"[THUNDER CLAPS]" "[MUSIC]" "When men were to take up arms, the predominant object was the sword." "'Cause when I have done sword fights in movies," "I'VE ALWAYS THOUGHT ABOUT:" "What are they for?" "Often these things were right at the point of history." "They're such a part of our cultural heritage." "[HAMMER STRIKING]" "[MUSIC]" "The Medieval and Renaissance blade, a profound and beautiful object handcrafted by master artisans of old." "It is designed to kill." "The truth of the sword has been shrouded in antiquity and the Renaissance martial arts that brought it into being are long forgotten." "The ancient practitioners lent us all that they knew through their manuscripts." "As gunslingers of the Renaissance they were the western heroes with swords." "They lived and died by them." "Yet today, their history remains cloaked under a shadow of legend." "Before the invention of gunpowder, the sword was the weapon of the time." "The sword probably has not been a relevant weapon for at least 200 years." "To think that a pummel, a handgrip, a crossbar, a blade, a very simple object could hold such sway over thousands of years of human evolution." "These objects have really controlled our history and where we are today." "Swords have been used throughout history to defend people and land, to build nations and to protect kingdoms from tyranny." "From 1st century wars against Rome to the Viking and Norman conquests, sword and steel have changed the fate of kingdoms, the map of Europe and ultimately the timeline of world history." "Their essential role in preserving freedom and honor goes back far into the dim mists of history." "The connection between sword and freedom may perhaps find its origin within the customs of the Germanic and Celtic tribes." "Here, being armed with a sword was not only a fight but also a duty of all free men." "In fact, the ceremony for giving freedom to a slave required that the form er slave be presented with the armament of a free man." "Many British kings chose to trust their subjects with arms and to supplement the militia in times of need rather than abolish it." "The idea of a free militia versus a financed army presents an interesting concept that is reflected in many of our modern films." "The sword is as relevant today as a symbol as it was in ages past, being found within statues, civic emblems, and insignia both ancient and modern." "It has been an ancient symbol for words spoken in truth, for purity, justice and the spirit of God." "The iconic power of the sword is everywhere within our culture from literature to popular entertainment and nowhere is it more celebrated than in the modern cinema." "There's a definite symbolism that's part and parcel of every story containing a sword." "The sword combines power, authority, and the threat of impending violence all in a prop, which might be hanging off somebody's side until the moment they draw it." "I think there's something more intimate about two guys going at it with swords." "To fight someone with a sword as opposed to shooting someone with a gun, I think it takes more courage." "It's conflict at its most raw where you've got two characters looking at each other eye to eye engaging at that level." "And the stakes are higher it could go either way." "You are right there in the end and the sword, in many ways, is an extension of that character's arm so it's really a sharpened fist." "It suddenly is a realm of myth, of legend, of heroes, of adventures." "That would explain to a large degree the popularity of swords." "They're, you know, an integral part of it." "Our technology has progressed far beyond needing the sword as an object of personal defense, and while it's still irrelevant, don't you think it's interesting the extent to which we seem to still have the image of the sword, the concept of the sword," "the symbolic importance of the sword." "I mean, it's hard to turn on the television or go to the cinema, it seems, without still being surrounded by swords." "[MUSIC]" "Our stories and movies contain the kind of morality and justice that we only wish we could find in the real world." "I've had the honor really-- I have to say it like that" "I've had the honor really-- I have to say it like that" "Of working with Bob Anderson as my swordmaster." "In all of the fights that I did on film as a coach, and indeed as a modern fencer, has undoubtedly been my life, swordplay." "Others who have worked with him feel like I do, that you always want to give 100% to live up to the choreography that he comes up with." "Even his presence, just him walking on the set, suddenly you have to pick up your game a bit, you know." "The first time I met Bob Anderson was actually on the set of "Lord of the Rings."" "He turns around and introduces himself and says," ""Well, I'm going to show you a few things that might save your life today, mate."" "And so he proceeded to show me some basic blocking and thrusting and cutting moves with the sword." "And the guy who came after him to show me some more says," ""Oh, do you realize who that was?"" "And I was like, "No, I don't."" ""Well, that's Bob Anderson." ""He, you know, he used to train Errol Flynn and you know, has worked for years in the industry."" "And I said, "Oh really, is that so?"" "Why don't you give up?" "You can see I'm a better swordsman" "Errol Flynn was a very talented, athletic actor who could do anything if he set his mind to it." "And that's why he became a swordsman, I think, is because the parts that were getting the publicity in those days-- Sword fighting and stuff" "Fighting at the end, and you know," "Douglas Fairbanks stuff as it was called in those days." "Then he said, "Oh, and he was Darth Vader."" "He was actually in Darth Vader's costume actually doing all the light saber work." "And I was like... that sort of struck a resonance with me, you know." "Oh, Darth Vader, yes." "It's just a cloak and a helmet that I was underneath it all." "I did choreograph the fights." "I did three of those." "It was good work for me." "It became the weapon of choice in that series of films." "Indeed even, it seems when somebody's making a science-fiction movie and off in space they can't seem to escape from the sword." "I wonder why that is'?" "What is it?" "It's your father's light saber." "This is a weapon of a Jedi knight." "Not as clumsy or random as a blaster." "An elegant weapon for a more civilized age." "To go into the future and then think about laser swords, that's brilliant." "Suddenly "Star Wars" is not just a sci-fi movie, it's also a modern version of a hero legend." ""The Princess Bride" was one of the best fights and everybody tells me it was one of the best fights" "I've choreographed." "You seem like a decent fellow." "I hate to kill you." "You seem like a decent fellow." "I hate to die." "They learned to fight with left and right hands." "Then why are you smiling?" "Because I know something you don't know." "And what is that?" "I am not left-handed." "And then they do it again when the other guy changes to his right hand." "I'm not left-handed either." "Johnny is about as good as you can get." "He can transform what he learns from someone like me into a character." "You know what you are doing, I'll give