Excellent blog posts at the moment

There are some excellent thought provoking blog posts out at the moment

This from Keith Farrell:

"When watching modern tournaments in person or online, for weapons such as the longsword, messer, or sword and buckler, then the fighting often looks messy... Is this a problem? To some extent, yes… But if some fencers do not behave like this, then their opponents will never learn to deal with such behaviour and overcome it. It is therefore a necessary step to have “play masters”, “common fencers”, “buffalos” or “Winkelfechter” before we can have fencers who fight in a technical and excellent fashion."

Also:

"since the MS I.33 teaches a complicated system that requires certain situations to occur, there need to be skilled fighters who can produce these conditions before the I.33specialists can begin to dominate."

This from James Roberts:

"Thus, my brief argument here is that martial skills such as using a longsword are useful in warfare, just not necessarily directly in battle. Unfortunately, the emphasis on the study of set-piece battles in military history means we don’t have too much insight into the skirmishes that dominated warfare, but I’d argue that in these small-scale, sometimes even individual encounters, we’ll find the use for the sword in warfare."

I think reading McBain is an excellent example of what Roberts is talking about.