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Message: <blockquote data-quote="takyris" data-source="post: 1760021" data-attributes="member: 5171">Okay, let's take two masters.  They've each trained since 10 years of age, and they're each 30 now.  One of them has spent 20 years learning a sword (of some normal and popular kind), while the other has spent 20 years learning a weird weapon.  In both cases, the guys are training and fighting matches against people with normal swords, because, well, normal swords are what are most common.When that showdown arrives, the sword expert has a ton of experience and an inherently easier-to-use weapon.  The unwieldy-weapon expert has a weapon that is going to throw the sword expert for a loop.  At least some of his practical ideas and take-as-given reflexes are going to be wrong.That's the advantage of weird weapons -- they're weird.  If you're a sword guy who's only ever fought sword guys, the guy with the kusarikama is gonna throw you for a loop*, because his weapon does a bunch of stuff you're not used to.  If the guy with the weird weapon has trained against your weapon for years, but you haven't trained against his weapon for years, then that difference could be enough to offset the inherent superiority of the weird weapon.That, I believe, is why someone would try to use something like that in real life (well, beyond "It looks cool" or "I want to get that Darwin award").  If we're talking about a genuinely experienced person, the spoiler factor of an abnormal weapon is going to be a factor when fighting an opponent who has only trained against normal weapons.* I trained a bunch with a kusarikama, and I could comfortably deal with just about any weapon -- except a sword.  Every attack response session where I had the kk and my opponent had any kind of sword ended with "And then Tacky gets eviscerated," except for the rare occasions when I got him first because of reach or got real lucky and tangled his sword up.  If I trained for 20 years, maybe I could tangle the sword up more often.  But if I had 20 years and knew that there were going to be life-threatening situations, I'd probably spend 19 and a half of those years getting a sword...  because, really, not fun.I disagree.  But mileage may vary.  Let's find a swordsman and a double-trident master, both with 20 years of experience with their weapons, both of them training against swords (since swords are the default), and see how they do.  Or, since you feel so strongly about it, let's do your halfway method, and take a 20-year double-trident wielder and put him against a 10-year swordsman, assuming that both of them have trained against normal standard weapons... ie, swords. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Sorry, what link?  I didn't post a link, so I don't know who you're referring to. You're not talking about the "double sword" that got this all started, by that description..."Seem" is sort of a false subjective here.  You're being rude.  You know you're being rude.  You're defending your rudeness because you think that this topic is so stupid that it is justifiable for you to be rude.And based on that actual weapon that started this, I don't disagree that... uh... it's a lousy weapon.  It's either a lousy one-handed weapon or a lousy two-handed weapon, but it's a lousy weapon either way.I'm sorry that you feel the need to remove demons from the idea of futility.  I can understand how that would be difficult.  Well, I can't, really, but exorcise away.And you and I are in radically different places, so there's bound to be some friction.  My next belt test (in the far future when I can practice regularly again) involves doing a set of techniques with anything the teachers throw my way.  So I've had to learn, on the fly, to do a given combination of strikes, locks, and traps with empty hands, and then a stick, and then a knife, and then two sticks, and then a stick and a knife, and then a staff, and then a hula hoop, and then a dictionary, and then a jumprope, and then a punching mitt (yes, really, all of those)... because this belt is all about using whatever we have on hand and adapting techniques to any kind of tool.  The punching mitt is, frankly, pretty lame as weapons go, but I'd still take it over my empty hands if somebody comes at me with a knife.  So, from the perspective of a purist, I can see how an "all weapons are potentially useable" argument is going to raise hackles.  I'm certainly not suggesting that I'd rather have a punching mitt (or the silly wall-hanger that started this thread) than a sword if someone came and made a death match challenge right now.Glad to hear it!DB</blockquote>[/QUOTE]

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