you that." "Excellent form, but how's your footwork?" "Viggo came running in from Los Angeles and I stuck a sword in his hand and he had to fight" "20 stuntmen in almost the same day as he arrived." "When all the stunties with their swords at the other end of the room and Viggo was standing there like looking around LIKE:" "What next?" "And then all of a sudden they just charged Viggo and they're like running towards him and he's just like... had his sword up." "Apparently, that was his initiation." "He didn't run away, so I think Bob was like:" "Okay, I think I can work with this guy." "He had a lot to learn." "He did, I thought he did extremely well." "You know, it was hard work to prepare the fights and demanding physically at times." "But it was mostly fun and it was sort of like a boyhood dream come true." "You know, I got to really do it for real." "There were real enemies, it was a real sword." "It's important that the people you're working with trust you and you trust them and you effectively work out the sort of highly-detailed choreography weeks and weeks in advance of when you actually get to do it on the set." "And then really the tough thing becomes about stamina." "Especially when you are wearing armor and leather and weighed down by all that sort of stuff." "I thought it was some of the best choreography" "I had seen in this type of movie." "A lot of the stuff the stunt men put together themselves." "And they did a very good job of it." "He is much more than a swordmaster, and I think that directors have been well pleased with his collaboration." "A son of a regal refined cultured kind of a gentlemen in the midst of all this chaos." "It was an honor to work for him and I learned a lot." "Not just about sword fighting but just about being a man, about being a gentleman, about how to deal with people and a respect for the weapon." "And a respect for the weapon." "The swords were very well done, very attractive." "John Howe's designs were superb." "I really enjoyed getting involved with" ""The Lord of the Rings" swords because it was always a question of paring it down and making the blades slimmer and making it shorter, making it more real, even though we are not talking about real swords." "The actor may turn up a year, a year and half after you first started designing that weapon." "It's therefore a great thing when you finally present the weapon to the actor." "I really enjoyed working with Richard Taylor and all the people at the Weta Workshop because they, like Bob Anderson, were sticklers for detail." "The attention to detail that these guys devoted to items that may not necessarily be visible to the camera, at least not on first viewing, but they're there." "As an actor it was wonderful to have those kind of props to you know, really help transport you to that time and place." "I liken our effects workshop as are all other effects workshops around the world, to be similar to an artisan's studio of the years past." "This is a gathering of an eclectic group of craftspeople working across an amazing array of different artistic skills coming together." "It's a really exciting thing to be part of that." "As a designer you can draw your heart out." "You can draw hundreds, hundreds of designs that you love but if the man making them doesn't understand then there's, you know, it's-- Everyone's disappointed." "We're incredibly fortunate to have a fellow named Peter Lyon, who was the metal worker, the swordsmith on the movie." "And he's someone who understands what weapons and armor are and he did these amazing blades." "The forging techniques I use are some ways they're similar and some ways they're different from the old techniques." "With sword blades I'll start with a bar of spring steel." "Usually, I'll cut and grind that and then if necessary, forge it." "We use bronze, wood, leather, and various other materials that were used in period." "The main difference really, is that today with mass production and steel foundries and so on, that we can get things to a much more consistent standard." "And essentially they're a lot easier to get and work with." "The style of the sword, the level of decoration, the aging on it, they all tell you a bit about whether this character is a new person, whether they're an old warrior." "It's a really lovely experience when the actors begin to take ownership of them." "Bob very much encouraged you to be familiar with this weapon, which in some cases is your livelihood." "Yes, it's only a movie, but, the more you can feel like it's not a movie, the better the movie." "Actors on the stage also demonstrate swordplay through real-time fight choreography." "[BLADES CLASHING]" "[BLADES CLASHING]" "[GRUNTING]" "Doing it on the stage is so very difficult." "They have to remember every blow." "On the films you can take a part of the fight, film it, do it once, twice, 15 times if necessary." "You get one chance on stage." "But you've got to be really good to be a good stage swordfighter." "When you've gone to the out, and it comes in with a thrust, you turn, and your hand is stopped here and as you do it, you transfer that all in one fast move." "You try to hit him on the head with the cross part of your sword." "Now if he hangs on to his sword you pull him down and you hit him under the chin with the pommel." "But he knows that, what he does is he lets go." "Then I go to hit him, he has the advantage now and that's why you see them in the manuals." "The thing that we call a glissar, which means to glide, is which leads you straight at his belly." "In the 18th century the move still comes into swordplay." "We attack each other's chest, he comes back," "I stretch him on the lunge, and the glissar could disarm him." "So there is the same movement over a period of 200 years with different weapons it still has the same intention." "All those moves, you're trying to find out what the other one's doing." "Now you can do the glissar and then they all join together." "It's eye contact, it's distance, it's balance, it's timing and it's intent." "I was looking at Andy's eyes, I can see everything that his body's doing but I can also see Dad standing there and I can see 180 degrees in front of me." "Again the arm goes first, the reality obviously the arm plunge down or through the throat." "See, there won't be a second performance so we keep the arm, shoulder, the body looking as though it's going towards the throat but at the last moment we turn the point." "And to make it real, he then defends and turns away." "'Cause I don't trust him." "I feel that I might get hit so I then use the dagger to make sure that the sword has actually missed me." "You cut, and you hit him, and you take his intestines out." "You hope." "The reason I don't hit him is because as I cut him, my elbow is pulling the sword back into me." "The skill that that needs is just as great as the skill of killing him is, of course, sometimes the difference of about 2 inches." "[SWORDS CLASHING]" "The point of choreography in a play or a movie is to forward the story." "If it does that it is successful." "It's not designed to actually show a real fight, it's designed to show something exciting with swords." "There's an undeniable romanticism attached to