Troper Fencing Academy

Personally I think that is what it might be, but given the legend behind the man I am not surprised that it would take hold that it might be his weapon.

edited 21st Nov '16 1:59:06 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Found another great fight video. I wonder if people keep making new videos like this will the film industry take notice. Though I do wonder if this kind of choreography might be a bit too dangerous for their comfort. I mean a mistake with even blunt swords can easily lead to seriously injure or death.

It's also for practicality reasons. This type of fight is harder to make actors memorize in a Hollywood schedule.

But it is pretty fantastic. I'd love seeing more of this.

edited 21st Nov '16 8:55:59 AM by Gaon

Given that they are sending actors to combat training schools just to make better gun fights, having them do selective military training so they can better portray military characters, and even taking martial arts training to take on roles with hand to hand characters; I see no actual reason why they couldn't do sword fights like that. They frequently use complex choreography for a lot of fight scenes so I doubt memorization would be an issue.

The key is the schedule. Most of those trainings tend to be brief affairs, in which it'd be more difficult to learn to wield swords with that level of expertise. There are cases like Keanu Reeves, who spends almost a year doing hardcore training with weaponry and martial arts, but he's the exception, not the rule. You'll see that there's a lot of continuous shots in the fight, and those are harder. In general hollywood swordfighting they tend to make a lot of fast cuts and editing for two reasons: To make it seem more fast-paced and to disguise the fact these people have no actual idea how to fence. To make this kind of fight would require more work.

It's not impossible or even at all that difficult to make something like this, but Hollywood's all about cutting corners.

edited 21st Nov '16 6:05:11 PM by Gaon

Keanau actually isn't the exception at least not these days. Tom Cruise springs to mind where he did a full length combat shooting course that included point shooting training. The alley way muggers scene in Collateral is reportedly not edited, Tom Cruise is that fast and practiced. He isn't the only one to do that either just the one that springs to mind most immediately.

I recall the "Into The Badlands" actors all did a lot of training and practice pretty constantly including rehearsing scenes.

edited 11th Feb '17 6:21:58 AM by TuefelHundenIV

I want to say Stephen Amell does that sort of thing for Arrow too. Not just the archery, but the parkour and close combat training. Then again, that's small screen. Not sure if there are any other big-screen equivalents, but I don't really follow movies so yeah.

Anyway TFA posse, For Honor is coming out in a week or so. It looks pretty fun to me. I'll be on PS 4 with it as AirMarshalCarlin.

edited 2nd Feb '17 9:48:36 AM by TomoeMichieru

Been a while since I stayed in kendo that long ever since I moved to Manila from Vancouver.

Doing the bogu test and failing them twice made me realize that I need to seriously correct them befor it gets embarrassing if I fail the next one.

Not sure whether you saw this one already, but my man Alan absolutely skewered some of the sword fight choreographers back in October:

I am just Kendo guy, so I have no deep insight in European Fencing (or any other combat focused sword style), but I have never understood the notion of Game of Thrones having realistic sword fights. I do like that the entertainment industry takes notice of the HEMA world now, so it may help spreading its popularity further.

To break the monotony of European and Japanese styles, here is video of a seminar about HPMA, Historical Persian Martial Arts:

edited 20th Feb '17 7:11:45 AM by FictionAddiction

It's less about being realistic and more about the entire shitshow being sluggish, overly telegraphed and thus an absolute bore to watch.

I do not know if the show is shit because I do not watch it. I have seen some fight scenes separately and I agree that the fights are boring. I have noticed that a large part of the actual action, if any is there because of the unimaginative choreography, is hidden by too many and too quick camera cuts. A wide angle is relatively rare in the fighting scenes.

I rather prefer some over the top action instead of wannabe realistic moves. For the joy of the audience the filmmakers should take advantage of the cinematic reality of the camera.

I meant that the fight scenes are a shitshow due to how boring and sluggish they are.

Add Death By A Thousand Cuts to that, a worrying trend in action sequences since the Bourne movies, and you get a snorefest.

I thought that Fury Road had more influence on film editing...

edited 23rd Feb '17 12:38:03 PM by NotSoBadassLongcoat

The only character in Game of Thrones who's halfway decent with a sword is Jorah Mormont. And even then that is mostly because everyone else's coreography sucks so much worse than his.

When it comes to western cinema action scenes, the hope is Chad Stahelski and David Leitch have more of a influence in the future. Shit like this must not be forgotten.

edited 23rd Feb '17 1:25:54 PM by Gaon

What do most masters mean when they say, "treat this sword as an extension of your arm/body"?

edited 12th Jun '17 3:23:05 PM by GAP

What I take that to mean is to wield the sword as naturally as possible, to keep it in balance with the rest of you. In Japanese swordsmanship (likely European and just fencing in general), the bulk of your motion should come from your core, with the limbs and weapon following. This is how you generate the most power and maintain control.

Any Historical European Martial Artists here? I took a break for a couple of years, but I'm getting back into it now, and trying to expand my repetoire.

No, I do kenjutsu (and other things). To get some conversation, what did you do since HEMA is a large thing.

There were a couple in the thread who were but I haven't seen them post in a while. I did Olympic Fencing, Bayonet Fighting, and a little short spear with a local group. I had to leave it off because I couldn't afford it anymore.

I've been a rapier man for years, but I've just recently begun studying sword and buckler, plus Messer. My instructor is very manuscript-oriented, so we have been working out of two well known ones: "I.33" and "Leckuchner". I've also been a foil fencer since I was 16.

Edited by DeMarquis on Nov 19th 2018 at 5:13:12 AM

Random rambling and by God, this thread is inactive, although hardly surprising.

So there're tactical everything these days and what do you know, unsurprisingly there is also such thing as a tactical spear.

Edited by dRoy on Feb 10th 2019 at 5:12:29 AM

-Sees tactical spear and experiences pain. Then sees "tactical" gladius- This is why I am partly dead inside.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on Feb 27th 2019 at 9:08:00 AM

I'm sorry, what?

Tactical spear?

(also dear GOD it's been a long time since I've been here)

I just found out we have a HEMA club in my city. There aren't any iai or kenjutsu schools near me (that are dedicated and not Mc Dojos), and I want to get back into awesomepants swordsmanship, so I'm definitely getting in touch with them.

I was initially considering posting this in the Martial Arts Thread, but chose to post this here instead because not only the sparring showed in this vid resembles sword-fighting, but also because this place has been inactive for quite a while.

I appreciate how this sparring has both slow-motions and commentaries. Also, yeah, the move in 3:55, where he blocked the opponent's stick by pushing his wrist away while whacking him in the head was damn cool. My favorite moment, however, was what the uploader described as a "aggressive triangle footwork(I think?)" at 3:10.

It might be just my untrained eyes speaking, but I think the uploader (the one in black shirts) have fairly decent footwork and feinting.