Katana wielding

[Dogbrain]

Dogbrains rapier weight: That's approximately the weight of my bastard sword which has a 1.5 mm edge for training purposes... and it's a rather heavy one.

So what? It's the mean value of the weights of OVER 150 actual historical rapiers. I'm not pulling numbers out of my ass nor using the weights of "reproductions". Contrary to the blatherings of the ignorant, rapiers were NOT ultra-light weapons. They were as heavy as or heavier than contemporaneous one-handed cutting weapons.

 

[Dogbrain]

True, Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power are more like the Olympic saber technique, which is still my favorite form of fencing, by the way.

The fight choreographers were modern fencing maitres.

However, the Michael York and Co. version of The Three Musketeers made in the 70s used swords that looked more like rapiers, and the style wasn't nearly as fast and "fencing-like". I don't know if that's accurate rapier style or not, but it looks like it could be, at least.

They used actual artifacts and the fight choreographer was William Hobbes, notable for his historical research on the subject.

 

[Darklone]

So what? It's the mean value of the weights of OVER 150 actual historical rapiers. I'm not pulling numbers out of my ass nor using the weights of "reproductions". Contrary to the blatherings of the ignorant, rapiers were NOT ultra-light weapons. They were as heavy as or heavier than contemporaneous one-handed cutting weapons.

I didn't mean to disagree with you, it was more meant as a supporting information to your sentence that rapiers weren't the feather dusters many RPGs like to consider them as.

And I always like to point out that bastard swords aren't the heavy iron clubs many RPGs like to make them as well.

 

[Desdichado]

And I always like to point out that bastard swords aren't the heavy iron clubs many RPGs like to make them as well.

"Big" weapons are notoriously badly represented in RPGs in terms of their weight. Given the adrenalin, and the effort of fighting even a minor skirmish with even a light weapon, even extremely in-shape professional warriors were pretty much beat from an exhaustion standpoint afterwords. Trying to fight with something that weighed as much as RPGs make them out to be would have been absolutely ridiculous.

 

[ledded]

Yeah, I was the one mentioning that.

<snip some very cool pics>
All in all, that kata lasts about 3 seconds, which emphasize the fact that such a grip would only be used in a iaido technique (where you intend to finish the fight in just one strike), but definitely not on an extended fight.

That is almost exactly the way I've seen it performed, with the initial backwards draw accompanied with more of an extended step in, almost (but not quite) lunge-like, then stepping back to slash downwards. It was performed incredibly quick, and seemed to be a very efficient way of responding to someone who was "in your face" per se .

Thanks for the detailed drawings... what book is that from, I could swear I've seen those before?

Ah, led, I should have known you were a sword geek.

Long, long ago I was in correspondence with an American fellow living in Holland who was tanslating medieval German swordsmanship manuals. It was very interesting to see how similar many of the stances and directions were to Japanese styles -- lesson being that when you're trying to kill people with large edged weapons, there is a finite set of optimal ways to go about it.

If anyone in this discussion finds their way to Vancouver, I have spare bokken and would love to see other people's forms and styles. My practicing is a lonely affair for the most part.

Oh, sword geek I am, and proud of it. Before kids and my current gaming miniatures disorder, I spent a good bit of my spare change on whatever I could find that was remotely antique. My sensei at the time is a very good Japanese sword historian and collector (he actually owns a wakazashi that was finally traced back to one of the ones given to Commodore Perry) and he helped me find a very nice hand-made katana, smithed traditionally in the late 1930's. It's nothing special, but it's a real katana and it handles beautifully doing tameshigiri against the types of materials we cut. I have a late 1800's Epee that looks a lot like a modern epee but is very pointed (the blade being almost perfectly square with no edge whatsoever); there were strange inscriptions on the inside of the cup that a sword expert I knew finally identified as a popular way during the time period of marking the number of duels that had been fought with it in a sort of 'french shorthand'. One of my favorites is a 1796 English cavalry saber, the same one that the French tried to have outlawed as a 'cruel and inhumane weapon'. My bookshelf has over 25 books on various aspects of sword identification and history. But enough of my geeky ramblings on sword collecting.

I have an issue of The Secret History of the Sword by Chris Amberger (the only guy I've ever met that has fought an actual illegal shlaeger duel, and has the scars to prove it) that has a very interesting article that draws parallels between German greatsword and japanese swordsmanship; many of the blocks, cuts, etc are executed in an eeirly similar fashion when you look at the diagrams/woodcuts from works from Talhoffer, et al. The guy you were talking about probably wrote that article.

I may actually be in Vancouver again early next year (I love that town, BTW) and if I do, I'll drop you a line before I come.

