boilerstroup

TheKak

Did you see it in a movie? 2 scimitars and whirling around doesn't sound like a very sound fighting style to me, where did you even hear about/see this?

__________________
Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I.

boilerstroup

something like this: http://www.mubai.cc

The_Dunedan

Sounds like a movie thing to me. The Arabs don't practice and twin-sword fighting, as much of their fighting in the medieval/rennesance world was from horseback, where two of anything is a hinderance. Additionally, the Arabic world does not have the same tradition of formalized Martial Art such as one finds in Europe or Asia, where specific schools of Fence passed down concrete bodies of work. The Arabic martial tradition is more rooted in the use of bow, rifle, and sabre either from horseback or in raiding actions on foot: such techniques were almost always taught by family members, learned growing up. While it's possible that classical-pattern schools of fighting existed in places like Samarkand, Baghdad, or Jerusalem, no record of them exists.
The Phillipines and China have styles which use two sabres of equal length which are, in some cases, much as you describe. However, such forms are not only extremely difficult but are taught only to extremely advanced students as a rule: the chance of injuring onesself with two weapons is much greater than with one, especially given that one of the weapons will be in the user's off hand.

Strange Famous

end of the day, despite all this eastern mystic stuff.. the best way to strike someone.. the most efficient transfer of power... is a right cross.

If you wanna learn to fight, study western boxing, a bit of wrestling, a bit of kick boxing...

I have a guaranteed fighting style though, I invented myself.

You in some sbit... hurl your car keys right in the dudes face, he will either duck, weave, or get hit.... as yiou throw them jump forward and hook HARD to the body with the opposite hand... knee into the ribs on the opposite side, bring the other arm right up and bring your elbow cracking down on the back of his head, when he goes down kick him a few times ifyou want...

now, thats a martial art!

__________________
"Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate,
for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing
hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain
without being uncovered."

The Gospel of Thomas

Moonduck

Silat is Indonesian. Calling it a Muslim Art is like calling American Jujitsu a Christian art. Just because it is an art practiced by Mulims does not make it a Muslim art, especially as its' practice predates Islam's introduction to Indonesia by quite a bit.

I would take minor issue on the "extremely advanced student" line insofar as my experience with Filipino arts is concerned. In Kali, bladework is taught straightaway, day one, and two blades is taught fairly quickly (using sticks for training, of course). It is not something taught to novices, but I would not call it extremely advanced. In fact, the stuff reserved for the "extremely advanced" students was the unarmed technique. The Chinese and Japanese arts that teach two weapon styles do reserve that training for capable and advanced students.

I agree with your take on Arabic martial tradition though. It was pretty much a household affair, with much more emphasis placed on overall competence than specific prowess with one technique or weapon.

boilerstroup

thanks all.

no formal arabic form at all then?

if so,

what is the chinese/philo style that uses the two called?

Moonduck

Pretty much every Filopino style that I am familiar with teaches it at one point or another. Some just emphasize it a good bit more. Kali (specifically Kali-Silat as I took it) is very blade-centric, and thus everything is done with blades in mind. When two weapon is taught, you are expected to strike with the same surface of the stick every time, ie where the edge would be on a blade. Escrima teaches two-weapon fairly early, I hear, though it seemed more stick-centric. Arnis de Mano seemed to concetrate more heavily on one-weapon and attacks from long-range, as opposed to Escrima at medium-range, and Kali at short/trapping range.

Given what you are looking for, I would suggest some Escrima. Your experience with it may be different than mine, but I found the escrima practioners to be more flashy than us Kali guys. Kali is not a pretty art, rather brutal in fact, and not pleasant to watch, espceially if you understand what the moves are intended to do/target. I did not take escrima though, and there are many different sub-styles. It is a direction for you to research though.

Fire

just out of curiosity, did your school teach two blades with short weapons- I ask this as in my experience around here they tend to limit it to machete length weapons, and I have found those to be quite easy to use paired, while when I step up to longer blades it grows exponentialy more difficult- seems that I am not the only one to experience it, and wonder if its a biological thing - generaly anything longer than the arm gets hard as hell when used paired..... any thoughts or comments?

__________________
Thought the harder, Heart the bolder,
Mood the more as our might lessens

Tilk

As far as I know almost all Kali styles limit themselves to arm length blades or shorter, simply because they are easier to control. I've also tried using longer weapons with the Bakbakan Kali, and almost instantly form goes out the window when trying not to hit oneself.

