The not-so-lost art of broadswording
By Maggie Gill-Austern , Staff Writer
Sunday, November 11, 2007
PORTLAND - Some things come more naturally to me than others. Writing, arguing, doing a split and finding vast amounts of joy in small things like pumpkin ice cream or the perfect chord - easy. Long-distance running, pitching a baseball, getting my Christmas cards out on time and eating sushi - not so easy.
Apparently, wielding a Highland Broadsword falls into the former category - something I would not have expected, but which excites me nevertheless, as I’ve always harbored a passionate desire to become an 18th-century pirate, for which swordsmanship is an obvious prerequisite.
“You picked it up really fast,” said Jamie Black, a Highland Broadsword student/instructor who taught me some of the basics last week. “I mean, not showing up with shoes was a mistake … but (for a beginner) I think you did it really well.”
And what is Highland Broadsword, you ask?
Think one part Braveheart, one part British colonial rule and a final part modern fencing and you’ll start to get the idea - although only about 300 people in the world really know anything about what Highland Broadsword is.
The martial art had apparently died out completely until the mid-1990s, when Portland-based instructor Chris Thompson, who had been curious about it since age 18, reconstructed it from an old British training manual.
“I found a book years ago, when I was 18, in the Portland Public Library, called the “Scottish Gael” by James Logan, written in the 1800s. It described the culture of the Scottish highlanders and their method of broadsword fencing. That intrigued me because, at the time, most people thought of old European swordsmanship as brute force and not an as art form,” Thompson said.
It took him until the mid-1990s to locate training manuals with instructions. When he did, he found a training partner (his older brother) and set to work distilling something real from the primitive-looking diagrams and confusing language in the text.
“I’d done jodo, which is Japanese stick fighting, and then I did modern competitive fencing for about a year in preparation,” Thompson said.
It took about five years to iron out the major problems, Thompson said. Hardest was one specific move called the Half Circle Guard. “The illustration was difficult to understand. Only by comparing it to a 19th-century Italian manual with a half-circle guard was I able to (decipher it).”
Thompson went as far as studying conversational Scottish Gaelic in his effort to learn the sport. And many of his students are, if not as committed, surprisingly dedicated to learning.
I can see why. It felt like a nice mix between dancing and martial arts, but was much less taxing on the quads than, say, capoeira.
I walked in the door without really knowing what, exactly, a broadsword was. I’d heard only that they were heavy. In class, though, Thompson and Black taught me using long “singlesticks,” which were light and easy to maneuver, even with my weakling wrist muscles.
Thompson taught me the various stances - wide and narrow - and how to move so that I could always lunge away. Then, singlestick in hand, he taught me the “Seven Guards,” which are seven basic ways to guard your body using the sword.
Then Black tried - and by tried, I mean “did not succeed” - to teach me the Seven Cuts, which are cutting motions mostly based on the seven guards. The first one was easy as pie, but the second - the same exact movement as the first, but on the opposite side of the body - took me approximately 20 tries before I got it. And immediately after “getting it,” I lost it. Everyone has trouble, Thompson said. I wondered.
Thompson let me take a swing with a real sword - dulled for safety’s sake, but cool nevertheless (and not as heavy as expected). Then he and Black began sparring with sticks, which is called Loose Play in broadsworder-speak. It was a real battle - sticks cracking on impact, the two fencers lunging and evading, circling and slashing at one another. It looked vicious (and also fun), and Thompson told me afterwards that if they were in a real fight, with real swords, they’d have killed each other many times over in the 10 minutes I watched. Scary. But in the studio, Thompson and Black, though out of breath, were laughing.
Awesome.
A weapon for all ages?
Why learn to fight with a honking big sword, when in the real world you probably won’t ever be attacked when holding one, you ask?
“The fighting form we’re learning was actually used - two-thirds of the world was conquered using this form. It’s an inaccurate statement saying you can’t use it. There’s a mentality of keeping your wits about you that you can only get by training with a sword. You lose that flinch, you keep your focus, you keep your calm,” says instructor Jamie Black.
In fact, instructor Chris Thompson has used moves he learned from broadsword in actual altercations, he said.
“I was able to defend myself using my footwork and control of distance and timing that I’d picked up from swordsmanship,” he said. “Swordsmanship teaches self control under pressure. When somebody is swinging a stick at you very fast and if it hits, it’s going to hurt quite a bit, you learn to control panic reaction, and find a way to see through their strategy and control them. And all of this happens very very quickly.”
Go and do
What: Highland Broadsword classes with Chris Thompson’s Cateran Society
Where: 155 Brackett St., second floor, Portland
Call: 773-9197
Cost: $40 a month
FMI: www.cateransociety.com
http://www.sunjournal.com/story/237932-3/bsection/The_notsolost_art_of_broadswording/
Can’t see it any other way.