Shastarvidiya video

[KuKulzA28]

Originally Posted by ariel

This is absolutely beautiful and, IMHO, quite useless in real war. I am not talking about technological differential ( machine gun vs. spear).
At the battle of Sobraon, British and Gurkha infantry penetrated heavily defended Sikh lines and engaged them in a close combat ( General Gough, as usual, trusted in bayonet only). Despite being outnumbered ( 15,000 vs. 40,000), the Brits prevailed quite easily. Obviously, martial arts expertise and choreography did not help the Khalsa force.
Martial arts of any kind are good only for movies, show-type competition and, occasionally, for one-on-one encounters. Wars require tactics, strategy, discipline, leadership and general fighting spirit of the troops.

I agree with kronckew and would also like to add that fighting styles work for their environment. Japanese Samurai were undoubtedly good fighters. However they were in no way equipped (skill/weapon-wise) for the nomadic horsemanship of the Mongols. The Khalsa were often skillful individual warriors, but morale, leadership, and other factors play a big role in terms of victory... it is like a big company, even if you have a skillful workforce, mismanagement of the company will still lead to failure. It is not the fault of the skill workforce, it is the management.

Remember Hannibal's Cannae? I don't, but I've read about it... the Carthaginian force made up of loyal Libyans, Cathaginians, Numidians, as well as semi-loyal Iberians and Celts were extremely outnumbered by the Romans. Troop quality-wise, the Romans tended to be average, majority of the troops being levied citizens serving as Hastatii, but they tended to be well organized and brave as they were defending their homelands... where-as the Carthaginian forces were mercenaries and professional soldiers - obviously the majority were men who chose war as their career. Though outnumbered these men defeated the enormous Roman forces. The martial skills play a role in the individual melee between fighters.. the tactics to manage the troops just before and during the thick of battle... and the strategy to win the war. The warriors had the skills, Hannibal had the genius to win those battles... but they did not win the war.

Originally Posted by t_c

In regards to the whole Buddha teaching martial arts theory: I've always had a problem with that one too - no offense David. I'd love to find out the original source for those theories, whether it was oral traditions or written history. I could see how he would have taught them internal and external practices along the lines of something similar to Yoga, but as far as martial arts goes, the theory seems to ignore two major points (IMHO): the Buddhist teachings of the Eightfold Path (a dedication to peace) and the history of Chinese warfare. I just can't reconcile the contradiction and the omission.

I agree. Buddha, was said to have been a great martial artist, horse-rider, etc. but it seems he had given all that up, in addition to princely life to seek the truth... That there was contact between China and India is undoubtable, but that Boddhidharma taught the Shaolin monks martial arts, and thus the rest of China doesn't even appeal to common sense. The Chinese have been warring with each other for a long time before Buddhism hit the block. Like you mentioned "history of Chinese warfare", it is a brutal affair... while in India, histories claim that farmers could plow their fields while soldiers battled in the next... China's histories seem to glorify generals' ruthlessness in destroying infrastructure, slaughtering enemies, massacring opposing lineages and all their relations, and striking with speed and cunning most of all.

War meant something different to different people. War for sacrifice, War for head-hunting. War for blood-feud. War for dynastic supremacy. War for total control. War for genocide... they entail different goals and demand different tactics. The Taiwanese warrior was a great headhunter, but he and all the social factors with him, would have a hard time coping with Chinese encroachment. The Aztec warrior was a tough m*f*, but he sought to take prisoners, not specifically to kill. Still, I am sure Taiwanese warriors did often shoot, with rifle and bow, instead of rush in with a long knife... and that the Aztecs launched volleys of darts and arrows into enemy ranks before charging. Europeans during WW1 found themselves armed with weapons demanding a different war strategy than they were used to. They had perfect war doctrine for their type of war.


My thoughts

[migueldiaz]

Originally Posted by KuKulzA28

Remember Hannibal's Cannae? ... The martial skills play a role in the individual melee between fighters.. the tactics to manage the troops just before and during the thick of battle... and the strategy to win the war. The warriors had the skills, Hannibal had the genius to win those battles... but they did not win the war.

Thanks all for the very interesting discussion!

Cannae (216 BC) is my personal all-time favorite battle ...

I think however, that Cannae is more an example of getting the strategy right (and operationalizing it faithfully), rather than individual warriors besting the other guy in one-on-one combat.

For how can one explain the very lopsided outcome --

• 86,000 Romans and allies, vs. 56,000 Carthaginians;
  
• and thru Hannibal's genius as KuKulzA28 said, the latter encircled an army 1.5 times its size;
  
• after which the battle site quickly turned into a enormous meat grinder, wherein 50,000 Romans were killed at a mere casualty rate of 6,000 Carthaginians!

Note how this author [Mark Healy] pointed out that many Roman soldiers were not able to use their swords at all:

"Caught between the 'vice' of the twin African phalanxes on their flanks and assailed to the fore and rear, the encircled Roman legions tried desperately to fight their way out of the trap ... It was to no avail. So compressed had their ranks become that many were unable even to raise their swords before they were cut down by the advancing army. Stepping over the dead and dying, the encircling Carthaginian forces drew the net ever tighter on the diminishing Roman force ... 'as their outer ranks were continually cut down and the survivors were forced to pull back and huddle together they were finally all killed where they stood' [Polybius]."

