I am wondering if you are a member of the SCA...my son is very big into medieval history, including armoring (sp?), leatherworking, medieval martial arts, and just about everything medieval. I will have to email him your post.
He just returned a few weeks ago from an archaeological dig in Belgium. He spent four weeks at an old medieval castle ruin digging and just loved it.
A friend of his recently challenged me to a sword fight...duel I guess (SCA standards) because I made fun of his sword fighting technique which I now see is a legitimate defensive stance (overhead in your post). Seems to me to be limited in strike capability and also, this young man tends to lean back making him a bit off balance for striking at his opponents. That is how we got onto the challenge as I told him that even I as an old man (but who has experience in brawling) can beat him because I would know when he would begin his swing and have plenty of time to react to it...I am not quite so confident now that I see it is a legitimate style of fighting...I don’t really know anything about sword fighting, but will enjoy even getting pounded I am sure. Thanks for posting that information.
I actually am in the SCA. If you have more in future, ping me, please.
No, I’m not a member of SCA. I understand that lots of people are into the whole ren-faire reenactment sort of thing, and that’s fine, but it’s just not my sort of thing. “It’s not my bag, baby...”. :-)
I do believe, however, that there was a powerful European martial art that was (and can be again) just as elegant, spiritual, and lethal as any of the more well-preserved asian martial arts.
After the Renaissance, as the age of the firearm dawned, fighting with swords of course largely became obsolete, and the old masters (like Lichtenauer, George Silver, Sigmund Ringeck and others) died off and the teaching of the Art died with them. But there are a number of organizations ernestly researching the documentation that does exist and there is a growing interest in giving this true martial art a re-birth.
It’s a true martial art. Of that there’s just no doubt. I got interested because of my interest in history, and because it is part of my own cultural heritage. I bought a Viking sword and started wondering one day “how was this thing actually used...”. As is turned out, that was an expensive day. What started as one has become several, but it’s only the beginning... :-)