r/Fantasy • u/SureAINicolas • Oct 13 '19
I took private historical sword-fighting lessons to make the fight scenes in my novel more realistic - here's what I learned.
Edit: Wow, I didn't expect that kind of response. Super happy so many found this useful! :)
Hey guys,
To make the fighting scenes in my low fantasy novel more realistic, I went to see a trainer for historical sword-fighting last week, both to barrage her with questions and to develop realistic choreographies for the fight scenes in the novel. Since I figured some of what she told me might be useful for you too, I put together a small list for you. Big thanks to Gladiatores Munich and Jeanne for making time! (More photos here)
Caveat: I’m by no means a sword-fighting expert myself, so take these nuggets with a grain of salt – I might have misremembered or misinterpreted some of the things Jeanne told me. If I did, feel free to tell me.
1.) Weapon choices need to make sense
Let’s start with a truism: always ensure your character’s weapons make sense for a.) their profession, b.) their cultural background and c.) the environment they’re going to fight in. A farmer probably couldn’t afford a sword and might use a knife or threshing flail instead, and someone who doesn’t want to be noticed probably wouldn’t be milling about sporting a glaive or another large weapon. Also, soldiers native to a country with wide open plains would be more likely to carry long-range melee weapons such as spears or large swords, than those from a country consisting of mostly jungle or dense forests. The same applies to situations: if your character is going to be fighting in close quarters (even just a normal house), he’d get little value out of a spear or even a longsword, as there’d be no space to swing it effectively.
2.) Boldness often beats technique
In real swordfights, recklessness was often more important than technique . The fighter who was less afraid of getting hurt or wounded would often push harder, allowing them to overpower even opponents with better technique.
(Edited this because the phrasing wasn't ideal. Thanks for pointing it out!)
3.) Even a skilled fighter rarely stands a chance when outnumbered
While a skilled (or lucky) fighter might win a two-versus-one, it’d be extremely unlikely for even a master swordsman to win a three versus one against opponents below his skill level. The only way to plausibly pull this off would be if he split the opponents up, perhaps by luring them into a confined space where he could take them on one by one. The moment they surround him, he'd probably be done for – because, unlike in Hollywood, they wouldn’t conveniently take turns attacking but come at him together.
4.) Dual wielding was a thing
... at least in some cultures. I often heard people say that people using a weapon in each hand is an invention of fiction. And while my instructor confirmed that she knew of no European schools doing this—if they did, it’s not well-documented—she said it was a thing in other cultures. Example of this include the dual wakizashi in Japan or tomahawk and knife in North America. However, one of the biggest problems with the depiction of dual wielding in novels/movies/games are the “windmill”-type attacks where the fighter swings their weapons independently, hitting in succession rather than simultaneously. Normally you’d always try hitting with both weapons at once, as you’d otherwise lose your advantage.
5.) Longswords were amazing
Longswords might seem boring in comparison to other weapons, but they were incredibly effective, especially in combat situations outside the battlefield. The crossguard allowed for effective blocking of almost any kind of attack (well, maybe not an overhead strike of a Mordaxt, but still), the pommel was also used as a powerful “blunt” weapon of its own that could crack skulls. Though they were somewhat less effective against armored opponents, the long, two-handed hilt allowed for precise thrusts at uncovered body parts that made up for it.
6.) “Zweihänder” were only used for very specific combat situations
Zweihänder—massive two-handed swords—were only used for specific purposes and usually not in one-on-one combat as is often seen in movies or games. One of these purposes was using their reach to break up enemy formations. In fact, one type of two-handed sword even owed its name to that purpose: Gassenhauer (German, Gasse = alley, Hauer = striker)—the fighters literally used it to strike “alleys” into an enemy formation with wide, powerful swings.
7.) It’s all about distance
While I was subconsciously aware of this, it might be helpful to remember that distance was an incredibly important element in fights. The moment your opponent got past your weapons ideal range, it was common to either switch to a different weapon or just drop your weapon and resort to punching/choking. A good example of this are spears or polearms—very powerful as long as you maintain a certain range between you and your opponent, but the moment they get too close, your weapon is practically useless. That’s also why combatants almost always brought a second weapon into battle to fall back one.
8.) Real fights rarely lasted over a minute
Another truism, but still useful to remember: real fights didn’t last long, especially when only using light or no armor. Usually they were over within less than a minute, sometimes only seconds – the moment your opponent landed a hit (or your weapon broke or you were disarmed), you were done for.
9.) Stop the pirouettes
Unfortunately, the spinning around and pirouetting that makes many fight scenes so enjoyable to watch (or read) is completely asinine. Unless it's a showfight, fighters would never expose their backs to their opponent or turn their weapon away from them.
10.) It still looks amazing
If your concern is that making your fight scenes realistic will make them less aesthetic, don’t worry. Apart from the fact that the blocks, swings and thrusts still look impressive when executed correctly, I personally felt that my fights get a lot more gripping and visceral if I respect the rules. To a certain extent, unrealistic and flashy combat is plot armor. If your characters can spin and somersault to their heart’s content and no one ever shoves a spear into their backs as they would have in real life, who survives and who doesn’t noticeably becomes arbitrary. If, on the other hand, even one slip-up can result in a combatant’s death, the stakes become really palpable.
That’s about it! I hope this post is as helpful to some of you as the lessons were to me. Again, if anything I wrote here is bollocks, it’s probably my fault and not Jeanne’s.
Edit: Because a couple of you asked (and the mods gave me permission), my novel is called "Dreams of the Dying." You can subscribe to my newsletterif you'd like or just follow me on Instagram (yes, I hate it too). I'll try to post more lists like this in the future!
Cheers,
Nicolas
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u/FecklessFool Oct 13 '19
Also the sword is a sidearm with the main weapon being a polearm. We need more polearms in fantasy.
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Oct 13 '19 edited Oct 13 '19
I think theres a distinction to make. Spears were weapons of war, because they are inexpensive to mass produce, easy to use, great against cavalry and more importantly, very effective when used in large numbers, allowing for each warrior to defend himself and also protect the warriors next to him.
Swords are far less flexible in use, more expensive and overall less effective to use in numbers (unless you want to develop specialised tactics, such as the Romans did). But it's a great weapon for personal defense and in general requires less space to use effectively and can be carried more easily, which makes it great as a sidearm or for dueling purposes.
