Mixed Weapon Lucky Dip Exhibition Sparring 

+GregTom2 I thought the moral was "no one gets to use the Katana because it's too OP."

Probably could have thrown it to better effect, yeah. :/ Man, is that thing ever compromised. Maybe as a left-hand parrying tool?

maybe tie the sickle to a long chain and use as kusarigama?

moral of the story is get better with the sickle.

Buk Lau ditch the sickle and git gud with a pitchfork, a regular knife, or even an stake like object.

Maciej Jerzy Malik with that, you'd easily be able to SEIZE THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION

Andrew Salchenberger XD

Maciej Jerzy Malik because you can't fight on an empty stomach

XD

They would die of starvation first.

Alec Martinez no one wins then. End him rightly or not at all.

We've done a few things similar but it doesn't always get filmed. When the lockdown ends and our sparring events return, we will once against do it.

+Mark Yep the spear really dominates in two hands against unarmoured opponents. It would do even better if it were a little more rigid. We should have better spear trainers in a few months time.

It is a huge disadvantage, but with speed an aggression, there is always a chance. Especially if the swordsman is not used to fighting a dagger, and only other swords.

I feel ya

+Strategiusz Exactly so. It always fascinates and entertains. Not only that, fights in history frequently were not matched, and yet most people in practice focus on matched pairings.

+Academy of Historical Fencing It would be facinating to combine the ancient Chinese stick and sword technique inside. (Sword came from Wudang, and stick came from Shaolin). Stick was made as a defensive weapon rather than a killing weapon, but it actually has very similar moves as the Chinese red-tasselled spear. I personally learned the "art of sword" when I was young, but it's too bad we can't share our experience to each other.

+3BEPbKO Most of the styles we teach are predominately linear, such as sabre, rapier, and companion weapon combinations, and when you have mismatched combinations where once has a lot more reach than the other, this is exaggerated further, as distance must be covered quickly.

+Academy of Historical Fencing Forgive my English . But the longsword , sword + shield, spear originally meant moving direction is forward / backward

+3BEPbKO Longsword fighting should involve lot of lateral movement, but when you are doing sparring it may go to linear.

+Rába Marcell Perhaps you're right , and I think it's a bit equates fighters

Yeh is a good strategy for a lot of similar occasions where you face something so much larger, and only have a sickle or dagger etc. But we banned throws here. For the sake of the judge, cameraman, and twenty people beside them!

Academy of Historical Fencing I can only imagine! xD love the channel, thanks for what you do! 🤺

Where about's are you? We might be able to point you towards a similar club.

Middle east

That will make it a lot tougher, not many HEMA clubs in that part of the world. But there is a revival of Razmafzar in Iran for example, which is an equivalent and trains with many similar weapons. What country are you in?

I'm going to make it even tougher :) Iran

1.4kg for the longsword in this video. All of the training swords in this video are within a historically accurate weight range.

Ouh, thanks!

realistically weighted ones are usually about the same weight as the trainers, that is a few pounds. For example, a normal knight arming sword would normally be 2.5 pounds or so. A two handed longsword could be 5 pounds. Weapons are meant to be wielded easily

otherwise you would never kill anything effectively because of their weight, and thats accounting for things such as armor or lack thereof

Most of the synthetic swords used In this video are of a realistic weight and handling characteristic to original swords, and yes we use steel blunts frequently, go through our channel and you will find loads of it. Most swords historically were a lot lighter than people think. I own almost fifty antique swords now, and frequently have the manufacturers match the specification perfectly.

Thanks guys for answering. This stuff looks like a tons of fun! :)

+401 Kill That is what I would do yes. Though the thumbs up grip and point online is very much a later sabre practice (as we used to teach), also used with spadroon. But now we teach from Roworth, he uses a hammer grip due tot he weight of the blade/balance, and a much more upright and withdrawn tip.

No. We only throw weapons in very carefully controlled tests. There is an audience of twenty people watching this as well as the judge, allowing weapon throws would be a recipe for disaster.

