วีดีโอ

@@Evander_Pander 2/25th AIF Battalion (reenacted) is a pretty decent group. Am also a member of them myself, and can say the leaders of that group run a tight ship and document all their stuff. Very much recommend checking them out 👍

@@MisdirectedSasha I would pretty much use this as just an extension of the intention principle 😁 This is a great way to explain the concepts as well, mate. Thanks for sharing your thoughts here!

That sounds great mate! Would love to hear how it goes 😀

@@aspen77rt Thanks for leaving your genuine thoughts 🙏 Starting from further back is definitely an option, and this is something I feel I could have added here. I also train in HEMA, predominantly German and Italian sources for arming sword, longsword, dagger, pole arms and ringen. I have made a multilayered interpretation of this in a different vid you may find interesting.

@@baronvonboomboom4349 you are a legend mate, thanks heaps for your support 🙏

As someone who has been doing HJMA purely from a living history and historical source perspective, I very much understand 😅 am so glad you sport the video, thanks for your kind words mate 🙏

At the simplest level: connect, compare, and contrast your training and understanding with the "Dog Brothers* folks! Fight under their rule-set-- and if you somehow think it's too restrictive-- odds are they'll meet you in the middle! If you have an inclination towards Choy Li Fut's insane weapon approach, I'd tune in...I don't know how it would go, but I'd watch! Jian(Gim) training absolutely doesn't have the audience/market that it could command!

Cheers mate! 🙏 thanks for your kind words of support. It definitely seems people are wanting more of this and am glad people find it helpful. Will definitely need to continue this series.

To be honest, in my opinion at least, not really. At least for me, I use the term to just be an informal nomen for hand strike or a joke term for those silly people who rely only on first intention hand hits.

Many thanks for your words of support mate 🙏 am very glad they the vid has been helpful.

Cheers heaps for the kind words of support mate 🙏 I am grateful

@@NathanaelTheAussie Pleasure is all mine, thank you.

This is a very good way to be, to be honest 👍 thanks for sharing 😊

"pointless"....I see what you did there ;) XD

Thanks for your genuine question and thoughts, I get what you are saying here. I feel I agree and disagree. In the sense of convincing the opponent of the threat of a strike, I agree that the movement needs to be done in order that the opponent feels they have to respond. The human brain perceives this in a variety of ways, and the more trained someone is the more refined these are. The more trained someone is in swordsmanship, the more convincing that threat needs to be. I would argue this is done not only by having the weapon in measure but, also, using the body. After all, the body and hips telegraph far more than the arms do, even more so when fighting against someone who constantly relies on 1st intention counters. The area where I feel I disagree is, the way I see it, making a movement to get a reaction from the opponent and making a movement to hit the opponent are two different things in intention. For example, I can threaten with a strike to which the opponent reacts in order to set up my second strike to hit them (2nd intention) - this seems to be what you are alluding to in your horizontal cut example. You can see in my video examples that if I committed to trying to hit the opponent as a 1st intention it would have either resulted in me being hit or a double at best. The two times I did fully commit in the videos immediately resulted in these exact results. Not saying 1st intention hits are always bad, not by any means. if the opportunity presents itself then definitely take it. The only issue I have is that, because intention = commitment, it is dangerous to be fully commited against a skilled opponent who has not yet committed. If one is intending on having their intention (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc) landing on the opponent every single time repetitively, then one can become more predictable as a result.

I don't think all attacks should intend to hit. Feints need to be believable without actual commitment. Example: Fiore's Punta Falsa is a dedicated 'feint' knowing full well that first cut should not land, exploiting an opponents over eagerness to parry out wide. Most attacks should have an option point where you're able to follow through and hit, but like all things in fencing there is no 'ALL' or "Always" or "Never". There are plenty of situations where the magical words 'It Depends' comes into play. You should respect your opponents skill, but don't attribute magical godhood to them and assume they'll always know when you're feinting versus when you're committing to hitting. If they never make a mistake, you're never going to win anyways, so leave room for them to fail. Another example for us hand-snipers, myself chief among them, is that cutting short is a brilliant way to convince the uninitiated to step into finger-eliminating distance. 'Opps my first intention was bad, I hecked up and now my sword is too low, woe is me who is exposed - PSYCH you stepped into measure as was my plan all along and now your descending cut at my head is met with me clipping your hands while I pass backwards away from your threat'. If that first cut was intended to land instead of 'oops' my opponent would have to parry, as you say, but then they are no longer lured into the place I wanted them. You can absolutly play with every cut intending to land, and as you describe you'll end up in plenty of interesting binds to potentially exploit. But it's not the only way to play.

