introduction to sinawali for two-weapon fighting

[Phlebas]

I made a video.



Questions, comments, requests.

[Todo]

That **** will get you dead real fast. You pulling that on the Bel field?

[Phlebas]

which part?

[Black Cat]

Though I am not experienced enough to truly know how to explain the reasons why, I have fought enough to know that these techniques won't work on the Belegarth field. I'm a horrible melee fighter, and I can see the flaws in this particular fighting style.

This quote from Kenneth on Geddon.org explains the problems I'm seeing with your style better than I could ever explain it myself. I bolded the most relevant parts.

-Kenneth

There are shots that are extremely accurate but give up speed or power. There are shots that are fast, but give up accuracy or speed. There are shots that are fast, but give up accuracy or power. Each particular "style", so to speak, has advantages and disadvantages. It is not necessarily a bad thing to mix and match as you go. Certainly there are some monstrous speed fighters.

I think a key difference may be in viewing where "speed" comes from. In my view, speed has several components. One is literally how fast you are, or how long it takes you to go from A to B. Beyond a certain reasonable fitness level, everybody is not that different in terms of pure speed. The difference is probably in .1's of a second from the time it takes a reasonably in shape person to swing from A to C, and an athlete to swing from A to C. Obviously some people are going to be slower, but in reality, people are swinging a foam stick. The level of health required to swing one is not that high.

On the other hand, what Vets really have over "base fighters" in my mind is technique. Instead of swinging from A to C, they swing from A to B. They don't pull their swords behind their backs before taking a shot, they redirect momentum and they also telegraph their shots less. They have better swing mechanics, and don't just "stiff arm" swing.

In other words, a veteran may be somewhat faster in absolute speed, but their speed relative to a base fighter is tremendously faster. That's why you get relatively out of shape vets who demolish newer fighters. Instead of just moving their shield faster, they may just move their shield more efficiently.

Obviously you can compensate for this by athletic training. However, I argue that getting rid of the "inefficiencies" such as pulling your sword too far back or not moving your shield all the way down to your feet will provide far easier short and long term gains than any form of purely physical training. Hence, my broad "technique" suggestion.

I'm not saying each new guy has to focus on uber tricksy feints, spins, counter-swings, and combos first. Just focus on the very basics. Where to hold your sword, where to hold your shield, how to stand. How to do basic shield blocks, or basic sword swings that don't telegraph your shot too badly.

Once you get basic technique down, then you can work on speed, accuracy, power, or even better technique such as feints. Until then, you fight a seriously uphill battle if you just rely on how fast or strong you are. How many fighters do we see on the field who still swing while their sword is sitting on their shoulders way behind their head, or starting from behind their body? How many fighters drop their shield so low to a feint that it is nearly impossible to recover in time?

Source: http://geddon.org/index.php/Fighting_articles

[Slagar]

Honestly, almost any of it. It looks like your mechanics for power generation are probably pretty decent, but any florentine fighter who keeps their swords in any of the places yours are is gonna get hit a lot. Good Belegarth florentine fighting looks sneakily similar to boxing with swords, plus wrap shots. This looks like ninja noob stuff, and will just get ya killed.

Which is a crying shame, because it also looks cool as hell, and it kinda kills me that real martial arts techniques are so useselss here. Meh. Just kinda how it is, I guess.

[Kenneth]

Many "real" martial arts techniques are going to get you "killed" no matter what fighting style you do. Some branches of martial arts have practical theories, but many are filled with complex, stylized and inefficient techniques.

Perhaps more importantly, many real martial arts techniques fail to take into account what happens if your move "fails". If your super-seiyan spinning roundhouse backfist lands, the other guy is probably going to be hurting. However, if it fails, you're probably going to be the one in for a world of pain. Probably why throwing big haymaker punches from the beginning to the end has fallen out of style.