They do, you can see both attempts at doing so, and hits landed on the legs in this video. It is however a risky strategy because it is hard to protect and cover your head when doing so, and therefore it will always be used less that cuts to high target zones.

When me and my friend spar, we don't actually have head protection (smart, I know) so most of our blows are aimed at the torso and legs, so that's why I'm not used to these professional fights. Perhaps that's not the most expedient way to learn... How much is the headgear that y'all use?

Yeh you definitely need head protection. It's not just for safety, but so that you can target the head, and more importantly than anything, have the threat and risk of being hit on the head. Many counter time attacks cannot even be considered for the sake of safety. The masks we recommend are between £70-130. Leon Paul Ultimate Club Mask, or Contour coaching mask, but you also ideally need a SPES back of the head protector.

I've been hit in the head and face quite a bit, I think my luck's going to run out soon lol. Thanks a lot for the advice, I appreciate it!

+Shutendoji Sickle was taught in 'Paulus Hector Mair' solo. It was thrown in for variety and fun. As for scoring, bear in mind this is HEMA, and our main goal is not tournament or sport. The fact we scored this is because it was unusual in that it was a sort of tournament setting. During normal sparring conditions we would stop after any good hit though yes, that is the best overall system for freeplay. Easy to manage and understand. We do however use other methods for training different aspects. So continuous fight to two hits, or until one part has received a blow that would be considered incapacitating or deadly. There is no perfect system really. Giving weighting to certain target zones (like the head) can be useful as a practice tool, but breeds it's own form or sportive point chasing.

+Academy of Historical Fencing I agree completely, we've been discussing how to solve sparring also. We have close connections to Hanwei since we're located in the same city and they're trying to launch a combative sport with foam swords, based on the rules we gave to them that we in turn got from FightCamp. They're not too bad but I've noticed they encourage a certain sort of fighting that is essentially Kendo with lightly tapping your opponent on the head or hands. I was mostly curious how you choose to run things, if you do a lot of tournament-like bouts or mostly stick to free sparring.

+Shutendoji We don't do many tournament bouts, but we do a lot of free sparring and also situational sparring where people are testing in all sorts of conditions. The issue of introducing any system of rules is that it almost always causes the fight to change, as people will do whatever they have to for a win under that rule system. A classic example is scoring more points for head shots, but that encourages people to actively seek the head rather than defend themselves. Afterblow, another rule that in theory exists for the right reasons, but often results in a mentality of always strike, rather than defend. I don't think there is any ideal solution. Stick to one rule set and people will game it. Best to get changing things up, experiment with all different setups and conditions.

+Academy of Historical Fencing The point about people fighting to the rules reminds me of another video--I think it was one of Matt Easton's, but it might have been one of yours--talking about people not using thrusts as often in tournaments because judges have trouble seeing if they connect.

+Florid Ferret Yep it is a real problem. A big cut in a nice arc that makes a good 'whack' sound on impact will get well noticed and applauded by a crowd to the degree that a thrust before hand can go unseen or dismissed in the case of afterblow. Thrusts often flex the blade and then bounce off in a way which it becomes difficult to defend against that afterblow.

Most fighters in this video weren't trained with a spear. The lucky dip aspect made for a mixed bag, and took people out of their comfort zone.

hey good to know that's cool and interesting

We've experimented with a lives based system. Where you lose a life for each hit taken, including in doubles, and those lives are counted in total at the end of round robin style tournaments. It certainly helps. But ultimately I have never seen a system that forces people to full take defence seriously, it mostly comes down to the individuals mindset. Fine if both parties do that, but not if one or more doesn't. But that is an inherent problem with tournaments.

There are lots of sparring scenarios and setups that can simulate different things. A simple and fast tournament setup like this isn't intended to be close to real, but for people to just have fun and pressure test themselves. In other sparring we have afterblows and multiple hits etc. Just look at the katana vs rapier video and you will find complaints that the katana user wasn't stopping after being hit, and that was done for this precise reason, to simulate the very possible scenario that they can keep coming at you after being hit. Different sparring for different times and reasons.

