WMA ?

[rainsfordryan]

Hi all, just wondering what WMA is, have an idea(western martial arts maybe?). More info would be great, Thanks.

[knightofredemption]

Yup spot on, what kind of info you after?

[rainsfordryan]

I'm newish to all this stuff, so any info, even very basic and general would be great. Here's a few questions for starters.

Did u say in another forum that you give courses and are qualified?
Is there much of this in Ireland?
Any good links etc?
How does this compare with say fencing?
What do you teach/ demonstrate?

Thats all for now!
thanks

[knightofredemption]

Hi Fergal.

I am a student of WMA and am a member of the European Historical Combat Guild and have a training group here in Ballyconnell.

Is there much of this in Ireland? Well I know there are some folk in Dublin that train and study from such documents as I-33, and no doubt there may be others. WMA in Ireland is still in its infancy and not really connected as yet.

How does it compare to Fencing? I assume you refer to modern sports fencing. If this is so there is quite a large difference, WMA is a broad spectrum of study, from early wrestling, through jousting, pole arms, longsword through to saber and many more.

My interest is in longsword, and while I am comfortable teaching the basics, beyond that I am on the same journey as the rest of the group and look to the Master swordsmen of the Guild to help me.

Links, well here are a couple that I use to study what is going on out there

http://www.thearma.org this one has some good videos and essays.

http://www.swordforum.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=15 this forum has some great threads and sub forums that would help to answer your questions in more detail.

That should be a good start, you will find many links yourself from theses two sites.

I hope that has been of some help

Paul

[brendan]

only thing to add is that http://www.fioredeiliberi.org/ has some good stuff as well - this includes videos which (amongst other things) show why fencing masks are needed for lots of that stuff!

Brendan

[rainsfordryan]

Great web sites, thanks guys. Some scary stuff , but possibly good fun too , thanks again.

[brendan]

yeah, it is a bit scary, but remember this is the stuff they video and share - there is a lot of practice you are not seeing!

[rainsfordryan]

It brings me back to the days when my brother and I would pretend we were robin hood/ ninjas, etc and "duel"(polite word for "beating the ......out of each other) with bamboo sticks. Hand guards, and maybe even face guards would have been nice! I can still feel the pain!