#smallsword

[mockingnerd]

Another one for the HEMA folks, or SCA or LARP or other collections of capital letters! It is available here if you are inclined to wear clothes or stick things on other things

If my clubmates would stop saying banger things like this I would be able to stop drawing piles of weapons and twisty banners. But for now it's a pretty fun challenge for my art so I'll allow it

[blue-and-gilt]

Late 18th Century European smallsword with a chased and pierced steel hilt. The guard is a symmetrical in the 'Pas d'ane' style and decorated with military trophies indicating that this might have belonged to a military officer. The grip is square and bound with alternating copper ribbon and twisted wire. Originally this would most likely been silver plated. 

The hollow ground trefoil blade is by Johann and Clemens Boegel of Solingen and maked with their I.C.B trademark and other motifs typical of the time. 

The term 'Pas d'ane' comes from French and translates as 'donkey's foot' after the shape of the donkey sole. Commentators on smallswords often misidentify the small loops between the guard and the knucklebow and quillon as the 'pas d'ane' when the correct term for them is annulets. 

On Western European smallswords the annulets are a decorative hang over from earlier fencing styles when they were larger to allow the fencers' finger over the crossguard.

[cutecuttlefish]

The sword of the day is the smallsword.

This sword is specifically designed for dueling. Everything about it is designed to be incredibly lightweight, lightning fast, and exceedingly pointy, even more so than the rapier it evolved from. The blade is often left without any cutting edge at all, because the blade is just too light; the entire point of this blade is just that, the point. The smallsword is used exclusively for thrusting, and since it would have been used almost exclusively against other smallswords, combat with this weapon is very quick and very subtle. The hilts were often ornate, and it was worn by European nobility during its period of popularity, from the mid-17th to late 18th centuries.

[commiepinkofag]

Unicorn smallsword hilt, Dutch, ca. 1650

[thepiedsniper]

I've already weighed in on this previously, but I am BEGGING people in the notes to consider that there might be a difference between flexibility and weakness.

Yes, most lighter swords require some degree of movement in your wrist. But if your wrist is limp and lacking in control then you are going to be ineffectual at best and lose your sword at worst. You have to actively use all of your arm muscles to actually manipulate a sword correctly because it takes a lot of strength and effort to make your wrist movements look subtle and effortless.

Is gay wrist an advantage or disadvantage in sword fighting technique time-sensitive

[rapierproficiency]

Went to my first HEMA tournament this weekend.

I fenced smallsword, and rapier and dagger. Placed 10th and 8th respectively which feels great!

I'm planning on going to another tournament in May now too.

[historicalfightingguide]

"Today on Murderhobos, our first guest episode! *Gasps, oohs and ahs*

We're joined by fantasy author, friend of the show, and noted trans historian Alina Boyden to discuss transness in history. We talk about Lia De Beaumont, the Chevalière d'Éon, one of the most famous trans women in history, and a kickass swordswoman. We also talk about the way academic historians often fail to recognize trans experiences (and trans women in particular), and why that matters.

You can find Alina and her books at https://twitter.com/AlinaBoyden

Subscribe to the show on Patreon: bit.ly/murderhobospatreon

Make a one-time donation to the show: bit.ly/donatetomurderhobos"

If you enjoy spy drama, fencing, duels or show combat, if you're interested in the history of trans folks, if you've ever wanted to know more about 'Chevalière d'Éon' or more precisely Lia De Beaumont, or Chevalier de Saint-Georges or Henry Angelo or Domenico Angelo you'll most likely find this particular episode interesting and worth a listen.

Furthermore if you specifically want to learn how to use a smallsword you may find the Smallsworders facebook group or the Smallsword Symposium facebook page useful.

Similarly this video may be a fun intro to smallsword fencing.

Honorable mention to the sparring clips embeded here.

For anyone who hasn’t yet seen the following links:

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Some advice on how to start studying the sources generally can be found in these older posts

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Remember to check out  A Guide to Starting a Liberation Martial Arts Gym as it may help with your own club/gym/dojo/school culture and approach.Check out their curriculum too.

