Interpreting Silver’s times
This post contains my long overdue interpretation of Silver’s concept of true and false times, using the Aristotelian notion of first movers.
This post contains my long overdue interpretation of Silver’s concept of true and false times, using the Aristotelian notion of first movers.
George Silver is the famous author of an early printed work on fencing and martial arts in English, Paradoxes of Defence (1599). He is often quoted for having layed out universal principles in the form of his hierarchy of true and false times. Sadly, the most common interpretation of these does not fit the whole text. This post provides the necessary quotes to understand the causes and key properties of true and false times, which are in my opinion more interesting and less open to interpretation than the hierarchy itself.
This post explores the notion of speed in our sources, starting with the explicit admonitions to be quick, the reasons one needs to be quick, and then details the distortions to martial moves that are brought by low-speed work. I believe this information is important to keep in mind when discussing training methodology.
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.
How does Girard Thibault use his theoretical framework to enter the fight, and what can this tell us about other fighting styles?