Unfortunately, the movements shown in the video would fail many modern day combat theories. The angles of attack are limited. The weapons have difficulty traversing the vertical planes. The shots are telegraphed. The set of defensive movements is limited. The arms are easy to "jam" together and prevent effective attacks. Two practical theories I was taught: Putting your arms on top of each other is generally bad. Putting your arms behind you tends to be much less effective than putting your arms in front of you.

Much of it depends on the rules of the "game". The style shown in the video would probably not be very effective against your medieval knight wearing plate and using a large shield. Actually, I suspect most two-sword techniques would not fare very well in the age of spears. In gamer terms, much Pew pew makes florentiners QQ.

Many martial arts styles teach techniques, not theories. True martial arts theories tend to translate pretty well into any form of combat. EX: Don't telegraph your shots. Don't stand in a stupid spot. Put the other guy in a stupid spot. Hit him when he's not looking. Hit him where it counts. If someone is trying to stab you with a knife, pull out your gun and shoot him. Simple. Direct. Efficient.

[Tiercel]

which part?

Pause sixteen seconds in. I can take a shield, a second sword, a jav, or just about any piece of equipment at all, hold it straight out, and have you thoroughly locked up. While I do this, I hack your left side to pieces. This would require neither much skill, nor quick reflexes, nor experience to do. You're putting yourself in a defenseless position. This is just one example.

There is no value in crossing your arm over your torso and "tucking the blade under." You're wide open. Fighting single sword, I'd throw two blue shots to your exposed side, and get out of your strike area before you could get your sword off your shoulder or out from behind your back.

At about 52 seconds in, you show the "continuous swinging." You expose your forearms again and again and again. A Bel fighter wouldn't be intimidated by the swinging. They'd take your arms, since you're offering them so freely.

[Phlebas]

This is where you start with it, and is mainly concerned with the question of "how do I learn to operate with two swords in a way that keeps them both active and prevents me from getting tied up?" Attribute development.

The quote from Kenneth is good, but not exactly what's going on here. If you're going to hit someone, pulling your arm back from where it is in order to hit is a bad idea that invites a counterattack. Moving your body forward while your weapon remains behind (stepping forward while your blade is behind your back) is a bad idea that invites a counterattack. The pulling back I was talking about is concerned with what happens AFTER your attempt to hit. Filipino martial arts has several kinds of strikes. One is with follow-through, lobtik, i.e. you swing, it hits or misses, and you continue through to the other side to chamber for the next swing. The other is a rebound, wootik, where you bounce off and chamber back the way you came from. Full sinawali patterns train your arms to do either and not get in the way of the other hands.

that one where I withdraw my right hand to an overhand position is actually a third type, abaniko, or fan. I didn't get in the video because you can only talk about so much at a time usefully, but it's a right forehand shot, which then flips over and hits again. standard introduction is to hit both sides of the head, but in Belegarth translates to an over the shoulder wrap shot. i don't get to use it much because the more experienced fighters here are taller than me and my wrapping over their shield-side shoulder is tricky, but it's the exact same shot they use. the followup is a looping overhead stab which is more useful to me.

the default behavior of the blades straight back is from stick fighting, to prevent getting your stick grabbed and you getting trapped/strangled with your own stick. but if they go vertical they're effective blocks. Would be more effective if anvilling wasn't an issue, but that just makes it more important to have the return momentum for blocking.

like in boxing, i was taught that if i don't have something touching my chin, i should expect to get knocked out. if both my weapon are out trying to hit, i am about to get hit.

[Todo]

And here I was hoping you'd quietly accept your mistake. Silly, silly me.

Do you think EVERYONE who has posted merely "doesn't see your tricky ninja options"? Because trust me, we do, and we will kill you before you get them out. Like in boxing, if you don't have your hands up. If your swords are not up and available for punchblocking/ dodging and counterattacks, you're gonna die. Your arms are going to get pinned or your non-sword side is gonna get hacked. It's up to you.

