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SBG Sword Forum :: Training :: General Sword Training :: Fighting "Christian" style Author Topic: Fighting "Christian" style (Read 523 times) tsafa Swordmaster member is offline SCA Fighter. Experience is Everything. Joined: Dec 2006 Gender: Male Posts: 3,250 Location: X-NYC Karma: 108 Fighting "Christian" style « Thread Started on Jan 11, 2007, 6:49pm » No am not about to embark on a crusade to the recover the holy lands, I am talking about an interesting SCA method of fighting. This method is not in any traditional manuals, but it works non the less so I thought I might bring it up for discusion. You use what ever single hand sword you normaly use as your primary weapon. In you off hand you will hold a large bastard sword or early claymore upside down. Picture the "Braveheart" sword poined down as you are holding the ricaso (that leather area on the blade). If you are using a bastard sword, you are holding the blade itself. The style assumes you are wearing a guantlet in at least that hand. So now you have holding the sword upside down so it looks like you are holding a giant cross. Hence the name "Christian". You move that side to side to block as a shield. The sword has a long enough handle so it should cover your head and the blade will go down well past your knees, so you don't have to worry about any vertical motion, just side to side blocking. The large crossguard is pointed sligtly forward to catch any cuts that come down vericaly. This style has the added advantage of being a secondary weapon. Form the cross possition you can occasionaly pull back the upside down handle towards your ear and thrust with the tip. You do this as you would a spear if you were holding it overhanded. Then quickly drop the point to resume you deffensive position. The advantages of this is that you have increased visibility because you no longer have a shield. Your single hand sword in your other hand also has a greater range of motion. You head is better covered then with a sheild, cause the handle sticks up past your head. You only need to move side to side to defend. The main disadvantage is that you are vulnerable to thrusts from swords... very vulnerable against spears.... and totaly helpless against arrows. I recommend you get good with the sheild first. Then practice this as a backup. A similar style to this is called "Husgard". In stead of a two hand sword as a shield, you use an axe with a long handle and buttspike. You hold the axe right under the head so the stick hands down. The buttspike will be used as I discribed before to stab. This has the advantage that the axehead can be used to punch if you get close enough. You loose the crossguard which is usefull for stopping vertical attacks and deflecting thrusts. « Last Edit: Jan 11, 2007, 6:54pm by tsafa » Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged No athlete/youth can fight tenaciously who has never received any blows: he must see his blood flow and hear his teeth crack under the fist of his adversary, and when he is thrown to the ground he must fight with all his might and not loose courage... Anyone who can do that, can engage in battle confidently. Roger of Hoveden, 1174-1201 www.poconoshooting.com rammstein Guest Re: Fighting "Christian" style « Reply #1 on Jan 11, 2007, 8:37pm » Interesting! I've never heard of this before! I'm going to try it of course. My main concern wouldn't be about thrusts, they are easy enough to knock off line, but about targetting the hand holding the bastard sword. History tells us of examples where it was known that looping a finger over the crossguard, for example, gave better control, yet it was rarely used because many a man-at-arms would notice this and slide his sword down your blade, severing the index finger. How safe is this? Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged tsafa Swordmaster member is offline SCA Fighter. Experience is Everything. Joined: Dec 2006 Gender: Male Posts: 3,250 Location: X-NYC Karma: 108 Re: Fighting "Christian" style « Reply #2 on Jan 11, 2007, 9:24pm » Quote: The style assumes you are wearing a guantlet in at least that hand. That goes for either modern practice or if it was ever to be used in battle. You can not use this style without out handprotection. The hand will be hit. I got my guntlets from here: http://icefalcon.safeshopper.com/27/213.htm?153 $150 I have seen similar pairs for $120 Wearing these guantles your fingers are fairly safe. You run the same risk fighting this style as you would fighting with a polearm or a twohanded sword which people do all the time in the SCA. The hands are always off-target in the SCA because a guantlet is always assumed. « Last Edit: Jan 11, 2007, 9:31pm by tsafa » Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged No athlete/youth can fight tenaciously who has never received any blows: he must see his blood flow and hear his teeth crack under the fist of his adversary, and when he is thrown to the ground he must fight with all his might and not loose courage... Anyone who can do that, can engage in battle confidently. Roger of Hoveden, 1174-1201 www.poconoshooting.com rammstein Guest Re: Fighting "Christian" style « Reply #3 on Jan 11, 2007, 9:29pm » I don't mean safty as in "Will I get hurt practicing?" but as in "Will I get hurt in REAL combat." In practice, its perfectly safe of course. But I worry that the exposed hand would make an easy target.... Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged tsafa Swordmaster member is offline SCA Fighter. Experience is Everything. Joined: Dec 2006 Gender: Male Posts: 3,250 Location: X-NYC Karma: 108 Re: Fighting "Christian" style « Reply #4 on Jan 11, 2007, 9:39pm » I think that any man that could own two swords would be able (historicly) to own guantles. Otherwise I don't think anyone would risk it when they could use a shield. The only other sinario I can picture is that he looses his sheild and picks up the nearest other weapon which happened to be a two-handed sword. If anyone ever used this without a guantlet and got hit on the hand, they lost some fingers. Likewise if anyone came upon such a man using this style with no guantlets, they would definetly target the fingers. Keep in mind that the person, using this style with no guantlets should expect that the other person will target his fingers. Maybe he could use that to distract him and open him up. « Last Edit: Jan 11, 2007, 9:40pm by tsafa » Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged No athlete/youth can fight tenaciously who has never received any blows: he must see his blood flow and hear his teeth crack under the fist of his adversary, and when he is thrown to the ground he must fight with all his might and not loose courage... Anyone who can do that, can engage in battle confidently. 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