Introduction to the Dagger - Showcasing HEMA 

The Uzi of the ancient past

Preach Papa Bear

Weapons go in, guts come out. It all ends that way, what matters is what happens before then.

knife=/=dagger

"Convergent evolution" : you nailed it !

Nailed it bro reasons why I train it Fs

These are what if experts, you get them in any comment section having anything to do about Martial Arts and knife defense in particular. While it is true that there's a lot of garbage out there in regards to knife defense and quite frankly holding these techniques in particular up as a option nowadays is problematic because given we are dealing with basically different weapons, you get tons of "experts" in comment sections spouting things like "Well, what if they do this or this or this or this crazy 12 step maneuver etc." The only way I could see people like having a point is if a techinique can only be preformed one particular way against a non resisting opponent at slow speed and completely falls apart when any sort of speed, resistance or unpredictability is introduced. These techniques in the video can work consistently at speed and under stress against resisting opponents. Of course we don't know how they would fair under life or death conditions, because of course we couldn't test that but they have immediately more viability based on the tests they have survived than other ''knife defense' tactics shown by MC Dojos. These people literally don't know any better and don't have enough knowledge to really say anything intelligent on the matter. They see a technique preformed at slow speed and think "Well there's a hundred things you could do against that"...ignoring the fact that an effective technique performed at full speed gives you a very NARROW window to counter it with anything and that's provided you have a general idea of what they are about to do and have sufficient reflexes and adaptability to counter it within the correct tempo.

Its very hard to defend yourself from a knife attack. Watch Bolsonaro attacked in Brazil last month. Those guys around him was trained security from our Federal Police and cant stop a single kitchen knife properly. A guy with a knife uses all his body to attack, not only the arm as you see in self defense videos, thats the problem.

@@evertondossantos5202 then use all your body to stop his attack, and immediately deal with the threat.

Still, I can simply not trust any martial art video that is done in slow-motion. Show me these techniques in sparring sessions and I'll drop my skepticism.

Run if able first. If not, use what you know.

A sword is vastly easier to get immediate effects out of. You can swing a sword and it only has to connect to skin once and that's largely going to win the fight. You can't do the same with a dagger and it takes far more effort, skill and training to get in dagger range. Basically, time it takes to train is far too long to be used to train everybody with.

@ And with the exception of closed spaces, having greater reach always gives an advantage. A stick or long stick would give better chances of survival.

Not to mention the constant knights vs samurai debate (like bitch they were both very skilled they need to chill)

Seria muito interessante se algumas escolas fossem fundadas aqui. Sem duvida eu gostaria de praticar.

Primeiros br's que eu vi nesses vídeos (que eu me lembre)

How's your book now?

Coming along nicely, thank you! I even cried a little bit when I was finished writing the scene I mentioned above. The swordsman character totally Coulsoned me.

You should probably just do stealth archery again

and Aikido techniques

Fiore, Meyer, couple other misc sources here and there.

Will you do counters and counter-counters to different attacks next episode? Also how applicable would this be in a real knife/unarmed attack?

Its not applicable in a real knife/unarmed attack. Very little of this stuff as is proposed will ever work, only the dagger being used as a shield. The first thing shown is a dumpster fire, the dagger on dagger stuff is also dicey. Especially if a modern application is required. Self defence then is no different from now. Knife(dagger) attacks are no joke and people need to stop this foolishness. I tend to hold my tongue on most of these videos as their sword work is very good for competitive environments.

Elitism ^

Legendary Wave Pool - How Is this elitist ? The individual asked a question. I honestly responded. Is it applicable in a real knife/ unarmed situation?

Or a different weapon

Seconded.

Perfect environment to go out and come up with your own drills. Nobody to look upon you with confusion or malice as you develop your technique. That's if you're worried about that. I wouldn't recommend drills without a partner, however, as the technique is useless to employ without any sparring practice. You don't want to mess around with someone legitimately trying to kill you, after all.

There's two hema schools in Alaska

These techs still work on improvised stabbing weapons like icepicks or awls. Even a large closed scissor.

also from watching her matches, she is best described as HEMA darth vader

Shiver me timbers... speaking of which unskilled pirates killed more than fiore and didnt waste time traveling to learn how to fight they travelled to earn money fiore is a clown and his followers too “flower of battle”🥺😂

In Wisconsin we can

I do carry one every day and I train hard with it and hard with my pocket knife and firearm too. It's about 15 hours a week every week for years now with my best friend we train together and always challenge each other

FUCK CANADA

In Texas we can carry swords

In NH the only knife law is that you can't be a felon. You could walk around with any blade you wanted, be it knife, dagger, or sword. Though you still have to deal with peoples reactions. I don't think an employer is gonna be too happy if you walk around with a real dagger at your hip.

there are hema dagger tournaments, you could look up one of those

Are you asking if anyone in the long history of daggers has ever become skilled in them and best someone who had a dagger with a techniques like these? Yes

Modern, Historical. Asian, European Culture. I'm not a martial arts expert, but from what I can see, the fundamentals look to be the same. After all, at the end of the day, a knife is just a sharpened piece of metal with a handle attached to it.

