Young Writers Society

The books series I'm writing right now contains a lot of fighting and battles so I need to know all about how people would train to use the medieval weapons. What are considered the basics and how they would be taught to do more complex maneuvers, those sort of things. I was able to find out information on the weapons themselves but I need some reliable information on how they were taught which has been hard to find.

As far as I've heard, they taught wealthy nobles' sons to fight with swords in their course to knighthood. They taught this just how they teach kung fu - the maneuvers were all in stages and they practiced on wooden dummies. They also had to keep their fitness up with runs and exercises. When they were ready, they would put two of the trainees against each other with leather armour and then teh heavier metal type. And this was mainly how they taught swordplay. For things like lancing, they would put them on a horse, get them used to the horse adnd start them at a fast trot at a target. they would also sometimes just make them run at the target. The targets would get smaller, the horses would get faster - you get the idea. After that it is practice, practice, practice. Every morning, with exercises still continuing. For archery, they fire at a target and they practice, blahblahblah. Archery is easy. With shields, others would run at the braced shield and then the shield would go into the practice ring with the armoured youth. Ta-da!!!
Hope I was helpful,

Durrance

My favorite topic! The sword that was used for just about everything was
broadsword. It was the perfect sword for infantry, it had speed and
versatility, yet could hack through any defense. It was usually about
three feet long and had a blade about two thumbs wide. It could crush, thrust, hack, parry just about anything. Another good sword is the hand-and-a-half sword. It could deal devastating blows with either one-handed while carrying a shield, or two-handed without shield. This sword was straight, and was about three and a half feet long. It was mainly used for slashing and thrusting. The saber was the cavalry weapon to be sure. It had a curved blade so it could slash from horseback without having fear of it sticking in the opponent. Like the broadsword it was about three feet long. And even if it was dull, it would chop off limbs and heads with a single blow. The best sword was definitely the great sword. It varied in size, from three feet, to five and a half feet!
It could best anything else on the field. The only problem was that it was so dang heavy! The spears however were the kings of the battle field however, for they could outreach a sword ever time.

I am hope that you have learned some stuff here. I would tell you about training but I think the post before mine was instructive. See ya 'round.

If you're interested in katanas, I can help.

Trainees with this weapon start out with a wooden
sword called a bokken. Instead of the thrusts
and parries used for broadswords, katanas rely a lot
on diagonal slashes. Also, there's the overhead strike and
block.

I'm going to recommend that you talk to a martial-arts
master to learn more. Hope this is helpful!

Cheshire-Writer wrote:The books series I'm writing right now contains a lot of fighting and battles so I need to know all about how people would train to use the medieval weapons. What are considered the basics and how they would be taught to do more complex maneuvers, those sort of things. I was able to find out information on the weapons themselves but I need some reliable information on how they were taught which has been hard to find.

In medieval times, in western countries, the nobles sons were being accepted by a knight to be his squires, and train with him to be a knight. There were no school for sword fighting. They use blunt swords that are usually twice the weight of a normal sword, and wear armors that are usually with the same weight proportion with normal armors. The techniques of sword fighting is varies between each knights, as they have different combat experience, and there were no real record of sword fighting style in medieval time, so that means you can make up a sword fighting style for yourself, as long it sounds logical and plausible. Just don't have your character jumping around, since that make you a big target and with heavy armors and swords, you will find it pretty difficult to do so. Pretty much sword fighting is base on physical strength first, and then tactics. Use common sense, predict what your opponent might do next, and a way to counter it, conserve your energy and last out the battle, that kind of stuff. The method of training will be like this: the knight will get the squires to fight each other anyway they want, and then show them their weak points and how to improve it.

If you asking about eastern countries, like japan, they have school for sword fighting, but that is quite easy to search for on google, so I doubt that is what you look for.

I have no idea about sword fighting, (aha meaning this most likely won't help you) but I bought two swordfish swords in Chile. Actually made from swordfish! They were expensive, and really pointy too! The air port nearly didn't let us take them to the plane. I reccomend you just to google it all out, that's what I do. xD pm me if you need a real critique!