Teach Yourself Swordsmanship
(In A Lifetime of Easy Steps)

by J. Mark Bertrand, SFMO Historical Swordsmanship Consultant

Nicholas has studied swordsmanship for about a year. At the annual Italian Festival, he squares off against Wade, who has just completed a six-week introductory course. With the Houston Opera booth on one side and the HACA (Historical Armed Combat Association) booth on the other, they face each other with long swords. Each time Wade attacks, Nicholas moves just out of distance, avoids the blow, and then responds with a successful counter-cut. It's over so fast. Their blades hardly come into contact. The action is nervous and quick - it breaks out in spurts rather than a controlled rhythm. People gather around to watch, perhaps intuitively realizing that what they're witnessing here is something more intense than what they're used to seeing.

A couple of guys in their mid-twenties come up alongside me as I watch. Their eyes are wide with fascination.

"Man," one of them says, "that's like... an art."

That's real swordsmanship.

It's a mystery why anyone would want to learn to use a sword properly. After all, you will never fight a duel. You will never be attacked in earnest by a skilled swordsman. You will never run an opponent through or sever his sword hand with a brilliant timed counter-cut. In fact, you're more likely to be abducted by aliens than to use a sharp sword in earnest.

But the mystery dissolves when you hold a sword in your hand. At the same Italian Festival, while Nicholas and Wade fight it out in the courtyard, dozens of people crowd around the HACA booth to handle accurate replica medieval and renaissance swords. Many of them have never handled a real sword before. They are surprised by the light weight and superb balance of the replicas. Holding one of these weapons in hand, it is hard to stop yourself swinging it around. You can't help but wonder how to use it.

We Are All Students

"Historical swordsmanship" is a term we use to denote the study of swordplay as it was practiced prior to the nineteenth century - i.e., when the sword was still worn as part of civilian dress and used in deadly combat both in duels and on the battlefield. Today, it is relatively easy to find competent instruction in modern fencing. Unfortunately, modern fencing is not an equivalent of historical swordsmanship. You may learn the use of the foil, epee and saber and still lack competence with the rapier, the backsword and the longsword. The tradition of use attached to these antique swords is essentially lost to us. To learn historical swordsmanship now, we must essentially reconstruct the methods. That means each of us becomes his own teacher - part martial artist, part experimental archaeologist, threading our way between careful study of historical evidence and informed speculation.

When people see us practicing our swordplay, they sometimes ask why we bother. One morning as John Clements (Director of the HACA - Ed) and I were heading into the central Georgia bush to do some test cutting, swords in hand, a helpful local called out, "Ain't ya'll ever heard of guns?" It wasn't the first time. John compares the study of historical swordsmanship to the study of horsemanship - we don't need horses, after all. We cultivate the skills for largely aesthetic reasons. I sometimes compare the current interest in historical swordsmanship with the revival of "period instruments" in classical music. We have developed more efficient musical instruments, but there is something to be said for the inefficient beauty of the real thing - for recapturing the way something was done four centuries ago.

If you're one of the few who share this interest, then don't be discouraged if you can't find a teacher of historical swordsmanship to study with. To be honest, there are no masters of historical swordsmanship - we are all students, all progressing through a curricula of our own making. The advice in this article is far from comprehensive, but I hope that with this advice in mind, you can finally begin your earnest personal study of the sword.

Study With Martial Intent

Not long ago on the HACA Forum, someone asked the question, "What does it take to fight effectively with the sword?" The answers focused on principles like timing, distance and technique - the nuts and bolts of swordplay. One response included a quote from Musashi: "Think neither of victory nor of yourself, but only of cutting and killing the enemy." George Silver couldn't have said it better.

And yet, most of us approach swordsmanship for the first time with a less than lethal mindset. Cutting and killing an opponent? Not likely. Try looking good and showing off some fancy footwork! The "swordsman" of today spends more time picking out his costume than training for combat - and that's why, nine times out of ten, a determined novice with martial intent can out-fight him.

Your study of swordsmanship should begin with true martial intent. Don't settle for what looks good: find out what really works.

The Basics

Swordsmanship is not rocket science. Often, it's not as complicated as it looks. Under stress, we all revert to simple, instinctive movements - in other words, the basics. Once you've mastered the basics, you can hold your own in a fight.

In a nutshell, the basics consist of 1) attacks, 2) guards, and 3) footwork. You can attack in two ways: with the point or with the edge. To attack with the point, you extend your arm and thrust at the target. To attack with the edge, you swing your sword in an arc that brings the edge of your blade into contact with the target. You can vary the speed and force of a cutting attack by making your cuts from the shoulder (or "arm"), the elbow (or "half-arm"), or the wrist. Cuts from the wrist are quickest - but they're also weakest. Cuts from the shoulder are the strongest, and the slowest.

Renaissance masters of defense taught eight cuts. To visualize these lines of attack, imagine an opponent standing in front of you. Now, superimpose a vertical line running from your opponent's head to his feet, and another line running from left to right. These lines represent the horizontal and vertical cuts - you can cut up and down on the vertical line, left and right on the horizontal. Now imagine diagonal lines running from the opponent's right shoulder to left hip and left shoulder to right hip. These lines mark the diagonal lines of attack. You can cut both ways along each of the lines.

Together, these lines form a cross overlapping an "X." Now, take these same lines and imagine them on the ground beneath you. The lines now illustrate your potential paths of movement. From the center of the diagram, you can pass forward or you can pass backward. You can step to the left or to the right. You can also traverse forward and to the left or the right - and you can traverse back in either direction, too.