If you are interested in historical manuscripts, Wiktenauer is the place to be. wiktenauer.com/wiki/Category:Dagger

The rondel yes, many daggers were double edged though

Early rondels did have an edge though but they’re still meant as a puncturing weapon.

@@aaronsmith3484 thanks 👍

Wilming Gerrit yes, check out our rapier sparring video

Aurora Bennett We answer something like this on one of our previous mailbags, but probably not. There are no treatises about the gladius, and as such we don't actually know how they were used. We will only make videos about content that we definitely feel confident about our knowledge in.

Julian Schuetze okay, thank you for clearing that up

oscillatine Since these daggers are thrust centric, many don't need to have a razor sharp edge. And even if they did have an edge, you can grab sharp weapons, check out our video on blade grabs

Thank you.

Pinching the flat of blade with your fingertips to your palm.

@@nikoinfidel okay, thanks!

In real life, most people carried a dagger every day but never got into a dagger fight in their whole lives. If things had got that bad that you were actually fighting, a cut hand would be the least of your worries. Cut your hand and save your life? Fair trade off. Also, these specific daggers, rondel daggers, were designed for armoured knights and had no cutting edges. The idea was to stab through the weakest parts of your opponent's armour.

@@mikefule330 Yeah yeah, a guy answered with the rondel. I was just getting into Medieval arms and armor when I commented that. Thanks for replying though!

Again, they are not lightsabers

Dagger fighting soon gets close and dirty: punching, grappling, arm locks, anything goes. It isn't a tidy duel "at distance". With point down, you have various hooks and locks available that wouldn't be possible if you held it point up. Also, if someone grabs your weapon arm, it's easier for them to bend it against your will then for them to straighten it against your will. If you're holding a dagger point up ("sword grip") and someone grabs your arm and bends it at the elbow, they can stab you in the face with your own dagger.

@@mikefule330 If you grab my arm - if youvhave the luck to do do - I can still cut your arm as easily in the sabre grip as in the reverse grip. But it rarely hsppens that someon can grab my hand in sparring and even then he usually was stabbed on the wayi in. Even with a "normal" modern folder the difference in reach is significant and if we are talking about traditional knivey like a muletto, a Sicilian duelling stiletto or alarge Spanish navaja thr difference in reach becomes even more important. It makes sense using the reverse grip when the dagger is a secondary weapon together with the sword, but if the knife is the primary weapon being able to kill the adversary at some 20 to 30 cm more distance is important.

Do you mean once they're not stand up right any more? Because no. That arm is locked, and wrist movement wouldn't allow for an effective stab.

@@almasmartyr6708 Sure, if you let yourself be controlled to this extent. With just a bit better posture/balance, you could even grab the seizing hand with your left and stab between the ribs

Says the couch potato who has zero experience in real-life combat. Go back to playing MineCraft

This 🔼 This right here, is why the HEMA and HMB community is so toxic. It's dead ridden with snobs and elitists supremacists. I like Minecraft, so what? Does that define a person in its whole complexity, its customs, practices and experiences? Low your snout down and get off your high horse, practicing this nice sport doesn't make you any better of a person, and it shows, as you try riding on it to make you feel better about yourself. The movements are being executed slowly, and in a fight there are many factors to be taken into consideration, specially a fight upclose with daggers, where grappling has more weight in the fight, and the enemy's unpredictability rises. This is just my experience, I don't see the movements working for me, as I practice with training knives along with the other weapons as I find this weapon's dynamics very interesting. I have yet to put them to practice, as lockdown has prevented me from training again, But I look forward to trying them nonetheless, I might be wrong after all, and my experience isn't extensive.

@@blackfeathers2166 Fuck i'm losing myself I need some rest

Good call sir, a good rest will ease your mind, maybe you are just a bit stressed, don't let that burden you. Just a humble suggestion, consider not wasting time on some nerds over the internet, you are smarter than that. I think I overreacted there, sorry about that, The Hema and hmb community do have a niche of that type of people, but in contrast every other person I've met are the extreme opposite, being super friendly and helpful.

And the old masters recognized this.

Knife attacks are very difficult to defend against. It was true back then as it is now.

