This article explores the history of the notion of centre of percussion, how it has been conceived by physicists and how it was then transmitted to sword people and modified to better suit their practical experience.
In the 16th century, cuts begin to be sorted according to the portion of the arm that moves while delivering the cut. This post explores the classification of cuts and the various tactical considerations that can be extracted from the source material.
How to move when cutting with a sword? While the question may seem simple, the answers are actually quite complex and diverse. In this post, I want to expose some things that can be found in sources to inform our cutting mechanics. This provides a starting point for experimentation, interpretation and training that is firmly grounded in history.
As I’ve exposed in a previous post the term HEMA does not come with a good description of the goals or an exact prescription of the approach. The study of historical European martial arts can use a variety of methods, and depending on the goals of the student the activity can take different forms. There does not have to be a universal agreement on that, at some point it’s just different strokes for different people. The rest of this post is just a clarification of my personal views on these topics.
I will write quite a lot about HEMA in these pages. What is it? It stands for Historical European Martial Arts. Read on for a more developed definition and some observations…
Here is a link to another article describing how geometric methods can be used to represent and analyze the mass distribution of swords and other weapons.
How does Girard Thibault use his theoretical framework to enter the fight, and what can this tell us about other fighting styles?
Here is a link to my article about weighing swords. Learn a practical way to measure the mass distribution of swords, or at least the aspects of it that have a significant effect on handling properties.
This post is a brief description of the theoretical framework that Girard Thibault (1628) uses to deal with the key variables of time and distance in a fight.