it all." "And there's even the grittier films, I think, tend to steer clear of much of the mechanics of what a sword does to a human body." "And it has to look good on the screen." "I think, you know, I honestly believe that a real fight would be very short, sharp." "It's not just a piece of an, though it can be appreciated that way." "It's not just a piece of history because they were used for a purpose." "It is an ancient weapon that was used to gain or lose kingdoms." "There's always been fighting." "There's never been a time when there hasn't been personal combat." "People are interested in combat and cared about combat from the highest to the lowest in the land;" "Kings, and princes, emperors." "A sword as a weapon is something that pretty much everyone would have owned it in the Anglian Period, anyone being an adult male." "So, from top to bottom of society personal combat was important." "Few subjects have received such unfortunate neglect by historians than the martial arts of western Europe although ancient kings and nobles gave the blade great credence during their time, often modern academics fail to clearly write about the reality of the blade, defining its practice" "as something apart from its actual use." "It's quite a popular subject, the history of dueling." "And you look at these books and one thing they never mentioned is the fighting." "You know, you'd think that this was the raison d'etre of a duel." "But the one thing they never mentioned was techniques of combat." "It's a subject that has been ignored for the most pan for centuries." "Probably the world's foremost scholar on historical fencing," "Dr. Sidney Anglo, broke open the subject." "He said, "Hey historians, you've missed the boat."" "I'm sure that a lot of historians still find it kind of not a proper subject." "That it isn't something that historians should be writing about." "Which, of course is foolish." "Think it's perhaps not a very nice thing, you know, these people cutting each other to pieces and running each other through and so forth, and often killing each other, and if they didn't kill each other they often maimed each other." "Originally fencing meant simply the art of defense;" "The noble science of defense." "We have lots of records of there being fencing schools all over the place and we also have records of people complaining about fencing schools and the noise and the violence that they engendered." "This changed bit by bit into the late 16th and 17th century when they became more fashionable for nobles to go to these schools and to learn how to fence." "Yet today, there are too few historians that fully understand" "Yet today, there are too few historians that fully understand the significant role of medieval masters." "And so to a large extent much of their history is lost to us." "The sobering death toll of the First World War spoke plainly the truth that the romance of war was officially lost in time." "The one-on-one dueling spirit of the sword could not prevail under the shadow of automatic machine gunfire with its gruesome wake of millions who were all too soon forgotten." "With the increased use of firearms during the turn of the century the slow erasure of classical sword fighting from public consciousness seemed almost inevitable." "Fortunately the romance of swordplay remained in the hearts of early filmmakers who kept it alive through imagination and fantasy." "But would the lost an of sword defense every truly be reborn?" "It was a change from battlefield techniques and fighting skills for judicial combat and for private duel and for street level self-defense to essentially gentlemen having private affairs of honor, identical swords;" "Single sword against single sword." "Most duels back in the day were not to the death;" "Most duels back in the day were not to the death;" "They were just to first blood." "During the 1700s you had guns beginning to supplant the sword as the choice weapon for dueling and in the mid-1800s fencing became more and more a sport." "People started, you know, playing the game instead of training to actually duel." "The term fencing today is primarily synonymous with the collegiate and Olympic sport of epee, foil, and saber." "Now it's based on hooking yourself up into an electric circuit and depressing tips." "You can just slip it in anywhere, as long as you slip it in on target, then it's a good touch for you." "Fencing became more and more a sport and there's a lot of aspects of fencing that are fun." "Anybody who wants to learn how to use a sword should go into fencing because it teaches you the handling of the weapon." "I like the honor aspect and the dueling history that goes along with it." "Modern fencing has retained a lot of the values of Renaissance fencing in the way we always salute before and after our bouts." "The thing that I like about fencing is that it allows me to do a physical but also a mental sport." "It's much more a thinking game than it is a physical game despite the fact that it's a tremendously athletic endeavor." "Tips of fencing blades go as fast as 135 miles an hour." "Fencers have very quick reflexes, a lot of leg strength." "You have to deal with someone attacking you before you can go." "And fencing is straight forward and back." "They're used to people reacting to their moves in a particular sort of ways." "There's a whole language of this very highly refined sport." "It's not real, though." "And it's been 200 or 300 years of evolution away from people nicking one another or cutting one another or killing one another with swords." "There are very specific penalties for brutality and hitting a little bit too hard and if the referee in control of the bout, if they thought it was with malicious intent or too hard or anything like that you can get penalized," "docked points, thrown out of the tournament." "You will see coupes, flicks, where the electric connection on the end will score but if you had a point you're making a little bitty nick where as the classical fencer will stick you." "I can get my rapier and leverage him there and come in here and put it into him." "I was sparring with some friends who were fencers and as he lunged I slapped the blade aside with my left hand and extended my right and stabbed him." "And he said, "You can't do that."" "And I said, "But I just did."" "I can engage it and take it out this way." "Then he said, "But that's illegal."" "And I said, "I'm not interested in legalities," "I'm trying to kill you."" "They have no problem grabbing you by the waist and knocking you to the ground and beating you over the head with their sword." "He does a lunge at me, I would kick that leg out from him and I'm gonna half sword my rapier." "This wouldn't occur to a fencer." "Fencing masters, my fencing coaches would say," ""Well yeah, you can't do that;" ""You can't grab his leg, you can't kick him, you can't trip him, you can't push him."" "People weren't dumb in the 1100s." "They had their own styles or whatever but they were much more all encompassing in terms of combat than this kind of fencing is." "We don't think of this as fighting." "There's a lot of aspects of fencing that are fun, but you can't take their rules and things too seriously because they