Talk:Swordsmanship/Pre-Revamp Archive

merge?

see Talk:European dueling sword. dab (ᛏ) 16:06, 13 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

list

the "list of swordsmen" seems a bit arbitrary, without any context. Any fencer may be considered a swordsman, at the very least, the list should be organized by period or tradition. dab (ᛏ) 14:05, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yeah that should probably be its own article with at most a link in the see also section of this article. - Taxman ^Talk 17:19, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)

I guess that's true. It is quite arbitrary. I thought I was doing a favor to merge Swordsmen based on suggestions, but now it does seem odd. Please do what you think it should be. - Aree

no, I quite agree with the merge. The list was out of place even before. I'll just remove it for now, we have categories for that (lists only add something if they are sorted or annotated in some way). dab (ᛏ) 09:36, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree with dab. Just make sure all those articles are in a sane category. If not, it's no waste to create 'list of swordsman' as an article. - Taxman ^Talk 12:31, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

Two Weapon Fighting

this article lacks the idea of havin a sword in each hand Dudtz 8/5/05 1:26 Pm EST

Wiki contradictions

The Zweihander section of the article, when discussing historical use is inconsistant with the Zweihander article.

It is my personal belief that the Goliath manuscript does not infact protray zweihanders but longswords that are illustrated in a distored way. And as far as I know the historical fencing community agrees with my view.

Zweihanders are used more in the fashion of a polearm than a langschwert from my experiments with them.

I can cite a swordforum thread that supports my arguement if asked.

It is not a controversy over the use of any given sword. It is a matter of terminology what we want to call a Zweihander. If we take Tobler's definition, I think the Goliath swords would qualify; please collect as many citeable definitions of the term as you can and we can match them against each other here. I would be interested in the pike-formation-attacking "myth". Do we have any citation of the assertion, and do we have any citeable debunking of the assertion? dab (ᛏ) 20:06, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This article should be revamped: WMA Bias

As it currently stands this article serves as a patchy overview of reconstructed Western Martial Arts. While that is all well and good, it needs to be in a seperate WMA article, not in an article on generalized swordsmanship.

The term "swordsmanship" applies equally to all sword arts, and it has a great deal of cultural baggage chained to it that should also be dealt with. The article should be revamped into an overview of the world's many traditions of swordsmanship (with links to more detailed pages), and perhaps their philosophical baggage. Claiming the "swordsmanship" article for reconstructed WMA is simply biased and unrepresentative of actual traditions of swordsmanship and the meaning of the word, and serves to give an incorrect impression to the inexperienced. Kensai Max 23:07, 5 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I assume that the term "swordsman" is mainly applied to western swordsmen, while other cultures have other terms such as kensei. Of course we should reference these, but I see no problem with having this article focus on western traditions. dab (ᛏ) 20:37, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I see no reason why this article couldn't include both, and then perhaps be split later on? Or more asceticly pleasing might be to write the other articles seperately and incorporate them. I think that the article exists the way it does is because only WMA-ers have added to it. Sethwoodworth 21:51, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

sure, do go ahead and expand its scope. you can cry bias once people try to stop you from doing this. So far, I suppose just the most obvious connotation of the term is covered, it's the "principle of least surprise", meaning, the article covers what people are most likely to expect under this title. There is nothing to be said against a wider coverage of "non-western" swordsmanship at all as long as it is done informedly and encyclopedically. dab (ᛏ) 20:18, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To be honest, to myself and to what I believe is the large majority of the general public, any person using a sword is considered a swordsman, and any sword art as swordsmanship. This also fits the exact, encyclopedic definition of the word.

If we're only applying the English term to Western swordsmanship while reserving ethnic terms for various other styles, then there's really no reason to use it for the various Western styles either - there are more appropriate "ethnic" terms for them like Fencing and reconstructed German schwert-fechten or whatever. By constraining it to Western styles the term stops having meaning. There's too much outright WMA or heavily WMA-slanted stuff running around in the sword articles on Wiki, like Katana#Comparisons with European Swords, which seems to have gotten even worse lately.

I'll get to work on a rewrite. Kensai Max 03:04, 30 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

well, yes, but what is a "sword"? it's a Germanic term, describing the western weapon. To include the katana in the term, for example, is rather an extension. Strictly speaking, a sword has two symmetrical edges and a point. The katana is often called a "sword" because of its similar cultural status, but it is not, technically, a sword. Common usage may trump this objection, though, and I don't mind too much. I would just like the "bias" template to be gone, either way. dab (ᛏ) 19:36, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Current state of the article

This is a topic I think that deserves much more work than is visible here. A few questions, with numbers for easy referencing:

Will the article continue to focus on western swordsmen and swordsmanship? This seems fitting, as noted above, because other cultural groups have entries devoted to their specific form of swordsmanship. A section within this article wikilinking and briefly discussing other forms would not be unwelcome, by any means, however.

The use of swordsmanship as a disambiguation page may also work well, with the content of this article becoming the culturally related European Swordsmanship or Western Swordsmanship. The disambiguation page could then provide broad information on swordsmanship and a list of other wiki articles that view other 'cultural' forms of swordsmanship.

Are there articles that could be merged into this topic, or topics this article could be merged into? Currently, the article does not stress much about the actual role of swordsmanship, but rather the schools and well known teachers - information found in greater detail in other articles.
Should the article become more socially and culturally focused? I.e., what constituted a "swordsman" in different time periods, what role they were likely to play in society, and what role in the military? It seems this expansion would provide more information on the idea of swordsmanship as an identity and less on the martial arts surrounding it, a topic covered in other sections.

I think this article, in its current state, needs to be careful not to step on the toes of Western Martial Arts, Historical European martial arts, or Historical martial arts reconstruction. Instead, as I stated, I think the article should focus more on what being a swordsman meant aside from the obvious martial connotations. What was the life of a swordsman like? Did they geneally live richly? Connected to the nobility? Were they the 'average footsoldier' or did they usually hold more prestigious positions among the 'brass'? How did they train? Were there specific guilds or schools that were common? What was the implication of swordsmanship in law? Duels? Where men (or women?) with swords at their hip viewed immediately as 'special'? If so, in what way? Fear, respect, worry, honor? I believe these are the sort of questions this article should answer.--Xiliquiern 03:15, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

this article should discuss swordsmanship, not swordsmen. "Swordsman" is not on official title or social class. I think it should be in WP:SS, with sub-articles such as Gladiator, German school of swordsmanship, Italian school of swordsmanship, George Silver, Kenjutsu and the like. Obviously, worlds lie between a gladiator of Roman times and gentlemanly exercise in Silver's time, so that if you're going to ask questions regarding "how did a swordsman live", you need to sort answers by century and by country. dab (ᛏ) 08:03, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The WP:SS was exactly what I was looking for when I mentioned that it may work as a disambiguation page leading to other swordsmanship pages. That would work very nicely. And if any social mention was to be made, chronological placement would be a very important note. -- Xiliquiern 13:55, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

so we agree :) you are most welcome to adopt this article! dab (ᛏ) 15:11, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]