[Phlebas]

At no point am I advising standing in fighting range with both arms chambered waiting for action. That is where the drill starts, because beginners need a place to start. Serious dudes roll their eyes at it, because it seems silly, but serious dudes also end up teaching it, because it works. It teaches you how to have an off-hand that isn't stupid and can attack and defend. It teaches you, specifically, how NOT to get trapped and bound up. The issues involved in reaction time, entry tactics, open vs. opening targets, distance, etc, are all interesting, and all factor in, but you start somewhere.

If you're fighting single blue vs. single blue, and you're holding your sword on one side, does that mean you're going to get hit on the other side? Nope, because that sword is gonna come right across and block it. Well, what if you feint an attack to the open side, then go the other way? Well, it might work, unless they counterattack at the start of the feint, or step back and do a compound parry, or just stay because your feint was too fast, or unconvincing, or etc. etc. entire body of combat tactics.

you gotta look and say, what's it for, what works better. there isn't good advice for learning basic two-weapon coordination. Advice i've seen here says do everything with your off-hand, or fight just with your off-hand. Which is alright, but doesn't teach the hands to work together.

[Kyrian]

I've often introduced sinawali variations to fighters when I'm teaching two-weapon combat. However, I've never seen them as being particularly useful in the melee. But, within the context of training, I've found them useful for for developing coordination, flow, rhythm, off-hand skill, as well as incorporating footwork/movement.

[Todo]

So are you advocating this as a training drill or technique? Would you ever stand with your swords like that in a Bel fight?

[Kyrian]

So are you advocating this as a training drill or technique? Would you ever stand with your swords like that in a Bel fight?

Absolutely. For fighting, however, no. I feel it limits the usable angles for the chambered arm; there are only so many attacks and angles you can initiate from there. I personally prefer being able to initiate the same types of attacks from either side. For example, with the arm chambered, I wouldn't be able to do a stab with that arm without some movement indicating my intentions. Plus there's the potential for that weapon getting "stuffed" by an opponent's shield especially if he closes quickly and/or uses aggressive shield techniques. My "normal" stance is my weapons held typically 45-60 degrees to the ground pointing away from me and at different levels so that a single strike or shield technique can't take out both weapons at the same time.

[Todo]

Oh, I know you wouldn't Kyrian. I was talking to Phlebas.

[Phlebas]

Mostly training, but practical applications are pulled out of it in a variety of ways. I wouldn't advocate standing like that in a bel fight, but I'd do it, as much as you ever wanted to be standing in a set position.

it looks like this:


you can, in fact, thrust from a low chamber, with almost no telegraphing. i know i did some today, don't know if I caught any on video. there are stab-only sinawali drills, which are sort of awkward but interesting.

[Slagar]

Please stop posting bad advice in the forum I point everybody at as a teaching resource. Pretty please?

Love and Kisses, Slagar

[Dabbanoth]

A lot of his stuff is surprisingly effective at Belegarth Combat, windows that are left open for shots LOOK to be open for far longer than they are, and close quickly. I'm pretty quick about fighting people's openings and these techniques, when done just right, pretty well keep my offense shut out. In my opinion the most important parts of this style of fighting are keeping your relative height to the other person pretty low, forcing more of their shots to come from a downward angle, having to move around his swords to get to many attack zones, this becomes even more difficult when you take into consideration that the open windows are only open for a second before being covered. It's very sound stuff, and it can be very hard to track where both swords are moving at once, making blocking a real pain. It's an excellent foundation for combos and footwork in particular.

I think it needs to be kept in mind that this video wasn't created to make a Sinawali fighter, this video was made to demonstrate a fundamental martial arts technique focused on combos and reliability, in order to benefit your existing belegarth game.

[Dabbanoth]

P.S. Phlebas' stab technique outshines any Belegarth fighter I've ever fought.

[Phlebas]

Slagar, you do know that in the tutorial page you refer new fighters to, in the florentine section, two of the three written ones advise people to learn sinawali, and the other written one recommends the cross block as the preferred block? and i made this video specifically because all the sinawali links in those tutorials are broken/useless.

[Dane]

Really hate that chambered guard; the bait is way too obvious. If you have to block to the baited side, that's too much ground to cover, too easy to be opened up for just about anything unless you're super quick, and even then, the super quick fighters that get away with that guard use it against opponents they know to be vastly inferior.

