Weapon Discussion derived from Balrahn Weapon thread (non ffxi)

Ruffyreborn

Ruffyreborn

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Uzor said:
And I'm guessing we'll have to travel to the past to upgrade the weapons. To restore them to their original form, or something.

And no, its not that impractical. Its the same as when you hit someone. By wielding swords that way, you can use the whole arm, the shoulders and the stomach in order to power your blow, creating a more powerful hit. Wielding a sword that way gives it more power, and also allows to cut the throat off your opponent easier.
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no, it is very impractical... it is not stronger, it is in fact weaker. Holding a sword with the blade up is in fact a more efficient way to fight, not only because youre more flexible, but you are more powerful. Holding anything with the blade to the elbow is used for 2, maybe 3 things: Looking flashy, hug-stabbing and its semi useful for blocking. Thing is, holding the weapon upright is better for both stabbing and blocking, not to mention more powerful.

Go take some sticks or something, go outside, and try smacking a pole with the stick towards your elbow, and then with the stick pointing upright.
 
Ruffyreborn said:
no, it is very impractical... it is not stronger, it is in fact weaker. Holding a sword with the blade up is in fact a more efficient way to fight, not only because youre more flexible, but you are more powerful. Holding anything with the blade to the elbow is used for 2, maybe 3 things: Looking flashy, hug-stabbing and its semi useful for blocking. Thing is, holding the weapon upright is better for both stabbing and blocking, not to mention more powerful.

Go take some sticks or something, go outside, and try smacking a pole with the stick towards your elbow, and then with the stick pointing upright.
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I've played with sticks a lot.

Do you hit people by thrusting your arm forwards? Do you hit people by punching your right arm from the left to the right? Upwards and down? It results in slower and weaker movements, and more predictable. Yes, blocking is easier. The goal isn't to merely hit with the sword at one place, its to hit and drag it onwards, to slit, say, the entire stomach up, instead of just cutting deep in to the flesh.
 
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Uzor said:
I've played with sticks a lot.

Do you hit people by thrusting your arm forwards? Do you hit people by punching your right arm from the left to the right? Upwards and down? It results in slower and weaker movements, and more predictable. Yes, blocking is easier. The goal isn't to merely hit with the sword at one place, its to hit and drag it onwards, to slit, say, the entire stomach up, instead of just cutting deep in to the flesh.
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I hate to break it to you Uzor, and I also hate to further this derailment (so this will be my only post on the matter), but Ruffy's right. The way NIN holds the blade in FFXI is not a particularly good stance. It's incredibly weak on attack, restricted to poor reach and using fewer and typically weaker muscle groups than more traditional methods. If you want to hit with any power, you have to bring the blade in closer to your body as you strike, and an impact on anything solid has a much higher chance of jarring the blade from your hand simply due to the way the human hand is formed.

Its sole virtue lies in the fact that it IS unusual, and if you're willing to risk breaking your weapon and/or ruining its edge, provides for slightly more strength on the block. Other than that, you're much better off holding the weapon in a traditional "blade up, edge out" stance. You'll have much more reach and flexibility, and while you won't be able to parry quite as strong an attack, you also will be parrying properly and not like a dumbass that wants to replace his weapon every fight.

If the weapon is held facing down with the edge facing the arm, that's a power position for slashing and stabbing. It lacks flexibility, of course, but it makes for a nice reversal slash in a knife fight particularly. Tricky to master the grip switch though.

If you're looking to attack with primarily light slashes against an unarmored opponent, your still better off using the blade in the conventional grip. Differences in strength are largely negated against someone who's not wearing any armor, true. But if you are also unarmored, he's going to carve you up like a freakin' turkey from about, say, the length of your respective weapons outside your reach, since you're holding your blade like a "Oooh, scary Ninja!" He'll have twice as many angles of attack assuming neither of you changes grips. He'll have better overall defense, and his parries against you will probably not involve your blade at all, rather choosing to remove your hand at the wrist since that's about as close as your blade.

In short, watch less anime.
 
Sharpe said:
Says it all really. You can't compare sword techniques to stick fighting it's a whole different kettle of fish.
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Who said I compared stick fights with sword fighting styles? He told me
Go take some sticks or something, go outside, and try smacking a pole with the stick towards your elbow, and then with the stick pointing upright.
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to which I simply responded that I've played with sticks a lot. He's the one comparing them. I'm not.

