ANGELO'S Solo Drill - with various Swords [HEMA]

[@jasonallen332]

Good angel to see the drill: clear and easy to follow. Really appreciate this...thank you!

[@limogesalexandre]

Awesome, just as your mustache! Keep up the good work

[@historyandsabre]

Thanks for the compliment, I'll try! :)

[@2eme_voltigeur652]

Very nice video! Nice to see you even brought out the Dutch used 1796 lc for a spin ;).

[@historyandsabre]

Thanks mate! Oh, and sure, it's the most period accurate antique I have for the system! ;)

[@jeffhreid]

This is excellent. I will definitely take on this regimen and look for the poster for reference. Thanks for the video

[@swordsmen8856]

awesome

[@historyandsabre]

Cheers!

[@jasonjames9836]

This is the first demo of Angelo’s solo sequence that I have seen. Very nice 👍. It appears that the greater the curvature of your blade, the closer you would need to be o land your cut without over-flexing your wrist, to a level that could be harmful. Your basket hilted straight blades looked like they would work best in this form, in my opinion. What do you think? Which felt best in the hand during the flow of the exercise?

[@historyandsabre]

Thanks! Yep true, curvature always decreases reach, which in turn means that you have to get closer to your opponent. I have been training with a strongly curved sabres 95% of the time until recently and I'm only getting into training with basket hilts more now, so I'm used to more mass in the blade. That being said, the basket hilts have so much mass directly where the hand is that rotational cuts are so much easier and quicker despite the higher total mass of the weapon. Recovery is also much quicker. What you said about overstretching the wrist could be recified by adapting it into a flow drill where you really cut from the wrist and recover to guard immediately each time.

[@blackwhite5078]

@@historyandsabre I totally agree with what both of you have said, yet out of experience I found out that slightly shifts in the foot work would compensate when using curved blades in general. 😇🙏

[@historyandsabre]

@@blackwhite5078 Sure, it's always good to adapt your footwork to the situation!

[@warlord2pfa]

Good stuff! My background is in Filipino martial arts but i must say that European saber has been drawing my attention alot lately.

[@historyandsabre]

Cool to hear, feel free to comment with any questions you might have!

[@kleinjahr]

Looking particularly Flash, man.

[@historyandsabre]

Cheers :D

[@ericbleimeister973]

great! thanks. where did you get that red fencing jacket?

[@historyandsabre]

You're welcome! It's the SPES Officer Jacket, you can search my channel and others for a review.

[@July__Frost]

Awesome, as usual. There are not much good demostrations of Angelo's drill at youtube now, so, I hope we will get more of this content. Mr. Taylor 10 lessons, m.b.? Also, I always confused by half circle. Have you ever tried it in sparring? As for me it is not well suited for heavy swords, cause it's pretty easy to lose a weapon, cause your wrist is ... crooked? Can't find proper word)

[@historyandsabre]

Thank you, I can definitely imagine doing more stuff like this :) I don't know if you've seen it but I have a video on the Half Circle Guard on the channel already, maybe that helps! Now of course the Half Circle Guard doesn't come up *all the time* in sparring but I have definitely used it successfully on several occasions and it is very useful to practise its intended scenario, namely the parry of cuts 3 and 5 when your opponent disengaged from inside guard. If you'd like to see more on that, I have a video planned on techniques from the Half Circle Guard. I'm going to film that as soon as partnered training is possible again.

[@July__Frost]

@@historyandsabre I missed that video somehow, thank you! I will go and check it. But it is pretty interested thing to discuss, so I will be also patiently waiting your next video about it. I have a feeling now, that half circle is more suited for lighter swords, like smallswords or spadroons, so I will be glad to hear your thoughts about it.

[@historyandsabre]

@@July__Frost Yes, the HC is easier and safer to perform with lighter swords, no doubt. In my experience, it *can* work with the sabre and broadsword, although the spadroon or a light infantry sabre are generally better suited.

[@lostanklav503]

Great video, thanks. It is clearly seen that the exercise is easier with the training sword. Where did the intro go? I'm used to the video starting with her.

[@historyandsabre]

Hi, yeah you're right I guess! Regarding the intro, I'm looking for another piece of music due to potential copyright issues with the first one and I didn't wanna stop making videos just because of that. Some kind if intro will certainly be coming back in one form or another! :)

[@KnjazNazrath]

This guy must be a Prodigy fan, 'cause he really knows how to breathe.

[@historyandsabre]

Haha, good one!

[@FedericoMalagutti]

Cool video :-)

[@historyandsabre]

Thank you! :)

[@nylemonday8630]

May I ask if you have any recommendations regarding practice weapon? I would prefer either infantry sword or cavalry sabre, rather than a broadsword, and since I am practicing alone, I think I'd prefer a steel blade. What do you typically use?

