Steel Longsword Sparring - Skall vs. Lianna / Chris (15 Dec 2016)

Here we go again. This is from the same training session as the previous sparring video, this time with Steel. Here I was aiming for Liana's arm but accidentally hit the hand and as I mentioned in the other video we don't count hand hits to discourage them for safety even though they would be perfectly viable in real historical duel. If you're wondering why we more often use synthetic swords in sparring, it's mainly because it was more affordable for the school to acquire a bunch of those as loaner gear for students who don't have their own. I tried to beat her sword aside with a false edge cut but she caught it on the strong of her blade and countered which I in turn parried. Here's another case where I tried to interrupt the attack by cutting through the arm but again I got the hand instead. There I try to go to a high guard but the jacket isn't properly broken in yet and makes it very hard for me to raise my arms. Here I pretended to throw an attack on the right side but then turned it into a cut to the left arm. This one would have hit me in the head if I hadn't moved back because I moved my blade too soon. Goes to show how important it is to move to be extra safe. I opened with a feint thrust, turned it into a cut which Liana caught. I hesitated for a moment but raised it up just in time to parry that. Both a little hesitant here waiting for an opening. Here again I feint with a thrust and cut. You can probably hear me breathing heavily. Yeah I need to improve my endurance that's for sure. Has always been one of my major problems but it's getting better. That was pretty neat. So I stayed in contact with her blade and then used the momentum to come around for the head cut. Making jokes at my own expense. Now against Chris he's quite tough to fight because he's developed a very aggressive fighting style which I find rather challenging to deal with. So you can see him pressing the attack while he keeps parrying my counters and then he throws that low cut to the leg. Very nicely done. And here same thing again basically. Comes in with a feint then throws low which I didn't see coming and that's that. There I landed a false edge cut but I wasn't satisfied with it because it connected with a flat so that's no good. Here he's starting another charge where I'm basically pointing my sword in his face so that's one way to discourage that. Insufficient contact there. Didn't count it. Here I interrupted his attack with a cut to his arm but I think I should have moved back sooner because that could have still hit me if it had been just a little closer. Again called that one off because of poor edge alignment. Here Chris gets me in the chest while I rise up to guard and I throw the cut shortly after. The reason why I was asking there to make sure was because I didn't feel much of that hit so sometimes it can be difficult to tell whether or not it was a good hit and then it's always good to just ask and what do you think? Did you feel like you executed the cut well? And whenever there is any doubt the attacker is always willing to call the hit off. Here I pretend to throw an undercut and then turn it into a vertical cut to the arm. Get him! Why did you stop? There's a weird little blooper for you. Careful with the mats guys. Keep fighting. So like I said I was trying to throw a false edge cut but the point got stuck in the mat which is a really bizarre freak accident. Anyway just being very cautious here keeping distance. Still trying the high guard sometimes even though it feels super awkward. I think Skiles had very little left by the time it hit you. I would say it's yours. Absolutely correct. You can see in the slow-mo that there was very little force behind it so it would not have done much. Quick arm snipe here. That was Liana trying to beat my blade aside to follow up with an attack but I just move it out of the way. Nothing there. Another false thrust into a cut. Parried. Counter. Parry. That was a pretty close one. Good. Here it was just a tiny bit quicker with my cut before she could raise the guard all the way. And Chris again. Again I hit the hand. I really need to work on my accuracy it seems. Chris is throwing a nice clean cut to the torso but gets an afterblow to the head. This extra rotation you see in the beginning of the leg cut can make it look like a high cut so that makes it tricky to catch in time. This is me taking too much time trying to figure out what to do so I was just holding the sword in front of me. Not an effective defense. And here Chris does a nice smooth transition from a high to a low cut. Notice how he's using the energy from my strike to power his cut to my leg. And that's it. Thanks for watching.