just don't work in a straight fight." "The evolution of fencing is rather simple." "Historical swordplay transitioned to classical fencing upon the advent of the gun." "Over the past century, sport, or Olympic fencing was developed from classical fencing." "Modern sport fencing is not necessarily an advancement of historical European martial ans but rather a pruning down from older more inclusive fighting systems." "In time, proper decorum and stylized posture came to replace combat utility." "By the 19th century, fighting men no longer needed to learn and use diverse arms and armor and had fewer occasions to employ such skills." "Not surprisingly, what was not modified and adapted from the wider craft consequently withered and died." "As they pursued a far more specialized form of gentlemanly fencing, directed towards duels of honor with single identical swords, they came to dismiss and sometimes even ridicule older fencing skills." "At the same time, fencing became more sport-focused and in the 19th century it increasingly lost its military or self-defense value." "Those who continued to duel did so under less and less lethal terms." "The popular myth of crude and clumsy medieval swords slowly evolving into more superior thrusting swords began to surface at this time." "Ancient European martial arts were now officially lost in time." "[SINGING]" "If you look at our society there are a large number of subcultures from reenactment, from Revolutionary War to even reenactment of World War ll." "It's interesting in that it puts the human being back in to where he should be;" "Into the middle of it." "It's an interesting way to study history and it's a lot more fun than sitting there with a book." "This is an epee blade." "This is what we originally started using for fencing in the SCA." "It's the same type of blade that's used in strip fencing that you would see at the colleges." "The strip fencing is more of a sport." "It's not really dedicated to the medieval martial arts of the sword." "What I have here looks more like a real sword." "It's heavier but it is still designed to be safe, to bend without breaking." "It has more of the weight of a real medieval sword, so we can start to use the techniques as they would have been used in the Middle Ages with a proper weighted weapon." "Well, it's a wide spectrum of things;" "It goes from people dressed as Orchs to very serious people who weave their own cloth." "There is an individual fulfillment that the individual becomes somebody more than just a small cog in a large plastic machine." "Historical reenactment folks have got their own culture and it's an amazing thing." "It's a great to be in but it's a whole gestalt for them." "It's a whole lifestyle for them." "What we do is to create a persona, each of us who joins." "My name is Greg Prevost in the real world." "In the SCA, I'm known as Janos of Kitmendown, which is Welsh and it's hard to spell." "You create the clothing, the equipment for that person and you become that person at the events." "I take the name Achbar lvanalli." "That name actually derives from Andalusian Spain so it's Moorish." "And my title in the SCA is King currently." "But I'm also a knight in the SCA." "Once you get knighted you are knighted for life so it's like a lifetime achievement award." "This is a very family-oriented society." "Everyone's welcome." "I have four children and all of them have been to their first event when they were weeks or months old." "My oldest son is 11 now and I'm starting to teach him how to fence." "We don't chop each other in this sport." "There's a thrust and there's a draw cut." "Every kingdom is ruled by a king and queen." "They are chosen by combat." "When all the fighters come forward and they have a best two-out-of-three elimination tournament." "You call the wound as accurately as you can what it would have done to you if it had been a real sword." "For instance, if you get hit a legal blow to your leg, you then have to drop your knees and fight from the ground which compromises your mobility quite a bit." "Your opponent has the option of being chivalrous and also taking the same handicap so that the match continues to be equal but he doesn't have to." "It's on his honor." "If he does agree, takes up that handicap, then he is lauded by the audience for his chivalry." "If I get hit with a solid blow that would have been killing with a real sword, I will act out that death." "We don't say that we are dead, we say we are disinclined to continue." "People see us fight from a distance at first they think of Medieval Times, strictly for the entertainment of people watching." "The SCA's completely different." "It's an actual sport." "We're competing." "Every blow thrown out there is thrown with real force." "We don't know who, when we step on the field, will win and we don't know who will be the next king until the last blow is thrown in the tournament." "It's just a different spin off of the same basic history." "The creative part is we take the best pans of the Middle Ages and we try to recreate them;" "The beauty, the pageantry." "We leave behind the plague and the death." "I think that reenactment is an interesting and valid," "I feel like, approach to-- Approach to history, it can be a very rich, rich, rich source of information." "It's also a little bit dangerous, because reenactment is now becoming a part of history itself which troubles me quite a bit." "When you take a pipe and you wrap it with some padding and you whack on one another that's no different from reality than we who fence with electronic gear that lets us know whether or not a touch would have happened." "If the swords were actually sharp, most of these guys really wouldn't be doing this." "And I wouldn't be either." "There are many martial arts within the Asian culture." "Out of China you have manta style, tiger style, eagle style, wing tsun." "From Korea, you have taekwondo, kongsoodo, soobahkdo, kwonbup, taekyun, hapkido, yudo, gumdo, gumsool." "Out of Japan you have the very familiar karate, judo, kendo." "Out of the Philippines you have escrima or amis." "Out of Thailand you have muy thai." "Out of Burma you have bando and I'm sure there are many, many others." "When you hit a target area, you have to say where you're hitting;" "So, "head," "wrist," "side."" "Hua-mo-ah!" "Just coming in and hitting is not considered a point." "I have to have proper etiquette." "I have to make a pronounced step." "I have to hit the proper part of my sword which is in between this leather piece and this leather piece." "Ah-oo!" "I have to either go forward or backward." "Hua!" "My body, my mind, and my sword have to be all in unison." "The idea is you're becoming one with your weapon." "In the '70s and the '80s, movies increased our interest in Asian martial arts." "Hey, wouldn't a fly-swatter be easier." "Man who catch fly with chopstick, accomplish anything." "Today when people hear the term martial ans they immediately bring to mind fighting ans from the East such as karate and taekwondo." "There's a more esoteric concept to kill someone efficiently that is more than just killing someone and that, in my opinion, is absent within the Western swording styles as opposed to Eastern." "In