We do certainly have some lefties in the club. Search our channel for Lech, Sam or Damien, there are a few others. At least one or two of them feature in this video. They are always a minority. One in ten people is left handed in Britain today, I would say maybe one in fifteen in our club is a leftie. It gives them an advantage, because they get so much practice against right handers, whereas right handers get comparatively little practice against lefties. Of course two lefties together can really make a mess!

Many yes, depending on your location. We are based in South Wales and South West of England, UK, but there are similar clubs all over the world. Where do you live?

@@AcademyofHistoricalFencing are there any in India?

Prueba con ARMA México, o con Sala de Armas, hay otras escuelas también. También hay por ahí algunas de combate vikingo como Ormbitur. La cosa es buscarle y comprar equipo.

Near enough everything we do is post medieval, renaissance onwards, but essentially yes. Real fights often look very messy (though that doesn't necessarily mean they are). People are too used to seeing choreographed movie and theatrical fights these days, and they look more like a dance than a fight.

Yeah I completely understand, we all wish it was like the movies, but in reality I'm sure a fight was never clean and always ended in both parties injured.

I wouldn't say always ended in both parties injured, that is more often the case in a knife fight. It can happen certainly, but if you look at the scores of recorded sword combat, the majority were ended without injury to one party. This book is fantastic for a tonne of accounts, mostly from the 18th and 19th century of course, but it is a good example. www.lulu.com/gb/en/shop/d-a-kinsley/swordsmen-of-the-british-empire/hardcover/product-22361371.html

Very few practitioners of swords/spears in China actually spar in any realistic manner, but hopefully that will change in time. But I am curious, why do you think a Chinese martial artist necessarily blow our minds?

Academy of Historical Fencing actually weapon fight always plays big part in every chinese kungfu style. therefore there are many weapon parctitioners. ofc they are small number if we compare to none weapon practitioners, same as every where, i guess. i think Chinese martial artis will blow our mind in weapon fight is because in chinese kunfu we learn things step by step, we have to be very good in empty handed then master will start to teach us real weapon fight skill, otherwise we can end up learning all life and still not be tought any of it. that because all those empty handed fighting skills in its style are just setting up a ground for weapon fighting in the same style. therefore parctitioners will have support from empty hand fight(better understanding, body sturcture, logic or mind set, ect). thats also the fact there are some many moves(empty handed) in kungfu looks so funny and it feels useless some time. have you guys have any empty handed training that works for entering weapon fights? sry, too many wrods, this is never ending topic, again it will be great to exchange ideas and re-discover and find out real martial art, in the end, martial art is belong to whole world.

I don't believe that open hand weapon fighting necessarily makes you better at using swords. And unarmed techniques can have a place in swordsmanship, it is few are far between with weapons as agile as the sabre, broadsword etc. Yes there are some techniques of open hand, grappling etc in some of the styles we teach, but most of them no. It is something largely seen in medieval treatise, but almost vanishes when moving to rapier (with companion dagger that removes the need for open hand stuff), and the sabre/broadsword which is so agile. Many of us in the club have practiced, or still do, unarmed martial arts as well. But they rarely have much place in most sword fights. Combat in armour would of course be different, but that is not what we are representing. Have you got any videos of high contact sparring with weapons that are based on Chinese martial arts? I'd love to see it done more, but in our experience, there are very few, same goes for Japanese swordsmanship.