And thus the battle had become more of a massacre:

"The rest of that August day Cannae had become an abject slaughter, a battlefield Armageddon unrivaled until the twentieth century. The destruction of some 50,000 snared Italians in a single afternoon - more than 100 men killed each minute - was in itself a vast problem in the logistics of killing." [Parker's Cambridge Illustrated History of Warfare]

For sure Hannibal's men were seasoned combatants well-versed in their individual fighting styles.

But in this particular battle, once the double-envelopment was effected, for all intents the battle and individual combat had ceased (to oversimplify things a little), and things turned quickly into a 'vast problem in the logistics of killing'.

Thanks KuKulzA28 for bringing up Cannae

[Gavin Nugent]

A great post Lew, thanks for sharing.

I enjoyed the variety of weapons covered.
Seeing this event certainly helps put the aplications of the diverse Indian arsenal into context. Seeing these applications can to a large degree give some positive feedback on why the weapons are made the way the are.
I found the double axes and the Kukri applications most interesting.
I was also interested further when I saw a couple of Sosun Patta being used.

Great to see great historic traditions continued in the modern world.

Thanks

Gav

[KuKulzA28]

Thanks migueldiaz for expanding on Cannae. I'll agree that it was more due to Hannibal's simple but effective strategy than the fighting prowess of his troops. However, the bravery, discipline, and skill of the Carthaginian forces had to be there for them to have survived and their ranks sag backwards to effect the trap. If the troops were not sufficiently brave and skilled to be able to continue fighting until the cavalry could hit the rear - they would have lost. Additionally, morale was definitely a huge factor. Hannibal's presence and personally leading/fighting in the thickest point of battle must have inspired all his forces, particularly the Iberians and Celts alongside him.

[fearn]

Hi Lew,

Good to see a new martial art, and thanks for providing that link. I was smiling through most of it, because the capoeira soundtrack in the back was a cheerful non-sequitur.

That said, I would have been more impressed if they had brought out some rolled up mats for cutting, sides of meat, ballistics gel, or something else to show how deep many of those cuts would be if the demonstration was run at full force.

As a for instance, I've got a couple of very sharp khukuris, and I'm not sure whether any of them could be used successfully for those draw cuts the master mimed. Given clothes and such, I'm not sure they'd make it to skin, and I'm not sure how deep the slash would be. There's the same issue with many of the other attacks, such as the points of the axes, the tip of the khanda, and so forth.

Anyway, I'm not saying that I would want to fight that guy. The point is that we can't tell how effective the art is when he's miming blows without much force. If he had some sort of body simulators in the ring, I would be interested in seeing whether he can hit, say, four of them with full force at full speed, or whether he would have to slow down and follow through to make each attack work. And if he did slow down, would it be enough to make him vulnerable? I don't know.

That's the other reason I was chuckling. For a little while I did capoeira, and we always mimed the blows. The music of the capoeira roda in the background wasn't a total non sequitur after all.

Best,

F

[KuKulzA28]

it seems to be a common problem in armed combat training... you want to get as realistic as possible without killing people... but unlike unarmed combat, weapon-based fighting has a lot more capacity to kill quickly than subdue... for example a stunning blow from a blade or club could cause bleeding and lead to death even if the intention was to stun...

what you say about the khukuris is interesting.
Perhaps there's techniques that are less practical? In Chinese martial arts, there's a lot of convoluted techniques and teaching methodology in many of the less fighting-oriented schools. Thus some techniques seen with the saber are absolutely bogus. Thanks to efforts from fighters and the practical minded, Chinese martial arts isn't dead. For example the Yang family broke the saber down two 13 techniques and took out the flashy or superfluous stuff. Also there is some situational things... some targets do not require much force to destroy... and sometimes disabling an opponent with a slash to a weak area is sufficient. Although if you have a slice to his shoulder, why not just chop it in his neck, and ready yourself for the next attack?
Perhaps the khukuri isn't the native or most popular weapon of the Sikhs? Not that they cannot use it effectively, but it reminds me of Filipino martial arts. Some Luzon and Visayan martial arts have the kris and barong in their styles, but evidence of their use in those regions is limited. For the most part it seems every region had its tactics, weaponry, and fighting skills and they exchanged and influenced one another - but the Moro arts in the south were kept mainly in their own families, not to be shared with northern enemies. I wouldn't doubt that a good blade fighter heralding from a Filipino martial art could use a barong or a kris well, but perhaps the nuances and technique specific to the kris would have been better handled by someone trained specifically in its use, i.e. a traditional Moro martial artist. That's not to say no one else can learn it... it is after all just a weapon, it's mechanics can be learned.

[Sikh_soldier]

Hi Fearn,

I have not personally trained in armed combat, my main focus area of martial arts training has been Muay Thai, but I would like to thank you for a very interesting and intelligent insight. I have been aware of Shastar Vidya for a while now, and have seed a few demonstrations, but never looked at it in that way. I suppose the difficulty in all martial arts which involve near fatal or fatal moves is practicing them.

Bally