many respects you can say the West had the same attitude that the Japanese had but we handled it differently." "So there's nothing really different in these things." "We have a tendency to forget that the West had their own tradition of martial arts as well." "European fighting skills tend to sort of get relegated to something that was very son of crude and basic, which it wasn't." "What's funny is they don't seem to remember that the human body's the same the world over." "And it depends on how your body moves and that's governed by body mechanics." "It's 'somewhat amusing to have a Débute of the oriental martial arts glancing through a European manual on, say wrestling, or hand-to-hand combat and say," ""Oh wow, this is done almost like the Japanese."" "Things from Asia and Japan are viewed as being son of pinnacle of fighting skills and as skillful as they were, we were just as skillful here." "But what we did was we forgot about them." "As you're comparing the two, look how quickly the West seized on the firearm and made great use of it." "Whereas in Japan it was used for a brief period of time until once the Tokugawa Shogunate was established, they were banned because this would destroy the social culture." "When a peasant could blast a samurai from 50 yards away, it was unthinkable." "Martial arts from the East of very hierarchical being orally transmitted from one person to the next." "Pretty much, it was a heredity thing because you had to be born a samurai." "So it was essentially father to son, master to disciple." "When of course the big difference is the schools and some of the oriental schools continued to flourish." "How far they're teaching exactly the same sorts of things they taught in the past, is only anybody's guess." "You remember the game where you whisper and then you whisper to the next, by the time it gets to the end this thought is all different." "Eastern martial arts have a long and continuous history where in the West martial arts, with the sword in particular, died down a lot after the Renaissance." "As the gun improved the sword was relegated and became less and less important." "People stopped training and teaching in the old arts." "There was no necessity, no need to learn those things anymore." "So we have essentially a break in the history of the sword in the Western world." "What was the sword, and how was it used?" "Before practical swordplay developed into a gentlemen's ritual of single dueling, masters of defense flourished across Europe." "Many of the surviving manuscripts detailing their combative systems remained largely obscure for centuries, until now." "Today historical fencing studies are on the rise and an unprecedented revival of these extinct combative systems is now underway." "[MUSIC]" "The West had its own martial arts tradition exactly as the Orient did, exactly the same." "There's been a renaissance, so to speak, in the study of the sword offering us a lot of insight that had been lost in the several hundred years since the sword was truly relevant to combat." "The work of people in making very accurate recreations of the sword in terms of form as well as the manner in which they would handle, and then those martial artists who are taking these accurate recreations, moving them in space, and working out" "what was possible and what isn't possible." "All across Europe, the Americas and around the world historical European fight clubs have emerged with the desire to study the original combative systems of both Europe and the ancient world." "They have set out to practice with a different kind of energy and intensity separate from the reenactment and sport fencing groups." "We're trying to discover something that's always been there and has been forgotten and it's a lot of work to obviously, to try to understand what was lost." "It's a part of our history in Europe and I think that's very important." "This is actually our history." "This is actually how we fought." "Historical European martial arts is the study of Europe's traditional fighting systems." "I'm doing this because I had previously studied" "Asian martial arts and I wanted to study martial arts related to my own culture and the place that I'm from." "Martial arts from Japan or China or southeast Asia, as valid as they are, I wanted something that was from my culture and for me." "I came from a long background of doing martial arts so I wanted to see how modern arts compared to the old arts and it seems that their standard was every bit as complicated as ours, and possibly more so." "If you look at modern sport fencing and kendo, and the like, they've actually become simplified versions of these great complex systems, which are actually brutal." "It's our past, it's part of our culture actually." "Today historical European martial arts groups are reclaiming the ancient fighting techniques and studying the diversity of arms and armor." "For me I think the sword is like what it was in the medieval time." "What matters is the man on the other side." "The difference between the medieval sword and the Japanese sword is that the Japanese put their soul into the sword." "In medieval time, what matters was to put the other man into the sword." "There's no such thing as just a sword." "It's a weapon for killing people and I'm learning how to do it efficiently." "To me the sword is... cool." "For centuries these ancient fighting skills" "For centuries these ancient fighting skills have not been practiced." "Historical fencing students are now learning to reconstruct martial arts that have been until now, extinct." "We're having to try and rediscover what the fight masters of the time were thinking and how they formulated their techniques and how they evolved." "So there's quite a strong academic side to it in the western martial arts." "We're essentially resurrecting this from books." "Just as European scholars wrote down every other art and science, the science of defense was also documented and recorded." "Many of the old fighting manuals and treaties that were written during the 15th and 16th centuries have recently been rediscovered and are now being studied worldwide." "We focus on mainly German manuals but also Italian manuals, 15th century and 16th century." "My personal favorite is Talhoffer." "For the most part the Italian books, the German books and the Spanish books on the fighting arts have been forgotten, hidden in old libraries and monasteries in old archives and universities." "Unfortunately, very little research had been done on them." "For the most part, they had not been looked at for hundreds of years." "Today these old texts are once again being systematically studied and the ancient fighting skills are being reborn." "In the text the old masters actually request that the students study the source literature and in one instance they ask that they add to the text, bringing their own ideas to it and expanding upon it." "These arts existed in various forms because they evolved together hand in hand with the societies that created them." "There's nothing equivalent to that in any of the other world's traditional martial arts." "They don't have the volumes of technical literature that we have." "This is our western