@@GarldBonkdonk This is a good way of putting it, I agree with what you are saying here 👍

Fun fact: whether to use feints or only attacks that want to hit is up to personal preference in almost every period that has more than one technical source. Fiore and Lichtenauer use feints, I.33 doesn't. Destreza tells you explicitly all feints are bad (and some late Diestros do sneak them in while trying to pretend they aren't feints), Italian rapier loves them. Long and short of it is that feints are dangerous for the user because they depend on your opponent's reaction, and that means they fail badly when your opponent sees through them or doesn't see them at all. On the other hand, they are really, really damn useful when they work, to a point where a whole lot of people thought they were worth the risk even in combat to the death.

​@MartinGreywolf Feints are not dangerous to the user if they are non-commital if the user knows what they are doing. Bolognese has two levels of commitment, one of which is reserved for feigning. If these hit, fine, but they don't have to. Commitment requires more energy and distance coverage and therefore potential danger to the user. Uncommitted strikes are easier to break, but harder to feel through ie they are good for testing the opponent's reactions both with the body and sword. This is discussed or observed in Destreza, pretty much all Italian sources but the Bolognese go into the most detail, and in Kenjutsu. It exists implicitly in all forms of weapons based martial arts and especially in dueling contexts. The more skilled a person is, the easier it is for them to make a decision in the middle of a non-commital action either to turn it into a committed action or to make another test. In becoming aware of this, one can look to their preferred sources and observe the different posta or guards as places of maximal opportunity for certain kinds of actions. Any such position is therefore one which can be used as a point of decision if one faints to it.

Cheers for the kind words mate 🙏 a crucial balance in my honest opinion 😎

Thanks for the kind words mate 🙏hope it all helps.

To be honest, I actually have no idea how the men actually did this in the field. Have yet to find a source for it. I have done something similar to this, so it wouldn’t surprise me if there were blokes in the field who did it too.

That’s correct 👍 good eyes

One is a mystery to be honest, Facebook marketplace believe it or not (would normally not recommend doing this). 1070 tempered carbon steel if I remember correctly. The other is an Akado Armory blade, which so far has handled very nicely 👍 love the balance between safe flex but also closer to authentic feel and balance.

I have read those texts, definitely good reads 👍 I tend to not use them much in terms of formal documentation to document kitchen as much of it is heavily edited and censored.

Ssssh 🤫🤫 they will hear you….

Hey, I didn’t say I use it very often 😛😅

@@NathanaelTheAussie 😂

Yep, that is a denix 👍 good eye. Still Annoyed I completely forgot to talk about it in the vid tbh 😅

Very much feel and agree with this comment 👍 There needs to be a better way of doing this.

Thanks heaps for the comment and words of support, mate 🙏

Many thanks mate, appreciate the support 🙏

Thanks fella 🙏 I too am a big fan of “No Sword” as well and the dynamic and practical approach it evokes.

Cheers for the kind words mate 🙏 That might be an idea for another video (in the list of vids to get to 😅). The interpretation has 3 layers of application depending on what the opponent does. The video is on my living history group’s instagram as well if people want to have a look beforehand.

Thanks for leaving a comment and your thoughts 😊🙏 advancing footwork can happen in any system, but they happen in situations when it is martially viable to do so. Like any historical martial artist, one must use what one has available in order to develop an interpretation. The key is to make sure that the translations that are used are credible and from qualified individuals (which is something Anthony does not often do). The other key to any form of interpretation is to ensure that yours fits within the credible translations available which, as I explain in my video, Anthony is also not doing. There is no mention of distance in the texts I have read, but there is a mention of advancing a foot, hence my interpretation. If we add in a level of distance we are, technically, no longer in the realms of the written words in the text. Not disagreeing with you that it could indeed be meant to be done out of distance, but we need to be careful before we add words that aren’t there imo. Despite this, Anthony performs a counter that would require him to be within range anyways immediately after adopting the position, so my critique of him regarding range still stands. I very much agree that adding or changing words can be a risky move in any HMA study, but advancing the left foot to replace the right foot is not adding in words. You are advancing your left foot, just not as a passing step. Adding in the concept of “range/starting further back”, however, while martially valid would indeed be adding words that aren’t there imo. If Anthony’s words can be backed up by credible translations from qualified individuals, and base his conclusions on sound martial principles, then I am happy to simply agree to disagree but at least respect the interpretation he puts forward. Unfortunately, I have yet to see this happen. Anthony’s approach to solo research and cooperative research also has a plethora of problems, but I will not go into these details here due to it not being relevant to the video. In short, it is one of the reasons why I do not utilise his texts very much as there are much more reliable works available. Using an Itto ryu kata can help, but it is a kata with an unknown level of change (or continuity) over the centuries demonstrated by modern practitioners which does not, and should not, hold as much historical validity as it does to use the historically contemporary texts. I am not flatly against using any words from modern practitioners at all, but I personally think that it should not be our main go-to when researching historical martial texts from within a completely different socio-martial context.

