SWORDDUELING.COM

Oh hell yes.  Somebody uploaded Yang Jwing-Ming’s entire Shaolin Chin-Na video to YouTube, one technique at a time:

Muscle grabbing Chin Na hurts just to watch:

Presumably Dr. Yang has crazy grip strength from all the White Crane conditioning exercises he’s done.  In his book, he mentions that you need to be considerably more skilled than your opponent in order to use any Chin Na effectively.  If you’re evenly matched, it’s better just to hit them — “In such a situation, to show mercy to your opponent is to be cruel to yourself.”

The whole collection: http://www.youtube.com/user/ApocalypseJournal

This was a bonus feature on the Reclaiming the Blade DVD, which was somewhat hokey but interesting enough to be worth a library view. Basically it was half about swords in the cinema and half about the resurgence of interest in Western martial arts.

Anyways, I thought this was interesting conceptually.

The “Case” of Two Swords
from School of the Sword

The use of two swords simultaneously has always attracted interest. It is a difficult and interesting style to interpret and has oft been misunderstood. Often the term “case of rapiers” is used, this appears to come from Giacomo DiGrassi’s “True Arte of Defence” (London 1594), however it needs to be borne in mind that this is an anglicised version of the original 1570 text and the translator (the enigmatic I.G) has simply substituted the more fashionable word “rapier” for  spada in the original text (it should also be noted that the illustrations in the original Italian edition are somewhat superior).

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.

Over 100 duels, 13 with steel swords. He served on the battlefield 37 times without receiving any injuries more serious than minor arrow wounds. The number of men he is recounted as defeating number 212.

Re his Technique, the Hitotsu-Tachi – One Stroke Then Death
“A sword can be divided into three spheres. The first is time of the heavens; the second is the advantage of the earth; the third is combination of the earth and the heaens. This is the secret of hitotsu-tachi.”

Re the Hitotsu-Tachi (this advice makes no sense to me except that one should mind the ma/distance and just avoid strokes like the “moon in the water” instead of blocking so that one can attack at that moment.
“…a swordsman must first position himself directly opposite his opponent’s sword. He can place his sword either aloft before him or at his side; the only essential point is that he must look unprotected, provoking the opponent to a conventional attack. If the opponent’s sword is more than one inch away from his body, the swordsman should not parry his attack. When the sword is only a half inch away, however, the swordsman should take one step forward and slay his opponent. The essential factor is the ability to distinguish the narrow margin which separates and inch from a half inch. Because man is my nature a coward, he will almost always try to dodge an attacking sword. He may be able to resist a space of an inch but half an inch indubitably causes a response. Since your opponent expects a defensive posture. A dodge at even one inch, your lightning fast attack takes him completely off guard. The attack at this final point entails that after deal the hitotsu-tachi the swordsman must touch his opponent’s body.” – Masaki Masahide (1727)

Here is a story about the preliminaries to a duel that is very interesting due to the psychological manipulation involved.

Bokuden was once challenged to a dul with steel swords by a swordsman who wielded two swords so skillfully that he had never lost a match. Before accepting the challenge Bokuden amassed every shred of informnation that was available about his opponent. He sent a letter objecting to his opponent’s style saying that wielding a swrod skillfully with the left hand as well as with the right was unfair. Since this thinking was totally illogical and unreasonable, the challenger become angry and sent back a letter saying, “If you think my using a sword with my left hand is unfair, renounce the match.” Before accepting the challenge, Bokuden sent another ten letters on the same subject to hisopponent. By the day of the duel, the challenger was firmly convinced that his left hand would strike the victorious blow. Assured that Bokuden would be paying strict attention to the second sword, the challenger stepped up to the famous swordsman. But in a flash, Bokuden slashed the opponent’s arm and the duel was over.

Two other googlable stories about Bokuden involve being saved by monkeys & Bokuden on the ferry.

He has a book of 98 poems called Bokuden Hyakushu and if anybody knows where to get it in English or even in Japanese, I’d like to know.

Resolve
Normally it is fundamental for people to focus exclusively on social norms, but when the time comes it is impossible to gain victory unless you abandon thoughts drawn by lords, parents, wives, and children, forgetting yourself with the attitude that there is no rival facing you and no public behind you.

Of course, the training of resolve must begin with not being afraid of powerful opponents. For example, when you’re surrounded by blazing fire, there’s no way out; to summon resolve at such a time, you think you can’t get out so you might as well die trying to cross the fire. When you leap over that blazing fire, there’s one chance in a thousand you’ll make it out. If you face a powerful opponent like this, you realize that even if you won’t be able to inflict the slightest cut, it would not be an act of courage to stretch out your neck to be beheaded. Even if he is a master, if you determine that you’ll at least cut off one of his arms even if you get your head cut off, in the spirit of leaping over a raging fire even if you die in the attempt, you will not easily be defeated no matter how powerful your enemy is.

