[Chris Evans]

Hi Ariel,

We are in total agreement. My verbiage is simply meant as an elaboration, and perhaps a general adverse reaction to the current interpretations of historical swordsmanship.

Originally Posted by ariel

Chris,
The latter placed heavy weigth on " swordplay" and that might not have been true for the "Oriental" usage.

This whole question of what constitutes swordplay IMHO is much misunderstood. Back in the 60s I talked to a number of Eastern Euro regimental sword masters and they all said that military use of the sabre was extremely basic - This is reflected even in Patton's system. There just was no time and facilities to turn out highly skilled swordsmen in conscript armies. What counted was basic dexterity and not complex techniques. Apropos to which I recall being told that when Hungarian cavalry took part in the Invasion of Denmark in the 19th century, a military observer remarked that the highly trained Hungarians could dispense a number of cuts for every one handed out by the Danes and who were thus overwhelmed.

We know from contemporary travelers that "Orientals" often astonished them by their feats of whole body evasion ( jumping, shifting etc) and we also know that shields were in use in the "Orient" until very recently.

I think that the Euros had always a tendency to impute some supranormal abilities to races other than their own. I hasten to add that this is not entirely without foundation because from what I know of Japanese sword play, they spent enormous amounts of time and energy in developing said supranormal abilities to compensate for what they lacked by way of technique. As an aside, this is where I think that oriental swordsmanship can be very badly underestimated - Technically they may have been backward, but the psychological aspects of their training, at least for the accomplished ones gave them a huge invisible advantage.

I personally know of an Asian gentleman, now in his 70s, who is a genuine master of a martial art and he showed me some truly mind boggling displays of what he was capable by way of judging timing and distance. Not much by way of technique, but more like greatly diminished reaction time and very high quality, yet simple movements.

This would suggest that fencing as we understand it was not developed; the techniques were reliant on one slashing cut rather than on sophisticated array of parries, ripostes, lunges etc.

I totally agree with you. What we call fencing almost completely came out of smallsword usage. This is readily seen when we examine the direction that even military sword usage took after around 1700 and what inspired the changes. For example the system devised by Angelo for broadsword usage, or Radaelli's system for the sabre, which was derived from the foil. As to how much of this type of fencing was and could be put into practice, except for a few very highly motivated and trained officers, I remain unconvinced.

what we need is a reliable description of the "Oriental" saber use, akin to multiple European manuals. Even gleaning a snippet of info here and a hint there would not be enough: too much will be filled by the compiler's bias, enthusiasm and imagination.
We need to see a Rosetta Stone of Oriental fencing: a true manual!

In the absence of anything better, perhaps you may care to read something on Japanese swordsmanship, at least to get an idea of how the Oriental mind approached the problem. I say forget the junk literature written by the enthusiasts, but concentrate instead on the works of serious academics. I can recommend some good titles if you are interested.

Cheer
Chris