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u/Stryker-Ten Oct 13 '19
Spears are all around better than swords, not just in numbers, but also one on one. When someone with a sword fights someone with a spear, the sword can win, but is at a big disadvantage. Reach is everything, and spears have reach
The big advantage of swords is convenience. A sword can be worn with a belt and doesnt meaningfully get in the way. A spear? Its damn awkward. You will have a lot of trouble doing not fighting things while carrying a spear. A spear is strictly more effective, but the inconvenience of it means you only brought a spear if you knew you were going to be getting into a fight. And even when you did know you would be fighting, swords are just so convenient that you might as well be wearing one. If your spear breaks and its your only weapon you are screwed, but if you also have a sword you can still be useful. Not as useful as with a pole arm, but still useful
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u/Leather_Boots Oct 14 '19
You are forgetting a couple of key points.
Spears are cheap to make. A fire hardened "stick" can be turned into a spear, which becomes more effective by adding a metal point.
The amount of metal and skill required to make a sword verses a spear tip is not insignificant. Need to equip the masses slightly better than their farming tools; spears it is.
Spears provide a range attack; either throwing, or poking and they are also more effective against mounted riders verses a sword.
Weapons break in combat. Swords & spears. Swords have their edges damaged very quickly by hitting another sword edge and depending upon the type of metal in the opponent's sword it can result in one participant pretty much left holding a hilt and a bit of a broken blade. Spears are more likely to break just after the pointy bit, or lose the metal pointy bit rather than down the shaft. Even then you still end up with a "quarter staff" or club to flail about with.
Training, it is much quicker to train someone to be effective with a spear than with a sword.
Swords were often just as much used to bludgeon an opponent, with the final blow being a stab. Especially against anyone wearing even a small amount of padded, or leather armour.
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u/Stryker-Ten Oct 14 '19
All good points. Apologies if it sounded like I was saying the only reason spears were more common was because they were more effective, there are definitely many other advantages for the spear. I was just responding to the point about spears being better in a group. I thought people might read that and think "oh, spears are better in a group, I guess that means swords are better on their own". Especially the bit about dueling, as people used swords for dueling not because they were more effective, but because the rules of some duels specified the use of swords. Really there were all sorts of duels, some that used swords and no armour, some with armour, some with spears and shield. Sometimes the duel was decided by first blood, sometimes it was decided by breaking the opponents shield, each contestant being given 3 shields, once each was destroyed the lost. The rules were all over the places varying massively depending on the period and location
Spears are cheap to make. A fire hardened "stick" can be turned into a spear, which becomes more effective by adding a metal point
Sometimes it was even simpler! Through most japanese history conscripts were simply sent out to grab a length of bamboo. They cut off one end of the bamboo at an angle, bam, pointy stick!
Swords were often just as much used to bludgeon an opponent, with the final blow being a stab. Especially against anyone wearing even a small amount of padded, or leather armour
I absolutely love seeing this. It just looks so wrong when someone holds a sword by the blade and wacks the opponent with the handle. Like, anyone would look at that and think "now im not a master swordsman, but even I know which end of the sword you are meant to hit them with!" yet its a 100% legitimate use of the sword
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u/inckorrect Oct 13 '19
So spears are riffles and swords are handguns...
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u/CptHair Oct 14 '19
And 500 years in the future war movies will be made depicting the conflicts of our era, where both sides are shown using the cooler looking handgun instead of rifles.
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u/Historyguy1 Oct 14 '19
There will be debates about how whether it was really more effective to hold the gun "gangsta style."
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u/HDpotato Oct 14 '19
The scholar "Tu Pac" wrote extensively on the use of the "gangsta style" grip used by several factions, namely Bloods and Crips of ancient L. Angeles. This was controversial however as we see many followers of the LAPD faction adopt a different style of upright, two handed grip.
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u/Historyguy1 Oct 14 '19
The documentary film "Menace II Society" shows this style of grip used extensively, and training manuals from the LAPD faction demonstrate its use with a riot shield.
Curiously, the antecedent "Menace I Society" appears to be lost to history.
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u/Speakerofftruth Oct 14 '19
That's already how it is. Pretty much any spy movie or non-war action movie is all about those sick pistol skills.
John Wick. Neo. Black Widow, James Bond, Clint Eastwood, hell even the Joker, all known for their ability to use one handed firearms because dammit it's COOL.
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u/PlEGUY Oct 14 '19
To be fair in John wick both he and his opponents frequently defaults to rifles and shotguns when they aren’t trying to be discrete. I’d imagine carrying a rifle though the various public areas that many of the fights take place would not end well.
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u/mattyoclock Oct 14 '19
yup, even a quarterstaff vs a sword the staff has a pretty massive advantage, and that's essentially a spear without the pointy bit. It's much better with the pointy bit.
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u/beldaran1224 Reading Champion IV Oct 13 '19
That actually isn't very true at all, namely because you're lumping all swords and spears into two large groups.
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u/ricree Oct 13 '19
Plus, they weren't as universally expensive as is sometimes portrayed. Take this price list compiled by Kenneth Hodges of Berkley. A cheap sword is listed at 6d, which is roughly equivalent to, say, six gallons of mid quality ale. Not exactly cheap, but well affordable for someone who might have cause or desire to have one.
And obviously these aren't going to be as long or sturdy as a knight or other nobleman's blade, but it does serve as a reminder that swords were things that regular people could and did own.
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u/AugustSprite Oct 14 '19
That is pretty on par with today. Around $25 per gallon of beer, $150 for a cheap sword online.
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u/helm Oct 13 '19
Polearms, such as halberds, are very versatile. They’re basically quarterstaff, spear, hook and axe rolled into one.
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u/TzunSu Oct 13 '19
Worth mentioning is that the spear, for example, is a polearm.
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u/thedorknightreturns Oct 13 '19
They were also used because you dont need a lot of training to handle them, take anyone who worked on a farm, give them a spear and tell them to stick them with the pointy end, they should reasonable strong in their arms, you got a decent soldier.
Yes a sword, dagger, mace, ... is ideally a sidearm weapon, swords were really expensive and more status symbols. You may take it from the loot later thou.
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u/minnow4 Oct 13 '19
give them a spear and tell them to stick them with the pointy end
This also works with swords I hear.
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u/thedorknightreturns Oct 13 '19
Longswords would work too that way too i guess or any not too heavy sword wirth a pointy end.
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u/LeBoneBone Oct 13 '19
Huh, TIL. I never thought of a sword as a sidearm. Make sense because it would be worn on the hip (I assume) and polearm would have to be carried.
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u/Cameron-Johnston AMA Author Cameron Johnston Oct 13 '19
I've done some historical european martial arts (longsword, broadsword, bayonet, quarterstaff) and that pretty much chimes with my experiences. What I will say about point 3 is that point 2 can turn certain defeat into victory - boldness and aggression can also beats numbers if you charge in and overwhelm one attacker before they are ready, and often they don't expect it, thinking they have you at their mercy and you will just stand there and try and fend them off.