Ledded,

My most recent novel project involved swashbuckling, and I was describing rapiers as "long, thin swords primarily designed for piercing" and differentiating them from smallswords, which I described as a very light sword with a sharp tip but no real blade to speak of. My fencing friend corrected me vehemently and repeatedly. Glad I stuck to my guns.

I mean, it's a fantasy world, so I could call them warhammers and battle-axes, for all I care, but it's nice to have been correct.

Well, good for you man, because you were dead-on right IMO. Dogbrain's stats are almost exactly what I've seen real sword historians and collectors (myself not included) come up with. I have actually met a fellow once who had a very nice collection, he had worked with an auction house and then later several museums. He graciously allowed us to handle a few of his weapons, and the early-period Rapier I held was noticeably heavier (and longer) than the knightly arming sword (equivalent to what most folks called a "longsword", though this one was longer than typical examples) that I also handled. I personally would not want to trust my life to a rapier unless I was much stronger than I am now, or practiced enough to know that I could end a fight fairly quick with one.

EDIT: There are examples and evidence of some rapier schools teaching cuts with a rapier, but these were most often draw-cuts meant to cause bleeding to the face, hands, etc to cause someone to lose grip, blind them, etc. You dont cut firewood with one by any means.

I've found that guys who are solely olympic style fencers and dont do much real research often have no sense of the reality of swords or swordfighting except mimicry of the movements; much like I often find housewives who get pumped about their bad-azz kickboxing technique after doing 15 hours of Tae-Bo . (No offense to fencers in general, mind you)

As far as fantasy vs. realism, I'll leave you with a humorous quote that someone laid down on me on the wizards boards after I was drawn into a raging rant about the 15-pound greatsword thing in d20, in pseudo-mocking defense of my 'reality' position when poked at by some guys I was irritating at the time:

JPL, you're such a sell-out.
[sweeping orchestral score]
Someday, somebody's character is gonna die because they were encumbered by a flail that was far heavier than it should have been. And that character's player is gonna be hurt, man, hurt, at that death. And you know what, man? On that day, my conscience is gonna be clear. Because I fought the good fight.
I hope you sleep well knowing about all those slow-movement-rate folks who are gonna die because you don't care anymore.
[/sweeping orchestral score]

The fight choreographers were modern fencing maitres.

They used actual artifacts and the fight choreographer was William Hobbes, notable for his historical research on the subject.

Well respected fencing maitres, but olympic fencing/smallsword experts nonetheless.

And God bless William Hobbes, that man knew his stuff.

One of the reasons the founder of Shinkendo, Toshishiro Obata, doesnt do much movie-work anymore is he grew tired of having to teach actors how to do incredibly stupid things with weapons without getting hurt, while making them look like they knew what they were doing. (He did work on Demolitons Man -Wesley Snipes's stick fighting-, Black Rain, and yes, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, all three of which he had cameo parts in).

<snip>
And I always like to point out that bastard swords aren't the heavy iron clubs many RPGs like to make them as well.

Amen to that. Most of the hand-and-half-ers and associtated weapons termed 'bastard swords' that I've seen were not that much heavier than a one-hander, though I've heard that the extra length of the handle and often larger pommel seemed to counterweight the effect of the extra weight. I havent handled any historical examples though.

I did get to handle a late-period German two-hander once, one of those big jobs that are unsharpened for the first foot or two. It was surpisingly light and thin-bladed for such a large weapon, not too terribly much more than a heavy, thick hand-and-a-half or long rapier, though the longer handle . It certainly wasnt 15 pounds by any stretch of the imagination.

And the edge-on-edge blocking... eek. I once told a friend of mine who picked on me for getting irritated at that "hey, sure, why not have all the demoliton derby guys just do all the ramming with the *front* end of their cars? What? That would be stupid? Why? I saw it in a movie once!"

While edge on edge contact is sometimes unavoidable, it *is* undesireable for the most part, as it does greatly increase the likelyhood of you being the guy who suddenly came to the knife-fight with nothing but his pants. That is one of the good things about smallsword fencing... no edge to worry about

It always freaks people out who know nothing about swords when I tell them that many average one-handed sized swords ("longswords", katanas, etc) fall in the weight range of 2 to 3 pounds (give or take); I had a guy at my house once who I actually had to go get a scale to weigh my katana on, and then he told me it wasnt accurate because mine was modern and therefore not made like the ones "of the days of yore". Apparently they made the "old ones" out of meterorite iron smelted with stupidium.

Hell, some of the heavier 'contact' bokken made for exercise and doing kumite kata that I've picked up are as heavy or heavier than my darn katana.

