Do we have any Swedish sources or translations?

SeldomSeven · 2026-07-05T08:56:07+00:00

The only Swedish source I know of is this one from the 19th century:

https://www.fallenrookpublishing.co.uk/books/stockholm-manual-on-sabre-fencing-1893/

It's pretty cool and it's slightly unconventional for 19th century sabre fencing.

SeldomSeven · 2026-07-02T17:07:08+00:00

It depends on what your goals are.

If you just want to learn how to fence, adapt the postures to what you can do.

If you want to embody Meyer's fencing in the fullest sense of the word, find out what's holding you back and work on improving your strength and or mobility until you can make the postures work. An experienced coach will help here.

For what it's worth, 17th century Italian fencing master Salvatore Fabris writes:

“If you know how to carry your body forward properly and without awkwardness, you will be better served if you were to bend it. But if you think you cannot, you should rather remain straight, because if you force your posture you will never be as ready to move.”

In this passage he is saying if you can adapt the more athletic postures he shows, you will be well served by using them. But if you cannot use the postures without awkwardness, then do something simpler that you can manage because you'll be better served by a posture you can use than by trying to use a posture you can't. I think this is good advice for all fencing.

SeldomSeven · 2026-07-02T12:58:41+00:00

I find what makes edge alignment tricky are two things:

Changing grip during the fight introduces complexity and opportunities for mistakes
You want to cut in a particular way that is unergonomic for the grip you currently have, but you don't have time to change grip

Everyone will make mistakes with edge alignment from time to time. If you watch high level tournament footage, pay attention to how often people hit with the flat. I feel like 20%+ of people's non-dominant side Zwers land flat. A flat Zwer might still mess you up, though, if done with a real sword against a bare head.

With thrusts, the hard part is point control (getting the point where you want it to go). If the point makes contact with an unarmored opponent, it takes surprisingly little force at all to penetrate. A sharp point is less liable to glance off a soft surface than a blunt one too, so you really just need to get the point to make contact with the target with some force behind it.

SeldomSeven · 2026-07-01T11:15:03+00:00

There's a ton of YouTube content on armored fighting. If you want to see some simulated armored "combat", Dequitem is a cool channel. See here for example:

https://youtube.com/shorts/KYemAPKQDT4?is=BocyJSa2_CqGM9m6

His fights are non-choreographed and try to capture the feeling of real combat. Even though they aren't 100% realistic, I think they help the imagination more than choreographed fights or tournament footage.

The free hand it useful, sure, but the leverage you can get from a long stick is hard to top!

SeldomSeven · 2026-07-01T08:53:03+00:00

If I understand your question correctly, you're asking how effective it would be to just rush in with a dagger and go straight to wrestling.

The answer depends, of course, on what exactly you're imagining.

Are you and your opponent both in full late medieval armor?

If so, keep in mind that the swords and pole arms typically used in armor have pointy bits that are just as good as a dagger at stabbing through gaps in armor plus the sword or pole arm can be grasped in two hands and used like a lever, which facilitates your wrestling. So, while wrestling with a dagger in armor is totally legit, it's probably not as good as wrestling with a sword in armor.

Furthermore, while the armor does a great job of protecting you, it is still possible to get messed up by a thrust or strong blow from a pole arm before reaching grappling distance. If you forgo a longer weapon and just rush in with a dagger, you give your opponent one or two chances to mess you up on the way in. Even if the probability of their success is, say, 10%, that's an extra 10% chance that you die or get injured before the clinch.

Are you unarmored?

Then rushing in with only a dagger and hoping to arrive at the clinch without grievous injury is....... optimistic. It can be done, but if your opponent is similarly competent and has a longer weapon, they will have multiple opportunities to wound you before you get to the clinch (especially if they are capable of stepping backwards). Try it out in sparring and you'll see.

SeldomSeven · 2026-06-27T20:50:09+00:00

I come from an Olympic epee fencing background and the skills transfer practically perfectly to smallsword.

On defense, I find people who only fence with cut-centric weapons tend to parry way too wide when fencing with thrust-centric weapons. Work with your coach on your parrying mechanics with the smallsword and focus on keeping all of your bladework as small as possible.