However, on that note, when you first star learning to fight with swords, you do use sticks before you move on to sword.

Thing is, Ruffy think fighting with the sword that way involves thrusting the sword out and hitting, like you'd do with the sword held upwards. That's not the case. Its a different fighting style. Both have their pros and cons.

And no, I'm not talking about anime. And not necessarily against the elbow, but reversed handling. Yes, it gives shorter reach, but it allows for faster movements. Its similar to the Asian way of playing ping-pong, which I personally never really enjoyed. Just feels odd.
 
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Sharpe said:
No you use wooden training swords most of the time. However when I did foil fencing we didn't use wooden sticks or swords
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Yes, when training. Albeit you do use it in competition as well. You said you can't compare sticks to real sword, to which I replied that you use sticks before you use swords. Why? Because sticks are safer. The goal isn't to hurt the one you train with, it is to learn how to combat with swords, not that you need to combat with swords nowadays anyway. You used sticks in medieval times before you were taught to fight with real swords as well. I thought this was rather obvious.

Nowadays, depending on where you train and what you train, you use plastic sticks as well. Not necessarily combination with sword training, but because its good training, and they are lighter and easier to use then wooden sticks.
 
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I guess everyone is negating the fact that you have a free hand in either style. >_>
 
Jesus, stop arguing incorrectly over fighting styles.

Uzor is correct about certain Asian weaponry being curved. Not all of them were, but the majority were for two purposes:

1) They were used as slashing weapons, and a curved surface makes for the maximum cutting surface, ensuring that the most damage is done to the target.

2) Turned around, they could be used to go around an enemy's shield and to penetrate (as a piercing weapon) the exposed places in armor.


European weapons were yes, mostly used as thrusting and defensive weapons. It's why a katana doesn't stand up to an arming sword; it simply cannot because of its design.


As for fighting with a sword in the up or down position, I honestly don't know of any style where both weapons were wielded in a downturned configuration. Usually, an Italian Florentine style had either a parrying dagger in the offhand help in the upright position, or a secondary sword held in the downward configuration to assist in parrying blows.



Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go back to training the overhand grip style on my zweihanders.
 
most asian styles are trained in the downwards fashion though tristam, not sure if that is what you are getting at though.

I was trained to use my sais and some katas using katanas having them opposite of the american tradition of stabbity stab.

Until I was trained though, I always thought that the norm was to hold the sais in "Said typical western tradition."

Raes, unless you took martial arts your argument has no said value. The asian style does not have any less of an advantage as a person using conventional western tactics. I'm going to tell you right now that my ability to parry with someone with equal caliber of swordsmanship holding their weapon in a conventional manner is not any lower. I actually have an advantage to parry and its an added protection of my arm while holding it in that fashion. Granted if you are carrying a Large or Great Katana, it would behoove you to hold it in a more conventional way.
 
Western style, which people seem to believe religiously, is not solely focused around stabbity stabby stabbaroo. Both eastern and western sword styles use the same methods minus the reverse blade, and people seem to believe its better in traditional fanboy fashion with the eastern countries.

Both the east and west utilized stabbing, slicing, and most prominently (which people seem to forget and/or neglect) chopping. I assume the reason most of you believe that western style centers around stabbing is from both fencing and the armor design that westerners used, which slicing and chopping was nearly useless against unless you could get into a joint of the armor. Eastern nations a lot of the time wore armor of leather, cloth, bamboo and etc., (and very rarely metal and chainlink,) which was vulnerable against all three of the attack methods. The fastest and most efficient of all three methods was slicing because more times than not, you could keep a decent defensive stance.

Okay, now that being said, reverse tanto's, waki's or w/e you want to hold the wrong way is good for 1 thing in all seriousness, and thats getting in close and dirty. If you have a large weapon, theres nothing you can do against someone who is practically hugging you while slicing you open. Now, whats the best thing to do against someone whos going to hug-stab you? Keep them at a distance, and you can only do that with the upright position. You have more flexibility, power and range when doing so. This is why samurai would carry smaller waki's besides their larger katanas. They were much more useful in closer combat.

On another note, this is why wrists spikes, claws, thoses blades that can be strapped to your forearm (forget the name) and etc. were invented. Because everyone realized how inefficient holding a blade in the reverse direction actually was.
 
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