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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Drifter Bob" data-source="post: 1760197" data-attributes="member: 17723">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</blockquote>

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