# Historical European "Long Knife" Fencing



## Argus (Aug 30, 2015)

Nope! I didn't post this in the wrong section!

I've been contemplating writing an analysis and comparison of the principles of German longsword fencing and Wing Chun, and was browsing around for video examples when I came across some examples of German Messer fencing, and thought the FMA community might appreciate some of the similarities there are to be found in Filipino techniques.

Here are some plays from Johannes Luckner. There are few quite odd moves, such as the pommeling section, but the overall text seems to be fairly pragmatic and based on the methods of Lichtenauer and Paulus Kal. The enthusiastic "Hyaa!" "Hut!" bits are a bit humorous, but their demonstration of the techniques are pretty accurate to the text:





The execution in this video is a bit lacking, but here are some examples of other sources, including Talhoffer and Paulus Kal. Again, you'll see a number of similarities to FMA:





And lastly, some interesting dagger plays:


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## mber (Aug 31, 2015)

Those are some unique videos; I've never seen that before. The middle video in particular is intriguing and well executed, though imo they misinterpreted some of the imagery -- but that becomes a modern interpretation, so the art lives on!

If you do write an analysis, what would be your focus?


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## Blindside (Aug 31, 2015)

I have seen most of these videos, and that middle video is several years old.  As I recall they had a number of updates to their interpretations since then.


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## Argus (Sep 1, 2015)

mber said:


> Those are some unique videos; I've never seen that before. The middle video in particular is intriguing and well executed, though imo they misinterpreted some of the imagery -- but that becomes a modern interpretation, so the art lives on!
> 
> If you do write an analysis, what would be your focus?



My analysis would be comparing Liechtenauer's methods of Longsword (primarily Ringeck and Danzig, or perhaps simply the Dobringer text) to Wing Chun. The principles and goals of both arts are uncannily similar, and I've gained a lot of insight about one from the other.



Blindside said:


> I have seen most of these videos, and that middle video is several years old.  As I recall they had a number of updates to their interpretations since then.



Yeah, I realize that. I was just presenting them here as a point of interest or discussion for people who may not be familiar with HEMA. I don't know enough about FMA or the various Messer treatises (though I've gone through a few of them) to provide any insight, but I figured that some might.


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## Blindside (Sep 1, 2015)

There is a lot of similarity as you would expect short single edged blades are likely to have much overlap.  About the only thing I haven't seen in my kali studies is most of the material where hold the messer by handle and blade and do alot of blocking that way, and I haven't covered beathing someone with the hilt while holding the blade either.   I did steel the counter to the roof block and wrap over, that made a nice counter for counter training session.  But literally everything else in those messer videos I have seen in FMA.

The dagger, yes there is overlap but I also saw quite a bit of "WTF, that isn't ever going to work."


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## geezer (Sep 7, 2015)

For any of you historical scholars, I'd like to know how much of this kind of sword and knife work would have typical soldiers, sailors and other rough types in the service of the Spanish Empire in the 16th Century have used in the colonies, especially the Philippines? Emperor Charles I and Phillip II were Hapsburgs after all. They must have had a lot of German soldiers in their armies and naval forces?

It just seems to me that a lot of the Eskrima I was exposed to is as likely to have nearly as much European as native Philippine "DNA", although it may not be PC to acknowledge that these days. If true, I find it a nearly perfect cross cultural mix for todays multi-cultural world. Any input?


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