Would love more vids to see the style "live" and how it fares against the fighters around you.

[Slagar]

Ok, on the chance I'm wrong and this is really an effective technique/style, I'll keep an open mind. Wouldn't be the first time I've been wrong, or the last.

Go to an event, fight big names. Post video if you can (video cameras are hard to set up at an event, I realize), or W/L ratios in sets of 10, and against who. Show me that what you're doing is making you an effective fighter in our game, tell me you used it and beat Galin, Kenny, Physic, Peter, Bhakdar, Battlechrist, Ruben, Dane, Angel, Elwrath, whoever the top sticks in your area are, 6/10 or better. Show me what it's good for, man. I'd love to see something with the background and heritage of sinawali weaves actually win some fights in our game. But frankly, I don't believe it'll happen.

And for the record, yeah, anything to help you coordinate your off hand into fighting is fine to practice, to train with. I'm not harshing on that. You're advocating actually fighting with it, as your video showed. That's what I'm saying is wrong. Just to be clear.

[Soo Ma Tai]

What people are failing to see and understand is that sinwali is not a technique or fighting style. It is a drill. Sinwali is an intro to stick on stick work. Some are so simple it's rediculous. It starts the person with learning what it feels like to strike stick to stick. They are patterns, they teach coordination. When I started in Dag/Bel, I thought those sinwali exercises were going to be instantly useable. They are not. It's like learning the boxing drill, jab, jab, cross. Sure it might be effective a time or two, but you have to learn what to do with it after that. Arnis fighting techniques are markedly different that what you are seeing there.

[rizo]

A Friend of mine uses this style almost exclusively when florentine.

He tends to absolutley maul people.

however i don't think its instantly applicable. I tried this with some limited success. I think it takes quite a while to get the kind of fan blocking in that you need to keep your arms safe. as well as to be able to keep up the rythm as you go.

ultimatley this stuff derives from phillipino stickfighting, which was notable demonstrated to be effective vs western fencing techniques.

[Slagar]

Whereas a friend of mine uses a style nothing like this, and routinely mauls people. Anecdotes are awesome that way.

And philipino stick-fighting vs. western fencing (which I've studied and practiced in the SCA as a hobby for the last couple years) has limited application to any game where the first hit wins. Both styles tend to require multiple strikes to kill an opponent, which renders any advantages of one over the other fairly moot when applied to our game.

[Torry]

I would say that the theory presented by stick-fighting is extremely valuable to Bel. This is especially true of their concepts of range, flow, and to a lesser extent angles of attack.

The biggest roadblock for most Bel fighters trying to learn from eskrima is that the techniques often have a far different goal in mind than they would in Bel. For example, the "chambered arm" stance is more about guarding the hands, which is a primary target in eskrima. In Bel, your hands aren't a target, so why not put them out away from you to block.

Sinawali drills seem to be decent for getting people to use their off-hand more, which is good. However, the only application I've seen for it on a Bel field is as a distraction. Do some spiffy sinawali flow, but then pop out of it with a shot to an opening.

[Phlebas]

The takeaways from sinawali are things like always being able to hit from multiple angles, rhythm and tempo changes, awareness of opening and closing lines, and being able to manipulate weapons without ever getting tangled or bound (the idea of being able to easily tie up someone trained in kali is ludicrous). If you only see the spinny-flourish version, it's easy to get the wrong idea. With half-beat timing, you get the able to simultaneously monitor low line and high line, as well as simultaneous near-defense (shots coming to the torso) and far-defense/offense (attacking or blocking shots to the arm).

The patterns are 6, 8, 10, even 12 count things. Practical applications are two or three shot extracts from the patterns, put in to proper context. You have to do some application drills to be able to use it effectively.

and as for the chambered guard being too big or whatever...

