Outside of American dojos or mist-shrouded temples of the orient where the spirituality-infused tradition of oriental martial arts is passed on, the combat techniques and martial arts traditions commonly used throughout Europe for hundreds of years have largely been lost.
In recent years a number of groups have turned to a relatively scarce number of surviving manuals and, through study of those manuals and diligent practice, have made an effort to recreate the combat arts that existed in Europe (and many parts of the Mideast) for the centuries before firearms turned the sword into primarily a civilian weapon. Before the advent of such groups, however, our view of such combat was shaped largely by filmmakers, who had no concern with historicity, and every concern with visual impact.
The result has been and still is sequences of sword dueling that, however exciting they may be to watch, are not bounded by any biomechanical or practical reality in either technique or length of encounter. This is true even though such scenes have gotten far more sophisticated, having moved beyond the simple strike-edge-to-edge-parry-disengage-and-repeat sequence of old swashbuckling films.
The intent was far more driven: keep from getting killed and if possible, kill your opponent. Which meant the action that followed the intent was far more explosive and intense--and by extrapolation, short-lived. Assuming that skill, weapon-quality, and armor-quality are equal between two combatants, a simple mistake or miscalculation was all that was necessary to the end the encounter. To see just how quickly this could happen, watch the short video below. Please note that this particular discussion pertains to opponents wielding swords. Sword-and-shield techniques are different, as are the techniques for knives, bludgeoning weapons, and polearms.
ARMA Longsword techniques
Additional techniques (ARMA)
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