SWORDDUELING.COM

We’ve covered the Miao Dao, or sprout saber, on this site before, but I found these great pictures of the first form over at The Ground Never Misses:

I think seeing it “frame by frame” in these drawings really helps you understand what’s important in the form.
If you want to see it all put together, here are a couple of different renditions from YouTube:

This movie is awesome. Ben Hurt Chariot Wars, Bike Limbo, Bike Bowling, Cupcake Challenge. Excellence.

Mu Ryu’s own Solid Gold shows his battle prowess taking on a pack his fellow Zoobombers. If he only had a saber.

WATCH IN HD HERE: http://vimeo.com/9715534
Mini Bike Winter | 2010
A yearly 2 day bicycling event full of F.U.N., activities, partying, and biking brought to you by Zoobomb in Portland. Mini Bike Winter is the staple of crazy bicycling entertainment which keeps everyone warm with laughter and…well, beer. It’s an open invite event and free to all.

zoobomb.net
www.richietphoto.com
Shot/Cut by Richie Thomassen
Additional Camera Op – Molly Spock
Additional Footage – Hal Bergman

Gao style Bagua in Taiwan. Check the footwork, timing, and strategy. Usually planning a couple of moves ahead.

I found this site via the previous post. Here are a bunch of instructional videos on the broadsword from the Cateran Society in Portland, Maine.

Nineteenth-century Highland broadsword master Thomas Mathewson wrote:

It is the cultivation of this art that unfetters the body, strengthens it and makes it upright; it is it that gives a becoming deportment and an easy carriage, activity and agility, grace and dignity;- it is it that opportunely awes petulance, softens and polishes savageness and rudeness, and animates a proper confidence; it is it which in teaching us to conquer ourselves, that we may be able to conquer others, imprints respect, and gives true valour, good nature and politeness; in fine, which makes a man fit for society.

From another sword-blog – Otake-shihan on Freeplay, here is the post –

I just found a great quote I wanted to share with anyone reading this blog. You’ve all read things I’ve written about Otake Risuke, the current Shihan of Tenshinsho-dan Katori Shinto-ryu. This ryu is the oldest extant Japanese martial arts school and is listed as an ‘intangible cultural asset’; it comes from the days when bushi fought for real. Otake-shihan is considered a living national treasure of Japan and is the only one who holds a full license (gokui kaiden) in the art. In my opinion he is the greatest swordsman of any system living today. This quote can be found in its entirety here: http://www.cateransociety.com/Joseki.htm:

“Kata is still the teaching method in the classical Japanese sword arts precisely because it preserves the essence of the art’s history—the art as it was understood by those who created it. Some schools, such as the Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto Ryu … pride themselves on the fact that they have never used any type of free sparring in their practice.

{Otake-shihan said:} “(I)t is said that a shiai, or competitive contest, is synonymous with shiniai, which means ‘to meet for the sake of death.’ That is another way of saying that any kind of combat is a serious matter of life and death. As a result, from then until now, competitive matches have been forbidden in Katori Shinto Ryu…”

Otake-shihan then went on to say that, in sparring, “the vital responsibility and danger of handling a real weapon is replaced by the mental approach of the game-player with a toy weapon.”

Game players with toy weapons. Perfect. Real swordsmen don’t do freeplay.

I just want to give an open challenge to anyone who takes this attitude. You are wrong. Find me a two swordsmen – one who has sparred countless times against countless people using shinai or the like (along with doing whatever else they want) versus somebody who has only trained themselves to react to predetermined stimuli with predetermined responses with a small group of fellows who even know the kata they are using.

All the great swordsmen sing a pretty constant refrain that the quality they win with is essentially a mind in satori leading to unconstrained action perfect for the moment that is here and now.

As a note, I have nothing against kata. Additionally, I recognize that a fight with steel swords means one must overcome and ignore the fear of death and that is a whole other matter. Nevertheless, if you haven’t tasted the realistic chaos of sparring and tried to apply your kata in that context, you are missing something important.

[p.s. I just read the original article the post quotes and it is good and goes into length about how although Asian arts are inclined to kata and Western to free-sparring, both do both, and both are worthwhile]

Oh me or my (& re last post)… why couldn’t somebody just man up and do this?

From 2002

Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan Taha Yasin Ramadan al-Jizrawi Ramadan made the following remarks without giving any outward sign he was joking, although reporters who were present detected a note of irony in his voice.

“Bush wants to attack the whole (of) Iraq, the army and the infrastructure,” Ramadan said.

“The American president should specify a group, and we will specify a group and choose neutral ground, with Kofi Annan as referee, and use one weapon, with a president against a president, a vice president against a vice president, and a minister against a minister in a duel. In this way we are saving the American and the Iraqi people.”

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/dueling.html
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/10/03/iraq.bush.duel/

Back in the day, kings led charges and Alexander the Great was the first over the wall. Our modern commanders’ only sword is their pen and the only blood they risk is strangers’.