A real two-bladed sword!

[Drifter Bob]

Reality check

the point is, some weapon designs are just inferior and it doesn't matter how much you train. This 'surprise' factor is much less signficant than you make it out to be. It always seems very impressive in kung fu movies, but in real life, reach, speed, controllability and balance are what is important. Surprises and trick moves can only take you so far.

I don't know what kind of training you do, most Eastern Martial arts is mostly based in katas, and very few do full contact weapon sparring. I've been doing WMA for about 20 years, and always with full-contact sparring. I can tell you that for example, a guy with a single short weapon under 30" is going to lose 95% of the time against someone with a longer weapon say 42" or more. A person facing someone with a shield who doesn't have a much longer weapon is at a similarly huge disadvantage against anyone who is marginally competent.

If you do any full contact, full force weapon sparring in your training then you should know this. The master who is adept at fighting with the soup taureen simply will not gain enough advantage from this "surprise factor" to win against a halfway competent sword and shield guy. Period.

DB

 

[aurance]

[regarding the Kwan Do] Like I say, if you ever buy one of those things and use it in any way, please arrange to have the event video taped for the darwin awards.


DB

Now you're just being obnoxious. There is such a thing as Eastern Martial Arts. (Funny, I never thought I'd have to say that, but sometimes WMA people... There is such a thing as too far.) Kwan Do is used at least as some sort of demonstration weapon in Wu Shu and other Asian arts. That in and of itself has merit. If you were to question its combat efficiency, I wouldn't know, never having seen it used in full-contact simulation. But you chose to paint broad insults instead about its use "in any way."

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Hmmm, this does seem to have gotten to the 'yelling at each other' stage.

I agree, a dumb weapon like the double sword is mostly a surprise in the 'I am surprised any idiot would try that' way.

There have been an awful lot of stupid weapons over time, but they were quickly abandoned, often when the user died suddenly, other times when the fad ended. (Lantern bucklers anyone?)

Or, in the case of the Roman gladitorial weapons they stayed around because they were kewl, and who cares if the slave using it dies horribly?

But it's better than the hooked hammer...(though likely not as good as a baseball bat...)

The Auld Grump

 

[takyris]

the point is, some weapon designs are just inferior and it doesn't matter how much you train.

I agree. Cooked pasta, bean bag chairs, fuzzy dice... none of these are going to take down a thoroughly enraged attacker, no matter how well you've trained. Well, not faster than your bare hand, anyway. Which you'd be using to, you know, make the fuzzy dice do any kind of damage.

This 'surprise' factor is much less signficant than you make it out to be. It always seems very impressive in kung fu movies, but in real life, reach, speed, controllability and balance are what is important. Surprises and trick moves can only take you so far.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that kung fu movies killed your father. That must explain your deep-seated need to turn them into the bad guy in this discussion. I mourn your father's loss, and I hope you are able to avenge yourself on the genre that killed him.

I don't know what kind of training you do, most Eastern Martial arts is mostly based in katas, and very few do full contact weapon sparring.

You are totally correct! You don't know what kind of training I do. Good argument.

I've been doing WMA for about 20 years, and always with full-contact sparring. I can tell you that for example, a guy with a single short weapon under 30" is going to lose 95% of the time against someone with a longer weapon say 42" or more. A person facing someone with a shield who doesn't have a much longer weapon is at a similarly huge disadvantage against anyone who is marginally competent.

Sorry, WMA? Are these the folks who whack each other with rattan? I know that having to answer this is going to cause you to huff mightily and declare that you can't have an intelligent conversation with somebody who doesn't know what WMA stands for. I tried random URL testing, but I'm guessing that you haven't gotten all huffy about your spathology (note the spelling) from the William Morris Agency.

And then, your insights. A long weapon is, generally speaking, better to have than a short weapon. Great Hera! My school never taught me this! We just prance around doing katas all day and meditating on tulips! I've run into Real Ultimate Power! My whole life is a lie!

If you do any full contact, full force weapon sparring in your training then you should know this. The master who is adept at fighting with the soup taureen simply will not gain enough advantage from this "surprise factor" to win against a halfway competent sword and shield guy. Period.

Unless they're at dinner, and the sword and shield guy left his stuff in the other room. Or an airport. I just know that I could get a soup tureen through security, but you and your katana are gonna be taken into the room with the bright lights.

Or unless the surprise factor weighs in more than you think.

Or possibly you've turned a hypothetical double-sword (not the one that started this thread), which is probably closer in design to a double-spear with longer spear points and a slightly shorter haft, into a soup tureen by some sort of "I am really big in the WMA and therefore I can state this as objective fact" process, and then spelled "tureen" wrong, in order to make your point.

I know. You can't really talk to me at all. My refusal to acknowledge your obvious superiority of knowledge in this area just makes any kind of meaningful conversation impossible. Man, if you'd been just a bit less abrasive, I'd have been in complete agreement with you on about 90% of this. Heck, if you actually read my posts, I am in complete agreement with about 90% of you on this.

But you're making grand sweeping statements, and you've overextended yourself, and you've lost me. And also, you catch more flies with honey than by telling the flies that they're all stupid and candidates for the Darwin award.

 

[Drifter Bob]

WMA is western martial arts, as opposed to EMA (Eastern Martial Arts) WMA as practiced today is largely based on the fechtbuchs (fencing manuals) of the Renaissance Masters such as Tallhoffer, Meyer, Fiore, De Grassi, and others who's names I won't try to spell here.

WMA is different from "the guys with the rataan sticks" by which you probably mean the SCA.