tradition." "A lot of people learn martial arts from people who learned it from somebody else so often times it's many generations removed from someone with real combat experience." "These books, they're written by the source." "There's a play in Wallerstein, specifically, where the caption says something like:" "The swordsman have captured each others' swords." "I thought how that would never happen in a fight and I that following week I was in a bind with a guy who spun out and we were standing just like the play showed, and so that, all of a sudden," "becomes like a direct link back to that time." "How did they communicate their systems to absent third party?" "This is combination of words and images where you have a kind of notation where you can almost read the movements like we'd read in music." "It combines a ground plan, where your feet go, a representation of how you hold the weapon." "You can see the relationship between the swords, horizontally as well as vertically because it casts a shadow and, of course, scores of postures, the overall attempt to convey what the author wants his student to understand." "This is the source literature." "This is what's going to tell us how they did it back then and this is how we should be doing it again today." "When one looks at books on arms and armor, the incredible detail and diversity of design in such weaponry is apparent." "Therefore, it stands to reason that there should be an equally sophisticated manner of using such weapons." "I was inspired by the works of a gentleman named" "Ewan Oakeshott"." "Oakeshott was considered the world's leading authority on European swords, on medieval swords in particular." "Most academics look on them as quaint curiosities, but they have no real concept of what that sword was used for or even how it was used." "Ewart made it into what it was." "These were weapons made for young men to kill other young men;" "A real weapon used by real people." "The typology of the sword that Ewart Oakeshott devised included a classification for all historical blades." "Oakeshott's classifications unlocked the mythical doors that had obscured the true history of European martial combat." "I think if you look at any Anglo Saxon blades, for example, or Viking blades, ordinary warriors might have a long knife and a spear and a shield, but they don't have the sword." "There are very few swords in comparison to the number of axes or spears." "Spearheads and axes a blacksmith can make." "You have to be a swordsmith to get the technology to be able to make a sword." "I feel a real connection to the ancient smiths because I like doing it with the tools that they had, with the fuel that they had, with just clay and water and a hand hammer and charcoal." "I have a modern shop, too." "I've got air hammers and gas forgers and electric kilns which I used for experimentation and making sure that what I think is happening the ancient way is actually happening with some modern tests." "What really affects me is the chemistry." "Say, "Well how do they make stuff from iron sand, from dirt, basically?"" "It's kind of magic." "The more I learned about it the more I realized there's different ways that different cultures did it so I had to try that." "I don't like just reading about it and putting a book on the shelf." "I want to do it until I get it right which causes a whole lot of sleepless nights and a lot of work and a lot of trial and error." "I feel that a collector like myself does at least have some utility to those attempting to rediscover the sword." "I can provide a swordsmith such as Paul the opportunity to make very careful measurements so that some of the original swords which have survived" "Rediscovering the way in which they were put together to give great performance even with materials and techniques that are primitive by today's technological standards." "Well, sometimes there is a debate going:" "Ls the Japanese sword better?" "Or the Chinese sword?" "Or the Chinese taught the Japanese their techniques, so basically it's just a refined Chinese sword." "Well, no the European swords are better" "No whoots, Indian-type blades are better." "I've been working a lot of these traditions and I'm finding more similarities of how they solved their problems than I am finding differences." "But they have different ways of doing them, different ways to stack them." "Some of them using twists some of them didn't use twisted steel." "But they solved the problems in a very similar fashion." "And that really intrigued me." "I figured out some things that were wrong in books, things that weren't written in books, and other things that I feel are right by actually doing them and trying them and testing the swords and breaking swords," "analyzing things." "I enjoyed getting primary knowledge." "Definitely people who smelt their own steel and test their own blades and make all things" "Where I feel the connection is sitting back there with the fire going and pumping the bellows with everything quiet and just me and forging that blade." "In 2006 a suitcase in the attic of a well-loved and deceased archaeologist was literally saved from history's dust bin." "THE TREASURE INSIDE:" "A sword, 13 centuries old." "Since then the sword has been tested extensively by the Royal Armories and the Bamburgh Research Project in a effort to unlock the secrets of this rare object's hidden past." "This is one of the most significant swords found by Brian Hope-Taylor in his 1960s excavation." "It remained in his possession up until his death in 2001 at which point it came back to the castle." "When you hold it today it has an almost mystical quality to it." "It looks like a corroded lump of metal but in its glory this would have been an awe inspiring sight." "The x-rays revealed it to be an extraordinarily sophisticated piece of technology." "It proved to be an incredibly important weapon." "One of the most important weapons," "I think it's fair to say, ever found in Britain." "It's actually composed at its central core of six strands of iron which are worked and twisted and welded together." "On the edge of that is added a steel seventh element, if you like, in a technique called Patton welding." "An iron core with a forge-welded steel edge, so you get the flex and strength of the iron with the extreme cutting power of the steel." "Which is incredibly tough and quite springy and flexible, so it won't break very easily." "You'd rather have a sword softer, take a set, take a bend, than break." "Because a broken sword in your hand during a battle, you're done." "I wouldn't want to be the smith that the customer came back to with his brother's broken sword in his hand going," ""Hey, why did you make this so brittle?"" "If a warrior would go into battle with a sword that was excessively hard and brittle the battle for him could be very short indeed." "There's only a handful like this in the world, probably four or five in the entire world." "Experts we've talked to in the British Museum of the Royal Armories don't know of a single example of a six stranded sword prior to this one being identified which does suggest that they are- something of this" "technological sophistication is staggeringly rare." "If you were actually