Once when a servant of a certain master of the One Sword school was summoned by another distinguished personage, toward whom he’d committed a discourtesy, the sword master called his servant to him and said, “You were discourteous to so-and-so, and now he’s asked me to turn you over to him. I’m sorry, but I have no choice but to send you to him. No doubt my sword and you can go away if you kill me. Otherwise he’ll kill you.”

The servant said, “What can someone like me, with no skill at all, do to a famous person like you, master? Please excuse me.”

The master said, “I’ve never faced someone who’s gone berserk before. It’ll serve as a test. So since you’re a dead man anyway, I’m taking you on as an opponent for a test. Fight with all your might!”

The servant said, “Well, then, I’ll have to take you on.” Then when they dueled, the master unexpectedly retreated and was ultimately driven back to a wall. When he saw he was in danger, he shouted and cut his servant down in one fell swoop.

Turning to his disciples, who were watching, he said, “Well, now-going berserk is scary stuff! You shouldn’t do things like this for no good reason. If even a menial without skills is like this, how much the more so someone with first-class training-if he were to fight berserk, no one could stand up to him.”

The disciples asked, “When you were pressed, were you really pressed, or were you feigning retreat?”

The master said, “I was really pressed. His blade was sharp, and I backed up without planning to.”

The disciples also asked, “When you shouted and cut him down, did you kill him because there was an opening?”

The master said, ‘There was no opening whatsoever, but the kill was subtle.”
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Four Attacks
The four attacks are the direct attack, the counterattack, the changed attack, and the strategic attack.

In our school, a direct attack means when you face off with an opponent you strike him before he strikes you. A counterattack is when you deflect your opponent’s attack and follow up by striking. It’s called counterattack because you counter your opponent’s sword blow.

A changed attack is when you have attacked with a direct strike, your opponent counterattacks you, and you strike from a different angle. A strategic attack is a tactical strike at an opponent.

A direct attack may work even without expertise, but a counterattack won’t work without a considerable degree of skill and mental calm. Strategic attack is a maneuver of the resourceful.

The reason a direct attack may work even without expertise is that while victory and defeat depend on the level of training, the ease of using direct attack is that you strike first regardless of the opponent. Counterattack requires you to apply the technique on seeing the opponent’s striking sword, so you can’t do it if you’re inexperienced. As for a changed attack, since you launch it after you fail to land a blow and your opponent counterattacks, you can’t do it successfully until you’ve attained mastery.

Five Technicians
In our school the term five technicians means there are five types of martial artists, the aggressive, the clever, the technical, the calm, and the masterful.

The aggressive are those who come at opponents ferociously with overwhelming force, their minds so intent as to blast through rock.The clever mainly use their wits to strike opponents strategically. The technical are those who concentrate on winning by means of the techniques their teachers have passed on, plus the techniques they have worked out themselves. The calm concentrate on watching for an opening in an opponent’s defense to strike. The masterful overcome people with the subtlety of the imperturbable mind.

Being aggressive means excessive yang, facing opponents with stone-shattering force. Warfare focuses on yin. Yang is moving, yin is still. Stillness should be the focus in warfare. When yang, the mind moves; when your mind moves, you cannot win.

The clever figure out opponents strategically with their wits because they are ignorant of the principles of victory and the techniques of winning. There are these clever ones even among the inexperienced, and also among the highly skilled, but not among the masterful.

The technical are so called because they try to win with technique. The technical are better in a way than the aggressive and the clever, because the techniques taught in the various schools are all techniques for winning. To employ the techniques taught by your teacher is the basic idea of training; using techniques you’ve devised yourself on top of that is knowledge.

Of course, it is hard to win by virtue of technique while you’re still inexperienced. So to think the techniques transmitted by a teacher are useless is a sign of insufficient training. There are a lot of people who abandon techniques transmitted by teachers to rely on their wits, but as long as you are adequately trained, the techniques transmitted by a teacher are usable. These technicians can ultimately become highly skilled and even attain mastery.

Those who watch for opponents’ openings to strike are called calm because they are technicians who have arrived at the state where the mind is quiet. To gain victory on seeing an opening in an opponent is for the skilled, impossible when inexperienced. With experience, a technician can become calm.

People who win by the subtlety of the imperturbable mind are called masterful because they have reached the ultimate attainment. A master is a technician with an imperturbable mind.

One who attains calm can become a master. While the aggressive and the clever cannot reach the state of mastery, if they realize this principle, the aggressive reform their excess and the clever realize that wits don’t reach the principle of technique, so they shift their focus to technique and calmness. Then they can eventually reach the state of the supreme way.

As for the strategic attack of the clever, it’s all right to strike strategically on occasion while concentrating on technique and calmness, but when technique and calmness are in order, you realize you don’t need strategic attack and don’t rely on it.

The excess of the aggressive is the beginning of the loss of life. One should be wary of this. But even aggressiveness is a different matter if the aggressiveness is strategic while the inner mind is still and silent. This is something done by the highly skilled among the clever.
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