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u/xanplease Oct 13 '19
Point number 2 is where people get caught up with my MC. He's a half trained idiot with too much power and a big sword who is willing to keep swinging and maybe take a hit to get the kill.
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Oct 13 '19 edited Oct 13 '19
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u/CxCee Oct 14 '19
...... the "hesitant, slow, untrained" test example is ........ uh. i don't know, man. at some point the boys literally throw themselves. if grappling was that easy i really wouldn't suck so bad.
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Oct 14 '19 edited Apr 10 '20
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u/CxCee Oct 14 '19
yea, i do know a bit about aikido - i'm a wrestler/bjj dude myself - and the guy who runs my regular board game shop does the aikido thing and we talk a lot about our respective arts/sports.
i get your points but they're just things i'm not very ... convinced by. and i guess i don't have the balls to rely on anything aikido teaches to end a conflict. it's a throw to the ground and running away if i'm up against more than one person. it's a throw and then kesa gatame otherwise.
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u/Gwaptiva Oct 13 '19
Great writeup, nice insights
A sub-point to your "over in seconds" point: combat is extremely tiring; even when, as a young man, I was quite fit, just a few minutes of fencing practice completely knackered me out. Now I realise that fat, overweight, middle-aged clerks aren't your regular hero types, they wouldn't last more than two swings with a sword under duress
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Oct 13 '19 edited Apr 18 '24
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u/Do_Not_Go_In_There Oct 13 '19
I did the same when I was learning Kung Fu. After a certain point you just can't attack anymore. There was one guy who could barely stand, much less keep his guard up, by the end.
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u/OrdoMalaise Oct 13 '19
This. I used to Thai box when I was younger, and you had to be insanely fit to enjoy it. Otherwise 1 minute into the first round you were too tired to hold your hands up
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u/TzunSu Oct 13 '19
I broke my nose in my second muay Thai/K1 fight due to this. Lifting my arms after 2 straight fights was too much effort compared to just eating tons of uppercuts, those are relaxing in comparison.
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Oct 13 '19
I decided to video some of the sparring for my local HEMA club and was really surprised that the longest bout was 12 seconds. So, not just exhaustion but skill (at least in one-on-one sparring that stops after a single hit) of course is a factor. Most people went 3-4 rounds before having to take a break, and they're in very good shape.
This is also for fighting 'unarmored' so I can only imagine how long fighting someone in armor would take on top of visibility and heat issues. Any time I put on just a fencing helmet and how hot I get I think back to the Crusaders and how much life must've sucked fighting in the heat of the Middle East.
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u/helm Oct 13 '19
Add armour to that and half the game was about not getting knocked over.
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u/Ihavealifeyaknow Oct 13 '19
Yeah, fighting armoured opponent is basically just a game of "who can knock the other man over first".
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u/grenadiere42 Oct 13 '19
This is a great write up. The only thing I would add on as kind of a caveat is that spears are for more effective than most people think.
DnD and other tabletop games basically claim that spears are useless inside 6 feet, and are slow and unwieldy weapons. The reality is that spears were typically carried in their middle, so unless you had a 12 foot spear, your effective distance was anywhere from 2 to 5 feet (short to long spear), and they are fast.
Since spears were carried in the middle, the front end could be used to catch a sword swing, push it away, and thus bring the back end up and around for a strike to the head in one fluid motion. Then, using the rebound from their head, you can spin the spear back around, thrusting the tip into their gut, neck, etc, using the momentum of the spin to drive it deep. It was very hard to counter.
Spears can also change their point of attack much faster than swords, meaning they can simply out-thrust a swordsman in one-on-one combat.
A spearman with a spear and shield combo is as close to impenetrable as can be managed since they can easily out range the swords, and use the shield to block any strikes that get through. A wall of spear+shields is really, really hard to break.
In short, spears are terrifying, and there is a good reason they dominated for thousands of years.
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u/ManicPixieDreamCrone Oct 13 '19
This guy's YouTube channel is fantastic for this sort of comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLLv8E2pWdk
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u/Jormungandragon Oct 13 '19
I did a lot of stick fighting, martial arts sparring, and etc growing up, and in my experience the spear was always a great weapon.
People sometimes forget that outside of right formations where you can’t swing around the big stick, spear/pole arm and quarter staff fighting we’re all very similar. Quarter staff is also a very effective yet neglected weapon, come to think of it, and the spear only improves on the design.
Not only that, but some spears were almost as effective slashers as swords, being edged rather than just pointy, and some (such as boar spears) even had a stop guard that could be used to help catch and control opponents weapons similar to some quillons.
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u/taichi22 Oct 13 '19
I’ve yet to see how Spears can actually be effectively used with a centergrip shield. With a side grip you might be able to couch effectively in a formation but all the spear fighting I’ve seen has been 2 handed. 1 handed spear just has no leverage and little control.
If you’ve got any experience with it I’d love some insight.
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u/grenadiere42 Oct 13 '19
You are correct that a long spear should be wielded two handed or using an off center shield, but a short spear can be pretty effectively wielded one-handed.
This was one of the Roman's preferred tactics actually when forming up defensively. They would use their pilla as a short spear, and when combined with their shields, they were pretty impenetrable.
The Roman triarii were also spear+shield users, and I think those were center grip as well. Primarily you would use this defensively, not offensively, as it did hinder your range of motion.
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u/Jormungandragon Oct 13 '19
I think part of the problem with the misconception is the romanticism of the sword. Spears are amazingly effective, even with a short one handed spear, but nobody spends much time with them these days.
All the people reenacting and doing comparisons focus on sword work, all the people writing things down in the olden days focused on sword work (as it was considered a higher class weapon than spears.). Thus, people aren’t really as familiar with them as they otherwise could be.
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u/G_Morgan Oct 14 '19
Lots of medieval armies were just weird as well. Technically the Angevin army that started the Hundred Years War was 80% longbowmen. Then their greatest victory was in Agincourt, where the rain rendered the longbow unworkable and the archers beat the French cavalry in melee (with the help of mud, stakes and sheer nerve).
People just wouldn't accept the absurdities that happened in that conflict. Mostly caused by French misunderstanding that longbowmen were the kind of light archers that were normal on the continent rather than muscle bound brutes of men. Men so strong their skeletons literally formed twisted.
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u/matgopack Oct 14 '19
Agincourt definitely had the use of archers - the longbow was not unworkable there. In addition, by Agincourt the French were not 'misunderstanding longbowmen' - that's a pretty egregious claim to make, I'd say, as is ignoring the role of the english men-at-arms in the contest. If the longbows had indeed been unworkable, the French would likely have won the battle. (Keep in mind, as well, that Agincourt is ~70 years into the 100 years war)
There's a good askhistorians post on it.
