|
Fire, no need for apologies whatsoever! I've read a number of your posts, and they are consistently well thought out and well informed. I was actually thinking that I was over-generalizing in my earlier posts and hoping no one would call me on it =)
matt_mll, take some time to read on waht European knights did for training. I think that you'll be surprised. Most people think that knights were untrained, over-burdened oafs because they wore all that armor. Quite the opposite, they trained just as hard and as long as Samurai, and under just as regimented conditions. A proper knight was a well-rounded combatant capable of lancework, sword, mace, dagger, and unarmed combat. The Europeans just didn't stylize their combat so much or write about it in the poetic way that the Japanese did.
In fact, as a student of of a number of different Eastern forms, I was surprised to see the striking similarites between Medieval unarmed combat and Japanese Jiu-jutsu. It follows logically that the human body only moves in certain directions, so all grappling and throwing arts would be designed from similar bases, but the similarities were still amazing.
The armed styles were totally different, but that is because the knight used shields. Shields change things massively.
|