Hell, there’s a video of me out there, though my face is covered, and I won’t link to it since it would essentially peg my location down to a specific town.
But, if you remove armor from the equation, and actually match swords with their equivalent (rather than just pointing at a longsword and a katana and saying “close enough”), there’s more equivalence than you’d expect.
It ends up coming down to how much cross training you’ve done. Which, that tends to go poorly for most kenjutsu guys. It’s not super common for them to train with other weapons, much less against them in resistant sparring. Back when I was training, HEMA hadn’t gotten as big as it has now, but even fencers tend to train against a wider range of opponents, and are willing (usually) to train between epee and saber fairly freely, so there’s a better grasp of adapting present.
But! Kenjutsu also tends to favor speed over power, and that has its benefits against someone that’s setting up a move with a heavier weapon. The fencers will still fuck you up, but not as bad as you’d think. The real problem against fencers is the fucking lunging. That shit is hard to counter with any of the Japanese sword styles (or that was the case for me). That’s double true if you’re dealing with structured rules rather than having full freedom.
Now, if you’ve trained with other weapons, you can adjust your technique on the fly easier, so you can negate some of the advantages of European style swords. But each type of sword comes with a basic set of training, a way of processing from noob to serious practitioner. Any weapon is like that. It the can take decades of training to get to the point where you’ve passed the need to follow a style with a given weapon because there’s mechanics of the body involved, and the brain takes time to really grasp it all.
Like, with a katana? I’d be fucked against any halfway serious fencer, or a serious HEMA fighter. I’m a dabbler with swords (despite the user name). I just don’t have mastery of the things, I’m at best a talented amateur (and I’d question the talent lol). Most of my focus with weapon training was actually knives. You put a knife in my hand, and I can make the damn thing sing and dance. Not so much with a sword.
But, yeah, hit YouTube, there’s footage of all kinds of mixed weapon sparring. It’s pretty damn fun to watch.
People do it. There’s video out there.
Hell, there’s a video of me out there, though my face is covered, and I won’t link to it since it would essentially peg my location down to a specific town.
But, if you remove armor from the equation, and actually match swords with their equivalent (rather than just pointing at a longsword and a katana and saying “close enough”), there’s more equivalence than you’d expect.
It ends up coming down to how much cross training you’ve done. Which, that tends to go poorly for most kenjutsu guys. It’s not super common for them to train with other weapons, much less against them in resistant sparring. Back when I was training, HEMA hadn’t gotten as big as it has now, but even fencers tend to train against a wider range of opponents, and are willing (usually) to train between epee and saber fairly freely, so there’s a better grasp of adapting present.
But! Kenjutsu also tends to favor speed over power, and that has its benefits against someone that’s setting up a move with a heavier weapon. The fencers will still fuck you up, but not as bad as you’d think. The real problem against fencers is the fucking lunging. That shit is hard to counter with any of the Japanese sword styles (or that was the case for me). That’s double true if you’re dealing with structured rules rather than having full freedom.
Now, if you’ve trained with other weapons, you can adjust your technique on the fly easier, so you can negate some of the advantages of European style swords. But each type of sword comes with a basic set of training, a way of processing from noob to serious practitioner. Any weapon is like that. It the can take decades of training to get to the point where you’ve passed the need to follow a style with a given weapon because there’s mechanics of the body involved, and the brain takes time to really grasp it all.
Like, with a katana? I’d be fucked against any halfway serious fencer, or a serious HEMA fighter. I’m a dabbler with swords (despite the user name). I just don’t have mastery of the things, I’m at best a talented amateur (and I’d question the talent lol). Most of my focus with weapon training was actually knives. You put a knife in my hand, and I can make the damn thing sing and dance. Not so much with a sword.
But, yeah, hit YouTube, there’s footage of all kinds of mixed weapon sparring. It’s pretty damn fun to watch.