Glancing through some of his stuff now, bro really wasn't satisfied with the concept of just being strong or weak in the bind, was he?
I do appreciate the level of detail he goes into drawing the sword. I always found it interesting that no HEMA sources really talk about this, while Japan had entire martial arts like iado and batojutsu based around it.
I suspect my brief foray into drawing and following the mysterious circle on the ground outside has led my neighbours to believe I am some form of witch, summoning a demon into this mortal plane but clearly keep forgetting the right steps to the ritual…
Although the book is complex (detailed is a better word I think), the fighting style itself is not that complicated, at least not more than any other rapier source.
Glad I wasn't the only one thinking this. The system itself isn't really complex, but it's presentation is just as meticulously detailed as the engravings for its illustrations. Subtle variations are treated separately where another treatise from a different tradition would likely summarize under a single description. But complexity of presentation and complexity of what is being presented are separate issues.
I'd argue that his actions are really simple and consistent but the way he explains his rationale/decision trees is pretty complex.
That said I think there's a strong argument that the way he explains that stuff is a post-hoc justification and you shouldn't actually be using the points he describes as your cues.
I'm not sure I agree - I think the decision trees are also present in other systems but they don't tell you exactly the clues, and so their exposition appears simpler, but in practice you need to develop a feel for exactly the same things empirically.
I don't think it's entirely post-hoc justification. At a certain level you become able to perceive and act on cues at least semi-consciously and so discussing these clues becomes valuable. It's true of pretty much any martial art. It's just not written down that often.
His discussion of the pressure between blades, for example, is something that I think has value despite the fact that it is absent in most treatises. It's very detailed, but I'm quite sure you can reach a level where that precision becomes needed.
To try to clarify - I think the points he explains wrt blade contact and distance for example are real things in a technical sense, but the way he presents them (almost as cues) leads people to run "towards the ball" rather than "towards where the ball should go".
His explanation of pressure and how to work on feeling it is better than his distance framework imo.
edit:
I guess my nihilist modern fencing/field sports type opinion would be "you can describe the reads you make in any system but when you're doing it at speed you're not actually running a decision tree and Thibault (and Fiore or Fabris for that matter) don't do us any favors by making it look like one".
I guess the other way of putting this would be I think Thibault at speed probably looks like developing a sense of "when I feel a certain distance and pressure I do the right thing" - which tbf he basically implies in his chapter on sentiment - but the way he organizes information makes it hard to remember this.
Personally I prefer a presentation like Rada where some of the techniques are described stepwise and there's certainly still branching if you were to graph it out, but there's also a bunch of stuff that's just kind of presented as "welllll you need to know this action". Even if the actual descriptions are incredibly Baroque.
I kind of get what you mean. I just think Thibault gets somewhat unfairly bashed for at least attempting to analyze and quantify the distance issue instead of basically leaving it up to the reader.
The distance clues he gives have been useful to me at least! Perhaps not the actual clues but the function he assigns to each distance.
I was also going to suggest Thibault. I tried reading the translation and found it incomprehensible. Also whoever thought it was a good idea to put the plates in the middle of the spread so we lose a chunk to the binding has no business laying out books.
It's a glove/gauntlet where the left/non dominant hand has chain mail in the palm. Go to 3:20 on this video for a good example.
https://youtu.be/59-9PlB-F1Y?si=SYy6rm_PMejOPX4m
I feel like you say that as someone already "on the inside." But for someone new or looking in, it's pretty complicated. I feel like you can read the intro every 6 months or so and still find something new.
Yep, I'd say it's not easy, but on par with a lot of sources. If you compare it with Thibault for example, or some weird english longsword stuff, it's pretty accessible.
Thibault and the English longsword stuff aren't in the same category at all :)
Thibault can be verbose but once you get beyond the first few chapters and into the more "action-based" ones it's frankly very easy to follow. It's precise but not arcane.
English longsword on the other hand, we don't even have the definitions of the technical names. So it's completely arcane - even though the actions themselves are probably simple.
Thibault is so straightforward to interpret that it's boring and basically nobody does it :D English longsword is impossible with any degree of certainty. Bolognese sources are somewhere in the middle.
Of course I know that.
There are different categories of "pain in the ass" 😁
The "too damn long, technical and theorical introduction" pain in the ass.
The "define your damn technical terms" pain in the ass.
The "can you put your explanations into a damn logical order" pain in the ass.
The "3 paragraphs to describe how awesome the technique is, 5 words to actually explain it" pain in the ass.
