A Miscellany of Projects - Gaming, SCA Combat, Arts & Sciences, and Travel

 I have recently acquired Tom Leoni's translation of Capoferro's Gran Simulacro  and a historical survey of Chinese martial arts manuals.  I'll be reviewing these soon enough, but Capoferro specifically helped to crystallize a thought that's been brewing for a while. The thought is this: there are two schools of thought on how to train for combat in general.  One of these starts from first principles then works down to specific examples, the other trains specific examples and the student is expected, via practice, to derive first principles.  Perhaps the greatest historical example of this divide is the argument between Carranza and Pacheco on one side, and Godinho on the other - Carranza being of the opinion that fencing can be distilled to principles and the exacting application of these principles through practice being the key to victory, while Godinho believes that knowledge of the principles is revealed by the practice itself.  I am, of course, ...

There has been a considerable discussion recently on tournaments, tournament fighting, and tournament formats in the SCA.  A lot of what I've seen and read can be generalized to pretty much any organized competitive martial art, though the historical background between, say, modern karate and historical martial arts from any continent is obviously not quite the same. So here's my take on tournaments: I don't like them.  I actively dislike tournaments. Before I continue, I should put some boundaries on that statement.  It is not a statement that tournaments are bad and should go away.  It is also not a statement that martial events  are bad or that fighting should not be competitive, that would be silly and defeat the purpose of fighting.  It is not even a statement of intent to boycott tournaments as a form, because the unwritten rules of the game require that tournaments are where you get people to listen to you. Now, why do I dislike tournaments? There ar...

A conversation at shinkage practice recently got me thinking.  The short version is that any time you pick up a new thing, you come with baggage, both good and bad, and especially early on, putting that baggage away and dealing with the material that is presented can be a challenge.  The specific context was a rapier fighter and montantera trying shinkage and visibly switching what she was doing to Figueyredo's Rule 6 mid-movement, which ruined her footwork, but another example was the deep refusal of the blade in Eisshin-ryu's vertical cuts, which shinkage doesn't do.  Obviously, Eisshin-ryu is more closely related to shinkage than Figueyredo's montante rules, but falling back on a previous body of knowledge can both aid and hinder understanding the art as presented. This leads to a broader problem, at least for me, that of generalists versus specialists.  I started shinkage with an advantage in certain areas; I know how to practice a specific skill or movement deli...

It feels appropriate to me to begin with the very first line of Munenori, as the first few paragraphs sum up much of his worldview. Hathaway: There is an old saying, "Weapons are in-auspicious tools.  They are shunned by Heaven's path.  Keep them ready without the intent to use them; that is Heaven's path." HPB (Ridgway): From antiquity it has been said, "Weapons are an inauspicious instrument, abhorred by the Way of Heaven, and to be used only when unavoidable.  That is the Way of Heaven." Satô: Here's what was said in the past: "Weapons are unfortunate instruments.  Heaven's Way hates them.  Using them when there is no other choice - that is Heaven's Way." Footnote 2: Allusion to Section 31 of Lao Tzu: Good weapons are unfortunate instruments.  People hate them.  So someone with Tao does not rely on them... Weapons are unfortunate instruments and not the wise man's instruments.  When he uses them because there is no other choice h...

I own four English-language editions of of Heihô Kadensho .  I actually own more than that, but the others are copies or extracts of these four.  Two of them, the Satô ( The Sword and the Mind ) and Wilson ( The Life-Giving Sword ) translations, are what could be called "mainstream" translations - that is, they are either at least partially informed by, or endorsed by, members of the school, and are relatively complete, with supplementary material that will help make sense of the original and provide it further context.  They are broadly similar; Yagyû Koichi, the head of the school today, prefers Satô, while Dave Lowry and a handful of other American budô practitioners encouraged Williams to make his translation.  In other words, in quality terms there is little to choose between them, other than personal preference, and one cannot really go wrong with either.  The third was a copy that I happened to pick up at Half-Price Books that did not match either of...

Having completed my review of the various editions of Fiore currently on the market (I suppose I should write up the Hatcher edition of the Getty, but it's been out a few years and is kind of a gold standard!), it's time for a project I've been delaying for months. That project is a comparison of the four editions I have found of Yagyû Munenori 's first volume, "The Killing Sword."  To understand why I'd be doing that, and why there have been delays, one must first understand who Munenori was, what the formative environment of Yagyû shinkage-ryû was, and why the school persists. First, the Yagyû themselves.  All Japanese noble families trace themselves, at least nominally, to one of three origins, the Taira, the Minamoto, or the Fujiwara.  The Taira and Minamoto (or, if one is feeling particularly fancy, the Heike and Genji, after their On'myo, or "Chinese-style," readings) were descendants of emperors who had been mediatized as nobles no l...