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Fear is the Mind Killer: How to Build a Training Culture that Fosters Strength and Resilience by   Kajetan Sadowski   may be relevant as well.

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“How We Learn to Move: A Revolution in the Way We Coach & Practice Sports Skills”  by Rob Gray  as well as this post that goes over the basics of his constraints lead, ecological approach.

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Another useful book to check out is  The Theory and Practice of Historical European Martial Arts (while about HEMA, a lot of it is applicable to other historical martial arts clubs dealing with research and recreation of old fighting systems).

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Trauma informed coaching and why it matters

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Look at the previous posts in relation to running and cardio to learn how that relates to historical fencing.

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Why having a systematic approach to training can be beneficial

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Why we may not want one attack 10 000 times, nor 10 000 attacks done once, but a third option.

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How consent and opting in function and why it matters.

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More on tactics in fencing

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Types of fencers

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Open vs closed skills

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The three primary factors to safety within historical fencing

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Worth checking out are this blogs tags on pedagogy and teaching for other related useful posts.

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And if you train any weapon based form of historical fencing check out the ‘HEMA game archive’ where you can find a plethora of different drills, focused sparring and game options to use for effective, useful and fun training.

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Check out the cool hemabookshelf facsimile project.

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For more on how to use youtube content for learning historical fencing I suggest checking out these older posts on the concept of video study of sparring and tournament footage.

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The provoker-taker-hitter tactical concept and its uses

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Approaches to goals and methodology in historical fencing

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A short article on why learning about other sports and activities can benefit folks in combat sports

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Consider getting some patches of this sort or these cool rashguards to show support for good causes or a t-shirt like to send a good message while at training.

[blue-and-gilt]

Photos of the sword display I had at last weekends excellent Auckland Blade and Knife show.

Was great to see meet with New Zealand's very talented knife makers showing off their work. Truly inspiring works of art.

For my display I opted to have a selection from the collection that covered a broad range instead of focusing on the one topic.

It was also my first use of the new boards I made after the last show. These are on their own stands giving me more table space.

Despite being a bit rough about the edges (remember folks, measure twice, cut once 🤣) they worked well. The next challenge is to improve on how the swords are mounted. Cable ties work great, but they're fiddly to pass through the cloth backing while trying to hold up a sword at the same time.

My thanks to The Auckland Blade Show for organising such a great event and for allowing me to participate. Shows like these are key to showing people just what is available and possible.

[erik-murphy1981]

Drow Smallsword and Rapier, using modern-style pistol grips The smallsword has a triangular cross section, while the rapier has a T-shaped spine like a pesh-kabz. The forward-curved blade on the rapier is not the optimal design for thrusting, but is a stylistic and cultural holdover from my elves using forwards-curved shortswords like the Ginunting.

[riderart]

Clown

[awallofswords]

Why Sabers dominated over Smallswords & Spadroons for Infantry Officers

[olberic]

i think i have some sort of vibe that tells ppl i dont mind driving for carpools. like i drive 5 friends to dnd every week and i drive my parents half often and i always offer to drive my other friends when we’re going somewhere. but i also have like ppl from band and my smallsword class say “you drive, right? can you pick me up/drop me off next week?” and even at work we’re looking to carpool on a work trip in a few weeks and my manager asked if i’d drive the fleet vehicle. like sure yeah. i dont mind. how did literally any of you know to ask though 🤨

[vpofcookies]

[ourladyofeightswords]

So I’ve been planning a dance for my HEMA Club (we’re collegiate and it’d be pretty swag to have helmets that are safe to spar in, lol). It’s ✨tomorrow✨ which means I’m SO CLOSE to being able to sleep and have energy again.

I’ve had routinely bad sparring sessions for the past month :(((

At least we’re going to an event that’ll have a bunch of one handed fencers and that’ll fix me

[bethrnoora]

turns out I'm actually not half bad at following the motions of and judging rapier + dagger despite never having fenced it myself?