[@historyandsabre]

Sure, always happy to help. I would recommend an intantry sabre for exercises like this. For solo training, modern synthetics are *almost* as good as steel in my opinion but the decision is ultimately yours and personally I prefer steel. For synthetics, look at Blackfencer (1796 infantry and 1803 models). These are available as steel version from them aswell. I don't know which system you're training from but if it's Angelo/Roworth check out the Academy of Historical Fencing channel. You'll find all about these training swords there.

[@wlewisiii]

Good Morning. At 1:23 during the slow with commands section, you show the initial guard position to be the hanging guard where my reading of the 4th edition made me expect the middle guard which, while not an especially good guard, is easy to go to either inside or outside guard from as the situation develops. What was your thinking in using the hanging guard here? Thanks! I really love this video, it's very helpful as I work the drill with my Frontier Tang Dao.

[@historyandsabre]

Hi again! That's a good question because you're right that Roworth's 4th Ed. just says "Guard" and doesn't specify which one. That's where Angelo's poster (which I'm showing at the beginning of this video) comes in handy as it cleary depicts a seconde hanging guard. You can find the poster on the AHF's resources page, I believe I linked it in the video description. The poster is also quite valuable for figuring out some of the details from the Ten Lessons and comparing the different versions of them. Thanks for the support, cheers!

[@wlewisiii]

@@historyandsabre I do have a jpg of the poster so I see it there. I may try working with it just to see how they both feel from a working perspective. Thanks!

[@TheZerech]

Have you read the works of Gustav Hergsell?

[@historyandsabre]

Hi, yeah I'm somewhat familiar with Hergsell. Are you the person who asked about him on Reddit by any chance?

[@TotalCook]

Hello Peter, really enjoy your channel! I wanted to ask you, is the infantry sabre that you use here a model of Tylko szable? Because if it is, i'm considering buying a sabre from him (WZ17 with the style of hilt that you have) and i'd be interested in your impressions on it as a training weapon (handling,durability,balance,flex).

[@historyandsabre]

Hi, thanks a lot, glad you like the channel! I answered a similar question recently, so I hope you'll forgive that I'm just copy-pasting part of my thoughts on the Tylko (Bloss) sabre: It's and older model from 2018 by Bloss in Poland. The blade is by Tylko and the grip was redone by Swordsmithy in the Czech Republic. I still love the blade but the hilt assembly is rather weak. The guard is mild steel and very thin aswell, so it's in relatively bad shape now. There were very few other options back then but now there is no reason to go with something like that. I'll be replacing it with a Kvetun slot hilt or a Blackfencer 1796 Infantry steel trainer. Probably both over time. My main issue for what we train is the grip length, it's way too long on this one. Again, the blade is actually pretty good quality-wise and feels even better but the entire assembly is not what I'm looking for now that there's better options readily available. Hope it helps!

[@TotalCook]

@@historyandsabre Thanks for the answer! Tylko makes the models himself now, he also has a full guard version of this model, plus a beautiful hussar sabre for HEMA. I'm between the first two because of the finger protection, compared to the hussar...and they are priced very competitively. I guess i will do some more research :)

[@sergireig]

What do you use as “infatry sabre”?

[@historyandsabre]

It's a light sabre from Bloss in Poland that they made three years ago. I didn't like the grip at all and had Swordsmithy in the Czech Republic make me a new one. It's on it's last legs now and I'm going to replace it fairly soon.

[@sergireig]

@@historyandsabre interesting. Self-adapted blades are usually the funniest ;)

[@historyandsabre]

@@sergireig Yeah, it's been my main training sword for the last three years. Perfect for Napoleonic era sabre fencing at 740g. Lovely thing but it's pretty beaten up now.

[@jurajkovacik4822]

well, how just a shape itself of the weapon you hold reflects and influences the way you are making your posture-when you had a straight sword you had the posture more "official", technicall, as if from a book from late middle ages...then with more curved sabre, as if you became more "alive", more "passionate" in your posture....it occurres to me that maybe even this (as with curved blades of sabres) the kozaks or similar more temperament nations prefered sabre from swords...but of course, there were more important reasons , I know...

[@shaneshackleford6960]

So a western kata

[@historyandsabre]

I admit I had to look that up but yeah, pretty much!

[@magnusjohansson295]

I hate curved swords! They just don't look good or right to me. The more curved, the more I hate 'em. Nuff said. Thanks for the video.

[@historyandsabre]

That's perfectly fine of course but I can relate so little personally, it's bizarre haha!