..... FIGHTING TO SURVIVE IN A WORLD WITH THE DAAAAARKEST POWERRRRS!!!....

Please, Highlander fought with a rubbish katana. He should have used a good Scottish backsword.

I used to look at a lot of Scottish swords with basket hilts in museums back in Old Aberdeen. They looked pretty neat, how come all swords don't have that kind of thing?

Technological development, I suppose. Baskethilts were very common by the end of the sword era, but you have to remember that these sorts of hilts were the culmination of hundreds of incremental imrpovements made over the course of more than three thousand years. They may seem obvious to us now, particularly when so much time and energy was devoted to protecting your hands (early medieval stances, like Ox and Maiden Guard, as well as well as the latter behind-the-back fencing style stances, were all responses to this very question), but just because they are obvious in hindsight, that doesn't mean we can't understand why it took so long for swordmaking to get there. You can't fault early sword-smiths for not making baskethilts anymore than you can fault, say, the Renaissance Masters, for wasting their time creating art and music in hope of impressing girls, when they clearly would have been better off sitting at home all night, playing 3D Japanese dating simulators.

So long as it doesn't actually contain any actual sword fighting the turn out should be great.

Cold Steel guys can judge the "chop a boot full of meat" and "attack a car hood" competitions.

Of all the things we could break the prime directive for it's going to be highly unlikely situations wherein your opponent doesn't struggle against your series of steps that depend on your mute and willing compliance?

It's a little hobby called "martial arts."

And it doesn't matter if the opponent "struggles" against you because the person receiving the technique is already doing that. That's how any dummy operating on instinct is going to move. You'd have to be really skilled or experienced to do otherwise.

Schola is brilliant! He's neither LARPer nor armchair nerd, far from it: he's actually a professional academic with a degree in medieval archeology, who's been lecturing and teaching historical weapons combat for over a decade now. The biggest difference between Schola and other Youtubers is that he actually reads and works from primary sources (principally 15th century Italian longsword manuals), translated copies of which, if you're curious, can be found on the Schola website and forum. He's also in very good shape, which is surprising. It's all part of what's called HEMA - the Historical European Martial Arts movement - a loose collection of fencing clubs and historians and enthusiastic nerds who are working together to reconstruct traditional martial arts. And from what I understand, Lindybeige has recently started taking HEMA classes (under tutelage by a friend of Schola's), which probably explains why his form has been getting better in recent videos.

It's really quite fascinating, and if you'd like to get involved, by all means! Don't let the PD stop you! Schola welcomes comments, discussion, and questions on his videos, as does Lindybeige; if you don't think something works, say so. If you want to see them do something in particular, ask away! Bear in mind, however, that Schola is a bit more stuffy and a lot more serious than the other guys; his main interest lies in things like historical treatises, archeology, and Bullshido debunking. If you've come across a talwar manual written by a Deccan prince, Schola is the guy to go to for that. If you want to see something fun and ridiculous, you'd have more luck contacting Lindy or even Skallagrim.

Six-digit, interestingly enough, he made a video on just that very topic! Check it out:

http://youtu.be/mfjXoIYEgCU

Of particular interest (in light of the poeTV discussions) is the last bit of the second video, where he tells his students to just have a go of it and experiment. Martial arts techniques are meant to be fluid and spontaneous; training for certain eventualities is important, and getting to know the "best ways" to deal with "the most common situations" is doubtlessly a good idea. † But you always have to remember that your opponent is a living person with just as much capacity for action as you have. There are certain sets of techniques that work quite well in a given situation, but you've got to be able to adapt and improvise around these techniques at a moment's notice, in a manner which is still both efficient and effective.



†(for example, there are "secret techniques" in late medieval sword fighting called the Liechtenauer Mastercuts which are based on precisely this assumption, with the understanding that the person you're facing off against is a trained swordsman, who will try a popular, well-known attack against you. Liechtenauer's techniques work brilliantly... unless, of course, your opponent comes at you in a manner that is completely atypical of knightly combat at the time, or worse, if your opponent knows the Mastercuts, too! They aren't meant to be unstoppable killing blows that will work in any situation; rather, they are sneaky counters to be used if and when the opportunity presents itself.)

I don't know dude, it's my understanding that the North Star shouldn't fight the Southern Cross so I'm not too sure how Hokuto Shinken secret anti-Nanto Seiken will come in handy. I mean the North Star 100 Cracked Fist technique will get you through 99.9% of wasteland fights.

I'm not making this up! Check it out:

http://www.thearma.org/essays/mastercuts.html

If you were a knight, you could kill all sorts of Frenchmen with knowledge like this.

Speaking of Master Cuts, it reminds me of a nice quote from Mark Twain:

"There are some things that can beat smartness and foresight? Awkwardness and stupidity can. The best swordsman in the world doesn't need to fear the second best swordsman in the world; no, the person for him to be afraid of is some ignorant antagonist who has never had a sword in his hand before; he doesn't do the thing he ought to do, and so the expert isn't prepared for him; he does the thing he ought not to do; and often it catches the expert out and ends him on the spot."