Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post - European Military Patterns- Ethnographic or not?

Emanuel · 8th January 2007, 03:25 PM

Interesting thing, the hooking thrust. It reminds me of the Abyssinian shotel, designed to reach opponents around their shields. Wouldn't the shamshir's handle be an obstacle to a hooking strike...one has to twist the fist which feels awckward. TO produce a powerful thrust I image a wide swing is needed, again awckward with the rotated hand. Can your teacher hit a target hard enough to cause hard damage?

I think one of the problems presented by Rivkin is that present fighting styles may not reflect actual use centuries ago. It seems to me that something as extraordinary-looking (to an European) as a hooking thrust would have been mentioned in written accounts by many sources and not just in English.
I can imagine what the motion would look like, but a video/clip of it would be nice...

About ethnographic weapons and European military patterns...I had thought it to refer firstly to weapons created within one specific culture and more or less unique to that culture, and secondly to represent weapons not resulting from industrial processes. As European pattern swords were mass-produced, the sense of cultural craft is maybe lost a little. It is regained when an individual in another land takes the mass-produced blade and alters or refits it to suit his culture - in that action manual craft is involved and each resulting weapon is different from any other.

Also realized something quite simple which I thing was true until quite recently: ethnographic would mostly represent something non-European resulting from manual craft...but then what about the puukko? So I'll stick to the non-industrial bit

Regards,
Emanuel

8th January 2007, 03:25 PM	#13
Emanuel Member Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 1,242	Interesting thing, the hooking thrust. It reminds me of the Abyssinian shotel, designed to reach opponents around their shields. Wouldn't the shamshir's handle be an obstacle to a hooking strike...one has to twist the fist which feels awckward. TO produce a powerful thrust I image a wide swing is needed, again awckward with the rotated hand. Can your teacher hit a target hard enough to cause hard damage? I think one of the problems presented by Rivkin is that present fighting styles may not reflect actual use centuries ago. It seems to me that something as extraordinary-looking (to an European) as a hooking thrust would have been mentioned in written accounts by many sources and not just in English. I can imagine what the motion would look like, but a video/clip of it would be nice... About ethnographic weapons and European military patterns...I had thought it to refer firstly to weapons created within one specific culture and more or less unique to that culture, and secondly to represent weapons not resulting from industrial processes. As European pattern swords were mass-produced, the sense of cultural craft is maybe lost a little. It is regained when an individual in another land takes the mass-produced blade and alters or refits it to suit his culture - in that action manual craft is involved and each resulting weapon is different from any other. Also realized something quite simple which I thing was true until quite recently: ethnographic would mostly represent something non-European resulting from manual craft...but then what about the puukko? So I'll stick to the non-industrial bit Regards, Emanuel Last edited by Manolo; 8th January 2007 at 03:45 PM.