Academy of Historical Fencing no, i am not saying open hand weapon fighting, or maybe i should say those empty handed fighting skill in kungfu are based on weapon fight and made some changes, therefore if u good at empty handed fighting in one of kungfu style that means u somehow has better chance to be successful in weapon in the same style ex-sample: like wingchun, there is none-weapon wingchun that we all know today, and there is wingchun weapon fighting.(i have seen wingchun staff and knife or dagger so far) and that none-weapon part of wingchun(empty-handed wingchun) is like foundation of weapon fighting in wingchun, so many moves doesnt work well in empty handed are knife fighting skills and same as other kungfu. i know its so different to u guys, and i guess i am not explain well here. anyway i cant explain it even in chinese and english isnt my 1st language. i think guys, you dont have to agree me on anything, as i said what i said just idea exchanging, that is also good thing, right yet, i dont have any of high contact sparring videos based on Chinese martial arts. i would love to see that too. BTW, in china, grappling was using for taking down heavy armor, not really big thing. in weapon fight even kick are very very rarely to see.

Life isn't always fair :-)

The peasants are revolting

harvester just need to throw sickle to the opponent and rush him with fists plebs do not know how to fence

throw the sickle to end him rightly

You guys make me sickle

+Tien Doan Historically there was a great variety of course, but as a rule yes, the longsword is the only one that could be considered a little underweight, but only by about 200 grams.

Eight feet.

All Omen The peasant revolt isn't working out very well. they should upgrade to bigger sickles!

he paused and looked down for a sec lmao

Blackfencer.

Longpenis*

Ian Hollier no, Blackfencer. They also do a toothed variant

second that, the girl really made the Sabre look like a pure weapon of elegance. beautiful sight to see

It's especially cool in contrast with the longsword, which is tricky and more brutal.

What's the time for that bout?

@@GothicStraw39 It starts at 13:05

@@GothicStraw39 12:34

+Roderik Vikström I just wish he hadn't broken my leg guard :(

GaGrin Oh it broke? Sry about that. Shit happens!

+GaGrin One of the straps break off did it? They can be sewn back on. I have some old ones you can salvage straps or buckles from if need be.

Aye, it looks fairly clean. Just the stitching ripped so it should be easy enough to fix.

Thanks, please see this video all about bucklers - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-YmDo02rCsrA.html

+clubinglex Yep, people appreciate its wobbliness when it hits them :-) I'd still prefer rigid, but we have used them before, and they hit like a train, and are prone to breaking and becoming sharp. Not good in such a mix up as this.

in use ash with big rubber tip, i will probably stop after the first breaked ribs. But until there ,only 4 hour free sparing spear vs shield and sword, i just have a little bruise. a good ruber tip that bend is very efficient to reduce the impact.

+clubinglex Yep we used similar for a while ourselves. They are useable, but not safe for the chaotic mixed weapon fighting we did here. We also had two break where the remaining shaft became sharp and very dangerous, and I have seen the cutting power when used in two hands deal immense damage. Still happy to use hardwood spear trainers, but only in more controlled conditions. Here we were throwing a great variety of fighters in with a wild array of weapons. Some of those hits would have been very painful and/or done some serious damage. Right now I don't have any hardwood spears left after the breaks, only poleaxe and bayonet. When I get some more 8 footers again we will do more videos with them.

@@AcademyofHistoricalFencing make it likea 8" rubber end at the end of the shaft that bends/gives fully upon impact

Yes it is fun, and a little whacky at times. We have coins with the name of each weapon type taped on, all thrown into a bag, and each fighter picks out a coin. There is only one coin for each weapon type, so there is never a matched fight.

It started with a snipe to the buckler arm, a good move, as too many people bend the arm and expose the elbow. His repeated strikes were likely to try and encourage this situation, but his opponent didn't fall for it and kept a straight arm and looked for his opening.

Nick owned even with the dagger. That looked like a Muay-Thai practitioner jabbing with the dagger, so lightning quick.

In this video manau cane. For shorter spears we use narrow bo staffs with rubber heads from Revival/Windrose. None of these solutions are ideal. But I know of something much better on the way that will appear on the channel just as soon as it is released.

Plastic police riot shields. Though they are not really up to the job, and we have broken many. I now use a steel one that is much more realistic as you will see on a few of our videos.