​@NathanaelTheAussie the jma community has always had an "appeal to authority" mindset that I find unhealthy. The hema community is built on the backs of amateur translators. Some of the best translations are done by people who don't speak the language (or at the very least didn't before they started the project), let alone languages like early high new german. But that's ok. Nothing the grimm's dictionary couldn't fix. I've posted two examples of advancing the left foot forward. One in distance, and one out of distance. Changing the meaning to swap just seems more egregious to me. The word advancing implies a closing of distance, pushing forward. I'm not adding the word "distance", it's part of the definition. I have no problems with Cummins using an amateur translator, and doing amateur interpretations, and even selling those amateur and even embellished translations. The problem has always been this weird cult shit that pops up in these weird ninja circles. I just skimmed like a 5 part thesis on why Cummins is a fraud, and half of it is BS. That much energy could he put into translating and providing material for hist.jap.martial artists. And even providing their own interpretations. But what I see is an appeal to authority mindset from people unwilling to explore and learn how to fence. (Not directed at you) Woe is the hobby dictated by only those with PhDs.

@@Adam-bu3lm I feel you are taking a lot of what I have said very much out of context text (eg: elitism, JMA gate keeping, ninja cults etc). Not sure why we are bringing up cults when I am simply saying we should be faithful to reliable sources translated by qualified translators. Please keep in mind that I am not a formal student of any JMA system of any sort, which I make clear at the beginning of my video that I am coming at this purely from the perspective of a martial artist and researcher with access to two texts translated by qualified people. I am not a holder of a PhD either. However, I am sure neither of us would trust someone as a physiotherapist if they did not have a formal qualification/s and experience in that field. Translators are the same. If we don’t have any such translations available, then this is where amateur translators come in. However, these qualified translations ARE available. You are welcome to think it is fine to promote and sell embellished translations and texts on historical content. I too am fine so long as it is done in good faith and honesty in what it is doing and how it is embellished. When this honesty is lacking, we are instead creating a false narrative and profiting from it. From all evidence I have seen, this is unfortunately what Anthony seems to be doing. If you still think there is no problem with this then all good, agree to disagree. Translation and interpretation (when it comes between languages specifically) is a complex skill that requires various levels of abilities in order to do, the work of a translator, particularly when it comes to historical texts, is extensive to say the least. I didn’t say you added the word distance, my meaning was you are adding in a context (starting at an advanced range) when two translations of the text don’t mention it whatsoever. At the end of the day, we all are simply interpreting from the resources that we have. Nothing wrong at all with interpretation. What I feel we all need to be doing though is: 1) Our interpretation is faithful to sources translated by formally qualified and experienced individuals. 2) Our interpretation is martially sound. 3) It is open to be changed if new and better research (connecting to point 1) has been made available and discovered 4) We do all of the above in good faith If you disagree with the above, then am happy to agree to disagree. However, I stand by my critique in my video.

@@NathanaelTheAussie sorry I was airing my grievance over the state of jma and hjma politics. In a single day I got a big wiff it, and felt like talking about it. Like I said, it's not directed at you. But even between these two "qualified" individuals their translations are wildly different, and they seem to offer no footnotes into their translation decisions. Their translations are just as meaningless as Cummins'. I don't have his book, but I've seen him talk out a translation and interpret it on the fly, and I can at least say Cummins interpretations match the translations he uses. Edit: And further more. If Cummins translation does have these key elements that the other two translators have then maybe his translations are worth some salt.

@@Adam-bu3lm All good mate. I appreciate that we need to vent at times 😊🙏 I agree that being elitist for its own sake and ignoring the contribution of interpretations from those outside of the dojo are undesirable for various reasons. The difference in translations can be due to various reasons, including some parts of a poetic nature being translated one way over another. This video is not about how amazing the translations are, but focusing on what these qualified translators of Classical Japanese texts have given us. If there is another translation out there by a qualified translator of Classical Japanese I am always keen to find them, so if you find another one and let me know I would be sincerely grateful 🙏 To be honest, as Anthony often will add his own meaning into texts without clarifying, we have no idea which parts are original and which parts are added (and this is ignoring the fact that Ms Yoshie Minami cannot read Classical Japanese). This a process echoed across Anthony’s work, hence why I prefer to use other more credible sources. Nothing wrong with adding own meaning into texts, so long as one is honest about it and honest about how their added meaning can change the overall meaning of the text. However, as I have said before and identified in my critique video, Anthony has yet to do this. If people wish to continue watching his material that is perfectly their right to do so, and it is not my right to tell them otherwise. However, I continue to stand by the points I have made in this video.

G’day g’day, Mekugi 😊😎

Fence-post sitter! 😊

People are of course more than welcome to collaborate with him, as is their right. I personally have many issues with his approach, methodology, demeanour in research and interacting with others, but that is me based on my experience.

