No Hope

[fbhjr]

We’ve been trying to bring back the small sword techniques we looked into 10 years ago and then didn’t practice and forgot.

One of the issues is my wife and I had experience with different small sword techniques.

I took, very few, lessons on French style mostly from Liancour’s, book back when I was a teenager. A few afternoons in the parking lot of an airforce base almost 50 years ago have stuck with me and it is still my favorite sword.

Where as my wife studied Hope, a Scottish sword master who studied the French and found it wanting so came up with his own techniques.

This is a problem when I’m reading from Liancour’s book and say "Now raise your sword up and deflect my sword with the base of your blade" and my wife says "That’s stupid, I know how to block a better way!" "Yes, but this isn’t Hope…"

That is one of the problems of trying to do specific sword styles from a specific time. Sometimes there are ways to counter things that just haven’t been come across yet, so don’t apply to those techniques.

I used to have this problem with the longsword when I was first learning it 20+ years ago.
"Shouldn’t I just stab them if they do that?" I’d ask.
"Well, in the 1400’s, yes. But we’re doing 1570 long sword when that was considered ungentlemanly."
Of course the same author has a bit later in the book that says "if you need to, just stab them and you’ll win". So, there is some range of acceptability.

I’ve ordered a new copy of the Hope book. Maybe we can do both.

If we’re going to add Scottish small sword, I should order McBane too. He’s got some as well. Even if he has more about drinking in Aberdeen…

Going through these thing has made me realize that in many of the sword sequences I have chosen to demo over the last couple of decades, there is a variation of the same move.

One of the people is very aggressive and tries to knock the other person’s weapon out of the way and hit them. The second person makes use of their aggressiveness and does something to get out of the way and counter attack.

I hadn’t realized how often I use a version of that in our shows.
Sword & buckler
Falchion
Longsword (Italian and German)
Small sword

Of the sequences we use in our show I developed, the only one without a variation of it is the dusack, and I think that is the nature of that blade.
We do other things in the show, but I wasn’t the one who developed them.

350 years of sword instruction and I pick the same fundamental method out of all of them and put them into our show.
Clearly that trick speaks to me.
I just hadn’t realized how loudly.

Comments

[palusbuteo]

Is it possible to create a sequence/fight where it's Liancourt vs Hope?

I'm thinking something similar to Silver where he has "what to do when you come across one of those damn Italian rapiers that's killing my students"

and thinking more about it, I guess you've been doing some similar things with say Vadi ("knock the spear out of his hands. you then know what to do"), even the Benetti's Defence with an Oar.

although there are some inherent problems, as I'm sure some of Liancourt's moves and parries would end up opening you to a nasty injury our counterattack from Hope, vice versa, etc. And may not make for a good fight sequence.

Sort of like taking bits from Ringeck and trying to use it against Meyer, feels like apples vs oranges.
but as you said, sometimes, Meyer says things like "stab him to piss him off because it's unsportsmanlike" or "screw it, just grab his arms and twist him into a fun pretzel shape, that'll show him"

[fbhjr]

If we get through Liancour & Hope we could possibly mix them as you say.
Hope did specifically come up with things that were “improvements” to the French system, so if there are specific examples, sure.
But, we’ve got to go through the book again. I know I haven’t read it in a couple of decades.

[palusbuteo]

aah ok

[taz_39]

Fascinating!

Especially fascinating, the concept of risking your life in a controlled manner lol.
Being able to presume that the other person is a gentleman and therefore will likely NOT stab you in the gut, given the opportunity, because that would be uncouth. Wild.

[fbhjr]

Some of the ones in the 1400’s are very brutal.
“Cut their arm off with your sword and when the look down at it, cut them in the head”.

But, when you get into the late 1500’s and 1600’s there seem to be more agreed upon rules.
However, it is almost never stated in the books. Occasionally there is a “we don’t do that anymore”, but rarely is a why given.

And, even these 1600’s and 1700’s swords that many folks say “oh, by then they were more jewelry than weapons” are the same ones that people started fighting duels with guns instead of them as guns were less deadly. Too often with the “jewelry” both people died…

[fbhjr]

For reference, if you're interested, the older manual I spoke of:
https://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Hans_Talhoffer#/media/File:Cod.icon._394a_115v.jpg

[taz_39]

Cool, thanks! Interesting stuff! The poor people who had to read this before possibly facing their deaths haha :/

[fbhjr]

Yeah. This one comes before the printing press, so there weren’t many and they were all hand copied. (This author has 4 we know of.)
It is suspected, but can’t be proven, that if you hired him to teach you what you needed to know for an upcoming duel, he might make a book like this to leave you as a sort of cliff notes for what he taught you.
So, possibly, he went over this with you as a “don’t let this happen to you!” kind of thing.
At least that’s one theory as to why he, and others, wrote the book at this time…