Thanks for the fun discussion, one and all. Most of the time I get into these on most gaming forums I just seem to annoy the non-sword geeks out there with my rants.

Though it's ok for them to argue about guns down to the tenth of a millimeter and half-ounce of weight and date of manufacture down to the month and day... oh no, but it's ok that a rapier weighs half a pound and a greatsword weighs 15 and my shotgun weighs 12.7 pounds why cant I use it one-handed like The Rock mumble mumble mumble

 

[barsoomcore]

There are many similarities between bastard sword and katanas. Handling is practically identical.

The key features of the katana being single-edged, curved, two-handed. That's what really defines Japanese swordsmanship, in my view. That and the nature of Japanese armour and society.

One thing I can't bear: Edge on edge hacking with katanas... see Kill Bill 2.

Mmm. It's certainly taught in Katori to always catch the opponent's blade (if you're going to catch the opponent's blade, which you shouldn't do, but anyway) edge-to-edge. You're employing the strength of your blade to its fullest.

Most of the blocks that are taught, however, are actually attacks disguised as blocks. Your first couple of years you're told, "Hold your blade here and catch their blade as it descends." The next year it's, "Slide forward and cut his wrists as his blade descends." Then it's, "Step past, cutting under the arm as his blade descends."

But they are most definitely taught as blocks to the early students and it was clear to me that the expectation was you would be taking edge-to-edge hits. "Better to chip your edge than lose your arm," was how it was explained to me.

I'm not defending KIll Bill's fight choreography as quality Japanese swordsmanship (the Bride's hasso stance (with the sword vertical up by her head) make me wince), but there's definitely a case to be made for the idea of edge-to-edge blocks with katana.

In case you're with your stewardesses in Germany, gimme a call

Deal.

 

[barsoomcore]

Thanks for the detailed drawings... what book is that from, I could swear I've seen those before?

Not to step on Trainz' act, but those are from an issue of Black Belt magazine, I believe. It's also worth pointing out that they do not in fact illustrate the technique Trainz is describing, but are from a variety of forms and placed out of order to give the idea of what he's trying to explain.

And well done, too. Describing kata is always so frustrating.

I spent a good bit of my spare change on whatever I could find that was remotely antique.

Very nice. I have an early Tokugawa sword that my dojo mates helped me track down and acquire while I was in Japan. I have a license for it and everything (in Japan they have a special department that issues licenses to own ancient swords. It's not 100% clear that I was allowed to take the weapon out of the country but I told the Japanese custom guys it was a fake and they never took it out of the saya so phew!). I was very lucky in purchasing it. A collector well-known to folks at my dojo had decided to finance getting his "good" blades polished by selling off some of his "crap" blades. This one was in that lot and we picked it because it's really long and me being all beanpole that was the best choice. But from the extra hole in the tang it's clear it was once much longer than it is now -- it must have been close to Mifune's monster blade in The Seven Samurai! It's my only real blade -- I have a couple of stamped-aluminum replicas given to me by folks that possess sentimental value. But my sword remains the most valuable object I've ever owned in my life. It's quite possibly worth more than EVERYTHING else I own put together.

But enough of my geeky ramblings on sword collecting.

Never.

I may actually be in Vancouver again early next year (I love that town, BTW) and if I do, I'll drop you a line before I come.

You'd better.

Hell, some of the heavier 'contact' bokken made for exercise and doing kumite kata that I've picked up are as heavy or heavier than my darn katana.

When I first started using katana rather than bokken I was surprised at how little they weighed.

 

[Dogbrain]

I have an issue of The Secret History of the Sword by Chris Amberger (the only guy I've ever met that has fought an actual illegal shlaeger duel, and has the scars to prove it)

Chris's Mensur days were back at Universitaet (in Germany), and Mensur is legal in Germany.

I personally would not want to trust my life to a rapier unless I was much stronger than I am now, or practiced enough to know that I could end a fight fairly quick with one.

If yo ulook at the manuals

There are examples and evidence of some rapier schools teaching cuts with a rapier, but these were most often draw-cuts meant to cause bleeding to the face, hands, etc to cause someone to lose grip, blind them, etc. You dont cut firewood with one by any means.

Rapiers couldn't cut like a good English short sword could, but they could cut better than a mere "draw cut", if, by "draw cut" you mean gently laying the edge upon an opponent and cheese-slicing away in SCA fashion. The thing is that the cutting technique did change from a straight-on hack to a "hack-plus-draw". This technique was and is also used in dueling sabre from the 19th century, unwards, and one could be killed from a cut with a dueling sabre. Severing an arm through both forearm bones would be quite unlikely, but cutting down to the bone, itself, crippling the arm, could be done with a rapier of proper cross section.

