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palusbuteo, my wife and I were doing the historical sword show
at the Higgins museum on summer afternoon. As was often the case when the
weather was good, there were very few people watching us inside the museum.
There was a family of 4 there and the boy with them seemed very unhappy
with our show.
When we finished he came up to us.
“You’re doing it wrong,” he said. “You’re supposed to go leg-leg-head.”
“We were following the instructions from a sword manual from 430 years
ago,” I told him. “Maybe your way works for something else, but we were
trying to show how they did it back then.”
“It’s wrong,” he said and pointed to his dad. “Tell them, dad.”
The father came over to us.
“What you showed was all very good,” the father said. “But, it just
wouldn’t be effective. We fight with the SCA, so we know what works. What
my son told you is really the best method.”
“I’m sure your methods work for what you do,” I said. “But, we’re demoing
how the masters wrote their instructions.”
“That’s fine,” he said. “But, it isn’t what you would do in a fight.”
“Meyer certainly seemed to think it would work,” I said. “We’ve got a copy
of his book here in the museum and he’s pretty clear about it.”
“It doesn’t even target the legs,” the guys said.
Palusbuteo demonstrated why it was better to go for the head then the legs,
but the guy just wasn’t interested. He had what worked for him and that
was that.
His wife then came up to us and tried to explain that the men didn’t know
what they were talking about anyhow because they were too distracted by her
breasts. They’d go sword fight in the sun and pass out from dehydration
and her job was to distract them with her breasts and make them drink water.
Palusbuteo studiously avoided looking at her distractions which really
seemed to annoy her.

I’m not knocking the SCA. I started with the SCA 30 years ago. What they
do can be a lot of fun, requires plenty of skill to do right, and people
work very hard to get good at it.
But, fighting with wood in armor is very different from fighting with metal
out of armor. I’m not saying good or bad, just different. The weight,
feel and balance of the weapons are different. The range of motion you
have in or out of armor is different. How much you have to protect
yourself in our out of armor changes.
So, what works for one is not necessarily “the best thing” for the other.

But, if you go into a museum and they tell you they are doing something
from a specific book, can produce the book and explain why they do it that
way, it seems a bit much to tell them they’re wrong.
I could see a “that won’t work for us”. I’ve thought that about all sorts
of moves for things other then what we use.
But, wrong? Nope.