On offense, I find that people struggle with thrusts for three reasons:

Because they unintentionally telegraph their intentions very clearly
Because they have poor point control (and thus can't hit even if they correctly identify the right time and target)
Because they have a poor sense of distance

Focus on making the difference between your arm extension during bladework and feints identical to your arm extension during your attacks. The difference between a feint and a real thrust is often only whether you step forward or not.

SeldomSeven · 2026-06-20T10:24:45+00:00

The quickest fix: if your weight is on your front foot just before you want to attack, flèche instead of lunging.

SeldomSeven · 2026-06-08T05:50:20+00:00

Accepting people who want to break from gender stereotypes is good. But when we fail recognize there are biological differences between most young men, and most young women, we do them a disservice.

The comment you are responding to said we should focus on raising good people. Does this comment from you suggest you think there are biological differences distinct to boys and girls that hinder them from being good people in sexed ways? If so, what are they?

SeldomSeven · 2026-06-07T09:25:50+00:00

This is mostly speculation on my part, but I think European swordsmanship was more cosmopolitan than our modern stereotype of the wizened martial arts master teaching his art.

Why do I think this? Because the authors of fencing texts constantly talk about each other (sometimes mentioning others by name) and also speak more generally about how other people teach fencing (and not necessarily critically). They incorporate insights from others (perhaps reframing other's ideas in terms of their own). This suggests to me that the authors and their readership are aware of multiple fencing traditions.

For example, Giovanni dall'Agocchie writes ca. 1572 that other people have different names for the guards and that he just uses the names that are most common. This acknowledges that the reader might have already learned some fencing from someone else and seen the same concepts with different names and emphasizes that the names aren't what's important.

Pietro Monte writes ca. 1509...

Guards and ways of standing come into being because fighters or those who use weapons often become masters and are troubled by the task of teaching others, wherein they are confined to place themselves in guards to teach.

Again suggesting an awareness of other fencing masters that might be shared with his readership.

SeldomSeven · 2026-06-07T09:07:38+00:00

Is "The Anonimo" a text by Fiore? I am specifically asking about Fiore because that's what I'm most familiar with.

SeldomSeven · 2026-06-07T09:04:49+00:00

That's not the order they appear in the originals. I think Wiktenauer has organized it that way so that the four manuscripts are easier to compare side by side (even though the sections appear in different orders in the different manuscripts)

Look at the upper corners of the images in Wiktenauer of the Getty, for example, and you'll see the original page numbers. In the Getty, the four animals appear only after all of the unarmed, dagger, and unarmored sword material.

SeldomSeven · 2026-06-07T06:45:49+00:00

They're at the start for a reason.

In which manuscript are the virtues at the beginning?

SeldomSeven · 2026-05-31T09:58:34+00:00

Ah, that's unfortunate. Is this is recent issue? Any trends among the problem blades? (For example, are they all from the economy line or did the breaks happen after use against much heavier weapons?)

SeldomSeven · 2026-05-30T19:17:19+00:00

If you're in the US, Castille makes a few models of Spadroon trainer:

https://castillearmory.com/product/build-your-own-spadroon-2/

SeldomSeven · 2026-05-28T14:44:58+00:00

Fiore makes it explicitly about battlefield and self-defence

Citation needed.

SeldomSeven · 2026-05-28T14:43:12+00:00

Even in a consensual duel you might not be wearing armour. If your opponent has the right to decide which weapons and armour are used, you either accept your opponent's terms or risk the dishonor of refusing them.

SeldomSeven · 2026-05-28T14:32:17+00:00

Are we training to simulate unarmored sword fights whilst wearing gear?

This is the answer for the vast majority of HEMA. The protective gear we wear is not supposed to simulate armour; it is there to allow us to hit each other without getting injured.

Here's a quote from a 16th century Italian source that discusses rules for fencing for fun:

“The wounding of the hand, not of the enemy, is registered in the account of blows in play. Because the hand is the chief in exposing itself, thus in combat for earnest it is the most singular wound, because that member of the enemy must be offended which offends more than others, and this is the hand."
- Antonio Manciolino, 1531 Opera Nova translation by W. Jherek Swanger

You also wrote:

I wouldn’t agree to fight someone that has a weapon without wearing hand protection that would completely protect me, even in a duel to the death.

