Knights Shop Rawlings Synthetic Sparring Range Review

Drilling and Sparring by the AHF (Academy of Historical Fencing), partly from the '2 Days of the Blade' Knights Shop new facility launch event, and partly from an AHF training session the day after.

All weapons used are the new Rawlings range, but pre-production models, see SFI review for further information.

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• AHF Knights Shop Sword Video 2
• fencing
• sword and buckler
• longsword
• sword and shield

[brampa]

When fighting with Targe+sword, what manuals are you following?

[Nikos3000]

@brampa The sword and shield material comes from the renaissance Italian manuscripts (Marrozo, di grassi, capo ferro), where that type of concave double strap shield is known as the rotella. Commonly used with plain hilted swords seen here, upto full rapiers, as you will see if some other videos of ours.

When the synthetic basket hilts come out we will be doing more on that front, we used to use a lot of steel bladed basket hilted weapons, but none are particularly ideal to fencing practice.

[LegoGenfilms]

on a scale from 1 to 10 how much does it hurt to get hit? (and a reenactment blade is 10)

[Nikos3000]

@LegoGenfilms About 3-4 I suppose, more than a shinai, a lot less than a re-enactment blade. Having good gloves, helmet and joint protection are a priority, aside from that the hits are uncomfortable and can lead to bruising if you are fighting at high contact levels with relatively little armour. We still use steel in the club, like the Albion meyers, but these synthetics are our regular safe beginner/high contact trainer.

[ffspissoffyouidiot]

loving the Talhoffer on the walls...

[CCPrincipales]

I like it! Would you care to comment on how these pre-production models compare to the current production models? My only concern is that they looked a little whippy when setting aside attacks. Do you find that to be a problem?

[elfinla]

I thought you guys were excellent!! Especially the two-handed sword sparring!! It seems that virtually all the other historical martial arts sparring videos I see on Youtube show either 1) good technique but done slowly and non-fluidly, or 2) fast but sloppy technique. You guys were fast but had clearly discernable wonderful technique with great footwork. Really impressive!!! Where is the AHF by the way?

[Traith01]

@castledragonsword hope you realize, when they said Final Opinion Awesome. They meant the bloody swords they were sparing with, thus the title "Rawlings Synthetic Sparring Range Review". Also they arent too ridged, western martial arts are very linear (ex. Boxing), unlike many of the eastern arts which tend to be curricular based (ex. Kungfu). they are coiling on their back foot, ready to strike. which does look tense. They are actually doing very well.

[KLNBKiev]

Very good!

Especially two-handed swordsmen fencing.