Philosophy of WMA masters?

[Eric C]

Hi all,
Last night I watched a show on the History Channel about the Shogun Miyamoto Musashi. He wrote "The Book of Five Rings," which I think I'll track down an English version if it exists and read it.

But that show got me thinking. Are there any books by masters of WMA that teach their philosophy of combat and not just a manual on how to use a particular weapon? I'm interested for personal growth as well as for creative writing purposes.

[mcapanelli]

Well a short answer is yes. The fight books contain their philosophy on more then just how to use a weapon. If you read the translated text that precedes the plates and their descriptions you'll get a good idea of their personal philosophy as well. As for "The Book Of Five Rings" There is an English translations. In fact there's several.

http://www.amazon.com/Book-Five-Rings-C ... 0517415283

http://www.google.com/products/catalog? ... ps-sellers

and best of all, free...........................

http://www.feedbooks.com/book/3953.pdf

Enjoy!

[Eric C]

Thanks Mike. I'll be checking out those links probably tomorrow when I get home from work. I gotta wait for things to settle down some here after today's events. I'll be discussing that over at the Inn.

[Pwyll]

My personal favorite in that vein is George Silver's Paradoxes of Defense. But there are many good ones.

[E.MacKermak]

Several books more oriented to WMA are "The Sword in Two Hands" by Brian Price and "Secrets of the German Longsword" by Christian Tobler. Brian's book is based on Fiorre's Italian school of combat, and Christian's is based on Lichtenaur/Ringeck German style. Both are pretty good and start with the basic longsword (hand-and-a-half).

[Eric C]

Great! When I financially recover from the break-in, I'll have to get my hands on some of those books. I think I'll post over in the Ranger's library thread to see if any of you know about anything dealing with the dirk, unarmed combat etc. You may have already answered that one though, so I'll check it out and see. Arik Estus sent me some videos of a couple of guys working out with a dirk and unarmed some time back. He doesn't post here often. I think I'll tap him for some resources too.

[mcapanelli]

Careful though, if your looking for philosophy you won't find it in either book. Those books, while great, are instructional in nature and are geared towards physically learning the art. If you want to view the plates and read original authors thoughts then you'd be better of getting ARTE GLADIATORIA or In Service of the Duke, both available from Chivalry Bookshelf. While the other books are must haves as far as learning the art, they really won't give you much insight as to the personal philosophy of the original authors.

[E.MacKermak]

True, they are a bit more about practice, though Brian Price goes a bit into Fiore's philosophy as well.

[Greg]

While we're discussing literature, does anyone know of a good work on Sword and Dagger? Even if it's Rapier and Main Gauche, I'm having trouble finding anything on two blades in two hands. Thoughts?

On an unrelated but on-topic note, found a fun PDF today detailing a timeline of Western Martial arts. Fun to look through!

http://www.wmaillustrated.com/assets/Pe ... _v.3.1.pdf

[mcapanelli]

While we're discussing literature, does anyone know of a good work on Sword and Dagger? Even if it's Rapier and Main Gauche, I'm having trouble finding anything on two blades in two hands. Thoughts?

On an unrelated but on-topic note, found a fun PDF today detailing a timeline of Western Martial arts. Fun to look through!

http://www.wmaillustrated.com/assets/Pe ... _v.3.1.pdf

Pick up "The True Fight Of George Silver" by Stephen Hand. If your using a type XII of XIV it'll be a bit of an anachronism yet Mr Silver wrote his work for the cut and thrust sword so the techniques will work great. I have first hand experience using that book and a type XII/ dagger combo and it was tactically sound.

[Greg]

Mine's a bit closer to a Type XIV, though I'm not sure what exactly it really falls under, as I think the blade's a bit shorter than the "ideal" XIV, and the handle's got an extra half a hand's worth of space in there that isn't entirely common in the XIV. All the same, I'll make it work. Thanks for the title! *crosses fingers that they have a copy at the local library*

[Greg]

On the subject of WMA philosophies, David and I were working through Talhoffer's fetbuch on the Dagger, and something hit me like a ton of bricks. I've seen another form of martial arts demonstrate several aspects of Talhoffer's dagger defense/offense, which helps make it all abundantly clear. For those of you who haven't spent any time working through/reading any of Talhoffer's dagger work, it's all about either deflecting their blade to the outside with either your dagger hand or offhand, binding their dagger so that it is useless, or disarming them entirely. The most important aspect of the entire program, really, is gaining control of their dagger hand.

In essence, "Wrist Control."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2REG3-Wb5gM

It all makes sense now!

[Oissene]

In reply to your post about the philosphy of the sword, I would highly reccommend " The Martial Artist's Book of Five Rings " ..it is Musashi's book translated and written by Stephen F. Kaufman , Tuttle Publishing.
I also like J.Clements book " Medieval Swordsmanship '.
Both of these talk more to the philosphy of swordsmanship than others that I have read or used.