Shamshir Hooking Thrust?

[ShayanMirza]

I've read on these forums that shamshirs are unable by design to perform the hooking thrust. However, my martial arts instructor (32 years studying and teaching professionally) demonstrated hooking thrusts with my shamshir that were quick and powerful, fully and forever convincing me of their plausible use. Though obviously this doesn't necessarily mean they were used, it proved to me that they certainly could have been.
And finally, another poster on SFI said this:

My good friend Mushtaq Ali has done a fair bit of travelling picking up martial arts from Indonesia to Turkey. That included learning how to use a number of traditional weapons such as the shamshir, yataghan, bow, lance and mace. The shamshir technique he's taught me so far includes quite a few hooking thrusts. They really come into their own if you're using a sword and buckler.
-Todd Ellner

Here are my own laughable yet perhaps germaine attempts at hooking thrusts:
Youtube shamshir video

My questions are two:

1) Where did the assertion that hooking thrusts with the shamshir are impossible originate?

2) Is there any evidence in contemporary miniatures or sword manuals to verify that they were indeed used?

As a tangent to #2, are any of the miniature paintings or sword manuals viewable online or available to view without travelling across the world?

[Emanuel]

Excellent! Thanks for opening this thread ShayanMirza, and thanks for the video. Your attempts look quite good, and my only question is whether the thrust would be powerful against a heavy solid mass. Could it pierce through armour, flesh and so on and cause sufficient damage as a straight blade would?

From the meager sources I've read, the shamshir was always described as a purely slashing weapon. If thrusting had been used and documented I imagine it is written somewhere. Looking forward to what comes up.

Emanuel

[ShayanMirza]

Manolo, thank you very much for your kind words about my goofy video! With regards to armor, it certainly would not perform as well as a straight-bladed piercing sword (a type XVIII for example) but when thrust properly would go through bodymass with ease. Aside from testing the thrust on thickly layered denim on my own (with stellar results), I heard from my instructor that curved blades are useful for stabbing around bone obstructions, such as the lower part of the ribcage into the lungs or from above the collarbone into the heart. This is my own opinion, but I think the hook thrust would be most useful for blinding an enemy or attacking their face, which would require much less power than stabbing through muscle layers and organs. I apologize for the macabre descriptions, but understanding a weapon's function is of course essential to understanding a weapon's design. Also design hints at function: many shamshirs had yelman or false edges on the back of the blade, which were heavily documented as augmenting a thrust.

I look forward to hearing from the experts on this, this is the perfect forum to find out more about ancient sword manuscripts and contemporary accounts!

[Andrew]

I'm definitely no expert, Shayan, but your technique looked pretty good to me in that video! In fact, those thrusts look like they'd be pretty effective (I definitely wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of one). Deep penetration isn't necessary to cause extensive damage.

Here's some of my comments from a recent thread on this issue:

Certainly the extremely curved examples are nearly useless for a linear thrust, and far from optimal for any thrust, but a slash from an unmounted fighter would work just fine with those.

As I said, it's a design that's far from optimal for the thrust, thus significantly limiting options for technique. I still wouldn't want to defend against someone on foot with one.

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...hamshir+thrust

It looks like the sword you were using didn't have an extreme curvature. Have you tried similar thrusts with a more "curvy" sword?

[ShayanMirza]

Thank you for the reference to the other post, I'd read part of that looong ago and completely forgot! It has a wealth of info!

Unfortunately, I don't have any shamshir curvier than that (I only have 2, but that' ain't bad for a 20 year-old ). I think the curvier blades would only ever use hook thrusts as a riposte to the face after a parry, but again, until someone finds a manuscript, that's my own conjecture.

I found this while reading:

I am unaware of any written contemporary manuals of shamshir fighting. Or Yataghan, in the same vein. In general, it was mainly Westerners who had the compulsion to classify, systematize and put on paper everyting.

oof! TOTALLY off. Medieval manuscripts from the Middle East exist on every topic, from medicine to philosophy to combat, and preserved many writings of Greek and Roman authors that had long since been destroyed in Europe. I know there are many miniatures and scrolls on swordwork extant in Iran, the trouble is I have no access to them (yet!). That's why I'm hoping someone on this forum may have a photo or copy of one. Long shot, but worth a try.

Thanks again, Andrew! That thread's a wealth of info--I've bookmarked it and will certainly read and reread it as long as I have shamshirs!

[ariel]

Well done!
However...

First, I agee with Andrew: your sword is not curved enough.
Second, I tried it with my shamshirs: bloking this move is a child play and is instinctive. One takes the "third" and ... your entire body, right arm and head are wide open for a wrist- or elbow-driven cut. Swordplay is always an equilibrium between an effective attack and readiness to recover and defend oneself: the fancier the attack the riskier it is.
Third, no matter what, the axis of the movement does not coinside with the axis of the sword. Thus, there will never be enough power to penetrate any reasonable defensive clothing.
The bottom line: you cannot have a sword that is equally good for everything. A straight sword will always be outperformed by a curved one in a slashing move and this is the reason why sabers became so popular. Shamshir is great for an unimpeded slash, marginal for a swordplay and very poor for a thrust, no matter how fancy the movement one employs.