have looked in the home of a medieval warrior or a warrior in another culture of a century or 2 ago, often the sword would've really, you know, represented the most technologically advanced item in the house." "It represents the epitome of technology of weapons technology of its age." "It is, I suppose in a modern analogy, something like a stealth fighter." "The one thing I can say with certainty is that it's very, very difficult to make one of these." "You wouldn't let a smith who knew the secrets of making a sword like this wander about." "They would have been kept closely guarded by the king." "The information would have been an incredibly jealously guarded secret." "The process is very long and very arduous and requires an incredible level of skill." "He would have had a mastery of metals." "He would have known exactly when to take it from the fire, which bits to forge, how hard to hit it, when to hit it, more importantly when not to hit it." "One single blow can shatter a blade like this easily if it's at the wrong temperature." "Literally tens of thousands of hammer blows have to be fight." "When you manufacture a blade like this you don't just make it, you live it, and you dream about it and you think about it every single moment." "It would often reflect the very best craftsmanship and some of the best applied art of that culture." "I generally try to see how all the pieces were put together because Patton welding is quite a complicated process." "That would have been translated into a 3-D reconstruction in the computer of how it was put together." "There is a cleanliness of line and an economy of weight to make it efficient, durable, as light as possible." "I'm continually impressed to no end of how beautiful all these objects are." "High-end warriors and kings who can do what they want with precious metals and precious stones." "The idea that they don't need to because the sword itself is so precious, I think, speaks volumes." "There must have been quite a lot of thought on the pan of the regular soldier to actually preserve the blade from damage." "Simply to employ a person of the caliber of the individual who made this would have cost a fortune, would have cost an absolute fortune." "If you look at old swords you can tell which ones have had to be used to parry or bone break." "You can tell bone breaks, too." "It's actually notched and chipped along both sides which does suggest that it has been used repeatedly in battle." "A sword of this quality would have been owned by someone who was incredibly important." "It was probably owned by one of the kings of Northumbria, possibly by several of them which does suggest" "200 or 300 years of use." "So it may of well been an heirloom of the Northumbrian Royal House, passed down from generations basically from one king to another." "A sword like this, I think, would have inspired absolute terror." "When you're in battle and you see a sword of this quality coming towards you, you would know immediately that the person who wielded a sword like this was someone who had spent their entire life training to be a warrior," "who lived their life by the sword." "[MUSIC]" "Contrary to popular notions, the medieval long sword" "Contrary to popular notions, the medieval long sword is surprisingly light, weighing an average of only 3 pounds and capable of blindingly fast attacks." "Sword combatants use both footwork and the ability to manipulate timing and distance to enhance the swords cutting and thrusting capabilities." "One of the primary principles of swordplay is to attack and defend at the same time where every attack contains and defense and every defense contains a counter attack." "Picking up a sharp implement and cutting someone, you know you can teach that very quickly, however the strategy behind it-when to attack, when not attack-that is a very mental pursuit." "The subtle movements, the deceptions, the trickery, where I look over here, move and strike someplace else." "When you start fencing with medieval swords, then you discover that there is more to it than actually using just the blade." "There's different angles and lots of things that it's not obvious for the normal person in using the sword." "Levering with the sword to try to disarm the other guy, bashing with the cross, pommel." "Historically European martial artists believe that it is important to study and practice the techniques with great energy and intensity." "From the manuals we can see the diversity of the ancient masters' skills." "They studied two weapon combinations:" "Sword with shields, swords with buckler, and swords with daggers." "Often they considered unarmored and well as armored fighting, mounted as well as on foot." "Generally the ancient masters always integrated armed and unarmed skills, never practicing fencing without also including grappling and wrestling techniques." "Most of these combats probably ended on the ground." "When he's down on the ground and I'm using all my weight to shove my sword through him, then I can penetrate." "In order to comprehend the sword, you need to comprehend all the techniques surrounding the actual use of swords." "Contrary to what you see at Ren fairs and what you see in Hollywood movies, armored fighting is not about using the edge of the sword." "It's not gonna penetrate that breast plate or that plate leg armor so they have to come up with another way of defeating a man in armor and that method is primarily half swording." "The manuals are full of this technique." "I grab my own blade and I use it as a thrusting weapon." "I can shorten the blade by doing this and make it much stiffer so I have accuracy and enough strike to penetrate his armor." "I have to thrust it in, and put some weight behind it and really drive it." "Fencing does not allow you to use the left hand and I have heard people tell you or say that the left hand is for balance." "It has nothing to do with balance." "We're constantly using this hand, so if he makes an attack- if I have to I'll use elbow, forearm, anything I need to." "Now in classical fencing or dueling manuals you see slapping the blade as a constant thing." "In fact, you will see that most of the time with the left hand up here in a position to slap." "He makes a thrust and I have to get to here," "I'm gonna disarm him." "You have to do freeplay, you have to do an intense amount of mock combat." "You have to do it with as realistic a way as possible." "[MUSIC]" "Today we do a lot of sitting." "You know we sit in front of our computers." "We sit in front of our televisions." "We sit on the way to work, then we get to work and we sit." "Then we go home and we sit again and then we're laying down." "In the medieval renaissance eras people didn't." "They did a lot of walking and a lot of riding and a lot of running." "I think we have no idea how much like rawhide these people must have been back in, you know, 5 or 6 centuries ago." "I think we're very soft nowadays despite our efforts to remain, you know, fit." "[MUSIC]" "I was a sword nut at 12, so me and one of my friends went out." "I was a sword nut at 12, so me and one of my friends went out." "We immediately went "bang, bang, bang,"" "started fencing with them." "And after it was