This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Air Of Mystery: Should Pirates Of The Carribbean go here?
Kizor: If this is what we're familiar with, a couple of links to genuine-looking swordplay could do a world of good. Got any?
Looney Toons: Okay, a few minutes' searching on Google Video turned up the following. It's hard to find "real" sword combat on the Net; most of what you can find is one variety of martial art or another, or a staged performance. But these four links should give you a good idea what sword fights should look like. One thing you'll notice right away is that the combat moves a whole lot more than in the movies. Movie sword fights are strongly influenced by sport fencing, which is constrained to back-and-forth movements along a narrow mat — this is very useful for filming fights, because the camera is always to the side of the action. In real sword fights, the movement tends to rotate as the fighters circle around one another looking for openings. Action tends to be in bursts, with a lot of chopping, both vertically and horizontally. A classic movie "heart shot" is not the usual or favored way to end a fight — making a honking big hole in the side of your opponent or taking off one of his limbs is. Okay, the links:
- A British group reconstructing medieval Italian swrodplay
- A "Viking" sword fight
- More of the same
- And for the Asian view, the Rutgers kendo team in action
There used to be an outfit in the Northeast US called "Swords Without Fantasy" who did "real" swordfights (actually exceptionally well choreographed) with live steel; one of their performances almost 20 years ago is where I first learned the term "flynning", when they demonstrated the difference between movie swordfights and the real thing.
Nornagest: Argh. Kendo is not realistic swordsmanship. It's more or less the Japanese equivalent of sport fencing, and not (relatively freeform) epee fencing either; it's more like the highly stylized fencing of foil or sabre, with restrictive rules about which strikes count and a very limited target selection. Reconstructionist groups tend to be slightly better, but most (at least in the United States and Britain) are strongly influenced by the rather hit-and-miss house rules of the SCA. Of the above links, I'd put the most weight on the video for classical Italian fencing; we have manuals of swordsmanship from that period, which we don't for any Western swordplay before roughly the 1400s.
While I'm ranting, I might as well mention that there's no single "look" to a swordfight that'll be accurate for all weapons, regions, and time periods. Smallsword play looks a lot like epee fencing; indeed, the latter is essentially the former, just with restricted ground movement (to make scoring easier) and longer blades. Longsword fighting from the Renaissance looks more like the Japanese styles of swordsmanship, but with different body mechanics to accommodate easier push cuts and more difficult draw cuts. Sword-and-shield fighting is a different beast altogether, and unfortunately one about which little information survives.
What's true, however, is that movie swordfighting is grossly inaccurate in almost all cases.
Looney Toons: Yes, agreed that that there is no single look, which is one reason why I provided several different varieties when I put up those links, um, three (?) years ago. As far as pre-1400s European styles are concerned, there almost certainly wasn't much in the way of "art" — it probably bore more resemblance to street knife-fighting in terms of its approach and mindset than it did later fencing. A medieval sword is, in effect, a club with an edge, and most of the time your only option is to beat your way through your opponent's armor until you can dice up the soft and juicy bits inside. In this regard, I suspect the SCA and reconstructionist styles are probably more accurate than they realize, in that their swords are clubs (just padded), and their moves reflect that. As to Kendo, I felt then and feel now that even as a sport form, it gives a good sense of the pacing of a typical sword combat — none of this endless, incessant "tink-tink-tink" but instead bursts of frantic energy alternating with pauses to reevaluate your opponent and your tactics (and to get your breath back).
Kizor: Two years. By the way, thank you folks very much.
Looney Toons: You're welcome!
The Nifty: As someone who's trained a little at dark ages / early medieval swordfighting, I'm the first to admit that the lack of written records means that our reconstructions of what a fight is probably like are almost certainly incorrect, but I take exception to the clam that "A medieval sword is, in effect, a club with an edge". Every single historical sword I've seen from that time period is under 3 pounds in weight, some under 2 pounds (for comparison, that''s lighter than a katana or even a rapier) and they have superb craftsmanship and balance. They might feel blade-heavy to someone used to more modern styles, but they were designed for use with a shield, and the design reflects that - very focused towards offense.
Butterscotch: I took out a HUGE wall of text justifying edit from the Star Wars entry. I guess I'll put it here?
- Because lightsaber combat doesn't work that way? Let's just start there. Let's start with how when they connect they simply sort of lock on each other due to the way the energy collides in that movie magic way. There's no sliding. Okay. That's a start. Next, I would like to remind this man that a lightsaber in any incarnation, hand guard or no, is in no way a product that is to be judged based on the potential engineering sensibilities of a non-force user. Now, what I'm going to pointedly remind everyone that the only reason that lightsabers are a sensible weapon in any fashion is because they make excellent tools for someone who perceives reality in the unique way that only a force sensitive individual can. They are not fighting in 'real time.' They have precognitive minds that expand outwards to see ahead of time and they can judge the outcome of their actions in many different dimensions, giving them keen insight into things like how someone is pointing a gun at them from behind and would have killed them in a second, or where that sith's swing is going, or where that blaster bolt is going to be in a few seconds and where your saber would have to be to deflect it exactly back into the firer. Any battle against a jedi is like a chess match with a person who can see many moves into the future and know which ones would have turned out to be mistakes so they go always with the moves that they psychically know turn out the worst for you. So you can't just slide a saber down to someone's fingers and be all like 'ha ha, tricked you' oh god you'd just be opening yourself up for all kinds of bad situations that way. The only way to defeat them in combat is to either take them by complete o66 level surprise or to battle them so viciously that the sheer overwhelming panorama of multiversal potential seconds-in-the-future outcomes begins to overwhelm and shorten their precognition and give you a chance to trap them in a situation where they cannot avoid being struck down.
Just Passing Through: Am I the only one that notices that most of the literature entries aren't examples of Flynning but more "fencing sucks 'cus its not real swordfighting". True that there are no real rules in an actual sword fight but no fencer would ever Flynn as it is simply a spectacular way to lose a bout.