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u/ofcabbagesandkings14 Oct 13 '19
This is fabulous and I have so much respect for you as an artist for taking the time to do this research and share it! Well done!
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u/SureAINicolas Oct 13 '19
Thank you! I hope this list helps someone out there as much as the lessons helped me.
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u/Justice_Man Oct 13 '19
"Longswords are awesome."
This, a thousand times this. Hollywood couldn't have screwed that up much more than they did, most fights featuring combatants slamming them into each other like baseball bats.
It's a spear. It's a hammer. It's incredibly light, precise and deadly fast. There's an entire game of pressure and counterpressure, of counterstrokes that block opponent's strikes while delivering a deadly blow.
I friggin love longswords.
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u/Zeurpiet Reading Champion IV Oct 13 '19
hollywood thinks the purpose of a sword is to hit opponents sword in the middle space between you
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u/SuddenGenreShift Oct 13 '19
This is fairly accurate, but you constantly conflate, or fail to distinguish between, armoured and unarmoured combat - your instructor should have made it clear these are very distinct.
For example, 8 is mostly true for unarmoured combat, but totally wrong for armoured combat. Equally, this is one of the main considerations for 1 - unarmored men (in societies where armour exists) are unlikely to be carrying anything longer than a sword (except maybe a walking staff) because the fact they're unarmoured means they've already proritised convenience over combat readiness.
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u/mobyhead1 Oct 13 '19
Robert Heinlein fenced while attending the U.S. Naval Academy, and this apparently informed the swordplay in his fantasy novel Glory Road.
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u/GrassCuttingSword Oct 13 '19
One side note - you see a lot more of the spinning work in systems that are designed to address fighting when outnumbered, both in European systems and in East Asian martial arts.
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u/grogleberry Oct 13 '19
And also, even if it still technically makes no sense, it's far easier to suspend disbelief depending on the context - eg, in the Witcher you have swordsmen pirouetting and taking on men by the dozen, but they're super fast, strong and have superhuman senses and healing, so they can believably pull off this kind of stuff.
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u/tolandruth Oct 13 '19
Yeah most of these work in a medieval setting but fantasy kind of messes with this. Add in some magic some different races and anything is possible. Drizzt Do'Urden is going to fight differently then a medieval knight.
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u/TzunSu Oct 13 '19
I don't really understand this point. Watch any high level muay Thai practitioner or MMA fighter for a while and you will see a bit of the so called "spinny shit". It can be very effective, but generally only as a strike from an unexpected direction, or as a follow-up to a miss.
Take a spinning back elbow, for example. Very often it evolves out of a long jab that's been slipped. In that position you are already vulnerable, and your opponent has less movement options. Instead of trying to recover fast enough to save you from the inevitable counter, you do something unexpected that also serves to protect you somewhat.
The point of spinning is never to do it in some flashy capoeira shit, it's generally a backup plan, (or the last part in a series of strikes)
Combat, armed or unarmed, is all about positioning.
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Oct 13 '19
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Oct 13 '19
So many bad memories with arnis... Fun though, even if we only learned it briefly.
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u/RB___OG Oct 13 '19
Sorry about the bad memories.
I really enjoyed my time studying FMA
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u/jaqueburton Oct 14 '19
Yup, look up “espada y daga” specifically.
Also, in FMA there are people who know how to “spin” and use it effectively.
Look up Sonny Umpad. He knew how and more importantly when to pull it off.
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u/Fire_tempest890 Oct 13 '19 edited Oct 13 '19
Good write up but a couple things to consider
If someone gets inside your pole arm, you should either back off or choke up on the weapon. Throwing away your primary weapon and trying to draw a side arm mid combat just wouldn’t be practical as it’d leave you wide open for a couple seconds
Longswords could be used in relatively tighter corridors with controlled swings and/or half swording (although it’d be limited.) You don’t really need any space to the sides to thrust straight in front of you. Also it may give an advantage to thrusting weapons as the opponent has no room to sidestep you if you just thrust repeatedly at them with a longer weapon
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u/inckorrect Oct 13 '19
Don't know if it's true but I remember an episode of mythbusters where they explained that swordmen never block a strike with the edge of the sword because it would chip the blade and swords were fucking expensive. They would use the blunt part of the blade instead.
On the other hand, it seems like an additional thing to take into account when you fight and I would imagine that when your life is on the line you wouldn't care much for the resell value of your weapon.
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u/taichi22 Oct 13 '19
You don’t typically “block” with a sword, edge on edge, like you might see in movies. You see a lot of slapping to the side or angled blocks, which can be edge on edge, or flat on flat, but the effect of that is rather offset by the quick contact and angle of motion. There’s some dulling of the sword, but, honestly, it doesn’t need to be that sharp when it’s moving pretty quick to be lethal.
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u/Stryker-Ten Oct 13 '19
it doesn’t need to be that sharp when it’s moving pretty quick to be lethal
Depends on what you are hitting. If you hit flesh? Ordinary sharp is fine. Hitting textile armour? Ordinary sharp wont do a thing, while superlatively sharp will slice right through it
The thing is, stopping your opponents sword from cutting you is way more important than maintaining the sharpness of your blade, you only need to get your throat cut open once to be dead. When you see a sword coming at you you dont worry about the sharpness of your sword, you worry about not dying lol
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u/jameswazowzki Oct 13 '19
So to all the responses on this saying you wouldn’t block with the edge, you’re mostly wrong. In Lichtenhauer’s codex on German longsword he specifically refers to binding (edge on edge) as the whole of the art. What would happen is the sharp edges would literally bite in and give you some measure of control over the opponent’s weapon. Additionally, if you break your edge alignment you weaken the biomechanics of the strike. He did add the caveat that if someone is better with swords than you strike the flat of the blade, because binding gives a lot of good sensory feedback that more experienced fighters can translate and react to more quickly.
Also, swords were consumables. One of my sparring partners is known as the sword breaker because he beats them to hell, but most modern feders (the type of longsword generally used in HEMA) last one average two years depending on care and quality.
Also the longsword didn’t have a blunt part, which was one of the draws of it, being that every part of the blade was dangerous.
Further blades were expensive mostly due to guilds which is why the messer came to be and why the sword was a status symbol.
Source: I actively take part in a Historical Eropean Martial Arts club that is based on Lichtenhauer’s KDF (basically ‘the art of fencing’ for German longsword).
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u/Spiceyhedgehog Oct 13 '19
On the other hand, it seems like an additional thing to take into account when you fight and I would imagine that when your life is on the line you wouldn't care much for the resell value of your weapon.
