Medieval Knife fighting

[Captain Jack Sparrow]

(i'm not sure if this is the correct space for this, but i will leave it up for the admin to decide where it would be more appropriate)

as i surfed this evening, i came across this from another forum and it has struck me as interesting and impressive... it depicts Hans Talhoffer's dagger techniques from 1467... the people of Dragon Perservation Society is active in perpetuating these concepts... i am curious to find out more... has anyone experienced or read up on these concepts?... One thing that made me happy is that it depicts a reverse grip (pakal), which i do almost all the time in my training...

http://www.schielhau.org/taldagger.html

http://www.truefork.org/DragonPreservationSociety/dagger1/Talhoffer.php

http://www.truefork.org/DragonPreservationSociety/Degen.php

thanks!

Capt. Jack

[arnisador]

No problem with where you placed it, but I moved it to Misc. Knife Arts anyway. If the discussion goes to pakal in the FMA, I'll move it back!

-Arnisador
-FMATalk Admin

[arnisador]

I have watched some of the Western sword and knife work on Conquest and on this series (http://fmatalk.com/showthread.php?t=361), and I constantly find myself saying to my son "See! It's just like what we do. See! It's a number 5 block from Modern Arnis. See! He's using the live hand." (At this point I imagine it's getting annoying to him!) I wonder if it would have the same fluidity if we coulds see, not just books, but how they actually moved.

It looks to me like they used forward grip for sword-and-dagger but often used reverse grip if they thought they might be fighting knife-to-knife or knife-against-empty-hand. There are lots of techniques for defending against wrestling/grabbing, if memory serves.

[Douglas]

IMHO, Talhoffer is tricky to work from because his content is not thought to be instructional, as much as a promotion of his art. Fiore Dei Liberi is more acessible (in that it's actual instruction), except that translations and interpretations are not freely available online. Here's someone's take on the material:
http://www.truefork.org/DragonPreservationSociety/Liberi.php

Very similar techniques, anyway. :)

[arnisador]

Well, I sure wish we had FMA materials from a similar time period! It's great that the Europeans were so studious--they wrote everything down.

[Doc]

I'd like to point out that the dagger used in the period in question was not very sharp. It was primarily a thrusting weapon. When fighting in armor, its purpose was to thrust into the gaps in the opponent's armor. But even aside from this obvious point, the people of the era wore fairly heavy clothing, making the thrust more important than a cut when dealing with a smaller weapon. The dagger was also heavily used as an aide to grappling. Lots of illustrations in the old "fechtbuchen" show the dagger in a reverse grip and used to capture and leverage against the opponent's limbs to aide in disarms or takedowns. Many of these works also show the user grasping the blade with his free hand to assist with applying the appropriate leverage. Very few cuts or slashes are shown.

Keith

[adam t babb]

As being both practioner of both the filipino arts and medevil european arts i must say that both blend very well together. And there are a lot of simularitys go to www.aemma.org (http://www.aemma.org) for further refrance. also Sir George Silvers book is a good example. In 1565 Don Miguel Lopez de Legaspi made the statement that the indies had a common sport strangely identical to that of the broadsword play founded in England by Sir George Silver

adam

[arnisador]

It has always seemed to me that the FMAs are more quick-paced than the WMAs with their large, heavy, armour-denting swords. Perhaps I am comparing two very different eras though.

[Brock]

Look at Italian Rapier and dagger fencing. Not very slow at all. Armor wasn't in use as much during that time, plus the swords were mostly thrusting style swords that would peirce the armor anyway.



It's great that the Europeans were so studious--they wrote everything down.


I agree. I've been able to at least academically study Italian fencing styles even though I can't physically study it. I've yet to find an instructor in a reasonable distance! :cry:

[gagimilo]

There as an issue of the Modern Knives Magazine by Jim Keating and Pete Kautz, focusing on the medieval knife play that you should check out, since it is a really good stuff, presented by Mr. Kautz and Bob Charron as a guest instructor.