  Last time , I discussed Windsor's translation of Vadi's verses.  This time, it's about Windsor's commentary on Vadi's verses.  This is going to be primarily a "Windsor" versus a "Vadi," though it's going to include thoughts on why Vadi's system evolved the way it did from Fiore's. First, let's talk about what Windsor has always done well.  He's very  good at taking plays from a manual and turning them first into plausible explanations, then into drills to train those plausible explanations.  I've had arguments about whether Windsor is a professional swordsman, or a professional sword teacher ; I think the fact that he's able to reconstruct a reasonable interpretation and  turn it into a trainable activity means he's probably both.  The best  parts of Windsor's gloss on Vadi are all how he interprets a play, and how he turns that play into a drill.  He does this a number of times, and I've run Windsor'...

 Last time, I discussed the front material of Guy Windsor 's revised translation and commentary of Philippo Vadi , The Art of Sword Fighting In Earnest: Philippo Vadi's "De Arte Gladiatoria Dimicandi."   This time, I will discuss Vadi's work itself, and what it implies about historical sword fighting, especially in the mid-15th Century and in Italy.  Since this post is about Vadi's own words, there should be no confusion of reference here between what Vadi says, and what Windsor says about  Vadi. Vadi's opening remarks are the usual round of self-deprecating self-praise you find in most medieval manuals.  He gives little of his career, which is unfortunate, but his opening remarks also begin a pattern of emphasizing the importance of cleverness and intelligence in fighting, rather than brute strength: As the famous saying goes: cleverness overcomes strength. And what is greater still and almost incredible: the wise rules the stars. An art that conquers all...

 After reading   From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice: The Longsword Techniques of Fiore dei Liberi , I decided I'd read   Guy Windsor 's second translation of   Philippo Vadi ,   The Art of Sword Fighting In Earnest: Philippo Vadi's "De Arte Gladiatoria Dimicandi."   This is a revision of Windsor's earlier   Veni, Vadi, Vici , which has the additional effect of making   VVV  harder to find for comparison.  The book is available in both paperback, for about $30, and hardback, for about $60; I have the paperback.  For convenience's sake, I'll be referring to Windsor's portions, such as the front-end material and the analysis, as Windsor, and the actual text as Vadi. The Wiktenauer link I gave above to Vadi includes Windsor's translation with the pages.  This is the single biggest flaw in the book - the illustrations are not paired with the text as in the Hatcher or Chidester editions of Fiore.  That is due to the lim...

At this point I can safely say I have studied, am studying, or am at least passing-familiar with no fewer than four historical or modern sword schools (in rough order, SCA sword and board, Fiore, shinkage, and montante courtesy of Figueyredo), and am currently working my way through Windsor's translation of Vadi.  This has introduced me to a serious problem - technical vocabulary.  In any profession, technical vocabulary or jargon accrues, but because there are few true modern practitioners of sword work, the technical vocabulary winds up being exceptionally obscure, and cause for argument. We know that this has been a problem for a while, too.  For instance, Fiore trained under a series of Germans and north Italians, which means he would have been familiar with the German technical vocabulary, probably learning the same technical vocabulary developed in Liechtenauer's   Zettel .  The problem, then, is that Fiore wasn't   working  in Germany.  Som...

Since my Fiore class series wrapped up, I've been helping a friend write up her own follow-on montante class series using mine as a foundation.  That led me to a discussion point: Before one can understand, and therefore teach, a system, one has to understand the underlying assumptions of that system.  For instance, neither boxers nor wrestlers are inherently better combatants; a boxer is a better boxer, and a wrestler a better wrestler, than either on the other's field because the underlying assumptions - in this case the formal rules - are very different. Sometimes, identifying the underlying assumptions is easy.  Modern combat sports have written conventions; identifying them is pretty simple as a result.  Historical authors tend to get a little harder to figure out, and the more comprehensive the system, the harder it becomes.  Fiore writes in his first Italian foreword that he trained gentlemen for combat, specifically for deeds of arms from unarmed all the...

There is a tendency to teach hard skills - structure, technique, footwork, et cetera - when teaching new students, with the idea that they   have  to understand those before soft skills - measure, timing, touch, and decision-making - can be of any use to them.  I believe this approach is mistaken. There are practical reasons for teaching it this way - knowing   when  to throw a punch is less useful than knowing   how  to throw a punch, to use the most basic example - but I increasingly believe that the two skillsets need to be taught in parallel.  Let's use an example from my experience. Fiore's first master and first two plays of the longsword in two hands goes from a crossing at the point, breaks sword-to-sword contact, and thrusts.  It's dirt-simple, but as I keep hearing in shinkage, it is simple, it is not easy.  It's also almost   all  soft skills.  To teach that as part of a series to otherwise untrained students, t...