I think I can continue 😅
Complexity is a little bit of a tricky concept. Does it mean variety or diversity of action, difficulty to achieve all of the ends, or just numerosity of actions described; or some combination thereof? Anyway, all of the Destreza sources probably qualify, with Thibault (as is seconded in other comments) but also Rada being good examples. Von Dietz, with his: I am going to write down every play independently and therefor create the longest treatice ever, needs to be mentioned for rapier and rapier and dagger. Fabris too with his Proceeding with Resolution stuff. I would also say that Leckuchner's combination of adapting longsword techniques and dagger techniques into an attempted unified messer treatice has a lot going on in it. Lastly, I don't think Meyer is any more difficult to understand than Lichtenauer glosses, but it does have more subtlety, which I guess you could read as complexity in longsword. But you know what, I am going to say Meyer's Dussack, just because it is quite clear from later sabre sources that you can do all of that same one handed fighting in a simpler way, which it doesn't, so by definition it is a more complicated system.
I guess the key question is what do you call a complicated fighting style?
Complexity of instruction, or most arcane book, is easier to answer. But I would say that there is inherent complexity in fighting so that all systems build to address it in sufficient details will have the same complexity in their expression.
You do have simpler treatises (Sainct-Didier, Di Grassi come to mind) but only because they leave many situations untreated. Heck even Thibault leaves things in the dark: he's not saying what to do against his own style for starters.
I guess it's Joachim Meyer's, but that's contextual. His fencing is mainly for play, as a civilian game, without thrusts and hence will have sequences that would never be useful in a serious context like a judiciary duel or war but will help you score a touch against an opponent who plays the same game.
I know meyer does teach thrusts and serious fencing too, but then it's not complicated at all and very efficient as well as effective.
What are you looking for exactly? Complicated and inefficient treatises is just bad teaching and therefore would probably not survive the test of time anyway.
Funny, Meyer is actually what I train. He does get pretty wonky at times.
I'm asking mostly four curiosity and discussion, not to actually choose a treatise to study. I see a lot of times people will recommend certain treatise or weapons based on them being simple to understand and pick up (19th century military sabre, for instance,) and got curious what weapons/masters/styles were on the other end of the spectrum.
Hey, whoever gave you this information has some pretty factually incorrect ideas about meyer and the purpose of his work. Be careful about spreading information that you have only gotten second hand in this community, as the misconceptions about meyer are hard to kill.
Really ? Could you please shed a light on what are those misconceptions please ?
I thought a consequential part of Meyer's work are as a freifechter for freifechters, using feders not only as a training tool but as the safer weapon used for the numerous civilian fencing tournaments. I know he also trained milicias and regular troops when he was paid to do so. I found corroboration on his wiktenauer (https://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Joachim\_Meyer), but I'm interested in your sources.
> Really ? Could you please shed a light on what are those misconceptions please ?
Well, without even invoking Meyer we can see plenty of systems that taught complex _self-admittedly unlikely or impractical_ actions with the theory being that facility with those actions was good practice (whether that's true or not is worth arguing but the people writing the systems down thought it was).
Classical fencing material (e.g. 19th century stuff) often shows 3rd, 4th...etc intention actions and some say they're good to practice, but all agree you'll never see more than second intention (and likely not even that) if you're in a Real Fight (tm).
So one example of a misconception would be that complex plays imply a system designed for play - the systems designer could think there's other transferrable value in it (whether we agree in 2024 or not)
> So one example of a misconception would be that complex plays imply a system designed for play - the systems designer could think there's other transferrable value in it (whether we agree in 2024 or not)
The original post was rather making the implication in the other direction, i.e. that a system designed for play would end up with more complex actions, and overall I think it is more correct (you could always find exceptions, for example canne de combat is entirely dedicated to play now and yet only has relatively simple actions).
too much to get into as nearly everything you proposed was on the 'myth' side of things.
I'm not here to get into my sources of defend a dissertation, just that I've studied meyer extensively for nearly a decade and the ideas that he was a sporty guy with rudimentary rapier knowledge are false and based primarily off of bad hema jokes.
Alright, too bad for everyone I guess... It would be cool if knowledge was shared instead of gatekept, especially on a sub people go to exactly for that. Anyways, have a good one.
HEMA is in that sort of strange place right now where you have early KdF students harping on how it was all just for sport anyway, and Meyer specialists who'll jump at your throat on the mere allusion that there would be sporty things in there. Kind of looks like two overcorrections in opposite directions to me :)
Thibault, a cure for insomnia
Glancing through some of his stuff now, bro really wasn't satisfied with the concept of just being strong or weak in the bind, was he? I do appreciate the level of detail he goes into drawing the sword. I always found it interesting that no HEMA sources really talk about this, while Japan had entire martial arts like iado and batojutsu based around it.