In a way, claiming that rapiers "cannot cut" or are only worth harassing cuts is like claiming that human beings "cannot climb trees" because they are not as agile as are spider monkeys. That being said, I was taught to thrust when I could and cut when I must.

Most of the hand-and-half-ers and associtated weapons termed 'bastard swords' that I've seen were not that much heavier than a one-hander, though I've heard that the extra length of the handle and often larger pommel seemed to counterweight the effect of the extra weight.

.

Silver's ideal longs word had a blade nearly as short as his short sword, but with a handle that could accomodate two hands. Think of the speed.

While edge on edge contact is sometimes unavoidable, it *is* undesireable for the most part,

In the old European tradition, any blade-on-blade contact is undesirable, if sometimes necessary. The ideal, as far as I can tell, from the days of the sword-and-buckler men up to the end of the rapier era was a flawless counterattack. The best defense was to disappear from where your opponent attacked. Now, the Germans realized that this was often unrealistic, so they taught a lot of what would be called "counterattacks in opposition" today. Of course, if one counterattacks in opposition with a cut against a cut, that may look like a parry to the uninitiated.[/QUOTE]

However, at some point between the beginning of time and the 18th century, Europe adopted the edge parry as a preferred method, and I'm going to guess that it was some time in the 16th century, given how Swetnam talks.

 

[ledded]

The key features of the katana being single-edged, curved, two-handed. That's what really defines Japanese swordsmanship, in my view. That and the nature of Japanese armour and society.

Being curved, there is a slight difference in the way that slashing type attacks are made IMO. While I'm no expert with bastard swords, most of the techinique I've seen differs slightly in the way the grip is executed and the swing arc, but from watching grips and kata with either they are very similar at times. The differences I'm talking about are really hard to visualize (and therefore, hard for me to describe) but come more from feel.

Mmm. It's certainly taught in Katori to always catch the opponent's blade (if you're going to catch the opponent's blade, which you shouldn't do, but anyway) edge-to-edge. You're employing the strength of your blade to its fullest.

Most of the blocks that are taught, however, are actually attacks disguised as blocks. Your first couple of years you're told, "Hold your blade here and catch their blade as it descends." The next year it's, "Slide forward and cut his wrists as his blade descends." Then it's, "Step past, cutting under the arm as his blade descends."

But they are most definitely taught as blocks to the early students and it was clear to me that the expectation was you would be taking edge-to-edge hits. "Better to chip your edge than lose your arm," was how it was explained to me.

In Shinkendo (which is an amalgamation of kenjutsu techniques and aikijutsu movements) students are first taught to block without too much regard to sword edge (taking it on the edge in a static block, just stopping the sword).

Later you are taught how to block and move with the momentum to deliver devatingly quick counterattacks (or riposte, in fencing terms). These have a very fluid feel to them when done right, with little of that 'jarring' impact that you see in the movies, more like you were describing as 'sliding off' and using the momentum to accelerate your own kesa-giri strike or 'sliding forward' to deliver a thrust to chest/abdomen or draw-cut against the kote/wrists.

Advanced students are then taught how to position the sword for strikes so that the impact doesnt go *directly* against the honed edge, as not only can that chip or break your sword more easily, but will dull one quickly with too much contact. It's kind of like a slight pronation towards the angle of cut that allows the blade to impact extremely close to the edge, but turned just slightly enough so that you take advantage of both the edge's hardness and the pronation to take *all* of the jarring effect out of it while maximizing the amount of force you absorb to use for your own momentum. It's hard to explain really.

I have seen a sword used by several students in a row performing tameshigiri against rolled tatami mats and green bamboo become dull enough that Sensei will take it away for a quick sharpening or get another sword to use, basically for the lesser experienced test cutter's protection (a slight deviation in technique or concentration during test cutting can turn a very hard swing into an unexpectedly stuck or glancing blow, a dull sword can compound that with people more prone to make mistakes). Of course, I've seen him take a sword that someone complained was too dull to cut properly and not only cut kiri-age (upwards) through a piece of green bamboo as thick as your arm but cut the severed piece in half on the downstroke (kesa-giri) before it can fall to the floor. That's step cut-cut-chiburi and halfway through re-sheathing in less than 2 seconds, and is frightening to behold.

One note here though is that his teachings are often very conservative towards sword damage, not so much out of love of the sword as necessity. A lot of the things he has incorporated came from old training texts, some of which he translated himself, and it's more of a pre-tokugawa jutsu, soldier-samurai feel instead of a more individual or duelling form. Basically, you have to be careful to not damage the sword, because even if you cut down your immediate opponent, there may be many more right after him before your work is done, and armor is hard enough on a sword by itself.

