Weapons - Full Contact Polish league

Niall Keane

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIaHeK9f3YY

blunted steel weapons, no thrusts allowed... might be of interest to some here?


http://youtu.be/iIaHeK9f3YY

Dyr

I honestly don't understand the paradigm. There's no point to it

Blackthorn Fight School

there is an Irish team that do it the link is below for anyone interested.

https://www.facebook.com/BattleOfTheNationsIreland

session savage

Ah jesus lads... thats mad

CianRyan

That is mental.

Niall Keane

I guess its great craic and that with peoples interest in how medieval battles may have felt like drives the sport.

It is interesting how well they can move in armour, i know such reinactment comps have forced historians to reexamine what they "knew".

Also interesting is the low rate of injury, taking into account that blunting the weapons doesnt do much for European medieval weapons that were never that sharp anyway.
Thrusting is banned, there are refs and purposely attacking joints is also frowned upon, but even so why are we not seeing the type of injuries evident in remains from medieval battlefield mass graves that have been discovered?
Was it just the unarmoured serfs that got slaughtered? were knights free from harm until The Black Prince let the peasant archers destroy the "flower of French chivalry"?

I like the mix of technique allowed here, dont think one can safely allow much more? We even see a section where "shield design" was optimally used! ;-)

Of course its nothing compared to our own hurling!!! :-)

Dyr

Niall Keane wrote: »

even so why are we not seeing the type of injuries evident in remains from medieval battlefield mass graves that have been discovered?

That's what I dont get. Whats the point if you're just going to hammer the **** outta of each other to no effect?


Looks like fun though

Doug Cartel

Niall Keane wrote: »

I guess its great craic and that with peoples interest in how medieval battles may have felt like drives the sport.

[...]
Also interesting is the low rate of injury, taking into account that blunting the weapons doesnt do much for European medieval weapons that were never that sharp anyway.

A lot of the "fighting" that knights would have done (and I mean knights, not heavy cavalry) was mêlée, which was essentially more of a violent sport than it was real warfare. The real objective of this was to capture someone important and then ransom them back. Major injuries didn't really do any one any good.

Niall Keane

Doug Cartel wrote: »

A lot of the "fighting" that knights would have done (and I mean knights, not heavy cavalry) was mêlée, which was essentially more of a violent sport than it was real warfare. The real objective of this was to capture someone important and then ransom them back. Major injuries didn't really do any one any good.

Im tending to think that too, all important ransom, so the poor bastards all hacked up in mass graves are probably pressed serfs.

Fascinating what kind of abuse 3cm p padding and 2mm of plate armour allows one to take!!!

Niall Keane

Bambi wrote: »

That's what I dont get. Whats the point if you're just going to hammer the **** outta of each other to no effect?


Looks like fun though

I think with weapons there is always a point to full contact sparring, from the gaining experience and proficiency perspective.

Our brains are basically designed for movement, even typing an talking involves complex movement.

As far a im aware we have two ways of dealing with moving objects -

Judging whats happening right now

Remembering similar situations beforehand

There is a great lecture on this on "TED",
They use a tennis player as example, his brain calculates the possible landing area of the ball based on the opponents position - this narrows the possibilities somewhat.
Then he "remembers" his learned experience, this tells him the opponent will want to land the ball on serve as close to the inside pf the line to make it as difficult as possible to answer.
This gives the player another area of possibility.

The human brain (player) then combines the two judgements, the positional calculation and the learned memory pf what the opponent desires to do, the further reduced intersection of the two areas is where a good player focuses on to answer the serve.

As such, gaining experience in as near as possible simulations should help us identify movement patterns and preferred targets of opponents etc. this should help us to "narrow the field" of possibility and allow us a higher success rate in attack and defence.

The more artificial restraints are placed in sparring the more scope for error in the simulation, we all know of martial arts that demo slow attacks and suddenly the demonstrator can carry out 5 strike combos on a single lunge punch, neither the punch is real, nor is the timing credible, unless the martial artist has a way of slowing down time when he is attacked in real life.

As such i feel though some efficient targets and methods are prohibited for safety's sake, (thrusts being a major one), over all the experience of the intensity and speed etc would be beneficial in training the movement memory. An intelligent individual should be able to train thrusts ina different manner safely, and combine his awareness of the full contact to ensure he does not succumb to delusion in training?

Deise Musashi

I'd say the cost of the armour would be a huge barrier to joining in.

A very decent equivalent (or better) set of armour could be cobbled together from Hurling helmets, ice hockey kit, neck protector from car racing, baseball shin guards, downhill biking gloves etc.

Use wooden shinai type weapons, hurls, shovel handles or big mallets or whatever for weapons

I'd say it would be a right craic, once the referees were on the ball with the "Flag on a pole" to stop combatants getting over eager!

I like the way the trip/sweep were coming out, a downed armour clad knight is well fecked. Also noticed they used the tunnel vision of adrenalised lads, made worse by helmet view, to slip lads around the outside to infiltrate and deliver early whoppage to main players.

I'm wondering if the WMA lads (Cork Blademasters!) are seeing any proper longsword word, or is this a brawl of lads with no training in the Dark Ages-Renaissance styles of sword and shield work.

Looking at the video, I fancy a mace or warhammer with a handy buckler for blocking and offhand smashing :cool:

Dyr

Niall Keane wrote: »

I think with weapons there is always a point to full contact sparring, from the gaining experience and proficiency perspective.

That isn't full contact sparring though, its the equivalent of firing airguns at panzer tanks

Mr. CooL ICE

Jaysus. Looks like a riot at a dungeons and dragons convention

Dermighty

LordChessington wrote: »

Jaysus. Looks like a riot at a dungeons and dragons convention

Except there is exercise involved in the lives of the people in the video...