"Guard position" is a conflation of the topics of distance awareness, proper position to close a line, and framing. Beginners lack all of these skills, and it makes sense to teach them together. Not being aware of the time and distance an attack requires, they need to keep their best possible guard at all time. The small variations between large, medium, and close distance are hard to determine, and vary for each individual. However, as skill increases, gradations need to enter in. There is conflict between readiness and giving the opponent knowledge of your defensive intentions. Ideally, no defense would be presented until the last possible moment, to deny the opponent the ability to react or plan a compound attack. There are many difficulties with this, including reaction time, variable speed attacks, and ability to read the opponents target. Stepping back from that, presenting a guard only as you enter medium distance serves as a framing device, limiting and prompting the opponent's options. Another step down is to maintain a guard in medium distance. Maintaining distance and a set position gives the opponent time to think and evaluate your guard's strengths and weaknesses- whenever possible the distance should be closed immediately or only for chosen windows of opportunity.

[Greydon]

The short time I studied Kali we did something almost exactly the same. It was called "Heaven Sticks" or "Heaven Six" or something like that. It was purely to teach hand coordination and speed. It was in no way a fighting technique. Your swords should be always pointed toward heaven when done correctly and it works quite well for what it is intended for. My instructor was so fast you literally couldn't see the sticks nor distinguish the individual impacts on the target dummy.

[Ramius]

Ideally, no defense would be presented until the last possible moment, to deny the opponent the ability to react or plan a compound attack.

This statement is completely wrong. No one ever tried to build a wall in response to someone firing a catapult. That is an overexaggerated analogy, but the concept remains: Let your opponent fight your defense instead of fighting your opponent's offense.

You then say:

There are many difficulties with this, including reaction time, variable speed attacks, and ability to read the opponents target.

These conditions exist whether your guard is static or hidden, but are easier to counteract when your guard is static; why would you make it more difficult on yourself to stop your opponent from hitting you?

You do make one good point:

Stepping back from that, presenting a guard only as you enter medium distance serves as a framing device, limiting and prompting the opponent's options.

Bolded emphasis mine, because the rest of it is uneeded. Setting a guard limits your opponents options. When setting a guard, yes, there are always weaknesses and openings in that guard for an opponent to attempt to capitalize on. The difference is, its YOUR guard and you ALREADY know what those weaknesses are and should be prepared to challenge those openings. If you limit your opponent to, say, 5 openings with your defense, then you only have to be prepared (realistically) to challenge those openings. But if you leave your guard back, presenting no immediate defense, yo may be giving your opponent 12 openings for which you need to be prepared to challenge at ALL times.

You are basically saying (paraphrasing): Hiding your defensive actions is good because it hides your defensive actions. Which begs the question: Why is that good?

Note: This is not a troll post. This is an invite for open discourse. If I sound snooty, arrogant, or condescending, go back and reread the post with the knowledge that NONE of that is intended. I look forward to all responses.

-Ramius

[Phlebas]

No one ever tried to build a wall in response to someone firing a catapult. That is an over-exaggerated analogy, but the concept remains: Let your opponent fight your defense instead of fighting your opponent's offense.

No one would do that because it would fail. That would be past the last possible moment and solidly into the impossible moments. Consider this corrected analogy: what if the opposing army knew you had a 10 foot wood wall, and built catapults to deal with that, but by the time the army arrived you had a 20 foot stone wall? Or, better, believed that you were disorganized rabble, sent a small force, and discovered upon arrival that you had a well organized garrison with layered defenses?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjLRK3LyuMg

Guard is required for the start of a touch, director says go, guard drops, because it's giving away information. 5 openings is better than 12 openings, but it's even better if your opponent doesn't get to find out which 5 of those 12 they get until they have to attack.

On a even tighter scale, you can sort a parry by timing into three groups: a parry can be early, on time, or late. Parrying early may allow an opponent to change targets, but may succeed. Parrying late, obviously, makes you get hit. So why not parry as early as possible? The sooner an opponent knows an attack has failed, the sooner they begin their next action. OODA loop stuff. If they see a parry before they hit it, that's time they're using to start their next loop. If they expect success up until they hit the parry, that's more time for you, more commitment from them, and usually leaves them closer. There's even more of a reaction time benefit to dodging or making a attack whiff- they get no tactile feedback- but it's much harder to arrange.