Ofirethorn

The Style is almost Mythical, Knowen as Whirling Dervish. The style of Fighting was so unique theat Western Knights, with our Armor and Shields. Were worth less.

shakran

Your weakness, StrangeFamous, is that if he manages to do something to counter one of your move, you're locked into a pattern. You can't plan out a fight that far ahead - you get in big trouble when something does not go as predicted.

Moonduck

We used short blades, aye. The majority of the stuff we did was either long knife length or machete, as you said. The standard weapons are barongs after all.

From what I've seen, the only Filipino style what uses anything longer is Arnis, and I would personally wonder if Arnis was influenced by the Spanish school fencing style used by some of the Conquistadores. Arnis de mano means, literally "Harness of Hand" and refers to the strapping used to protect the hands of the Arnis practitioner. The reason the hand was protected was because it is the primary target for Arnis practitioners. The idea being that if you disabled the hand, the man cannot hold a sword or gun and cannot fight. This is also why they stayed at long range, unlike the more brutal in-your-face style of Kali.

Short blades are so much easier to deal with both in trapping range, for obvious reasons, and when doing two-weapon. The reason they are more useful in two weapon style is simple leverage. The shorter blades require much less wrist and hand strength to move in the patterns that two-weapon uses.

Another reason we concentrated on knives was the mindset of the school. It was a practical real-world style of instruction, and no one carries a machete in the city. A knife is much more handy and easy to conceal, so much of our training was how to handle knives.

--

"The Style is almost Mythical, Knowen as Whirling Dervish. The style of Fighting was so unique theat Western Knights, with our Armor and Shields. Were worth less."

Worthless? Hardly. The biggest problems the Western knights had were logistics and heat issues. Western armor is hot stuff, being designed for Europe. The deserts of Outremer were ovens, and many a Westerner fell simply from dehydration and heat stroke.

The biggest reason the Dervisis were effective at all was use of psychotropics to induce fanatical, frenzied charges. True knights were heavy shock cavalry and used to having infantry, especially skirmishers like the Dervisi breaking and scattering before the massed charge. The morale of drugged fanatics is unbreakable, so they would just eat the charge and do their damnedest to cut down the horses with what dervisis remained.

EDIT: The Dervisis performed similarly during the Colonial period. There are lots of accounts of the Whirling Dervish against massed indigient riflemen. They got cut down, generally. Drugs are bad, kids.

Moonduck

Forgot to mention that "harness" was a common term for "armor".

The_Dunedan

Ofirehorn:
Bravo Sierra. Dervishism is a type of Sufi mysticism involving the use of dances to acheieve a transcendental state: nothing to do with fighting of any kind.
Secondly, go back and read your history; REAL history, if you please. When the Arabs kept their distance ( not difficult, since their bows had greater range ) they cut the Crusaders to bits. If it came down to handfighting, the numbers were almost morbidly lopsided. Among the unarmored Crusaders the numbers were similar between Europeans and Arabs, but against heavy maille, boiled leather, and padded jerkin, a light scimitar is almost useless. You'll still get injuries from blunt trauma, but very little if any penetration. Look at what happened once the Crusaders entered Acre for a good example: forced to fight close-in, the Arabs were literally massacred; "And we rode into the city with blood up to the ankles of our horses" wrote John Marshall.

MSD

How to differentiate a smart, quick-thinking criminal from a slow one:slow one goes down; smart, quick one steals your car after you throw your keys at him

longbough

Sounds like you've been practicing on a scarecrow. Try it on a real person and see what happens.
Unless you're facing a thug who has never been in a scrap before he'd grapple you the moment you closed in. If you don't know how to handle that - you are history.

Personally, I like MrSelfDestruct's idea...

CityOfAngels

Now, that's Power Ranger style! Only they used their backpacks instead of their car keys.

longbough

...or throw your wallet or your Rolex at him...

Dark Assailant

... assuming your attacker is the salvation army

__________________
·´¯`·-> Ðark Åssailant<-·´¯`·

longbough

I hear if you push the triangle and the square button at the same time while moving the joystick in a circle you will make this power-energy-serpent-tiger-voodoo attack that's impossible to block..

Mag188

the best way to win a fight is speed and surprise

now I can't think of anything that would confuse a thug more than somebody throwing a wallet and a rolex directly in his face