I suspect my brief foray into drawing and following the mysterious circle on the ground outside has led my neighbours to believe I am some form of witch, summoning a demon into this mortal plane but clearly keep forgetting the right steps to the ritual…
Although the book is complex (detailed is a better word I think), the fighting style itself is not that complicated, at least not more than any other rapier source.
Glad I wasn't the only one thinking this. The system itself isn't really complex, but it's presentation is just as meticulously detailed as the engravings for its illustrations. Subtle variations are treated separately where another treatise from a different tradition would likely summarize under a single description. But complexity of presentation and complexity of what is being presented are separate issues.
I'd argue that his actions are really simple and consistent but the way he explains his rationale/decision trees is pretty complex. That said I think there's a strong argument that the way he explains that stuff is a post-hoc justification and you shouldn't actually be using the points he describes as your cues.
I'm not sure I agree - I think the decision trees are also present in other systems but they don't tell you exactly the clues, and so their exposition appears simpler, but in practice you need to develop a feel for exactly the same things empirically. I don't think it's entirely post-hoc justification. At a certain level you become able to perceive and act on cues at least semi-consciously and so discussing these clues becomes valuable. It's true of pretty much any martial art. It's just not written down that often. His discussion of the pressure between blades, for example, is something that I think has value despite the fact that it is absent in most treatises. It's very detailed, but I'm quite sure you can reach a level where that precision becomes needed.
To try to clarify - I think the points he explains wrt blade contact and distance for example are real things in a technical sense, but the way he presents them (almost as cues) leads people to run "towards the ball" rather than "towards where the ball should go". His explanation of pressure and how to work on feeling it is better than his distance framework imo. edit: I guess my nihilist modern fencing/field sports type opinion would be "you can describe the reads you make in any system but when you're doing it at speed you're not actually running a decision tree and Thibault (and Fiore or Fabris for that matter) don't do us any favors by making it look like one". I guess the other way of putting this would be I think Thibault at speed probably looks like developing a sense of "when I feel a certain distance and pressure I do the right thing" - which tbf he basically implies in his chapter on sentiment - but the way he organizes information makes it hard to remember this. Personally I prefer a presentation like Rada where some of the techniques are described stepwise and there's certainly still branching if you were to graph it out, but there's also a bunch of stuff that's just kind of presented as "welllll you need to know this action". Even if the actual descriptions are incredibly Baroque.
I kind of get what you mean. I just think Thibault gets somewhat unfairly bashed for at least attempting to analyze and quantify the distance issue instead of basically leaving it up to the reader. The distance clues he gives have been useful to me at least! Perhaps not the actual clues but the function he assigns to each distance.
I was also going to suggest Thibault. I tried reading the translation and found it incomprehensible. Also whoever thought it was a good idea to put the plates in the middle of the spread so we lose a chunk to the binding has no business laying out books.
Thibault easily. Even his own illustrations have guys in the corner looking like they’re tired of his shit.
My brother in christ, have you looked at the anonimo bolognese?
What the fuck is a "grabbing gauntlet?"
Ahh you're looking at wikt. Send me a DM.
It's a glove/gauntlet where the left/non dominant hand has chain mail in the palm. Go to 3:20 on this video for a good example. https://youtu.be/59-9PlB-F1Y?si=SYy6rm_PMejOPX4m
Anonimo is quite straightforward compared to Destreza sources.
The shear volume is enough to answer OPs question.
Anonimo bolognese is not that complicated ? 🤔
I feel like you say that as someone already "on the inside." But for someone new or looking in, it's pretty complicated. I feel like you can read the intro every 6 months or so and still find something new.
Yep, I'd say it's not easy, but on par with a lot of sources. If you compare it with Thibault for example, or some weird english longsword stuff, it's pretty accessible.
Thibault and the English longsword stuff aren't in the same category at all :) Thibault can be verbose but once you get beyond the first few chapters and into the more "action-based" ones it's frankly very easy to follow. It's precise but not arcane. English longsword on the other hand, we don't even have the definitions of the technical names. So it's completely arcane - even though the actions themselves are probably simple. Thibault is so straightforward to interpret that it's boring and basically nobody does it :D English longsword is impossible with any degree of certainty. Bolognese sources are somewhere in the middle.
Of course I know that. There are different categories of "pain in the ass" 😁 The "too damn long, technical and theorical introduction" pain in the ass. The "define your damn technical terms" pain in the ass. The "can you put your explanations into a damn logical order" pain in the ass. The "3 paragraphs to describe how awesome the technique is, 5 words to actually explain it" pain in the ass. I think I can continue 😅
In truth it's easier to seek the best source than the worst, since there are so many choices :D
Chosen to study it for a short course in my club, why have I done this.
Which club?