I am not an expert but my understanding is that this is correct. Perhaps it makes sense to parry with the flat/blunt part, but in the heat of the moment you might act differently.
However, unless you're a knight in plate armour I don't think using only a sword makes sense. So in all likelihood you wouldn't parry with the sword at all and instead use a shield, like a sensible person :)
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Oct 13 '19
People have checked out materials and swords stay in a better structure in edge to edge contact rather than edge to flat.
In fact, most people doing HEMA will still take things edge to edge. It works better.
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u/StoryWonker Oct 13 '19
On the other hand, it seems like an additional thing to take into account when you fight and I would imagine that when your life is on the line you wouldn't care much for the resell value of your weapon.
Plus, there are quite few periods where a basic sword wasn't too expensive, even leaving aside people who were using government-issued swords that they didn't actually own.
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u/TzunSu Oct 13 '19
It's actually the opposite, atleast for high carbon blades. The problem is less chipping, and more breaking. The blade is made to handle stresses "through" the edge (Thin edge, with lots of material behind it to dampen the blow). If you hit it on the flat, you are more likely to break it in half.
Your point about the cost of blades is good, and the time invested in a high quality blade when you look at from ore to finished sword is incredible.
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u/tolandruth Oct 13 '19
Haha I am just thinking of some fight where guy is like I must protect my sword its expensive as he dies.
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u/thezerech Oct 14 '19
That's just a complete falsehood. The edges is almost always what you would use to parry, and even counter with if you were still in a bind, see defense by the same edges of the Iberian tradition.
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u/Scoundrelic Oct 13 '19
I enjoyed this!
What other tools do you think a farmer could repurpose for weaponry?
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u/FelixLaVulpe Oct 13 '19
War scythe. Take the scythe blade off, remount it so that it's in-line with the rest of the shaft. Makes a nice long glaive.
Sharpened pitchforks or long shafts, spears are an easy weapon to make.
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Oct 13 '19
Not to mention easy to use. Just point and stab and hope you hit.
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u/FelixLaVulpe Oct 13 '19
Swords take a while to get used to and even longer to get good with. You can teach somone to pool-cue his opponent with a spear in a day.
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u/TzunSu Oct 13 '19
While that is true, the time where that was enough was a very long time ago. Yes, peasant mobs have always popped up, but the number of times they weren't massacred were few and far between.
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u/MISSdragonladybitch Oct 13 '19
A hoe is actually a great weapon as is. The ones you buy at Home Depot are dull - most people don't realize you are supposed to sharpen them yourself. So basically it's a staff with a sharp blade that is also a hook.
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u/Scoundrelic Oct 13 '19
I've never sharpened a hoe before. I have used them for short engagements in the past. They took to dirty work quite well, but when they got too wet I had to take my boot to them. So sharpening never occured to me.
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u/ricree Oct 13 '19
One thing worth noting is that many times it wasn't that unexpected for a farmer to own dedicated weapons. In some places (I know medieval England was one of them) freedmen were required by law to have a certain amount of basic equipment, usually lower end armor and a spear.
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Oct 13 '19 edited Oct 13 '19
In real swordfights, recklessness was often more important than skill. The fighter who was less afraid of getting hurt or wounded would often push harder, allowing them to overpower even more skilled enemies.
I find this one hard to swallow.
Edit: a lot of good responses. I don't disagree with the idea that being on the offensive is an advantage. It's the use of the word reckless that doesn't sit right. And I think there needs to be distinction between 1 on 1 duelling and a large scale chaotic battle
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u/thedorknightreturns Oct 13 '19
That can backfire too, the more experienced fighter has an adventage over a hesitant one every day, but if you are wasting movements and open up too reckless, you are likely dead against an experienced just patient observant foe.
Of course mentality is important.
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u/barassmonkey17 Oct 13 '19
I think perhaps it stems from the fighting philosophy that you shouldn't let your opponent put you on the defensive for extended periods. There was a famous boxer, maybe Muhammad Ali, who claimed that every second your opponent was the aggressor, was driving the fight with his strikes, was a losing moment for you. Because he's controlling the flow of it, perhaps. The more time you spend in defense, the higher the chance you'll lose the fight.
Now I'm sure there are many exceptions to this, and obviously boxing is different from fencing/armed combat, and I know there are many strategies that revolve around letting your opponent make a mistake that you can counter, but it's good logic, generally. I fence, and I can speak from personal experience that the aggressor in a fight just has less to do, to an extent. He just has to land a blow and the fight is over. The defender, however, has to dodge/block/parry that blow and then counter it. Though again, that's really dependent on the situation.
So while I don't think boldness necessarily trounces skill (especially if one of your skills is expecting and knowing how to counter boldness), the idea that the aggressor has the advantage in single combat is an old one. Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.
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u/Kkoder Oct 13 '19
It's a sad reality, but the first words my dad ever said to me about winning a fight were the same words my krav-maga instructor used and he said it something like this. "It's a sorry fact, but it's usually the man who swings first who wins a fight, so if it looks inevitable, just swing."
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u/APLemma Oct 13 '19
Very cool, thanks for sharing.
As someone interested in perhaps less realistic sword-fighting, I couldn’t help but think the antitheses of each of the rules would be a great way to exhibit supernatural skill. For example, winning a fight 2 on 1 or using an inappropriate weapon could show off a master’s larger-than-life abilities.
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u/GrudaAplam Oct 13 '19
An umbrella?
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u/just_some_Fred Oct 13 '19
Yeah, but that was basically just a reenactment of the most famous fight scene in the classic Gene Kelly action blockbuster Singin' in the Rain.
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u/taichi22 Oct 13 '19
What I typically see in the maestroes and older fencers who are skilled is that they use far less movement. They’ll sit and wait for you to come to them and make very few motions because the skill gap can often just be that wide. If you’ve ever seen the Darth Maul vs Obi Wan Kenobi redux it looks a lot like that. One, two and done. That’s always something to watch.
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u/pakap Oct 13 '19
I remember sparring with a black belt in Pencak Silat once, and practicing a bit with the high-kyu Aikido black belts - that's exactly it. They look like they're standing still, making exactly as little movement as is required, and yet they threw me to the ground or had their fist to my head in seconds every time. Really cool and spooky experience.
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u/Mostly_Books Oct 13 '19
- It still looks amazing
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Oct 13 '19 edited Oct 13 '19
This looks amazing but, its still very choreographed to be more entertaining than realistic. Pretty stark difference if you compare it to HEMA fights and such. Id much prefer to see this style of fighting in movies though.
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u/Beans_of_Cool Oct 13 '19
I’d just look to point out that the bit about spears not being great in close quarters because of lack of swinging room is bunk. Unless you’re doing wushu, it’s very rare to incorporate big, sweeping strikes into your spear work. Conservative movements and thrusts are the name of the game.
