FightCamp 2019 Report 6 - Medieval Armoured Combat with Daggers

Get up behind the elbow joint. Touch your chest. It has to be behind the elbow joint, if it doesn't work. And then either pull down or break it against your breastplate. So it has to go against the joint. So with that, you've got a bone position. Or if it's that way, you would stand down. No, I don't. Do you want to have some bones poking out from the video? No, I'm sure I've got some. Do you want to test if you're ready or not? Oh, yeah, yeah. I don't feel tired. Me neither. No, no, no. Sorry, it takes that long to work out. That's it. You're going to break something against it. Oh, that gives it a bit of a lift. All right, happy? Yeah. That works? Yeah. Good? Looking good? So you're not too much of a... You're almost going in. You don't want to move. Coming over, lock it. And then here, you're going to push this against. See, I'm not trying to throw him. I could throw him, but I'm going to have to snap him. And if it's this way, I'm going to... What you're going to do is, if you're wearing this, you break it against your chest. So I'm using both arms? Yeah, so can you attack me? I come under, and then what I might do is either snap it against the red plate, or if you're that way, you can snap it under, or do it down, or do whatever. So there we've got some excellent examples of dagger techniques that are primarily designed, actually, to be used in armour, but they could be used out of armour. But you've got to remember, when we're looking at medieval dagger fighting, armour is a very important factor, obviously in the design of things like rondel daggers, which are designed to overcome armour to some extent, or at least bypass it, but of course in the techniques as well, because armour and thick clothing and armour of different levels, things like gambesons or brigandines or whatever, play a very large factor in medieval warfare. So in terms of what is dangerous to you, but also in terms of how you apply certain techniques, certain movements that you can or can't do, and the ways that you even use the armour to exploit the lock or the break that you're exerting on the other person. Anyway, let's have another brief look at what they're doing at the moment, and then I will leave you. Grab behind the knife, left hand on the elbow to help hoist it up, snap the arm, and gladiatorial has this lovely thing, it says you'll either break the arm, or they'll fall over, and it says it for pretty much every arm break. So have a go at that, but really, really carefully.