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Originally Posted by Timo Nieminen
About 95cm total length looks typical for Persian shamshirs, so not that different. Also not too hard to find Indian swords of similar length (e.g., khandas and tulwars) but these are perhaps longer than usual for the types (but some types were often quite a bit longer, e.g., firangi, pata). You might not call those infantry swords, but they were used on foot.
As for technique, try this:
Start with the hilt back, near your shoulder. Hold the sword with a fairly relaxed grip. Elbow downwards, forearm approximately vertical. Then push the sword forwards. Don't make a big effort to swing the sword. Put a little effort into swinging it, and a lot of effort into just moving it forwards. As your arm approached full extension, your hand will slow down, and the hilt will slow down. Let the sword pivot about where the ears are against your hand, and its forward speed will convert into a fast rotation into the target. Maybe as the blade is about to hit the target, you should tighten your grip on the hilt and help push the blade into the target. After hitting the target, pull down on the ears, draw-cutting across the target.
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Timo, I tried variations of your method and eventually I found that by facing a target sideways and holding the sword blade parellel with the ground it was very easy to pivot with a thrusting motion into the target. Using this method on a large box it seemed much easier than trying to thrust with a straight sword without feeling off balance, over a certain amount of curve makes it hard to do the same thing with a convex bladed sword.
Below is a comparison view, while some are very near the yatagan in size many are not. You have to look at what types of sword the Zeybek may have encountered when in Turkey and in the military conflicts they participated in against Bulgarians, Armenians, Greeks etc, most if not all would have been convex bladed swords.