Ultimate swordfighting - GATKA

Rivkin · 24th November 2006, 07:26 PM

Dear Yustas,

Your post greatly depicts all the problems with "ukranian" fighting styles - you have no idea which weapons cossacks used even 300 years ago, but somehow fighting moves of sarmats, scythians and ancient slavs is a common knowledge. Even the borders of alanic and khazaric tribes is a highly disputed issue, never mind the weapons they used, yet somehow one can see in hopak the sparkle of early arian pride.

Concerning "islamic" and other martial styles, they have often the same problems - a lot of them started when a bunch of ultra-nationalistic kids suddenly "discovered" ancient fighting traditions (concerning how the discovery was made they usually refer to some guru who lives on the island who somehow "inherited" this tradition from ancient Arians).

First of all, all Steppe fighting styles included horsemanship and the use of weapons from the horseback. But horses are not too common in modern cities, so martial arts "experts" simply skipped this most important part of original Steppe warfare traditions. Most of them also skipped such paramountly important weapons as long spear (too uncomfortable to train in Dojo), bow (again not good for cities, plus too complex), muskets (we are _martial_ artists not reenactors) and so on, and so on. Result is good for nationalism, but bad for history.

24th November 2006, 07:26 PM	#11
Rivkin Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 655	Dear Yustas, Your post greatly depicts all the problems with "ukranian" fighting styles - you have no idea which weapons cossacks used even 300 years ago, but somehow fighting moves of sarmats, scythians and ancient slavs is a common knowledge. Even the borders of alanic and khazaric tribes is a highly disputed issue, never mind the weapons they used, yet somehow one can see in hopak the sparkle of early arian pride. Concerning "islamic" and other martial styles, they have often the same problems - a lot of them started when a bunch of ultra-nationalistic kids suddenly "discovered" ancient fighting traditions (concerning how the discovery was made they usually refer to some guru who lives on the island who somehow "inherited" this tradition from ancient Arians). First of all, all Steppe fighting styles included horsemanship and the use of weapons from the horseback. But horses are not too common in modern cities, so martial arts "experts" simply skipped this most important part of original Steppe warfare traditions. Most of them also skipped such paramountly important weapons as long spear (too uncomfortable to train in Dojo), bow (again not good for cities, plus too complex), muskets (we are _martial_ artists not reenactors) and so on, and so on. Result is good for nationalism, but bad for history.