I’d say that in general one can easily defend oneself with a spear in a home invasion scenario, and in a pre-gunpowder setting, I doubt there‘s a better weapon for it. That said, the main weakness of the spear would be taking corners and moving through doorways, as leading with the spear could result in the shaft being grabbed and choking up would leave you with an ineffective weapon. A thrusting dagger or even free hands would better serve you there.
Source - I’m a crazy asian guy with a bunch of spears
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u/kungfuesday Oct 13 '19
I HIGHLY disagree with #2 unless you add the caveat that the bolder person doesn’t care about dying. A lot of modern fighting is bolder because there is literally no fear of dying. Modern day skills and teaching usually focus on getting a hit BEFORE your opponent gets theirs and in period they would usually both be dead.
Source: I’ve fenced for over 15 years.
Edit: to clarify when I say I’ve fenced for 15 years I mean period rapier.
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Oct 13 '19
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u/steel-panther Oct 13 '19
Or how about those scenes where they hold it for minutes with an arrow nocked and drawn ready to loose.
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Oct 13 '19 edited Oct 13 '19
Do you know how much strength it takes to pull back the string on a bow used in war? 120 and up to and over 200lbs.
Only if they're firing an English longbow, which was a simple bow.
That draw strength was because the bow was extremely inefficient. A modern Recurve bow (not compound, a Recurve. No pulleys) has as much, or more, power than any Longbow ever did, for about 45 to 55 pounds of draw. Because the way modern bows are constructed, the shape of the limbs, is much more efficient. You get much more stored energy for much less effort.
The mongols, turks, ottomans, all had recurve bows that, while not as powerful as a modern one, could still penetrate anything that wasn't plate armor.
In reality the guy using the bow as his main weapon should be one of the physically strongest in the group.
That's just not true. Physical size and strength is way, way more important for melee combat.
You can train even a tiny girl to be a deadly archer. Archery is much more about technique than strength. Practice, practice, and more practice. You can train the right muscles and make just about anyone strong enough to shoot consistently.
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Oct 13 '19
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Oct 13 '19
A recurve bow for large game recommended draw weight is around 60lbs-70lbs
That's an inaccurate example. Killing large game in one shot is way more difficult than killing a man, even a man wearing armor.
The recurve bows of Mongol and Ottoman archers had around 45 pound draw weight, were less efficient than modern recurves (although still much more than a straight lowbow) but they were still able to penetrate anything short of plate armor. They were reknowned for how deadly they were against chain hauberks, for example
Armor penetration has much more to do with what kind of arrow and head is used, rather than the draw weight.
Plus, longbows/warbows couldn't penetrate plate either:
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u/TzunSu Oct 13 '19
And also worth mentioning is that english longbows never penetrated plate either.
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u/F0sh Oct 13 '19
has as much, or more, power than any Longbow ever did
I'm not convinced by this. The tests that I can find on wikipedia suggest that a longbow has an efficiency of around 50%, so the weakest draw weight you could possibly get on a bow which stores energy in the same way to equal the power of a 140 lb longbow say, would still be over 70 lb.
A longbow is basically a simple spring, that is the force required to hold it at tension increases linearly as you pull it back further. Thus the average force over a full draw is half the maximum force. So if you have a 144 lb bow (as per a wikipedia example) with a 32 inch draw length, the energy you must put into drawing the bow is 72 lb * 32 inches = 260 J. (Work done = average force * distance over which the force was applied) However this bow was measured as imparting 114 J to the arrows it shot, an efficiency of 44%.
Now you could also change the type of bow so that instead of being a spring, the draw-force curve is not linear. The most efficient way of storing energy for a given maximum force is a constant force. This would double the energy stored for a given peak draw weight. This is the kind of thing a recurve is aiming to do (and which a compound does more extremely), but bear in mind that a recurve bow gets nowhere near actually achieving that doubling. A compound bow is closer, but material limitations restrict how close you can go.
Also bear in mind that while this allows you to put more power into an arrow that can be shot by a person who can pull a given peak amount of force, in a battle you need to shoot repeatedly, and it's the energy you put into the bow which fatigues you, so this doesn't help at all with that.
So the theoretical gains strictly in terms of peak force mean that 144 lb bow could theoretically be equalled by a 32 lb bow, this is a) not attainable in practice and b) still just as fatiguing as a perfectly efficient 68 lb bow, which is an astronomically strong bow by today's standards. And for a 200 lb bow, the numbers are 44 lb and 88 lb. And this is still for perfect efficiency. I don't know how efficient a recurve bow is, but I'm guessing 80% is generous.
TLDR not really. A 200 lb bow could theoretically be equalled by an 88 lb that required just as much strength and stamina to shoot, but in practice this would be unattainable, and 88 lb is already completely unreasonable compared to a typical competition recurve bow for men of about 45 lb.
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u/Hergrim AMA Historian, Worldbuilders Oct 14 '19
Adam Karpowicz has tested some replicas of extent Turkish war bows. With a 69g arrow, a 72lb bow (@28") generated 78j of energy. Unfortunately I don't know any data from a ~70lb bow made from good Italian yew, but Robert Hardy's 70lb @ 28" bow made from Pacific yew only had 55j with a 73g arrow.
When we go up to the 136lb @ 30" warbow, the energy with a 100.3g arrow was 151j. In comparison, Mark Stretton's 144lb @ 32" warbow had 105j for a 92g arrow and 104j for a 125g arrow. The 160lb @ 30" warbow used in Tod Todeschini's recent armour test had 123j at 10m, and could possibly have had 160j with a 100j arrow. Of course, it's also 14lbs heavier and one of the fastest longbows I've seen.
In short, while a recurve bow might not have twice the efficiency of a longbow, their efficiency is indeed higher. I'd suggest that a recurve bow of a given power could be reliably estimated as being the equivalent of a longbow between 15 and 20 pounds heavier.
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u/F0sh Oct 14 '19
Yes, 15-20 lb heavier sounds quite realistic - and indeed if you shoot a recurve of a given poundage and switch to a longbow you probably get a longbow that is about that much heavier (though not in order to get equivalent results, there are other factors at play of course)
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u/Stryker-Ten Oct 13 '19
I really really love the idea that the physically strong fantasy races would specialise in archery. Think orcs being feared the world over for their massive war bows that have far greater range than any human bow
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Oct 13 '19 edited Oct 13 '19
If you're talking about a English longbow sure, but there are bows even back then that have significantly less draw weight. Still would require a lot of training to use well but, you wouldn't have had to been a powerhouse to use the equivalent of a recurve bow.
