Historical European Martial Arts became a major international movement over the last two decades. Clubs and schools sprang up on every populated continent pursuing a wide variety of activities and styles. Because the movement is still so new many clubs lack people with experience researching, practicing, or teaching long dead martial arts.
In The Art of Longsword Fighting Ben Smith offers his interpretation of the foundational sections of the art of fighting with the longsword taught by Sigmund Ringeck, one of the preeminent masters of the Liechtenauer tradition. He offers his method of teaching it based on his twenty years of research into historical teaching methods, the evidence within Ringeck’s texts, and the writings of his contemporaries both inside and outside his tradition.
The author also lays out the concepts for understanding the structure and form of a martial art style, the process of physical research, the results of his research into the training methods of this particular style, and offers the most transparent published interpretation to date of the foundational section of Ringeck’s longsword style to show how he justifies his interpretation and teaching methods he recommends. All of this is achieved through a panoply of photographs showing each movement, along with explanatory diagrams, and explanations detailing how and when to introduce each next step in the curriculum, in a manner that is faithful to Ringeck’s style.
This book will help you understand this martial arts style as a complete entity, use current historical research effectively, and will prove invaluable to martial artists and researchers of the Renaissance era.
The Art of Longsword Fighting is a technique guide aimed at teachers and advanced students based on the historical European longsword school of Sigmund Ringeck. Due out later in 2021 from Pen & Sword, it's 248 pages and will be available in hardcover and ebook formats.
This is an interestingly relevant modern primer based on medieval texts and includes quite a lot of in-depth background history and interpretation. The material is presented in a logical and accessible manner. The first section covers actual practice setup and execution - including core concepts and background info on style, safety (lots of good general info here with good takeaways for other styles and forms also), terms, training equipment, and learning new techniques. The second section covers the actual extant medieval writings left behind: general lessons, positioning, anatomy (neck, upper body, abdomen, etc), points of attack, and more.
The instructions throughout are accompanied by photographs and clear line drawn illustrations. The captions in the photographs are illuminating and the author does a good job of illustrating the differences between different contemporaneous European schools of fencing and martial arts by comparing them to one another with regard to foot and body positions.
Four stars. Obviously this is a niche title - but it is a good choice for public library, re-enactors, SCAdians, RenFaire folks, students of military history, and allied audiences.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
