2014 Fightcamp nerd of the year award goes to...
Published: Fri, 08/22/14
On the Friday evening at Fightcamp there was a talk by a Dutchman
by the name of Maarten Kamphuis. Maarten is quite young, probably
mid to late twenties and seems to have two passions in life,
medieval swords and engineering. So, as a graduate student in
engineering at a dutch university Maarten had managed to combine
both passions by embarking on a project to create the ideal modern
fencing longsword. Something that would compare with the Olympic
fencing foil as a safe and practical sporting weapon. The problem
with the longsword is that it is longer and heavier and the user
strikes/cuts as well as thrusting so how can you ensure that the
sporting weapon handles like a sword should yet is safe to spar
with? Maarten was attempting to solve these problems by bonding a
rubber edge around the sides and tip of the blade and creating a
mechanism which allowed the blade to retract into the hilt when
thrusting. Not all the problems were solved at the time of the
lecture but he seemed to be making good progress.
Now I am all in favour of ingenious technical solutions to
difficult problems, lets face it that is how the human race
progresses in a material sense. But Maarten's lecture also
summed up for me the fundamental problem with Historical European
Martial Arts as they are mainly practiced. That is this obsession
with dueling and trying to find 'safe' ways of dueling in
order to create combat sports. Ultimately if you have two
carefully matched competitors scoring points by moving objects in
their hands with great skill and accuracy what is the difference
between fencing and playing tennis? I am not denigrating tennis in
any way, it is a great sport but to me sport plays a very small
part in serious Martial Arts if any at all.
However, I mentioned the other day that manuals on using the hawk
and knife are none existent and the same applies to battle axe and
most other weapons of that kind. This is really because there
really isn't a great deal to learn when using weapons like that
and you try it out on the battle field and either you get good fast
or you don't come back. Yes there would be training but that
would be as oral instruction and practical example from experienced
warriors to novices. Little or nothing would be written down. But
for the leisured classes who wished to engage in dueling or take
part in tournaments there was a great many manuals on how to fence
effectively. Many of these have survived and are now the basis of
HEMA training, if you do a longsword workshop at Fightcamp there
will be frequent references to the manual the class is based on.
To be fair, some of the manuals do have instructions on using other
weapons such as daggers, or even devices like sickles but the bulk
of material is always concerned with swords. This applies right up
until the 19th century from which there are excellent manuals on
sport fencing with sabers with detailed rules and suitable
techniques. But nothing on using a saber on the battlefield even
though these weapons were used in places such as Afghanistan.
Dueling or sport fighting is a harmless enough pass time. But I
believe it is dangerous to assume that this is all Martial Arts has
to offer or that dueling is preparation for real life conflicts.
Dueling is about preparing for the 'fair fight', real life
doesn't usually work quite that way. Stav training probably
won't help you with preparing for sport fighting, in fact it
will probably hinder you. But Stav does help you deal with real
life. I will try and explain how next week. Right now I have to
get ready for Ivar coming and Stav training over the next three
days. So have a good bank holiday weekend.
regards
Graham
PS You can read more about Maarten's project here
http://www.tudelft.nl/en/current/latest-news/article/detail/delfts-trainingszwaard-wint-nationale-sport-innovatie-prijs/