other creators so comparing a few videos at best to the exhaustive knowledge you have of your own content is unreasonable. If we only watched your meme videos, we could easily go out and complain about them. Also, many commenters who make reference to other videos are the misinformed ones so attacking creators is often putting the blame in the wrong place. Edit: "common sense" is a terrible guide. Asking people to use common sense is asking them to let their preconceived biases inform their judgement.

I know this isnt a callout video (classy move) but could you maybe point out a couple of those experiment examples in the comments? As a guy who has a mostly HEMA interest I have no idea what type of channels you are talking about.

Fencing is hard. I've known lots of people try it and then realise it's hard work and really easy to get hit but I do love the how the hell do you that moments in sparring

I think every point you talk about in this video is very true of the modern "climate" of sword channels, if we can call it that haha. The greatest teacher in the world is experience, and up to a certain point, one can only gain so much understanding of a topic before they need to actually *do* it, and then an even greater scope of knowledge opens up. One of my favorite channel presenters, ModernHistoryTV, is a great channel that shows how living an experience shows a depth of understanding that simply reading or watching cannot grant. Yet there's also a really common criticism of you in the comments that is a warped take on that, and I think it's worth addressing: a lot of commenters have said something to the effect of "you haven't killed someone, so you can't call yourself a warrior". That's a very dark and misaligned sentiment, especially because many of the greatest martial artists and warriors of history have wrote quite the opposite. Hell, Sun Tzu himself has stated, "To win a hundred battles is not supreme skill. To defeat the enemy without fighting is supreme skill." Training, competing, sparring, experimenting, collaborating, studying, living a life that embraces knowledge and the eagerness to pass it on absolutely does not mean you have to kill someone to be considered worth acknowledging, nor does it mean that in order to succeed you must tear down others to build yourself up. I hope that understanding comes to some of these viewers, because the love of swords, armor, and combat is something I hold dear, and I pray that those who also appreciate those things strive for higher ideals than whether or not someone has spilled blood.

I would also recommend federico malagutti for hema advice

What do you mean fantasy isn't reality? Just this morning I made my sandwich wielding dual colossal swords, the cheese slices were see-through thin!

Some additional content creators to check out for good HEMA/Fencing stuff that I've found: Björn Rüther who does cool polearm stuff; Guildam Gladiatorum, a group located in Czech Republic and Germany; Schildwache Potsdam is a HEMA club in Germany who do great explanation videos that show you techniques and concepts; Russ Mitchell out in Irving, TX has some interesting stuff and a focused style; Weaponism are a group of South koreans that are doing cool nistorical and modern fencing things; and lastly, while not strictly HEMA or Fencing, there is an Indian martial artist who does really cool traditional sword fighting art from India called Sanatan Shastarvidiya.

😊Modern fencing =/= traditional swordplay. Bouncing a flexible blade off the ground to get an electric buzzer to work has nothing to do with real swordplay. Fencing has become its own thing.

I would argue that there is value to sparring in low gear, say mask and hand protection, because it tends to make you more conscious of getting hit. Granted then there becomes the issue of you and your training partner not striking as hard as if full gear was involved, but i would say it's beneficial to understanding how the fear of getting hit is very much a thing, especially back in the day where getting hit was far more devastating. Nevertheless, great video as always and definitely an important thing to bring up

As a martial artist and a basic weapon instructor I have found this same issue with a lot of my students and people who I talk to will bring up points that are not necessarily accurate because they think they understand without having practiced specifically with swords a lot of people expect sword fights to be big flashy You're jumping running around but fight should be fast not drawn out the longer the fight is The more dangerous it is quick battles are good battles

For context, I’m coming into this after having seen Shadiversity’s response video. While I still want to take some time and analyze and think about the points being made on either side, I do have some initial thoughts: I do admit I see where Shad is coming from when he says he found your video to be vague (in terms of what channels you might be referring to as unreliable). I’ll assume the best: that you weren’t trying to out anyone specifically. But I feel like it probably would be wiser to be more direct and mention specific creators and why their content should be taken as fantasy and not reality. By not being specific, viewers are left to wonder, while others assume the worst and take offense, even if you didn’t intend for that to happen. And that leads to my second point: my overall impression from this video had me asking “why?” As in, “why did you post this video?” Yes, to advise your viewers on whom to rely on for historical information on the sword, but why? Did your viewers ask for that? Was there some creator who touted themselves as being some supreme source of sword knowledge? As I watch your video, I feel like I’m lacking an important piece of context to help me understand where this all stems from. Now, for my next point, please correct and educate me if needed, as I am no swordsman. What exactly do you mean by “proper swordsmanship?” I’ve heard “fencer” and “HEMA” pop up in conversations and comments, but I feel like my googling skills won’t help me fully understand this. If “swordsmanship” refers to some kind of formal sport, I’m wary of calling it “historical.” Sure, it might be a formal practice from past ages, but when a soldier is in the chaos of a battle, I doubt they really care whether a blow to the leg is valid or if their form is sloppy (of course, I could be wrong, so please correct me if so). I make that last point because I come from an engineering background, where I’ve been ingrained with the doctrine that there’s no single best (one size fits all) solution. Tying it back to sword fighting, that’s why people didn’t fight with just swords; they had spears, pole arms, maces, axes, crossbows, bows, etc. Each weapon had some unique qualities that worked well in some situations and poorly in others. And with each weapon came also a variety of ways to use them to maximize their effectiveness. So, given my background, I personally find it hard to reconcile with the idea that there is a “proper” way to use a sword. That said, you are right that there are many things that, though cool and popular, aren’t realistic. Reverse grip will always look cool, but I’m not so naive as to believe it would stand up to anyone with even a modest amount of sword-fighting experience. Part of the reason anime and pop culture finds its way into sword content is because people love to ask “Okay, but would it really work?” We love what ifs! Referencing Shad’s double-bladed sword: sure, it might not be historically accurate, but that’s only really because no one in that day and age really thought to do it. The question we’re asking is “if it had existed then, would it have worked?” I’ve seen some of your shorts in my feed, and I’ve always enjoyed your humor and admired your skill (I honestly don’t know why I haven’t subscribed yet). In a lot of ways, you’re living the life I fantasized as a kid. This particular video confuses me, and I hope that neither you nor Shad let this disagreement heat up and divide the community; you both are great content creators that love what you do, and you both love swords. There’s really no reason to go back and forth about what’s authentic or historical or who said what and what someone meant. Just keep making awesome content like you’ve always done. At the end of the day, that’s what matters more.

