Historical saber references?

**TheMightyMcClaw** · Posted On: 4/13/2010 10:26pm

As I mentioned on YMAS, I'm going to be doing fight choreography for an independent movie over the summer. At one point in this film, there's a duel between a character wielding a shillelagh and a character wielding a saber. While i'm finding a decent number of resources for shillelagh techniques, I'm having a hard time finding stuff on how Ye Olde Sabers were used. I thought I saw a whole series of videos on the very subject on this forum, but now cannot seem to find them.
So yeah, any manuals/instructional videos on historical saber techniques would be much appreciated.

**Dak** · Posted On: 4/13/2010 11:00pm

a gentleman made a post in the thread "Fencing vs. HEMA" about Swedish sabre manuals i believe

No BS MMA and Martial Arts - View Single Post - Fencing or HEMA?

edit: hadn't looked at those before. They are similar (by my glancing over it) to the modern shenanigans. I might put some of these things into my modern fencing game. fusho

**Grimnir69** · Posted On: 4/14/2010 6:37am

I am the one who posted that, and I run the Hroarr site with the material. My club also has a sabre group practicing from those manuals. You can see some of it here: http://www.youtube.com/results?searc...abre+ghfs&aq=f

Here's some HEMA competition sabre: YouTube- Swordfish sabre final 2009

You can also search for British Sabre fencing according to Hutton on YT:

http://www.youtube.com/results?searc...ton+sabre&aq=f

Or classical Italian sabre fencing:

YouTube- Eric Meyers vs John Sullins, dueling sabre bout WMAW 2009

Good luck!

**lklawson** · Posted On: 4/14/2010 7:39am

Military Saber or Dueling Saber?

There's a whole crapload of manuals on Military Saber available. But the weight of the weapon makes the bread-n-butter techniques somewhat boring visually.

Here are some that I use as source material:

Military Sabre/Cutlass:
http://www.anesi.com/prsefs.htm
http://www.ejmas.com/jnc/jncart_burtonnewsword_0200.htm
http://www.thehaca.com/pdf/ColdSteel.pdf
http://www.careyroots.com/broadsword.html
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperbac...ercise/1848595
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperbac...dsword/7757776
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro...3/cassell.html
http://www.navyandmarine.org/cutlass...869cutlass.pdf
http://www.navyandmarine.org/cutlass...906cutlass.pdf

There are also a number of google books, if you search, such as this one:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=v...page&q&f=false

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

**DdlR** · Posted On: 4/15/2010 1:31am

Originally Posted by TheMightyMcClaw

As I mentioned on YMAS, I'm going to be doing fight choreography for an independent movie over the summer. At one point in this film, there's a duel between a character wielding a shillelagh and a character wielding a saber. While i'm finding a decent number of resources for shillelagh techniques, I'm having a hard time finding stuff on how Ye Olde Sabers were used. I thought I saw a whole series of videos on the very subject on this forum, but now cannot seem to find them.

No BS MMA and Martial Arts - View Single Post - trying to help someone

**Mordschlag** · Posted On: 4/15/2010 11:09am

Have you considered using Messer techniques for sabre? If you do you can always find more than a couple Fechtbücher for that and see where that takes you.

**Permalost** · Posted On: 4/15/2010 11:14am

There's a good DVD set by Cold Steel with Lynn Thompson and Anthony DeLongis that's pretty good.
YouTube- Cold Steel: (1 of 3) Basic Self Defense With Saber and Cutlass
YouTube- Cold Steel: (2 of 3) Basic Self Defense With Saber and Cutla
YouTube- Cold Steel: (3 of 3) Basic Self Defense With Saber and Cutla

**lklawson** · Posted On: 4/15/2010 1:48pm

Originally Posted by CodosDePiedra

There's a good DVD set by Cold Steel with Lynn Thompson and Anthony DeLongis that's pretty good.

Mr. DeLongis certainly knows what he's about and Mr. Thompson knows where to go to get good training.

That said, I've never been able to talk myself into the high price-tag for these videos.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

**Permalost** · Posted On: 4/15/2010 4:29pm

Originally Posted by lklawson

Mr. DeLongis certainly knows what he's about and Mr. Thompson knows where to go to get good training.

Well said.

That said, I've never been able to talk myself into the high price-tag for these videos.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

A friend of mine works for a cutlery distributor, and somehow they came across the DVDs but nobody there really wanted them, so I got them for free. Also a nice set about the sarong with Ron Balicki that's pretty cool even though I'm not really interested in training with one. And I got the Warrior's Edge series at a huge discount when they were trying to get rid of their VHS tapes to switch to DVDs. I probably wouldn't spend full price on any of their videos either.

**HereBeADragon** · Posted On: 4/23/2010 4:49pm

just FYI you can get a lot of the cold steel DVDs on ebay pretty cheap. Or at the Cold Steel Challenge their stuff is always really marked down, and they will haggle with you too. At the last one I went to I got the Sjambok and Saber series for less than $40 each and 10 of their escrima sticks for $100. On ebay I got the Warrior's Edge DVD series for $30 with shipping.