What you're pointing out isn't something that can be shown in a short video. The point of techniques like these is they obviously are situational and would also have to be adjusted if someone did use there elbow. You literal guys just have to get daggers have been used for so many things as across so many cultures

Oh come on, not with the misinterpretation of the treatises again

The reason why people end up dismissing the treatises is that they misinterpret it Every techniques in treatises require continuous movements and a certain distance and speed to be executed, if you've done it with insufficient speed, it will obviously fail, and it's not just your typical speed, it's a matter of whose reflexes are faster. That's why practicing techniques over and over again is a thing in HEMA so your body will be able to execute them faster. Of course it's never Step 1 Step 2 to Step 3 you donut, you're not going to pause in every movement. You need effort and actual speed and has to be done continuously to make them work.

Kelpo Cream What if you’re not a very fast runner? Now he’s caught up to you and you’re exhausted from trying to run away. Or what if he’s actually trying to kill you? Even if a technique only stands a 5% chance of success I’ll take it over bending over in fear and getting stabbed resulting in 0% chance of survival.

mate, even if you're not a fast runner, you've got plenty of adrenaline to carry the day. Also, I don't think it's "Bending over in fear'', it's common sense to fear being stabbed and running away from someone with a knife. The only one's who aren't afraid in those kind of situations are idiots or psychopaths. Besides, most times someone gets threathend with a knife it's a mugging, so in that situation, just hand over your possession. Or if it's a genuine attempted murder, RUN. I'd only face offf against someone if I carried a knife myself.

Kelpo Cream ok. Some asshole caught you checking his girlfriend out. You try to calm him down but he doesn’t listen. You are backed into a corner, no space to run, he pulls out a knife what do you do? Beg for mercy or defend yourself in whatever way you can?

Kelpo Cream “you’ve got plenty of adrenaline to carry the day”. Lmfao. So martial arts and self defense is useless? Everyone should instead train to be a sprinter. Sure dude, not even wasting my time arguing this with you anymore.

Guyona Buffalo In my original comment I said I practice HEMA, why do you assume that my skepticism regarding knife techniques is the same as rejecting the concept of self defense entirely? Yes, if you find yourself in an situation in which you can't run, I'd say fight. But if you've got the chance to run, I'd suggest running, because I'm not taking any chances against a knife, one good stab in the gut or arms or neck or upper leg and you're done for.

If someone attacks one with a knife, he is gonna be cut atleast, unless he has protection like chain mail

There are no videos of the application of "real life" rondell dagger in it's historical context.

Watch the sparring videos. Also these work better with improvised stabbing weapons like icepicks, spikes, and scissors.

The techniques are not designed for modern knifes, but for the historical ones

m.ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-vwuQPfvSSlo.html

Rondel daggers didn't always have an edge or if they did, only one side was sharpened. Many of them were triangular in cross section and were basically like big stiff icepicks. The techniques they are demonstrating are directly out of historical texts. Short version, grabbing the blade is usually just fine with rondels.

@@scottmacgregor3444 yeah, rondel dagger often dont have edges

Uh oh we got an expert in lightsaber blades in the comments section.

Steel blades aren't lightsabers

Remember though, these techniques are for dealing with rondel daggers...there's no dragging the blade across the wrist on a dagger that almost never had an actual blade. However it is for that reason that most of these techniques wouldn't work in modern self defense against a modern day knife due to it being shorter and having a sharp blade as opposed to being essentially a thrusting only weapon.

You can grab a blade without cutting your hands dude. It's been proven in a few different videos

Grabbing a blade without cutting yourself really isn't that hard, as long as you can prevent motion.

Bill Kennedy it's like usin a shiv aka shank

Uh... no?

Ummm nobody ever shanked anyone like this ever in history lol. Feel free to call up all the prison and street cam footage you want. :) Shankings come with no advanced warning. Up close and personal.

prison? street cam footage?... Your 'history' is not very long, is it.

Bill Kennedy so.. umm you were thrown into prison because of trying to mimic the technique againts a stranger on the street and the cam caught your doing

How is it any different than an Asian martial arts, or even MMA? It's people practicing fighting without a firearm, which does happen still believe it or not.

And yet more people are stabbed than shot today, hmmmm.

Some centuries passed, people still killed by bayonets more than musket bullets

No.1 They aren't a couple No.2 Knifes and stabbings are still extremely common, especially in areas where guns are illegal No3. The tone of your comment makes you sound like a moron

History disagrees with you.

And yet that's exactly what people do with icepicks, railroad spikes, scissors, even butter knives. (I have seen xrays of a dude who's skull was pierced with a butter knife. thickest part of the skull, by an untrained attacker.)