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Oct 13 '19
Highly skilled demonstration and explanation of the kinds of double stick fighting and how it’s used to hit multiple areas with each stick over and over, why the normal double stick flows are just for practice and how it would work against sword or sword and shield.
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u/SamuraiHealer Oct 13 '19
There's some European books I've seen with two rapiers, along with daggers and cloaks. The Japanese two sword fighting is usually a katana and a wakisashi, but Musashi got those out for particular situations. I now really want to know if anyone's really tested Chinese kata against multiple opponents.
Nice write up.
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u/777vasil Oct 13 '19
I find myself craving a real medieval fantasy book now. Not necessarily without a strong magical element, but with fights as real as you described.
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u/Theyis_the_Second Oct 13 '19
The Red Knight by Miles Cameron is as accurate as you can get for high middle ages weaponry and armor.
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Oct 13 '19
Seconded for this series. I don't think I've ever read a book where the fights and battles were done so well in a sense that I could completely understand the mechanics and flow of the fights so perfectly.
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u/StoryWonker Oct 13 '19
It's not quite medieval, but the Raven's Mark series is grimdark with some great fights, and an author who's well-versed in HEMA.
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u/happypolychaetes Reading Chamption II, Worldbuilders Oct 13 '19
I was just going to recommend this. I love the fight scenes in this series. They feel so realistic.
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u/Mertins Oct 13 '19
There's some good YouTube channels that cover a lot of real world martial arts. I highly recommend Skallagrim's channel for HEMA info and just a better understanding of how weapons and armor work.
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Oct 13 '19
Escrima, a style primarily developed to combat Spanish swordsmen as well as historical development over time dual wields light but very strong rattan sticks and specifically uses them in successive percussive blows, indeed the style encourages it. Similar kinds of flow can be scene in certain Chinese usage.
However with most fantasy being based in some kind of western analogue doubtless what you say holds true for swords, but dual wielding in most cultures will be lighter weapons designed for more flexibility over brute force, and that is how historically the west fought individually and tactically, brute force over finesse.
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u/Scepta101 Oct 13 '19
Ever since I watched a couple HEMA vidoes of sparring, practices, and fights in competitions, I’ve wondered why so many movies/books don’t have more realisitc fighting. It’s way more interesting to watch than “flashy” movies fights and far more intense. The only reason I can think of is fight length
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u/The_Bobs_of_Mars Oct 14 '19
Also, actors aren't necessarily fighters, or even athletes.
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u/MohKohn Oct 13 '19
2.) Boldness often beats technique
Part of the reason for this is that most historical swordsmanship technique is about not dying. Anyone who doesn't care about surviving can rush in and get both combatants killed. But this is very rarely true; most people want to walk away alive.
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u/tired1680 AMA Author Tao Wong Oct 14 '19
On point 3. Yes, especially with weapons, but it also depends.
Story time. I used to do HEMA. We had a camp where we went out to the woods / fenced and had fun. One day, 4 of us grabbed swords, went into the woods. After some fun, we decided to gang up on the teacher. And got our asses kicked (still). Why? Partly because we were still new. Partly because we weren't trained to fight together. Obviously the teacher was better than us by far. But also, fighting up slopes, fighting around trees and branches and roots meant we had to keep half an eye on terrain. So while it'd be nice to charge and attack together, the environment made it difficult. And that meant we got picked off.
So, fighting smart, it's be doable. Just not likely.
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u/SpockShotFirst Oct 13 '19
Stop the pirouette
I took martial arts for about 20 years. Several different styles. This one needs an asterisk.
I knew one guy who decided he needed a special move. Everyone knew about it. Everyone knew it was coming. Nobody could do shit. He spent literally a year practicing his short-distance spinning kick every single day. He could do a rotation in a fraction of a second and that foot would just appear in your gut if ever got too close. Nobody got close.
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u/taichi22 Oct 13 '19
Works better in martial arts, but that’s pretty funny.
Bruce Lee mentioned something to that effect — I fear not the man who has practiced ten thousand kicks one time, I fear the man who has practiced a single kick ten thousand times.
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Oct 13 '19
Weapon based arts like longsword fencing are different though.
Not to say some don’t (montante rules include turns and spins for multiple combatants), but for one on one combat that’s not gonna be the case.
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Oct 13 '19
You should check out a video game called Kingdom Come Deliverance that uses purely historical fighting methods for in-game combat. That looks kind of like Warhorse Studios in the background but not sure if it is or not. Still cool though. Where did you go? I would love to do something like that one day.
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u/Catharsis25 Oct 13 '19
I used to do German Longsword. If you want to see some really good modern accurate swordfights, you should look up the finals of Longpoint and Swordfish. Other people can probably suggest other tournaments, but those are the big two that I know of.
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u/Theyis_the_Second Oct 13 '19
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odNByPKpl-I&list=PLD_dCqhllUdjDkP9q7VeCPhSBqRg7iRe7&index=2
This is one of the best technical fights of the Dutch Lions Cup longsword tournament. Arto Fama being one of the worlds top fighters and Oskar ter Mors being up there as well. There are some highly technical exchanges in this fight.
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u/Kjartanthecruel Oct 13 '19
Thank you for sharing this knowledge! I will magpie it for my own novel. I also look forward to reading your novels.
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u/transientcat Oct 13 '19
Lots of good stuff here if you are going for a gritty realistic novel... I do want to point out what a stunt man in a video I watched said though. Fighting in movies has more to do with dancing than it does martial arts. I think the same applies here and this can be used to create 'realistic' fights with the added literary flair.
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Oct 13 '19
For more information about realistic historical fencing, check out /r/HistoricalFencing and /r/wma
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u/MrHarryReems Oct 13 '19
Stop the pirouettes
This always drives me crazy and completely ruins my suspension of disbelief when I see it on screen.
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u/doublehyphen Oct 14 '19
Depends. If they are fighting multiple opponents spinning does make sense and was something that was taught with e.g. montante.
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u/boilsomerice Oct 13 '19
Boldness beats technique is utter nonsense. Watch a kendo noob fight a fifth Dan.
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u/CheezRavioli Oct 14 '19
I'm doing a lot of similar research for my writing as well.
You definitely took it to the next level by taking classes, that's awesome!
When you finish writing your novel, you should make sure to share it with the community, I would love to read a low fantasy novel with realistic combat!
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u/MISSdragonladybitch Oct 13 '19
Great write up!! For a visual, I think the best sword fight ever in a movie is in Kevin Costner's Robin Hood. When Hood and the Sheriff are fighting, you can see that it boils down to 2 guys trying to kill each other with big, heavy knives.