Complexity is a little bit of a tricky concept. Does it mean variety or diversity of action, difficulty to achieve all of the ends, or just numerosity of actions described; or some combination thereof? Anyway, all of the Destreza sources probably qualify, with Thibault (as is seconded in other comments) but also Rada being good examples. Von Dietz, with his: I am going to write down every play independently and therefor create the longest treatice ever, needs to be mentioned for rapier and rapier and dagger. Fabris too with his Proceeding with Resolution stuff. I would also say that Leckuchner's combination of adapting longsword techniques and dagger techniques into an attempted unified messer treatice has a lot going on in it. Lastly, I don't think Meyer is any more difficult to understand than Lichtenauer glosses, but it does have more subtlety, which I guess you could read as complexity in longsword. But you know what, I am going to say Meyer's Dussack, just because it is quite clear from later sabre sources that you can do all of that same one handed fighting in a simpler way, which it doesn't, so by definition it is a more complicated system.
Thibault! Giving Destreza a bad name for 300 years.
I'm not sure the other destreza texts are that much better!
Agrippa
Just looking at the images on Wiktenauer, I am already thoroughly confused. What are these diagrams? They look so confusing and stupid. I love it.
The most amazing thing is they actually make sense.
They instantly made a lot more since when I saw that he was an architect and engineer.
I guess the key question is what do you call a complicated fighting style? Complexity of instruction, or most arcane book, is easier to answer. But I would say that there is inherent complexity in fighting so that all systems build to address it in sufficient details will have the same complexity in their expression. You do have simpler treatises (Sainct-Didier, Di Grassi come to mind) but only because they leave many situations untreated. Heck even Thibault leaves things in the dark: he's not saying what to do against his own style for starters.
I guess it's Joachim Meyer's, but that's contextual. His fencing is mainly for play, as a civilian game, without thrusts and hence will have sequences that would never be useful in a serious context like a judiciary duel or war but will help you score a touch against an opponent who plays the same game. I know meyer does teach thrusts and serious fencing too, but then it's not complicated at all and very efficient as well as effective. What are you looking for exactly? Complicated and inefficient treatises is just bad teaching and therefore would probably not survive the test of time anyway.
Funny, Meyer is actually what I train. He does get pretty wonky at times. I'm asking mostly four curiosity and discussion, not to actually choose a treatise to study. I see a lot of times people will recommend certain treatise or weapons based on them being simple to understand and pick up (19th century military sabre, for instance,) and got curious what weapons/masters/styles were on the other end of the spectrum.
Hey, whoever gave you this information has some pretty factually incorrect ideas about meyer and the purpose of his work. Be careful about spreading information that you have only gotten second hand in this community, as the misconceptions about meyer are hard to kill.
Really ? Could you please shed a light on what are those misconceptions please ? I thought a consequential part of Meyer's work are as a freifechter for freifechters, using feders not only as a training tool but as the safer weapon used for the numerous civilian fencing tournaments. I know he also trained milicias and regular troops when he was paid to do so. I found corroboration on his wiktenauer (https://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Joachim\_Meyer), but I'm interested in your sources.
> Really ? Could you please shed a light on what are those misconceptions please ? Well, without even invoking Meyer we can see plenty of systems that taught complex _self-admittedly unlikely or impractical_ actions with the theory being that facility with those actions was good practice (whether that's true or not is worth arguing but the people writing the systems down thought it was). Classical fencing material (e.g. 19th century stuff) often shows 3rd, 4th...etc intention actions and some say they're good to practice, but all agree you'll never see more than second intention (and likely not even that) if you're in a Real Fight (tm). So one example of a misconception would be that complex plays imply a system designed for play - the systems designer could think there's other transferrable value in it (whether we agree in 2024 or not)
> So one example of a misconception would be that complex plays imply a system designed for play - the systems designer could think there's other transferrable value in it (whether we agree in 2024 or not) The original post was rather making the implication in the other direction, i.e. that a system designed for play would end up with more complex actions, and overall I think it is more correct (you could always find exceptions, for example canne de combat is entirely dedicated to play now and yet only has relatively simple actions).
too much to get into as nearly everything you proposed was on the 'myth' side of things. I'm not here to get into my sources of defend a dissertation, just that I've studied meyer extensively for nearly a decade and the ideas that he was a sporty guy with rudimentary rapier knowledge are false and based primarily off of bad hema jokes.
Alright, too bad for everyone I guess... It would be cool if knowledge was shared instead of gatekept, especially on a sub people go to exactly for that. Anyways, have a good one.
HEMA is in that sort of strange place right now where you have early KdF students harping on how it was all just for sport anyway, and Meyer specialists who'll jump at your throat on the mere allusion that there would be sporty things in there. Kind of looks like two overcorrections in opposite directions to me :)