The shamshir was also fully capable on foot according to contemporary accounts, and though I work in a barn on weekends, riding them with a sword might get me fired and void my insurance...his demonstration was on foot, although he has actually taken classes in horseback combat (in which the graduating test was putting 5 men and 5 horses in a small ring with blunted weapons, and whoever stayed on longest won.) Anyways, he's an expert on Chinese dao techniques and learned escrima in the Philippines (he is in fact half Filipino, of a family that used edged weapons in combat in the last century), both of which use extensive slashing and hooking thrusts. In short, he is a killing maching with anything you put in his hand. I trust his knowledge of the principles of combat far more than I would trust any written source, unless it be a contemporary manual by a universally celebrated swordsman. And I trust my own eyes. His hooking thrusts were efficient and practical.
Rivkin, are you perchance from anywhere near Georgia (the country)?
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