@@NathanaelTheAussie I did not mean to imply I thought you meant people weren't. I just meant to put it there as clarification/transparency that I do collaborate with him some. That being said, I also do have a number of disagreements/issues with certain aspects. I think it becomes even more apparent in his martial arts stuff. I am not sure how it works with European manuals, but the Japanese manuals are not manuals in the sense that they are there to teach one how to do things (well not usually). The vast majority of them are written for students of the school who will have had live training in what is in the manual. Manuals are usually at best like "study guides" for people who know that there is more than what is written in them. (in this I am speaking of what could most closely be called manuals, not densho and mokoroku, ect..)

@@SengokuStudies No problem, didn’t mean to criticise. My apologies if that is what it looked like. From my experience, studying HJMA is similar in some ways and different in others (to HEMA specifically). This, of course, goes without saying. While I have my own opinions on this topic it is not relevant to this video, though it is an interesting discussion for sure. The goal of this video I am making though, as I am sure you understand, is not to claim HEMA and HJMA approaches are the same but, rather, to highlight the errors Anthony is making in his approach. I appreciate you putting your thoughts here and taking the time to watch the vid 🙏 I can understand the conflict you feel. I have tried to reach out to Anthony more than once, but my experiences had me conclude he had a lot to be desired in terms of integrity and genuineness.

@@SengokuStudiesI agree. I enjoy his videos but I had a debate about this topic in his video comments. He made video response to my comment stating that the Samurai manual are complete and can be taken at face value. Which I highly disagree with.

Indeed, there were various issues I had with that vid. Considering I have to use time in between schoolwork and looking after a toddler, the best I could do was to focus on his two shorter vids. To be fair, there is nothing wrong with purely looking at the historically contemporary texts (as opposed to the ryuha today) IF your goal is to view the practices in a specific snapshot in time before various changes were put in place. I do the same for my living history group’s context. The biggest issue, in my opinion, is the fact that he does not seem to be doing this research and sharing of it in an intellectually honest or genuine way, and that he seems to be showing a critical lack of basic knowledge of fencing to inform his “interpretations”.

@@NathanaelTheAussie well, ignoring the current practitioners is a bit like ignoring artwork from times gone by. It may or may not be correct, but I'd expect people to at least look into it to gauge whether there is something to it or not. Heck, even talk to those folks. Likewise, one ought to be critical to the texts too, which this dude hasn't seem to have addressed in his "studies" either.

@@flailingsamurai9785This is true, I understand what you are saying now 👍 Research must be multifaceted, even if it does have a primary source that it usually adheres to. Ironically, many of the issues from Anthony’s practice, in my opinion, come from the way he “grapples” with the texts and puts the info out there. I have looked at videos and books from modern koryu practitioners on the occasion if I need to look at possible interpretations to fill in gaps I identify in the texts. I have also worked with koryu-ka in the past and still do on the occasion. Purely due to context, though, I prefer to start at the texts for research purposes as they are historically contemporary to the era on which I am focusing.

Pretty much 🤷‍♂️ Thanks for the kind words mate 🙏 it is a common theme throughout a lot of Anthony’s work.

I agree. Reducing the options is one of the key terms here.

A bad analogy is picking a non center guard is like going into a bakery and saying you can't have gluten. They still have some options like potato bread or whatever, but you never know if they'll throw something random at you like "here's my mum's gnocchi". You probably wouldn't be able to predict exactly what they have.@@NathanaelTheAussie

@@TheSwordLynx 👆😂👍

Cheers bud 🙏 Kudos to you as well for bringing all of this up and for stating the crucial elements as well. Sure tictactoe can’t fit into everything, but it is still a great way to put into context the basics of lines and methods of approach. Once again, as you say, it all comes back to instincts developed through training and sparring 😁 Keen for the next vid! 😎

Not sure I get it, but...appreciate it..?

Cheers mate! Am glad you enjoyed the conversation. Indeed, it is always fascinating to see what connected and what didn't. Even if we do not know exactly the full extent of it, it is still fun to see the tantalising pieces of evidence.

Am sorry to hear you went through all of that. The group I am in used to get that on the occasion, but not much anymore as we addressed the issue pretty thoroughly (ie: send plenty of images of blokes in the field in New Guinea sporting bears like mine or actually even longer and thicker). Have you looked around for any other groups near you you tickle your interest? There are people who fail to realise that ADF and even Vietnam regs is not mutually inclusive with WW2. The prominence of bears during the New Guinea campaign was often due to a lack of shaving soap supply and razors, which you also hear in veteran accounts. Being in Papua New Guinea with the supply issues and being on parade are rather different things. Even the lack of a check stomp during parade drill ruffles feathers with ADF and boomer vet types. Just very different backgrounds.