I referred to Kung Fu movies because your assumptions, i.e. the importance or relevance of the 'surprise factor" seems to stem from them. It's certainly not a lesson I ever learned from sparring. Also, you said you studied Kempo which does incidentally give some idea what you do.

I'm involved in a small fencing group here in New Orleans. I've personally been doing full-contact, full-force sparring with padded and wooden weapons in armor and unarmored for about 20 years. In that time I have faced modern Western sport fencers using steel foils and epee's, escrima /arnis stick fighters with sticks, akido bo-staff fighters, kendo fighters, Irish bata / alpeen fighters, SCA fighters with their rataan weapons, and just about every other stick fighting or weapon martial artist you can think of. I've seen and fought against a lot of strange weapons, especially the Asian inspired ones, from Kamas to numchuku to three section staves and even more exotic varities. None of these were in the ballpark of the basics like the quarterstaff, the spear, the bill, the longsword, or the sword and shield.

Since we both agree on the absurdity of the two bladed 'sword' I won't comment further on that.


DB

 

[Goblyns Hoard]

I'm not going to wade in on the arguements here but in my experience of both western and eastern weapons/martial arts the only truly effective double weapons have not involved blades or spikes of any sort. OK the long double spear can work, but it's really just a sharpened quarterstaff.

The most effective double weapon that has seen real use is the three section staff. The key aspect of a weapon like this is that you can take the blow from the swinging section at no harm to yourself - when wielded correctly. Even nunchaku can be thrown into the arguement for what qualities a double weapon (and particularly a segmented weapon) need to have to be an effective tool

 

[silentspace]

I don't have any historical sources to cite here, but I believe the Asian weapons Drifter Bob is so dismissive of weren't really weapons at all, but modified farming implements that were used because peasants weren't allowed to have weapons. Like if European peasants started to train secretly with their pitchforks and scythes (who knows, maybe they did). So those wierd weapons like kamas, nunchakus, etc could be used with great expertise by a trained fighter, but I think those same fighters, if given a choice, would choose to have better, stronger equipment such as the swords, bows and armor that the nobility (such as the samurai) had.

But really, I do understand Drifter Bob's opinion on WotC's double weapons. They look silly. As silly as that Klingon weapon from Star Trek. Speaking of Star Trek, how about that fingers-interlaced, double-fisted strike Kirk liked to use so much? Drifter Bob, have you faced any UFoPMA (United Federation of Planets Martial Arts) fighters? Beware, their kungfu is strong!

 

[Drifter Bob]

I don't have any historical sources to cite here, but I believe the Asian weapons Drifter Bob is so dismissive of weren't really weapons at all, but modified farming implements that were used because peasants weren't allowed to have weapons. Like if European peasants started to train secretly with their pitchforks and scythes

Many european weapons have the same origins. The staff was basically a peasant weapon, and the flail was developed by peasants as a weapon from a grain threshing implement with nearly identical origins to the numchuku and related devices in Asia. The Halberd and the Bill were both adapted from farm implements for use by peasants against knights. The Partisan was an evolutoin of the old hunting boars spear, and the German Messer sword evolved from restrictions on peasants carrying swords (it was just a 'big knife')

The difference between these and some of the equivalent Asian weapons is that A) Asian martial arts often emphasizes a mixture of armed with unarmed techniques, where WMA seems to assume that your enemy is armed and goes from there (though it does also include unarmed techniques, it doesn't seem to assume that one party is unarmed to start with) therefore many of the Asian weapons no longer seem to emphasize reach much, and B) much of the armed fighting taught in EMA has become stylized over the years as a sport or theater (i.e. Peking Opera) or as a kind of dance, since it has been used less and less for real fighting, just as modern Western sport fencing bears little resemblance to any real combat art. WMA by contrast is currently practiced almost exclusively based on fencing manuals from 15th and 16th century masters so it is focused on fighting for real, on killing arts.

There is currently a revival of interest in the original EMA techniques before they were 'watered down', incidentally, largely inspired by the successes of WMA fighters against EMA fighters in tournaments.

But really, I do understand Drifter Bob's opinion on WotC's double weapons. They look silly. As silly as that Klingon weapon from Star Trek. Speaking of Star Trek, how about that fingers-interlaced, double-fisted strike Kirk liked to use so much? Drifter Bob, have you faced any UFoPMA (United Federation of Planets Martial Arts) fighters? Beware, their kungfu is strong!

Klingons are scary, and god knows Kirk is terrifying. Even if he didn't talk that way, the fact that he could knock me out with one hand chop to the shoulder gives me pause. Plus, he has a thing for green haired women, and would likely stalk the women folk of Drifter Bob's sordid punk rock underworld... it would truly be a nightmare. I won't even mention the slow motion karate of the borg....(shudder)


DB

 

[Planesdragon]

You NEVER, EVER, parry with the flat of the blade. That's is weakest point. Chances are that you'll snap the blade of you do. And I've personally seen it happen more times that I'd like to remember in Stage combat shows that i have been in.

The props you use in stage combat are not combat ready. Odds are that they're designed to look flashy and break easily.

A "real" combat-ready sword is parried with the flat of the blade, because if you block with the edge you'll either dull your sword or notch your sword so tight in the other guy's weapon that it's useless.

Oh, and there's a marked difference between "block" (use your sword to absorb the attack) and "parry" (use your sword to deflect the attack.)

 

[RFisher]

Yes! Gladiator arenas. That's where the double-sword, dire-flail, & double-axe belong. Now I can't wait for the next time I capture some PCs & get to throw them in an arena.