Thursday, September 17, 2015

Western Martial Arts are unique, interesting, and fun.

About forty years ago, only a few people knew about western martial arts. I remember people referring to European swordsmanship of the middle ages as "lost arts". Despite their arcane nature the "Martial Arts of the Knights" have always tantalized our fantasies.

The discovery of the manuals brought substance to the fantasies. The manuals are old treatises that range mostly from 1300 to 1820 with one older example from around 0100 (its a depiction of sncient greek wrestling). (http://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Treatises). These manuals describe, in varying degrees of detail how to fight. They focus on wrestling, dagger fighting, longsword, sword and buckler and staff weapons. The authors of the books came from Germany, Italy, France, Britain, Spain, and Portugal, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_arts_manual )

To contrast, old descriptions of asian martial arts do exist (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_arts_manual ) but much of what is practiced today was passed along in an oral tradition. This fact is both positive and negative. Presumably oral tradition is experiential and based on teaching through doing but it also allows for interpretation and alteration over time. It simply means that we can never be sure how what is being taught now relates to what was taught a long time ago.

In western martial arts, the manuals are explicit. They portray techniques with drawings and through dynamic but often cryptic descriptions. There is the problem of translation and interpretation. Despite the issues of interpretation, these manuals give us a clear window into the past. And what we find turns out to be relevant to martial arts of today.

When you take up the longsword or any of the other European weapons you are becoming a part of a huge project to reconstruct these martial arts. This makes western martial arts unique, interesting, and fun!