/lit/ directed me here when I asked about a treatise called Pistofolo. In any case, does anyone know anything about this sort of stuff, and can offer any knowledge/assistance? Also discussion of western martial arts is also welcomed. Thank you in advance!
>>29566972
I study Fiore's system, but no idea about this one bud
>>29567004
Anything focusing particularly on the Halberd by him? And where can I read his works?
>>29567066
>>29567066
Not previous anon, but here:
http://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Fiore_de'i_Liberi
Fiore has a very extensive and interesting curriculum, mainly about dagger and longsword, but there is also unarmed wrestling, all sorts of defense against daggers, spear and poleaxe.
Overall, halberd is not really discussed in historical manuals and treatises but poleaxe is, it's essentialy a sort of short knightly halberd, but they aren't exactly for the same folk and the same job. Poleaxe and halberd aren't really dissimilar, but they aren't the same weapon either.
If you check out wiktenauer, you can have a look at Paulus Hector Mair who has a section on pikes.
If you want to have an exemple on a quick and simple system, there is Viggiani (see Jherek Zwanger's 57 pages pdf), whose manual is about a simple sword lesson with minimum guards and blows, but it's only about the single italian sword, fairly interesting though.
P.F. Girard has a treatise about all sort of military stuff, including grenades and rifles, don't know if it's that's detailed though.
About your Pistoforo... in fact it's "Pistofilo", here's the original treatise:
http://hroarr.com/manuals/other/pistofilo-bonaventura-oplomachia-1621.pdf
Don't know if it has been studied are translated. If you aren't interested in him specifically, maybe you should look into the weapon that interest you first, then a treatise about it.
>>29566972
You might try the hema general in >>>/asp/ but its a slow thread
>>29567066
Original anon here
Nothing specifically about halberds but he does cover the pollaxe
>>29567066
Here's some on wiktenauer about the halberd and similar weapons (partisan, or registered in "pole weapons").
Mair as stated earlier,
http://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Paulus_Hector_Mair
Peter Falkner though it seems to be more about the armored poleaxe, he says that halberd is fine too,
http://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Peter_Falkner
Giacomo Di Grassi has some stuff about pole weapons, halberd, pike and partisan included,
http://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Giacomo_di_Grassi
Joachim Meyer has also pole weapons parts that can be done with halberds,
http://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Joachim_Me%C3%BFer
After some browsing, Bonaventura Pistofilo, he seems quite regarded on halberds, but it's seems to be quite a late treatise (1621) for such a weapon, partisan and pikes had taken over ancient style halberd by then... for the most part. It's not unusual for "modern" masters to talk about ancient weapons though.
Thank you for all of your help with this. It confuses me why Eastern martial arts are so widely taught in comparison to their western counterpart. (Also you can find books on it really easily, compared to this.)
http://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/The-Art-of-Combat-Hardback/p/8092
Meyers book contains material about different weapons. Longsword, rapier and dagger and staff weapons etc. Meyer Halber Stangen is a good foundation for staff weapons.
Personally i train from the Ringeck longsword manual and the swedish armed forces saber manual.
A very good book about saber but no english translation as far as i know.
http://old.ghfs.se/images/manualer/sabel/web/1893%20-%20Stockholm.pdf
>>29568231
Western martial arts are basically being revived in the modern era. It's an art that died out but people are now recreating it. The eastern martial arts like kendo and naginata are conserved from the way the samurais used to practice. So there's a lot more info that has been passed down and made into structured training, basically all schools in japan have martial arts clubs. I think kendo is like the third largest sport over there or something. So there's a solid tradition for them unlike the western ones. So lots of written material, lots of experienced trainers.
HEMA is experimental, people read the old manuals and try to recreate how they think they trained and fought. So there aren't that many good schools out there for it yet, but it's getting increasingly popular. But many HEMA clubs don't have a very good structure for beginners classes, that's one of the major problems. It's getting better though.
>>29568231
The new revival of ancient western arts is fairly recent, starting in the late 80's, while it's at least one generation earlier than the westerners went to Asia to learn Eastern martial arts.
Besides, most of the ancient lineage of western martial arts are broken, HEMA and the likes are mostly reconstruction, whereas in Asia, many ancient unarmed and weapon-based fighting tradition are unbroken since their inception. Many japanese swordstyle for instance can trace their lineage of masters and students up to the 16th century and sometimes before, so that helps.
The history of eastern martial arts is more widely known as there isn't that much loss of knowledge, compared to the West that is.
Then again, if you broaden your scope and think of modern wrestling, boxing, etc as western martial arts (which is they are), you can see that there isn't such a domination of the East on the West in terms of martial arts.
True that as weapons are concerned, the West kinda lost itself along the way. But since the 19th century, there was some people like Hutton who wanted to re-train into the sword styes of old, so modern HEMA and all isn't that new, at least in theory.
>>29568231
Eastern cultures put a lot of emphasis on tradition, and tradition is great for preserving ancient things like old martial arts. Western cultures didn't put the same amount of emphasis on that, and as a result a lot of the history was lost over time.