[Arrakis]

If an opponent faces me while I'm in no guard, he can see a hundred distinct attacks to throw. I now have the problem of deciding which one I think he's about to throw. Odds: 1/100

If an opponent faces me while I'm in a deep cross bait guard with an outside denial guard on my forward hand, he can see maybe four basic non-retarded shot options (outside chop, inside stab, cross (lol), leg or hip shot) and very few readily available targets (outside forward arm, outside cross arm, cross shoulder, forward leg and hip, centerline (stabs only)). My odds of figuring out where he's going based on his posture, eyes, and arms: 1:10, maybe.

I play the odds.


PS: If you're the fencer/ecrimador that Dagg mentioned, I hear you're a pretty fair two-stick hand. Can you describe your usual stances/guards? Possibly with pictures?

[Phlebas]

My odds of figuring out where he's going based on his posture, eyes, and arms: 1:10, maybe.

I play the odds.

that is probably not an accurate assessment of what you're doing. If that were true, then anybody fighting you could just attack randomly, and succeed 90% of the time. but i doubt that's what happens.

The real basic guard is distance. Playing the odds means balancing between our reaction time and position. in other words, from large distance, if you have to take three steps to hit me, i can have absolutely no guard and still easily block any attack. If you're at close distance and about to hit, i need to be already blocking.

so your brain is calculating the odds, and you are at the distance where you feel your guard position will work. If we moved you a foot away and had you relax your guard some, you'd probably feel okay. If we moved you six inches closer and had you relax your guard, you'd probably feel uncomfortable.

With that distance understanding, you can play with more options. Increase the distance, drop your guard, and your opponent cannot successfully attack. Decrease the distance, bring a guard up, frame the options. This starts the change from a passive defense, where you present a guard and keep the distance stable, allowing the opponent time to evaluate the possible options and choose the time of attack, to an active defense, where your give the opponent an opportunity only at times of your choosing, and create time pressure where they don't have time to look and think, but must act quickly.

From the sinawali perspective, every swing can be a block. so three swings could be three attacks, or a block, check, attack, or feint attack, block, attack, whatever.
So you can make it go and try to get the pattern training to give you the 3:2 action advantage to make a hit.

here's the video of me sparring with Dagg in slo-mo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XHlvLHrGto

the exchange from the :50-1:10 goes something like this.

I'm in a ridiculous total chamber position, but it's cool, because i've got plenty of distance. Dagg starts an attack, i don't want it yet, so i step back, and he stops, seeing that it's got no chance. He starts forward again, i hold my ground, but this time he's hesitating. My first swing does nothing but swing short, but stops his attack. My second swing is for real, so he changes his oncoming attack to stop it. My third swing would've hit shield, so i don't throw it. Next two swings are a block for his followup shot and a shot to his forearm that he catches near his hand.

He's falling back, so i launch a standard hi-lo sinawali attack. 1st swing is high, slows down as a roof block to monitor his weapon. Second swing is low, if he had dropped to attack under the roof it would've come across to catch it, but he's still up high so it hits the leg. His attack is stalled, so the roof speeds up again and hits him in the armpit, then rebounds around behind my back to make another leg shot.

The next exchange, I'm looking to attack his preparation, so i make the distance slightly closer. Closer distance=less reaction time, so instead of a double chamber i take a more forward guard position.

for my more saber fencing oriented stuff, you can see some here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Cyevo5Swc8

[Arrakis]

All you're saying is "If I'm outside of his range, I don't have to be blocking yet". Okay, sure. Though the armpit tap you hit Dagg with there looked very insufficient.

But what I was saying above is not that I have a 1/10 chance of defending, but that I only have to worry about them throwing 10 shots instead of 100.

[Dane]

Yuck.