over with, I had two hacksaws because you know it just ruins the edge." "Well I was shocked and upset because this wasn't what happened in the movies." "Movie combat is really a curious undertaking because it's not very realistic, generally." "It doesn't portray how the historical weaponry actually performs and handles." "It's one of my favorite themes actually that that metallic noise that a sword makes coming out of a scabbard which makes no sense." "Swords don't make a noise when they come out, you know." "It's, life as a fantasy." "It doesn't reflect the way human beings actually behave in violent, personal armed combat." "Mainly when you see movies nowadays, they always focus on techniques even in moves displaying medieval Europe." "They always focus on Asian techniques and et cetera, and that's not our way, so to speak." "Western martial arts, you know, that's, you know, whether it be English, Italian, French, Spanish, there are specifics to those styles and those weapons that are ignored in most of the movies these days." "It's like a huge pot of soup with many, many ingredients." "You know they're hybrids, really." "They're not true to western martial arts, I wouldn't say, for the most pan because they're mixing in elements of Asian martial arts that have no place there, really if you want to be realistic." "So you have a little bit kung fu, and a little bit of, you know, a little bit of everything." "Most of the time a lot of these movies are very good." "The problem that I have with it is that a lot of people in the audience think this is the way you use a sword." "It's purely for entertainment;" "This is true." "But it certainly makes my job harder." "WE TEACH PEOPLE:" "No, your sword's not going to cut through a guy with plate armor;" "No you can't out through" "Cut a Z in somebody's chest." "But you can do other things and they're even more interesting because they're real." "Many who study classical fencing and European martial ans believe that if you give the audience more realism combined with credible performances then they will enjoy and embrace it." "I think that now there's a generation of moviegoers and readers who are ready for that, and they're asking for that." "Classical fences and historical European martial artists and scholars have now shown that there is a wonderful craft out there that has been lost but that can now be made to exist again." "There have, recently there are some movies that have been focusing a little bit on European martial arts." "Good examples of films that feature combat based on specific historical swordsmanship include "Rob Roy," "Gladiator,"" ""Troy," "Kingdom of Heaven" and "Alatriste."" "In some few oases people are more in tune and do a better job of researching and being true to the style of the period." "As I said, Bob does this very well." "For example, in "Alatriste,"" "they're not what Bob would call sword-slapping scenes, you know." "His goal is always credibility, naturalism, fights the way they would be and the reason that people are careful going in and they're, once they commit they commit fully is because even a small wound in those times" "infection and you could die just from that." "You're going in to kill and it's over with very quickly." "They were violent, you know, shockingly violent at times and there were very real, dangerous consequences to mixing it up with swords." "In many regards it is to the high fantasy of film that we are indebted for today's resurgence of western martial ans." "Movies have inspired many talented individuals to take up the sword in an effort to rediscover its true martial significance." "The resurgence of authentic European martial arts has been growing exponentially over time." "Over the years it has actually become influential in cinema." "Historical European martial arts are neither reenactment nor sport fencing." "They're in a category all of their own." "This fresh approach to training takes history into account striving to improve both its practice and authenticity." "Our lives don't depend on this craft." "Our lives don't depend on this craft." "Nobody's going to challenge us to a duel at the mall with a rapier." "Nobody's going to ambush us in the parking lot with a bastard sword, so we have to have alternative reasons for why we're doing this." "We do this, I think, because it needs to be done." "And hopefully it will increase everyone's understanding and awareness of how European warfare was conducted." "They will be appreciated for as effective and as elegant and as useful as anything the rest of the world has to offer." "All these things that have been forgotten needs to be found again." "In an age where truth seems so far from us, symbol of the sword shines bright." "The journey it takes to become good with your blade, to become good with your sword, that takes a lot of time, a lot of effort, and that changes a person, matures a person." "Obviously in the process it is going to teach you to become a better man." "We hope to be-who knows-- Someday a better swordsman, maybe even mildly average swordsman." "It would be more than I would ever expect." "What story can an ancient sword tell us?" "I can't say I really understand the sword as of yet, but hopefully one day I will be there." "Eventually, I would like my studies to take me to the great heights of beating my instructor- the first woman to ever do so." "Sword fighting is kind of different and looked like good fun and I've been a couple of times and it is good fun." "While those who train today have only begun to scratch the surface, they are slowly beginning to lift the shadow." "You know, it's all those dreams that you really can't have any more 'cause you've grown up." "People are often looking backwards in time to see whereabouts we've come from." "Even in the '50s, progress was happening." "People were looking forward and now we've reached a point," "I think, where we're looking all around, trying to find meaning to what's happening." "People need to feel that sense of identity with their past and their history." "There's nothing richer than history." "History is, you know, history is, all of us over thousands of years." "I've been doing martial arts for over 20 years now." "I've noticed my body changing and I'm getting older and things are a little bit more difficult." "However, I don't give up on that." "I train myself harder so it becomes very, very mental." "Your body goes away, but your mind should stay sharp." "So I get a bit more gray and a little more stooped." "As long as I can swing a hammer," "I'm just going to keep doing this." "Within the sword lies the power both to protect and to rule." "It can be used for great evil or for great good;" "To control a people or stop the hordes of a tyrant;" "To break the rightful will of a nation or to set the truth free and every man a king over his own fate." "A good swordsman does not take lightly unsheathing his sword." "If your sword is out, it means that you intend to use it." "It's a pity, really, that we couldn't fight with rapiers today rather than guns." "It's a pity that gunpowder was invented, in my mind, because we would probably still be fighting with rapiers." "And I'd be good at it." "[MUSIC]" "[MUSIC]" "[MUSIC]"