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  • Personal sword experiences

    I know many of you practice martial arts or stage combat. Now please share a personal experience about your sword training. Did you start with blades before or after you saw Highlander?

    For me, I started watching swashbuckling movies with my grandparents when I was a child. Errol Flynn, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Stewart Granger, Robert Brown and Tony Curtis were my screen idols. Grampa and I would duel using wooden spoons held backwards. I tried to use a knitting needle once because they made the clinking sounds like real swords. That got me grounded because Gram said I would poke someone's eye out. I used carrots and celery to practice my moves too. When I got older my dad started to teach me martial arts. I took a break after he died and started martial arts again in college. When Highlander came out I saw it twice a day after work at the theater in Sun Valley, Idaho when Bill Panzer held a screening there.

  • #2
    I am like you Colleengael. I too grew up watching all the swashbuckling movies and also all the Greek types in the 1960s. I loved the old Sinbad movies, Herculese, Jason and the Argonauts, etc.

    But as for experience, I was in a Civil War mounted reenactment unit and we studied Cooke's Cavalry Tactics and practiced the sabre drill in it. I also have watched and studied Cold Steel's DVD set "Fighting with the Sabre and Cutlass" with Anthony DeLongis instructor. It is very good. That is it for my instruction. I have never taken a true class.

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    • #3
      I learned fencing as a sport in highschool. Those were the years I was involved in the SCA- that fighting was with brattan sticks. But in SCA fights I was usually light infantry. (I still have my gambeson.) Before that, in elementary school, there were kids who took tumbleweeds and stripped the branches and used the trunks for play swords. There was one especially sturdy one that I kept for quite a few years- even carved and painted the thick end into a hilt.

      But that was all before Highlander. I first watched it late night on cable when I was working night shift, on a 'day' off. Now I own proper metal swords and only display them.

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      • #4
        The only sword I own anymore is my wooden katana that was signed by Adrian at the Chicago Sword Experience. All of my martial arts practice swords are long gone over the years as health concerns caused me to cut back on extreme forms of exercise. I still try to practice yoga and tai chi when my older body allows it.

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        • #5
          Coleengael, I agree and I too grew up in the 1960s watching all those cool sword movies such as Errol Flynn, all the old Greek movies about Hercules, Sinbad the sailor, Jason and the Argonauts, etc.

          My only experience was civil war reenacting during the '80s and '90s in a mounted cavalry unit. We used to study and practice the "Sabe Drill" in Cooke's Cavalry Tactics and also I have watchd and studied Cold Steel's "Fighting with the Sabre and Cutlass" DVD set with Anthony De Longis instructing. I love it.

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          • #6
            I Bought A Rapier At A Medieval Faire Once. The Lady I Was With Told Me It Looked Like The One Off Of The Princess Bride Movie. Naturally I Had To Quote The Famous "Hello. My Name Is Inigo Montoya, You Killed My Father, Prepare To Die!”

            She Then Asked If I Ever Really Studied Swordplay, To Which I Gave The Next Line "More Peruse Then Study". What Can I Say? Even She Admitted She Walked Into That One LOL

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            • #7
              I started on the sword in 2004 because I have chronic arm and shoulder problems that hurt the least when I do Kata (or floryshes with the Longsword, which I took up first). I've since foil fenced, practiced Iaido and dabbled in Kendo, and all are good exercise. I mostly do Kata now with one of my prized possessions, a red oak Kashima weight bokken blade mounted in one of Daryl's Sword Experience handles.
              Last edited by Rocketeer61; 05-08-2018, 06:29 AM.

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