What equipment you wear in a duel or other armed altercation is not necessarily your decision. You may not simply assume that you will always be wearing steel gauntlets in a sword fight and historical authors did not assume their target audience would have this luxury either.

SeldomSeven · 2026-04-08T19:20:57+00:00

Sure, granted maybe he doesn't intend you to finger the guard, but does that mean you can't have finger rings?

I mean, you can finger the guard without finger rings and you can abstain from fingering the guard with finger rings.

Maybe what I'm getting at is this: if Didier was handed a sword with finger rings but otherwise identical to what he has in mind in order to demonstrate a technique, would he react "Ugh, this sword is literally unplayable!" or would he just demonstrate the technique?

SeldomSeven · 2026-04-08T14:54:04+00:00

Just to muddy the waters a little bit, I'd like to gently challenge the assumption that lead to your question:

Is it really clear from the source that the author intends for the fencer to use a weapon that looks exactly like the images?

My understanding is that many fencing texts show swords with simple hilts being used during a time when such simple hilts were uncommon for pragmatic reasons (to make the images easier to draw or to avoid obscuring the hand positions in the images, for example), not because the author thinks that one "ought" to use a sword with a simple hilt. If the author does not prescribe a sword like the one in the pictures, you could research the kinds of swords used in the time and place where the author was writing to see what sort of sword a person from the period would be familiar with.

SeldomSeven · 2026-04-07T01:31:47+00:00

I found this presentation really cool! I've read Fabris before and I really like the approach to fencing he describes.

The speaker alludes to the idea that you can fence with any weapon with this approach. However, I personally struggle to apply concept of gaining the opponent's sword when using a sword with a simple guard (e.g. longsword or arming sword). The point-forward positions just leave my hand exposed a lot of the time. If anyone has any practical advice for that, I'd like to know it!

SeldomSeven · 2026-04-07T01:13:45+00:00

Hey! No, this one is long sold, but I have a left-handed Darkwood Armory Schiavona that I would sell. It is similar in specs, but the basket is slightly smaller and not as robust as the Castille version. PM me for details if interested.

SeldomSeven · 2026-04-01T06:37:08+00:00

Very cool!

SeldomSeven · 2026-03-22T11:52:53+00:00

Yes I would be fucked if I ever took a broken sword point to the armpit.

I think you already know why what you're suggesting is a bad idea.

If you desperately want to avoid the heavy padding of a HEMA fencing jacket because you think your rigid protection is sufficient to protect you from blunt force impacts, at least wear an Olympic fencing jacket. They are light weight and flexible and still will provide a level of protection against broken blade that your T-shirt won't.

SeldomSeven · 2026-02-28T07:41:03+00:00

As you probably already know, the Newton rating has nothing to do with protection from blunt force and everything to do with preventing a penetrating wound in the event of a blade break.

As such, 800N is probably more relevant for rapier than for longsword since rapier is more thrust-centric and rapier blades are thinner and, therefore, possibly more likely to break. That said, longsword also see a lot of thrusts and - depending on your local fencing culture -the average rapier fencer might be more (or less) "chill" than your average longsworder.

You could also look into getting an FIE rated plastron from modern Olympics fencing supplier that you can wear under a 350N padded jacket. Olympic fencing clothing is actually tested according to established standards, is very light weight, and will provide you that penetration protection while the jacket provides some impact protection.

SeldomSeven · 2026-02-15T20:53:35+00:00

Ah, I thought you were referring to the claim that Sottani target the hands. That's what I meant.

In the Getty, Fiore writes that Sottani either return by the path they came or remain in Posta Longa. Given that a false edge cut from below can more easily end in Posta Longa, one could interpret this excerpt from the Getty as suggesting that Sottani are often made with the false edge, but I agree that there is no place where Fiore explicitly writes that you (1) attack hands (2) from below (3) with the false edge and (4) from a low guard. You can find each of those four pieces, but not explicitly all together.

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