Guards (or "wards") are ready positions that serve as launching pads for attacks, and in some cases parries. Each master defined the guards in a slightly different way. Some, like Marozzo, taught a wide variety of guards, while others, like Di Grassi, tried to simplify things. Eventually, fencers adopted a single guard - the modern en garde position. Don't confuse guards of the Medieval and Renaissance periods with the modern guard, which literally "guards" the fencer from attack. In historical swordsmanship, guards do not always protect the swordsman. Their use is not defensive but rather offensive.

In Renaissance Swordsmanship, the author - John Clements - presents a simplified set of wards and gives them names that are easy on the modern ear. So, we have a "high ward," "middle ward," and a "low ward," each corresponding to the position of the sword. We also have a "back ward," in which the sword is held behind the swordsman, ready to deliver a powerful cut on the pass. Consult John's books for more information on the wards, the various attacks, and the appropriate footwork.

By learning the basic attacks, guards and footwork, you can develop competence with the sword. Of course, it takes discipline and time - like any martial art, you won't master it overnight.

Do Your Homework

If you're serious about learning to use the sword, clear some space on your bookshelf and get ready to do some reading. There are only a few books on historical swordsmanship available, so my advice is to get them all. John Clements has packed years of research and practical experience into Renaissance Swordsmanship and Medieval Swordsmanship. These books are your starting point. I also strongly recommend that you get a copy of Terry Brown's book English Martial Arts. Terry does an excellent job interpreting the fighting principles of George Silver. Speaking of Silver, you're going to be spending a lot of time tracking down historical manuals like Silver's Paradoxes of Defense. Many important English-language manuals are already available on the internet (check the HACA site for links). Combining books like John's and Terry's with thoughtful study of the historical masters will open up a lot of possibilities.

One point I should make here is that, throughout your studies, look for shortcomings in your training. The temptation is to applaud what you and your group are doing at the expense of everyone else. Instead of this, try to learn from different approaches - and incorporate a variety of them into your own training. Above all, be eclectic and open to as many sources as possible. When it comes to re-constructing historical swordsmanship, none of us knows it all.

Train with Sparring Partners

I dabbled with replica swords and read up on the subject for several years before I began to study under John Clements. The gap between what I "knew" and what I could actually perform was immense! Not only that, but a lot of the things I thought I knew turned out to be wrong. Without active training and sparring, I had missed obvious interpretations and fallen victim to some notions whose foolishness would have been obvious to anyone but an armchair theorist.

You can avoid all this by training with sparring partners who share your desire to learn legitimate, effective techniques. The role of your sparring partner is simple: to beat silly notions out of your mind. One student in a HACA class was convinced from his sparring experience in a system that did allow count strikes to the hand that holding his sword with his hands out in front of him would be effective. He was counseled to change his guard, to adopt a position advocated by the historical masters, but he declined: "I know what I'm doing," he said. That was before he had paired off with a sparring partner. Again and again, his opponent delivered crushing timed cuts to his hands before he could strike. By the end of the session, he had amended his guard - what no rational argument could accomplish, sparring with an opponent who was in earnest quickly resolved!

Test Cutting

Not long ago, there was an interesting debate between an accomplished fencer and a historical swordsman. The topic of the discussion was "cutting." According to the swordsman, the effect of a cut was determined largely by force and blade geometry. Not so, said the fencer. Effective cutting was the function of subtle movement of the fingers on the sword handle. Now, the two shared a common interest in the sword, but had very different training experiences. One aspect of training that the fencer had apparently overlooked was test cutting. To anyone who has attempted to cut resistant media with a sword, the idea of subtle finger manipulations making all the difference is strange indeed!

The only way to learn proper cutting is to "unlearn" improper cutting. In other words, you have to find something to cut and cut it until you consistently do it right. You have to repeat the movements until you strike consistently and forcefully with the edge. There are eight cuts to practice, and some are more difficult than others. The goal of test cutting is to become proficient with each of them, and to get comfortable delivering them one after the other. Another benefit is learning how to handle the sword without cutting yourself!

What should you cut? How often should you cut? What kind of blade cuts best? These are questions you will have to answer for yourself. When you start test cutting, you're in the "laboratory" of swordsmanship - enjoy!

Although we say "test cutting," we mean cutting and thrusting. A rapier blade will penetrate the human body with just a pound (or less) of pressure - and penetration of just a few inches can be lethal. Even so, to develop point control and accuracy, "test thrusting" is a necessity.

Your Arsenal

You've cleared a bookshelf, and now it's time to open an arsenal. To train in earnest, you will need a blunt replica sword for drills and routines, a sharp for test-cutting, a wooden sword (waster) for training and light sparring, and a padded contact weapon for intense sparring. If you want to learn more than one type of weapon - say, the longsword and the cut-and-thrust sword, you should have a blunt, a sharp, a waster, and a contact weapon for each. That's a tall order, but over time it will pay off.

To begin with, you can learn basic movement and control - and start developing your sword arm - with a wooden dowel. Then, you can acquire the additional training pieces as you go. In the future, you will want to supplement your equipment with bucklers, daggers and other accessories. If you take up the rapier, you'll substitute a good rapier simulator like the Del Tin practice rapier for the waster and the contact weapon.

Because you're practicing with martial intent, you also need to pay attention to safety gear. You and your sparring partners can experiment with what works best. Perhaps the most effective safety measure is to train with mature partners who understand the need for safety and accuracy at the same time - people who can train with intensity without getting carried away.

Networking

Finally, I want to say a word about HACA. The Historical Armed Combat Association is far from monolithic - there is a diversity of experience, belief and practice within HACA, but we are united by an intense interest in re-constructing historical swordsmanship. HACA offers a unique opportunity for swordsmen to "network" with each other. Through our web site and the HACA Forum, we have created an international community of scholars and fellow students of the sword. As a beginner - even learning on your own - you can take advantage of this resource to gather information, seek advice and learn new ideas and approaches. I encourage you to take advantage of these opportunities.

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