Should you conform to your weapon, or should your weapon be conformed to you?
Original Poster: BLACK PANTA
Forum: Martial Arts Weapons
Posted On: 29-09-2007, 08:50
Orginal Post: BLACK PANTA: As martial artists we spend countless hours practicing and developing our skills at specific weapons. Swords, knives, sticks etc etc. We learn how to use these weapons efficiently and skillfully. There are those that wield these weapons with great mastery, however they have put in decades of time, effort and sacrifice into honing their skill. When they were/are on the battlefield they are confident, precise and sure of every strike they make. However there are those that may never become proficient, at best they may only have a basic grasp of the art. This could be because they are intimidated by the weapon, they may find the weapon awkward, or simply they may find it to complicated. It could also be said that, they don't have the time or patience to learn and master the weapon.
Now some weapons came about by people finding objects/tools and learning to make them lethal,eg, Sai, Kama etc. But still they had to conform to the shape and create a use for the object/tool.
A view that I have is that it would be easier and more efficient if we make weapons to conform to us, instead of us conforming to the weapon. Make the weapon more ergonomic, in a sense. If weapons were made to compliment our bodies and conform to our abilities, then in theory, it would make the one wielding it more comfortable. Thus making the user more proficient and efficient. Instead of struggling to make our bodies move in a certain way, one can create a weapon that conform to it's users natural movements.
Post: bamboo:
Your weapon of choice is part of you through hard work and time, just like anything else, that being said, any good weapon meant for real use is crafted to fit the user, this includes swords, knives, guns etc.
So, basically what your proposing has been in practice for a very, very long time.
-bamboo>
Post: BLACK PANTA:
i had a feeling you'd respond with that:wink: . What I'm saying is, these weapons i.e. swords wasn't designed for everyone. If it was then it wouldn't take soo long for some to master it.>
Post: BLACK PANTA:
It is my opinion that weapons, especially hand held blade/wood weapons, mostly bladed should constantly evolve. I thought of this after watching 300, and saw that igor, deformed dude.>
Post: dscott:
First of all....long time, no talk!!!!
Ok....I think that you must conform to your weapon. Like you said most weapons were born from simple tools. Weird, different shapes that, once mastered, become lethal.>
Post: Triple T:
If you examine the mechanics of knife attacks using a short blade in the inverted, or Psycho-shower-scene-stabbing, grip; if you watch the behavior of fist mounted weapons like katar; if you dissect the techniques of using a shield, you can see that the development is based along using common, unarmed motions with the weapon augmenting the natural. Certain weapons are simply designed to work in other ways, like the sickle-and-chain or three-section-staff, but each of these were designed to defeat flaws in previous weapon designs - in the cases above, rigidity and confining motions.
As martial artists, like any other artist, we are not forced to conform to the tools we trained with. Examine Monet's adaptation of the painter's brushstroke, and then examine Giger's use of airbrushing as opposed to older artists, like DaVinci. The sword we master is the idea of the sword in our minds. The use of the tool is decided by us using it.>
Post: Hengest:
I think it would actually be very difficult to make a weapon that conformed to a user's every natural movement. As an example, take TTT's katar; an excellent weapon when it comes to attacking, since striking conforms almost exactly with the arm's natural movements, eg, a thrust is a simple punching motion. However, try parrying with one! It's much more difficult than it is with a conventional short sword. This is even more noticable with the pata, the sword version of the katar. Thus, while time may be saved in training to attack with the katar, it takes more time to learn how to defend.>
Post: Bloodybirds:
First, I really like BP's answer to the above question. In most cases, in my opinion, the weapon should conform to each individual's style and application. Just like empty hand forms, the transition from technique to natural reaction involves making it your own. The Chinese believe, along with the Japanese stylists if I am not mistaken, that eventually one's soul inhabits a particular weapon after many years of practice. In addition, in traditional thought one's weapon becomes an extension of one's self after awhile. I have also found the wielding of a weapon not only develops skill in weapon attacks but aids in the development of extension, timing, application, waist action, fa jing, etc. in one's fighting ability and forms practice.
Reading the Book of Five Rings by Musashi, or any good Chinese style book on weaponry, to make a weapon live one must have that weapon become a part of you, until together the sum of the wielder and the wielded become indistinguishable and undetected. My personal belief has always been that the person makes the style, not the other way around. What works for me in a particular technique may be different or unnatural for someone like BP. But that is also the joy of the art! The weapon must conform to the limits, abilities, and understanding of the practitioner, and allow the practitioner to explore and adapt.>
Post: Gazelle:
I understand that some people don't have the time, though, in many cases, i think time can be made if one has a priority higher than doing something else. But, if one doesn't have the patience, then, maybe martial arts, or indeed anyother art, is not the direction for them. Or, on the otherhand, maybe it is, so that they might be able to learn it.>
Post: bamboo:
Bam!!! Gazelle wins.>
Post: Wilhelm von Wankenstein:
*bump*
In an ideal situation, of course, a weapon should be made to conform to the warrior wielding it as closely as possible. That said, what are we aiming to achieve by training with weapons? Is it to use a particular weapon well? To use a particular family of weapons well? To use all - or nearly all - weapons with a reasonable degree of proficiency? To learn more about our own movement and bodies so we learn to move better and use our own bodies well? Or some combination of the above-mentioned?
If one is training with weapons for the sake of using a particular weapon, then, ideally, coming to possess a weapon personalised to one's physical and stylistic characteristics should be an eventual goal. For the purposes of self-defence, it may not be a very practical goal, but I would assume that someone training in the use of a single weapon for its own sake isn't all that worried about hard practicality so much as the polishing of a skill for its own sake. That said, any weapon art is an exacting, technically-demanding process that requires a great deal of practice and refinement before one can even begin to comprehend one's own personalised style. It is for this reason that I have never gotten very far in swordsmanship, nor probably ever will - I have the attention span of a goldfish :mrgreen: Most swordsmen that I know are content to spend their lives practicing with training blanks (wooden swords, unsharpened spring steel blades and so forth), many never owning a live blade. To paraphrase TTT, the sword is in the mind, not in the hand.
If, on the other hand, one's primary concern in weapon training is self-defence or any other field of actual combat, one ought to give heed to Musashi's advice to aim to be proficient at as many weapons as possible and not unconditionally dislike any weapon, nor over-specialise in any weapon. In actual combat, entropy rules - weapons break, are dropped, lost, stolen, wrenched away or quite simply may not be carried on one's person for a variety of reasons. In such situations, the first object to hand and the very environment itself is often pressed into service as a weapon. Of course, one cannot possibly master the intricacies of every weapon extant, but one can develop the state of zanshin, or total awareness. Different people may understand this term differently, but I am speaking in this case of a physical and mental state of uninterrupted flow and sensitivity in which one comes to use any wielded object as naturally as a part of one's own body without concern for technical orthodoxy.
From my own study and experience, the way to develop this state of being with regard to weapons usage is by training with highly generic weapons - various lengths of stick being a good example - and treating them as tools - simple machines - and eliminating the idea of them being weapons from the mind as much as possible. This removes the obssession with the perceived power of a weapon in hand - which is antithetical to the state of zanshin - and enables the student to focus on learning and applying the universal mechanical principles that cut across all classes of simple machines. As TTT suggested earlier, weapons are ultimately tools, which in turn are simple machines, which act to enhance the action of our bodies.
There - novel over :wink:>
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