Armoured Sparring at Winterkamp

[@KyleThrush]

Are you studying any particular source for sword and armor?

[@VirtualFechtschule]

I tend to work a bit with sources that fall in line with longsword and messer sources I study. That's mostly the pieces of Liegnitzer from the Jude Lew manuscript. The switch between regular fighting and halfsword is mostly based on Lecküchner.

[@TheSwArtan]

4:03 nice ligadura mezzana to control your opponent's weapon arm, and great video over all!

[@IllustriousCrocoduck]

As someone who has never had a chance to wear non-modern armor, I am genuinely impressed that you don't seem to injure each other stabbing between plates in all these videos. Or when I see a video of two knights going at it with their daggers, stabbing (apparently) wildly... It amazes me that nobody loses an eye (that I know of!). Are your underlayers that good? Is it the sharpness of the points? What am I missing, as a layman? Well done, all around.

[@sirxarounthefrenchy7773]

The swords are blunts, and the tips are thickened (sometime called spatulated)

[@IllustriousCrocoduck]

@@sirxarounthefrenchy7773 and that's enough to work? It just seems surprising

[@chanalan7670]

@@IllustriousCrocoduck The blade were designed to flex, which also help

[@IllustriousCrocoduck]

@@chanalan7670 thanks for chiming in!

[@VirtualFechtschule]

Basically, we can go hardest with HEMA gear under the armour, as that is pretty stab proof. The swords are also flexible, meaning a thrust in a weak point doesn't hurt. Finally, thrusting in the gloves only works if you're super controlled and accurate, but if so you can totally make these work safely.

[@hohetannen4703]

so very cool!

[@jasonjames9836]

Fun stuff! The partial armor is something I would really like to see more of in HEMA. It is definitely interesting and acts as a gateway drug to full harness ;) Is that a Malleus Todesco longsword that you are using? If so, how is it holding up to armored combat?

[@VirtualFechtschule]

It is! And I feel it does really well in armoured fighting. It's stiff enough on the strong to make sense, but will bend a bit in the last third to make a thrust a bit more gentle. :)

[@ВячеславФролов-д7я]

It's interesting to see how duel fencing techniques are different from ones that are used in fights with a lot of people participating. You seem to use a lot of half-swording/short poleaxe techniques while in massive fights they are almost never done. Shortening your weapon and stepping in front of your line is basically a death sentence, because you gain attention from multiple enemies at once. P.s. considering your thoughts about the lack of feet armor in a lansknecht kit: from my experience, leg hits happen much more often in a duel fencing, than in massed line fights. Lowering your weapon in order to hit/stab a leg is an invitation to get hit by a nearby halberd

[@VirtualFechtschule]

Yeah, that makes sense. Is this based on Bohurt experience? In such fights I suspect halfsword is pretty pointless (hehehe), but regardless I can totally see your argument about not shortening your weapon in a line as well. I would suspect more primary weapons like polearms as well to begin with? As for your second observation: With swords I find leg bits feasible, but even in a 1v1 against halberds, the same thing you describe happens. You can do a cheeky snipe to a foot maybe, but you can only do that as long as you also set up a parry to the inevitable counterattack to your face. :P

[@ВячеславФролов-д7я]

@@VirtualFechtschule I've done bouhurts, but I don't really enjoy them. My main experience comes from "duel-like" massed fights we also have. It's like bouhurts but you only have to hit/stab your opponent determined amount of times to "kill" him (usually 3 times), or knock him out/make him fall any other way. These fights are done with normal, metal weapons and descent amount of historical armor for safety reasons. I find them being more tactical and having much more fencing techniques than traditional bouhurts. About weapons: yeah, polearms are popular and very effective, as well as large shields. Usually it's close to 50/50 split between these two. Long, two-handed swords, like zweichender, are also very effective, albeit, in some specific roles and circumstances. Considering leg hits: the main problem is, you may fool your opponent enough to make a leg hit, but usually his teammate with a polearm will get a free revenge on you. Leg hits are done mostly with polearms, using a technique when (at this technical point my english becomes lacking, sorry for that) your shaft remains above your head, and you stab your opponent from the top. This way you still have some protection against top hits

[@VirtualFechtschule]

@@ВячеславФролов-д7я Oh, that sounds super cool! If the local scene gets a few more people, we'll probably start doing things like that as well. I really enjoy group fight without armour, but we're just a little bit too few people to do it in armour right now. Definitely for the future! :) And yeah, as for leg hits I meant with polearms indeed. You need to be really cheeky to pull of those foot snipes and be prepared to parry.

[@TheVanguardFighter]

it seems like using the sword in one hand is just as if not more effective than using the half sword.

[@andyedwards9222]

Interesting to watch techniques in practice (instead of just training).

[@saphyrepyre]

Do you know anywhere I can buy equipment for stuff like this? I want to do buhurt, but don’t want to get scammed

[@VirtualFechtschule]

Good idea to ask around first. I would mostly be able to point you to people who make armour that is perhaps not optimised for Buhurt, so I would advise you to find someone with a bit more knowledge about buhurt. Regardless, I would always first find a group to train and fight with, and from there you'd probably get some good recommendations. :)

[@saphyrepyre]

@@VirtualFechtschule thanks!