7:35 You comment how historians "don't have an understanding of how they (weapons) would have been used". For understanding martial arts in a historical time and place, historical sources are the number 1 source of information. Experiments and practice by contemporary martial artists are a secondary point of evidence. Contemporary practice without sources to back up the findings is not a good source of history. Now you might have slipped up your words slightly, which is understandable. Of course for learning how to use a weapon yourself in a contemporary context you need someone who actually practices martial arts.

My problem with sword and weapon based media is when people talk about things outside their wheelhouse as if they have expertise in it. I've been in the sword world for decades at this point. Have trained, studied and all that jazz and used to take part in trick cutting competitions that we ran on forums back in the day before we had the kind of access we do and I constantly see sword channels talking about arts they have no familiarity with. They make strange claims, that if you talk to a practitioner of those arts make no sense. I've seen a lot of Western content creators talking about swordsmanship in India for example and then I talk to my friend who has been studying and training those arts also for decades now and the information is completely bogus. So if you want to be a good weapon's based content creator, stay in your lane, stick to what you know. Nothing is more aggravating than seeing someone referred to as a "sword expert" talking with authority about styles of swordsmanship or weapons they have no familiarity with. I know one particularly popular youtuber who does the most inaccurate experiments and yet he is widely regarded by people who aren't familiar with why his stuff is garbage as being an authority.

I would put money on the fact that Shad likely got to the part where he recommends channels, didnt see his channel, and got upset. I dont see anything in this video that could possibly be targeting him specifically.

You know, when you make art you have to understand how things work in reality. That way you know what rule to bend when. So a solid understanding of how real fencing works can really make your choreography pop and stand out from the crowd. I think the most realistic I've seen is in Alatriste. But the most enjoyable was le Bossu (1997). You can feel they are really trying to kill each other, even if the fights border on silly sometimes.

This is rather pedantic, and I am by no means trying to refute David's point about swordplay in video games, but I do kinda wish he had given a shoutout to Hellish Quart. To my amateur eyes, it seems like the only game out there that really does feature historically accurate swordplay. Aside from VR, of course (which Hellish Quart does actually have support for).

So I've just watched your video, and Shad's and yeah, the guy can be a bit defensive sometimes and misrepresent things, it's why I stopped watching his stuff for the most part. But there are some issues with this video here too, mostly since you seem to be saying that people have to fence specifically in order to understand how swords work and thus should only speak to how they are actually used if they fence, yet there's MUCH more to swordsmanship than just fencing, for example through fencing you rarely fight multiple opponents at the same time, something that a LARPer would probably be rather familiar with, and therefore be more knowledgeable about the techniques used when dealing with that sort of situation. Also the people pointing out other videos testing the same things as yours are usually (though many could be a bit nicer about it) trying to give another viewpoint, perhaps so that you could revisit the idea sometime to test things in different ways, such as the people telling you that Shad had good results with a longer grip and using it more like a variation of a polearm than a sword, they were trying to give feedback as to another way of approaching things to try to make them viable.

I'm really not understanding... Isn't he mostly saying that it's a shame that there's less emphasis on actual recreation? Why are people offended?

I'm a collector of bayonets (and antique firearms), and just started collecting swords. I have found your video posts extremely helpful, even ones like this which have nothing to do with collecting. Fact is, I am considering getting some training due to your influence, so thanks for that, just to better understand what I am collecting. With all that said, the quality of your videos is quite excellent. I can tell that you (or someone) put quite a bit of work into making them this good. Any tips on finding and acquiring antique swords is appreciated. Do you collect antique weapons? Do you attend auctions?

sadly the moment i learn about how authentic swordsmanship works, and start practicing them. i couldn't watch those fantasy/flashy swordfight scene, without feeling cringe anymore. because they just look's stupid. and my brain couldn't ignore just how stupid it look's!! seriously!! most reasons director give, for not showing authentic swordsmanship on screen, is because it will be too dangerous, for the actors. because they are swinging steel prop sword at each other. which sound's valid at first. but.....here's some suggestion, in order to make the scene safer, while showing authentic swordsmanship, while still using steel prop sword. shoot the fight scene using 48 fps, or 72 fps. so that the actor could slow down their swing and their movement, so that they both could match, each other swing and movement at a save speed. and then just take out some of the frame for each movement. until each movement, throughout that entire scene, became 24 fps. Done!!!! no fucking excuse!