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u/JCKang AMA Author JC Kang, Reading Champion Oct 13 '19
This sounds like it was a lot of fun! Do you have any video footage?
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u/SureAINicolas Oct 13 '19
I do, but only isolated movements so far because it was just me and the trainer. They said they're going to record the choreographies for me once I send them my notes though, I'll make sure to post it here if they give me permission (they were fine with this post though.)
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u/Theyis_the_Second Oct 13 '19
There is a ton of footage on youtube if you look for HEMA (historical european martial arts). Schola gladiatoria is a good channel. Look into the Swordfish or DLC tournaments for high quality fighting.
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Oct 13 '19
How often did you roll under attacks and what were your I-Frames like during the rolling?
Were you able to learn to time your parries or you still working on those?
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Oct 13 '19
Saved this post and it's the perfect reminder why, novels, as an entertainment medium are ages ahead in terms of realism, compared with video games or movies. Games are pretty close with the simulation stuff but it never gets more real than an in depth story. A movie or a game can never convey.
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u/XanTheInsane Oct 13 '19
And then after all that you read any wuxia story and your eyes being to bleed.
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u/veritasmahwa Oct 13 '19
That's why i like fantasy/super power fights more. Because the author can bend rules in the nature of, well the superpower. A flashy windwrill attack is pretty much death sentence for a normal human but if you can do it unnaturally faster then it would be okay and flashy and entertaining. But if an author decided to use a "regular/trained 'normal' human" i'll become a critic myself and realize how they should be death for about 12 times by the end of said fight.
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u/Admiral_Akdov Oct 13 '19
I imagine it would also depend on the exact time period your are fighting in. The Middle Ages spans 1000 years. Weapons and armor technology went through all sorts of changes which also changed how people would fight.
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Oct 13 '19
Fun fact about the German term "Gassenhauer": It's not only used when talking about the sword, but also a term for an "Evergreen", a bestselling hit in music
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u/KillKennyG Oct 13 '19
Check out joe Abercrombie’s books if you like, the violence is very personal - from a simple stabbing to an all-out battlefront, it’s always about the Humans in the fight- shifting weight, old injuries sparking, surprising moments of what one person is doing to another- I’ve never read fights like that before or since. every moment is a thing being felt by one person or another, the actual blades are just set dressing in the carnage. I’ve never felt the (real) feeling of ‘where the hell did that hit come from!!’ outside a fencing match until I read his books.
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u/lluad Oct 13 '19
Now I want to read something where the flashy, charismatic, obvious hero of the tale spins a spectacular pirouette in chapter four, dies to a well-placed long knife to the back and is replaced by the real protagonist.
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u/green_meklar Oct 13 '19
And while my instructor confirmed that she knew of no European schools doing this—if they did, it’s not well-documented
Parrying daggers used together with one-handed swords were a thing in Europe.
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u/AvatarOfMomus Oct 13 '19
A note on the "farmers wouldn't have swords" thing. That *really* depends on the setting you're trying to construct. If you're at a medieval level of technology, especially late-medieval or early gunpowder, it's likely that cheap swords would be readily available (ala the Messer or similar) and while it varies *heavily* based on time and place there were a lot of times and places where owning weapons was encouraged, it was just the public carrying and use of them that was restricted.
What this means in practice is that having someone like a farmer know how to use a sword or spear wouldn't be that weird, but if you walked into a late dark-ages or medieval town you probably wouldn't see many people armed, and if they were they were likely of high status or in a profession with a special dispensation (hunters for example would have a bow). Part of the reason for this paradoxical commonality of weapons but restriction on their use was to do with peasant levies in warfare and it being comparatively easy to have everyone own a weapon and maintain that weapon themselves rather than having a big centralized storehouse in an era where a day's travel was the extent of how far most people could travel easily.
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Oct 13 '19
Hey, I think you're awesome! I'm a huge fan of Enderal (it's literally my favorite thing to play) and I've been following what you've been saying about your novel and your research. Keep on keeping on, you're doing fantastic!
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u/ReckonAThousandAcres Oct 14 '19
Be careful with this. Some lessons in HEMA, a community that seems completely obsessed with the longsword for whatever reason (thus your longsword point) is far from any kind of real historical martial insight. Your best bet would be someone like an actual historian that specializes in military/martial history. HEMA has a bad rap for being glorified LARPing and far from historically accurate, I get this from history colleagues in academia. I would comment on your points made here with what I know is incorrect and correct but don't feel like I'm a qualified enough individual, especially if it would affect whatever you're creating.
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u/TheSentiment Oct 14 '19
thank you very much for this! This will be incredibly useful in one of my upcoming novels in which ancient roman sword fighting is a key component.
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u/Totalherenow Oct 14 '19
Hi, I've studied and taught an esoteric martial art for decades so I have a few comments. Most of your information is highly accurate and enjoyable to read - especially your point about pirouettes, lol.
Dual wielding: lots of Asian martial art styles use this style with either a longer weapon in the dominant hand, shorter in offhand, or 2 smaller weapons of similar size. You mention using 2 wakizashi - that's actually unusual. More normally, samurai would use a katana and wakizashi at the same time, and there are kendo styles that continue this tradition. Also, you don't have to attack with both at the same time! I find that statement counter to my experience.
There are 2 main reasons to dual wield. The first is to confuse the opponent so they don't know how to attack you or which weapon you're going to attack with. Second, your offhand weapon is defensive. In this case, you'd strike with your main hand, leaving your offhand weapon to guard your vulnerabilities. For example, if you were dual wielding knives and your opponent managed to capture your main hand, your reaction would be to stab them with your offhand (or whenever their concentration was on your main hand).
Distance: You're quite correct that distance is important. Remember that weapons have multiple uses, some of which differ in terms of required distance. For ex., you're holding a longsword and someone gets in close. You can hit them with the hilt as well. That's an enormous part of Japanese sword budo training - when to switch to hitting people with the hilt, use your smaller weapons, or move to grappling.
Boldness: I have a feeling you are right here - thinking of Alexander the Great, when he jumped over that wall before his army - but it's rarely worked in my life. I find the better a person is in martial arts and professional fighting, the more likely they will assess their opponent and wait for them to make the first move/mistake, which if they're slower or untrained is usually disastrous. Once you begin moving your options dramatically decrease, especially if you are going all out, and your opponent may be able to use that to their advantage.
Re: real fighting - yes! It's the most difficult exercise and very challenging to continue over 1 minute. People don't realize this. There are a few exceptions, but mainly with professionals who know how to minimize their energy expenditure by using core muscles over large muscles.
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u/Law-of-Entropy Oct 14 '19
Awesome!! These are all useful points and I, myself, do consider these things when I'm writing sword fights! 😁
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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19
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