Of course, he has often stated (with a smile) when teaching us these things that a chipped sword is much better than a severed arm.

Of course, he also taught us some movement drills that, I cant remember the japanese phrase for, but were loosely translated as 'missing by the width of rice paper'. For 6 hours one day during one of his seminars we learned how to use economy of movement to step just enough for someone to miss you entirely and be in position for a devastating attack. It felt very aikido-like to me, and was interesting in practice.


Oh, one of my favorite maneuvers that we learned is where you make a quick kesa-giri or overhead strike, drawing an upwards block from your opponent, but as soon as you start to make contact you quickly pull your sword down and in towards you and deliver a vicious thrust with the tip, all in one movement. Pulling across his sword allows you to manage where he goes with his blade and also often causes him to try to oppose you, opening him up for the quick thrust as your sword pulls free and there you are, stepping in with your sword ready to put a foot of it through him

I'm not defending KIll Bill's fight choreography as quality Japanese swordsmanship (the Bride's hasso stance (with the sword vertical up by her head) make me wince), but there's definitely a case to be made for the idea of edge-to-edge blocks with katana.

Oh, there definitely is, and it's always better to block with the edge than to be hit. Mainly we were taught as advanced students how to block with the edge without ruining the sharpness. But to block by swinging with the edge *into* an incoming swing Kill Bill-style is, IMO, katana suicide.

The Bride's hasso stance would have earned her a rap on the back of the thigh or under her bicep with a waxwood stick in my sensei's sword seminar . Really, Uma just did not look like she knew what the heck she was doing, and she was so slow with her swings it was obvious that the 88's where literally having trouble matching her speed at points. It was like "ok, I'm here, hit me... yup, here it comes... <yawn> alrighty then, I'm not supposed to counter that? <looks at watch, tapping foot>... You here yet?... <reds a magazine>... hey Tarantino can I go pee while she finishes cutting my torso in half?" to me. Put it this way... if you can distinctly see the sword well enough to read the inscription during a kesa-giri strike with the film at normal speed, she's too friggin slow to be the master of all things katana. It looked like she was performing a slow kata with no effort to me. I have 35mm photos of my sensei performing test cutting and while every part of his body is captured in really good detail, the sword itself is still a tracered blur.

I have done some reading on older sword-and-shield techniques, and have a documentary that shows a decent example of a viking sword-and-shield duel. Very little edge-to-edge contact, and because of the shields a large majority of the wounds inflicted were to the upper cranium, the legs/feet, and sword arm.

Very nice. I have an early Tokugawa sword that my dojo mates helped me track down and acquire while I was in Japan. <snip> But from the extra hole in the tang it's clear it was once much longer than it is now <snip>

<Turns green with envy> Oh man, I just *love* a sword with some mystery or some kind of history to it. I bet it's a nice piece indeed. My sensei in Birmingham has some very nice swords and weapons, he has a collection of various niiiice swords, some naginata and yari, and some very old Japanese flintlocks that are some of the coolest things I've ever seen. But he's close to 60 now and has been collecting for 45 years. I'd love to see Sensei Obata's collection, he has brought a few to town during seminars that are just wonderful, functioning pieces of art.

You'd better.

I shall.

When I first started using katana rather than bokken I was surprised at how little they weighed.

Me too... when I was practicing regularly, our session would be warm-up, then normal bokken practice, then kumite practice with the heavy jigen bokken. Those were so heavy, and you spent so much energy holding them aloft for blocks and practicing the kumite kata that by the time we got to 'live sword' tameshigiri the katana just seemed to zip around in your hands.

It's also amazing how a real katana feels, weight and balance, versus even a decent modern knock-off. I could be blindfolded, and if you put my katana in my hand and the pretty good carbon steel knock-off I have in the other, in just a few seconds I could tell you which was which.

 

[Trainz]

Not to step on Trainz' act, but those are from an issue of Black Belt magazine, I believe.

You can step on my "expertise" all you want, you have much more than I do. Two years of training just gave me exposure to all the katas, I didn't have time to really appreciate the subtleties of every move.

As for the pics, I just spent 20 minutes on google until I found pics to illustrate the moves. I have no idea what they were reffering to exactly.

It's also worth pointing out that they do not in fact illustrate the technique Trainz is describing, but are from a variety of forms and placed out of order to give the idea of what he's trying to explain.

And well done, too. Describing kata is always so frustrating.

Thanks. I was fortunate in finding those specific pics. I was about to give up (Google image searches can be SO frustrating at times).