Are there real sword fighting tournaments?

[Oryan77]

I was reminded about this after watching some Spartacus.

Years ago I had a roommate for a short period of time that told me that he trained in sword fighting and competed in tournaments where they fought with real weapons.

I'm not talking about fencing. He said that people would compete with longswords, shortswords, katanas, whatever.

He was not a gamer and I don't even think he played video games. He wasn't even the nerdy exaggerating type. He was pretty much your typical blue collar construction worker type of guy. He even went as far as to show me some stances and defensive maneuvers using a toy lightsaber. He really seemed to know what he was talking about and his "lesson" seemed legit.

But I always found it hard to believe that there would be such tournaments where you wield real swords. He said they wear protective gear, but he did show me a long scar down his forearm that he said was from a katana. I just don't see how a tournament like that can be held without causing some serious harm.

Is there such a thing? Or was he just a very good liar? I'm usually very good at reading people and detecting BS. Although I wouldn't be surprised if he was a liar, his lifestyle, appearance, and conversations just didn't seem like a lie to me at the time.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I know that some fencing clubs will still do tournaments with the real deal, so I wouldn't be surprised some other weapon mastery schools do likewise.

 

[Spatula]

There's a group that splintered off of the SCA that has fights with live steel. If the blades are sharpened or not, I don't know. I can't recall the name of the organization right now, unfortunately.

EDIT: The group is the Adrian Empire. Thanks Dragonwriter!

 

[Umbran]

There are some groups that do "live steel" combats - where "live steel" is loosely defined as a weapon that could take an edge. They aren't edged, because that's just stupid in an amusement, but other than that, they are combat-capable weapons.

I don't know of any group in the US that does it with edged weapons. Nor do I know of any groups that make a competition out of it. People get seriously injured or killed in choreographed live steel performances, much less when they're actively trying to really hit each other.

Folks will argue to death about how sharp a "real" weapon needs to be. But, a 3+ foot long piece of steel, swung with vigor, will cleave flesh if it is no sharper than a butterknife.

 

[Janx]

Here's what I know:

Hollow Earth Swordworks makes lifetime guarrantee wooden sparring swords. these are serious training swords, not the kind of thing you buy your kid so he can whack at the neighbor's kid and leave it in the lawn to get mowed over and rained on.

There's apparently a national organization called Association of Rennaisance Martial Arts that takes itself about as seriously as any karate organization. They seem to train and compete with these practice swords. I do not think they use steel weapons.

There is a modern Jousting league, that apparently the History channel has a series based on.

So it is entirely possible that there is a similar sword fighting league. Google seems to reveal a few, though I cannot vouch to their seriousness or legitimacy as an organizer of controlled, safe, insured bouts.

 

[El Mahdi]

@Galloglaich <!-- END TEMPLATE: dbtech_usertag_mention -->is a good person to ask about this. He has a lot of things about stuff like that in this thread: History, Mythology, Art and RPGs. There's a lot of HEMA stuff in there (Historical European Martial Arts), as well as videos of real world weapon demos and competitions. (There are Modern Day HEMA groups.)

He hasn't actually been by to post here at ENWorld for a while, but you can probably catch him over at codexmartialis.com • Index page

 

[Kzach]

I don't know about swords, but there is a new TV show called "Full Metal Jousting". I haven't seen it yet but the gist is that it's a competitive sport where they... well... joust. I'm not quite sure how they avoid the whole death thing, seeing as jousting is pretty damn lethal even if you blunt the lances.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Folks will argue to death about how sharp a "real" weapon needs to be.

Not very- I sliced my hand open with an unsharpened fantasy knife because of its curve, and there was a report a while back of a German guy who seriously injured a burglar using his wall-hanger.

Muscle + Wedge = Owie!

 

[fanboy2000]

Not very- I sliced my hand open with an unsharpened fantasy knife because of its curve, and there was a report a while back of a German guy who seriously injured a burglar using his wall-hanger.

Muscle + Wedge = Owie!

Also, now that you mention it, there's the whole "blunt force trauma" thing.

 

[Dragonwriter]

There's a group that splintered off of the SCA that has fights with live steel. If the blades are sharpened or not, I don't know. I can't recall the name of the organization right now, unfortunately.

The Adrian Empire is one of these (there may be more, not sure myself) - split from SCA around 25-30 years back, if memory serves, to use full/live steel weapons. The weapons they use aren't sharpened (as Umbran said, it's just silly to do so) and protective gear is always used in combat. They also focus on speed, not power - you only your opponent to know he was hit and acknowledge it, not actually hurt them (though bruises are fairly common).