[ariel]

Originally Posted by ShayanMirza

Thank you for the reference to the other post, I'd read part of that looong ago and completely forgot! It has a wealth of info!

Unfortunately, I don't have any shamshir curvier than that (I only have 2, but that' ain't bad for a 20 year-old ). I think the curvier blades would only ever use hook thrusts as a riposte to the face after a parry, but again, until someone finds a manuscript, that's my own conjecture.

I found this while reading:


WOW! TOTALLY wrong. Medieval manuscripts from the Middle East exist on every topic, from medicine to combat, and preserved many writings of Greek and Roman authors that had long since been destroyed in Europe. I know there are many miniatures and scrolls on swordwork extant in Iran, the trouble is I have no access to them (yet!). That's why I'm hoping someone on this forum may have a photo or copy of one. Long shot, but worth a try.

Thanks again, Andrew! That thread's a wealth of info--I've bookmarked it and will certainly read and reread it as long as I have shamshirs!

Nice to be cited... Thanks.
What I said, that "I was unaware". If such manuals exist, that would be an important find.
Rivkin found a great book by Elashvili "Khevsur fencing" (published in early 1950s). They employed moderately-curved swords with rounded points, because they believed there was was no effective way to thrust with them. The book gives remarkably detailed analysis of fencing moves using a sword/buckler combination. This book was made possible by the fact that Khevsurs were very isolated and practiced traditional ways of life well into the 20th century. I doubt similar isolates exist in many places. Relying on stylized and static miniatures would be very misleading. Unless one finds a detailed manual, all our knowledge on Persian or Turkish swordplay techniques will be an exercise in fantasy.

[wolviex]

I'm not expert too but I have few thoughts.

I tried to look at some miniatures where we can see shamshir in use and I couldn't find hooking thrust on any of them - but these were only few miniatures and it doesn't make a case!

I think that nobody will claim you can't use this weapon for such hooking thrust. But please answer few questions:
- which blows are more efficient?
- which blows are easier to make?

and you'll have an answer what for the weapon was intended.

Well, you can always use (for example) a small-sword for cuts althought it was intended to thrust, and any weapon has many ways of use, but the only one is the best , I think.

But your video looks quite convincingly

[ariel]

Somehow, my replies are not being posted. Thus, I repeat.
Several thoughts:
The hooking move is very pretty and flashy, and would be good for the "Pirates of the Caribbean III". However, it is totally inefficient for two reasons:
1. The axis of the thrust and the axis of the sword do not coincide. Thus, mechanically, the thrust would go sideways and lose power.
2. The defence against it is simple and intuitive: just take the "third" or the "fourth" depending on the side of the attack. After that, slice from the wrist or the elbow at an unprotected right arm or the head. Finito.
As to the certainty that there must be Persian manuscripts describing shamshir techniques... Well, find them. Until then, reliance on miniatures ( stylized and static) would be very unconvincing. We see a lot of miniatures depicting Persian pahlavans wrestling with lions. Hardly the best way to study martial arts.
Eliashvili's manual on "Parikaoba", ie Khevsur fencing (thanks, Rivkin!) is the only known (to me, of course) detailed description of a " Middle Eastern " (so to speak) swordplay. This was possible for two reasons:
1. Khevsurs were very isolated and preserved their medieval way of life well into the 20th century, including carrying and using weapons, conducting mock and real duels etc.
2. Eliashvili went there and meticulously documented everything in great detail.
In contrast, all other surrounding societies abandoned swords in favor of firearms long ago and the knowledge of their use was extinguished. The ethnographers were not interested in this aspect of culture: there are no known (to me) contemporary monographs.
Thus, we are left free to invent any move we wish using shamshirs, yataghans, kilijes etc. The relation between the historical reality and our flights of fancy is tenuous, at best. Relying on some local guru who claims that he learned the techiques as a child from his old neighbor who, in turn, was a brother-in-law of the grandmother of a former water carrier in the reserve cavalry unit, is like learning medicine from the "National Enquirer".
Any sword is a compromise between the efficiency of the attack and the defence. The flashier the move the riskier it is. Shamshirs are superb slashing weapons if used unimpeded. They are not very comfortable for a swordplay ( see Zablocki). They are not, never were, and mechanically could not be, effective stabbing weapons. One can hammer nails with pliers and open beer bottles with hammers. Good luck...

[ShayanMirza]

Well said regarding ability vs. purpose, Wolviex! Certainly for more deeply curved shamshirs, stabbing would be possible but not desirable. However, many shamshirs have the yelman/false edge, demonstrating that they were not only able to thrust, but in some measure intended and expected to.

Which miniatures did you look at? Finally someone who has sword miniatures! I've been waiting since my first post for this!

[wolviex]

Originally Posted by ShayanMirza

Which miniatures did you look at? Finally someone who has sword miniatures! I've been waiting since my first post for this!

Not many of them anyway - these were just few from Persia and India, 18th c. I suppose, but nothing new, eveything printed already in books. I would post something here if there was anything about thrusting but posting pictures with known blows is no point for this thread, I suppose. So let's search such miniatures!