[Phlebas]

yo, strong summaries, go with that.

armpit shot only got mentioned because it's technically interesting and a high percentage shot for actual lethality, not for belegarth scoring.

[Pierrot_Le_Fou]

All you're saying is "If I'm outside of his range, I don't have to be blocking yet". Okay, sure. Though the armpit tap you hit Dagg with there looked very insufficient.

But what I was saying above is not that I have a 1/10 chance of defending, but that I only have to worry about them throwing 10 shots instead of 100.

The most concise answer is the most correct! My hairy arm pit cannot be insufficiently struck while I am not in the bath! Take that!

[Mikhail]

The Sinawali technique that you use looks fairly effective in some aspects - mostly in that the amount of chained shots and wide angles give you some possibilities to get around guards. You also have the "OMG flailing florentiner!" factor goin' on, which can be intimidating, especially against newer fighters.

I have a couple criticisms/questions, though:
-How well do you function as a team player? Since range is your primary defense, I imagine you'd be at a disadvantage trying to engage as part of a team in any situation where you need to keep up constant pressure (so, any line fight or coordinated flank).
-It seems like the "boxer-stance" (for lack of a better term - the approach Arrakis is pushing) 2-stick setup gives you an economy-of-motion defense and offense, whereas yours looks to be much more energy-intensive. Do you find yourself tiring out quickly? Or do you just really hit the cardio on non-practice days?

[Phlebas]

the difference between safe range and unsafe is, like i said, a variable thing, usually more about inches than feet. Threat generation is sort of a different and complicated topic, but generally speaking, either your opponent takes you seriously and you hold attention, or they do not, and you get opportunities to attack. i have more trouble with teammates understanding what kind of space I can hold than anything else, because I don't have a lot of practice with that kind of communication. Also, I can do the tight guard thing- I have fenced for 16 years and taught for 10, i get it, I can do it, I teach it, and when my students are ready, i start to show them other options.

As for the energy efficiency, short answer is no, i don't tire quickly. The economy-of-motion defense and offense is more about time saved via distance travelled, not saving energy. It's easier to let a baseball bat swing in a full arc than to start it and stop it five inches. The tension involved in maintaining fighting readiness is what tires people out more than anything. Learning to relax and let proper body mechanics do the work is the important thing no matter what the style.

[Blitz.]

Mostly training, but practical applications are pulled out of it in a variety of ways. I wouldn't advocate standing like that in a bel fight, but I'd do it, as much as you ever wanted to be standing in a set position.

it looks like this:


you can, in fact, thrust from a low chamber, with almost no telegraphing. i know i did some today, don't know if I caught any on video. there are stab-only sinawali drills, which are sort of awkward but interesting.

I know this was a thread nerco, but all i saw in this video was a Small sheild, Smaller strikeing surface, and rhino hiding.

Then again, i wasn't fighting and wouldn't know. but it looked like it to me lol.

[Arrakis]

I know this was a thread nerco, but all i saw in this video was a Small sheild, Smaller strikeing surface, and rhino hiding.

Then again, i wasn't fighting and wouldn't know. but it looked like it to me lol.

And this, children, is why we always tell people not to try to video-Herald; it just doesn't work.

[Slagar]

Watching two guys who are obviously close friends fight in some random garage/shop/shed and accusing them of being dirty cheaters isn't productive? *, there goes my day.

Also, a small shield isn't a negative thing. I'll take a round-ish 24" over a barn door any day of the week, happily.

The sword was a tad short. I've lost to guys holding shorter. Look up Sir Tybalt sometime.

[Remdawg Killionaire]

I am a huge fan of short swords and smaller shields. I am far from an amazing fighter, but I noticed a huge change towards the better when I dropped my large round and 36" broad. I tend to use 30" short swords and have a blast; I like to get in super close and think of 'em more as long-knives than short swords. And I can't go back to a large round, I tend to stick to the 24" round when I pick up a shield, rare as that is. My current punch is only 19", and I use it more as a weapon than a static defense-mechanism. Mind you, I'm terrible, but it's still fun.