Practical Martial Arts Association

I have used the term slipping to describe a movement where the front leg is within range and the rear leg is not, and by way of avoidance the front leg is pulled back to the rear leg.  This is the term used in Georgian Sabre amongst others.  I have given this tactic its own section as there are a few components to cover. Georgian Sabre I have used as a source the excellent COMPANION WORKBOOK By Nick Thomas Instructor and co-founder of the © 2016 Academy of Historical Fencing Version 4  as a reference.  The workbook consists of THE TEN LESSONS TAUGHT BY MR. JOHN TAYLOR, Late Broad Sword Master to the Light Horse Volunteers of London and Westminster. As printed in ‘The Art of Defence on Foot’ by C. Roworth (1804). The workbook compiles the work of Roworth and Angelo, illustrated with training guides also by Angelo.  The reason I have included western sabre in such detail is that it has all the hallmarks of an art based on playing the long game and its congruen...

The nature of the spear means that for the most part the user maintains the hanmi body position (side on) whilst moving.  There is little or no ability to change sides with the hips and this means cross-stepping is a natural footwork (although like the theory of Chin GemPin 'inventing' Jujutsu, the footwork argument against cross-stepping needs continual debunking). I have not found a credible example of a Japanese spear in which this is not included and it should be obvious, however it is import a nt to e stablish this when considering how attack and defence are effected with the spear. I will elaborate on this in the coming posts.

Binding at the Weakness The concept of the strong and the weak is sometimes used in HEMA to describe what is essentially a leverage advantage in a bind.  It comes (somewhat) from the German school of fencing which runs from the mid 14th to the mid 17th centuries.  Consider the following plate from Meyer: You can see how each longsword is divided into segments.  It can be essentially divided into two, strong and weak, or several.  Here the weak is the pointy end and the strong is the hilt end, or if you like the weak (point quarter), the middle, the strong and the bind (handle). These positions relate to a grappling sense rather than a striking sense ie the weak is the part of the sword you would cut with.  The reason this is important is in a 'bind' (a bind being when the weapons have clashed and are together - that is they have continuing contact). In this case, if you have received an opponents blow with the 'strong' of your weapon and effected a bind wit...