Tony on 5/5/2005 at 19:50
Of course you could damage another blade by hitting it. But you are also going to damage your own. I have an experiment for you. Go buy two cheap kitchen knives of the long variety. Bang them together a few times with full force. Come back here and tell me what happened to those knives.
Swords are not cheap kitchen knives, but they are still steel. They are longer, and thus less able to deal with weak spots like nicks. Want to know something else that they don't tell you in school? Swords don't "bash through" plate armour. Period manuals depict thrusts at joints, grapples, and throws.
Obviously, blade contact is inevitable, sometimes even hard blade contact. But what I am stating is that constant, deliberate full force striking of another blade is not only ridiculously wrong, it is also going to break your sword quickly. Note how they block in those two movies I linked to. They slap the sword aside, rather than biting into it with a blow. The right defense is to either dodge the blow or deflect it aside with your sword. Period manuals are unclear about whether you are supposed to use the edge of the blade or the flat. Modern sword users are divided on the issue.
Also note that they do not use full force blows. I swing a high quality replica around a lot. I know that you never want to make an uncontrolled, full force blow. If you miss, you will spend a second or two regaining your balance, and your sword will be too far off target to defend yourself from counterattack unless you have a shield. In addition, if you hit his sword, shield, or armour too hard, and your sword has seen some stress of this sort before, there is the possibilty of breakage. This is why the two men in the videos don't seem to be striking very hard; they aren't.
Fish-face on 5/5/2005 at 21:41
Now, I'm not trying to hold a debate/argument (I know next to nothing about sword fighting) but is it not possible to direct your own blade to the weakest area of the opponent's, using the strongest part of yours?
I guess there might not be weak/strong parts as such... Or whatever. Never mind.
Notice that garrett blocks sword/mace swipes statically, and repeatedly swings at doors without any damage :)
Aspirin on 11/5/2005 at 07:50
Hammerites face masks are made now. Their hammers will be iron, no stone.
We are preparing big model of spider.
Movie has a different expression tools - so we made some changes: Garett will not be alone...
Soundtrack is finished.
We are preparing web pages - I hope it'll be ready in near future...
Clockwork Mifune on 11/5/2005 at 08:01
Holy wow, Batman! This is getting more and more exciting :cheeky: :cheeky: .
Blue Sky on 11/5/2005 at 11:18
This is really exciting!
How will it be possible for us to see what you've come up with?
godismygoldfish on 11/5/2005 at 12:55
I have a few questions on your production...
What medium are you shooting on?
Any chance you could show us some screens, if nothing else of the costumes? I'm not able to judge a film when i've seen nothing of it.
Would you say this is being done amateurly or professionally?
Thanks.
DarthMRN on 11/5/2005 at 13:41
Quote Posted by Tony
Rapier combat does not include blows, as the edges of a rapier are simply not designed to cut. .
I must confess i have limited experience with rapier combat, but I have a hard time imagining that old rapiers were not meant for cutting when they had sharp edges. If they were meant only for stabbing, why not only use a unsharpened blade with a sharp point? Furthermore, what I do know of rapier combat I have learned from stagefighting, and we operated with blows and cuts, hardly any stabs. I realize stage combat is nothing like the real deal, but it was hardly anyhing like sports fencing, so it must have been derieved from somewhere.
Quote Posted by Tony
Now this is very false. Lord of the Rings, as well as King Arthur, Braveheart, and all of the other movies featuring swordfights, are completely and totally wrong as far as swords go. Static blocks are to be avoided at all costs, and are never recommended in period manuals. Indeed, it is only preferable to taking a cut, as it is certain that your sword will break under repeated abuse of that sort. And to actually deliberately strike another blade with full force blows - that makes static blocking look sane.
What they don't show you in the movies is that the blades that they use need replacement after every scene - and they aren't even sharp. Blunts are far more able to take abuse like that than sharps, and not even they can stand up to it.
Researchers have found that most of the kills done by blade at the battle of Hastings were due to leg cuts. This leads me to believe that there was quite a bit of fencing involved. In my fencing experience, with broadswords it is far easier to hit in the legs than torso, becuse high blocks are a lot easier to perform.
And just for the record, Japanese steel, If correctly crafted, could withstand quite a lot before breaking. The europeans hardly used the same crafting methods, but the point is, steel
can endure a fair punishment.
Cool to know there are fellow swordmen on these boards.
Murk on 11/5/2005 at 14:00
regarding this sword discussion
maybe a new thief should use more of the rapier combat sort??
ManzoK on 12/5/2005 at 10:23
THANKS Pnovak: your project is great; GREAT very thiefy locations !
