I just received my baskethilt broadsword from Purpleheart Armory yesterday, and I’m having a lot of fun and making quite a nuisance of myself to my family with it.
Purpleheart owner Christian D’Arcy makes a wooden waster for broadsword practice but I ordered this nylon model on the advice of Chris Thompson, founder of the Cateran Society. Chris moved to the Twin Cities area recently and I’m trying to get up there on a fairly regular basis to train with him.
The Cateran Society practices the fighting arts of Scotland, and in particular the Highland Broadsword, as preserved in British Army military manuals of the time. On my first training visit I learned the basic Royal Navy cutlass exercise designed by Henry Angelo Jr., scion of the Angelo dynasty of fencing masters, in 1812.
I am a ranked instructor in Filipino Kali and Wu We Gung Fu. The focus of my martial arts training is modern, in the sense that I train for the exigencies of the present day, not the Middle Ages, Renaissance, etc.
But I like swords! I like the feel of a blade in my hand, how it handles, how it moves.
I have a couple of cheap but decent katanas for cutting practice, boken (wooden samurai sword,) suburito (wooden samurai sword heavier and longer than usual for exercise,) a steel rapier foil, and wooden models of Chinese willow leaf saber and straight sword. I don’t have more than basic training in any of these arts, but the foundation moves are available on video and if you have a grounding in kali they’re not going to be totally unfamiliar to you. Kali is all about principles of movement and if you’ve ever seen one of those souvenir wall hanger shields from the Philippines, the ones labeled “Weapons of Moroland,” you know the islands are home to blades made in a bewildering and nasty-looking variety of shapes.
I have practiced modern three-weapon fencing, and found it valuable training, but I really don’t enjoy the way it’s practiced today. It has just drifted too far from the method of fighting with sharp steel in hand. (There is a classical fencing revival movement though.)
Practice with swords, and long weapons such as staff, teaches a lot about the discipline of movement, and lines of attack and defense. Though it’s not likely you’ll ever have to defend yourself with one, practice with various sword designs shows you how the characteristics of the weapon determine how to fight with it.
A friend and student of mine once had a scimitar-like blade, from Indonesia or Southeast Asia as far as we could tell. It was shorter than my outstretched arm (standard length for a kali stick in my style) and sharply curved in an asymmetric S-shape, i.e. the hilt curved forward, the blade curved back.
My bud said it was the most clumsy thing that passed for a sword he’d ever handled.
I said, “No it’s not. Look,” and showed how to move it in sweeping figure-8 curves and redondos (called moulinet in classical Western fencing,) using the point with hooking forehand and backhand thrusts.
“If you know kali principles, the weapon will tell you how to fight with it,” I said.
The Highland Broadsword handles far more subtly than you’d imagine for a blade that looks as big as this. (But that’s almost always the case with unfamiliar swords. People have been making them for a long time after all.) It’s longish for a single-hand sword, and because of the basket hilt any assist by the off-hand has to go to the wrist/forearm. I’m six feet tall and resting the point on the ground puts the pommel right at my navel.
It has great cleaving power and good point capability as well. The basket hilt makes a handy knuckleduster at close range, and there’s that pommel for reverse blows as well. Aside from the sheer fun and romance of practicing the fighting art of my Celtic warrior ancestors (“Caterans”) the techniques translate well to the use of a moderately heavy walking cane (see “cudgeling” on the society website.)
The only drawback of this model is – practice with it and the desire to own the real thing becomes well-nigh overwhelming.
And why would you want to do that? (I hear you say.)
Well, aside from the sheer joy of handling it, and indulging the fantasy of confronting a home invasion with steel in hand (unlikely to say the least – but in fact it has happened, to a man who became a legend in the Society for Creative Anachronism on that account*) there is very intriguing suggestion for sword sport.
Japanese kenjutsu has cutting drills, called tameshigiri, where live blades are used to cut straw mats. I’ve tried my hand at it, as you can see here. (Quoting from Akira Kurosawa’s “The Seven Samurai,” “As you can see, I am a swordsman of the Wood-chop School.”)
The suggestion was to adapt the Japanese training practice to Western swords. Face target, draw and come to guard. Likely guard of prime, or the hanging guard, the first position a western sword comes to out of the scabbard, now almost never used in modern sport fencing. Cut target or targets and return to on guard. Judging would be based on form and successful cutting.
And what use would that be?
It would be fun, the best justification for most anything. And, I think a revival of manly martial sports would be good for this wimpified society of ours. There was a time when “gentleman” meant “swordsman.” That time is long past, and probably a good thing too, but we’ve lost something also.
*The story I heard about 20-odd years ago, more than once but second-hand at best, was a prominent SCAdier was moving into a new apartment in a run-down neighborhood in Texas somewhere. One night the story goes, he was awakened by four Mexican gentlemen with axes and knives attempting to break in via the front and back doors. Taking a katana off the wall he confronted two at the front door, one of whom swung at him with an axe. He countered with a cut that severed the guys arm at least partly, and the story has it that the rest of it was lost in surgery. He then stabbed another in the butt as he turned to run, and again the story has it that a leg was lost as a consequence.
The two at the other door ran like jackrabbits on being confronted by a naked hairy man drenched with blood holding a sword.
Now first of all, I have heard the story several times from people who knew the guy, but never had first-hand confirmation. But the details were remarkably consistent each time I heard it.
And, one person who knew the guy did caution that he spent time in therapy dealing with the aftermath.