SWORDDUELING.COM

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.”
Read more…

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.
Read more…

Yin and Yang
Military training is yang, extremely active. The time of impending battle is extreme yin, still and quiet.

When you are extremely calm on the verge of battle, even your facial expression does not change. You don’t fixate on the opponent; you don’t stare the opponent in the face. You don’t advance like crossing a narrow bridge but like walking down an open road.

One whose state of mind appears normal is a yin opponent. This is a superior technique, hard to oppose.

As for yang opponents, one displays rock-crushing force in his facial expression, a second embodies rage, a third tries to stare his opponent down, a fourth storms in and strikes with a loud cry, a fifth moves in and out forcefully. These are called yang opponents. The minds of yang opponents are moving, which makes them vulnerable. Nonetheless, a yin opponent may strategically become yang, so you always have to watch out.
Read more…

George Silver’s Paradoxes of Defense

Brief Instructions upon my Paradoxes of Defence for the true handling of all manner of weapons together with the four grounds and the four governors which governors are left out in my paradoxes without the knowledge of which no man can fight safe.
Cap. I.
The four grounds or principals of that true fight at all manner of weapons are these four, viz. 1. judgment, 2. distance, 3. time, 4. place.

The reason whereof these 4 grounds or principals be the first and chief, are the following, because through judgment, you keep your distance, through distance you take your time, through time you safely win or gain the place of your adversary, the place being won or gained you have time safely either to strike, thrust, ward, close, grip, slip or go back, in which time your enemy is disappointed to hurt you, or to defend himself, by reason that he has lost his place, the reason that he has lost his true place is by the length of time through the numbering of his feet, to which he is out of necessity driven to that will be agent.

The 4 governors are those that follow

1. The first governor is judgment which is to know when your adversary can reach you, and when not, and when you can do the like to him, and to know by the goodness or badness of his lying, what he can do, and when and how he can perform it.

2. The second governor is measure. Measure is the better to know how to make your space true to defend yourself, or to offend your enemy.

3. 4. The third and forth governors are a twofold mind when you press in on your enemy, for as you have a mind to go forward, so must you have at that instant a mind to fly backward upon any action that shall be offered or done by your adversary.

This guy has a whole series on Youtube (aka Shaolin Temple v.3030)