Strange Martial Practices

[Cela Shyish]

Hi Crystal, sorry I haven't made time to reply, there's never enough time to give a considered response...

The red carpet doesn't have any special significance by itself, but it was there on the Christmas Eve when we were in a rush to get to the Christingle service at church and Mum thought I'd broken the gas fire; it was there in the 90s on Saturday afternoons when I was watching Airwolf, Baywatch, A Team, the wrestling, Catchphrase, Blind Date, and eating fish fingers chips and beans; it was there when Mum watched Coronation Street or read the paper and solved her crosswords in the evenings, and when we played Ludo or Scrabble or Monopoly, or unwrapped Christmad presents together.

It seemed pertinent to your original post on muscle memory; in karate the idea is to build these set routines of movement, then to train ourselves to react by default in a set prescribed manner to certain stimuli, ie an opponent's particular attack or movement. I find that I'm forever seeing connections and similarities or equivalences between things: in memories of the past, in music, body movements of all kinds, even people interacting. It's very mundane for the most part; self-explanatory occurrences that don't warrant a second thought, but every now and then there's a rare gem, like a piece of old carpet stuck under a gas valve, that opens the floodgates and completes all the half-forgotten pictures in my head.

I know exactly what you mean, muscle memory is different though as it invokes a physical response as opposed to a psychological one. With martial arts, you train your body so that you replace your reflexes, since reflex reactions follow a set order, the sensory organs send the information to the spine which then relays the information to both the muscle and the brain simultaneously. This means that you react without thinking, a fraction before you even realise what has happened. This works because normal reactions require the information to transfer to the brain for processing before receiving the response which takes significantly longer in its own minute way.

What you are referring to with the carpet is an emotional response caused from state recollection memory. So to simplify if we use the multi-store memory model in psychology as a base you have sensory memory, short term memory and long term memory. Its super simple but it works for a basic explanation. So there are several ways things can move into your long term memory, the most common being repetition which is how many learn things in school. But the way you refer to has 2 more precedent reasons. The first as I mentioned is state memory. There was a study conducted with losing keys and to sum up, the participants lost them when drunk and were unable to find them when sober, but once intoxicated again, they were asked to find their keys and could instantly find them. This is because the conditions when they lost the keys were replicated, which is why once you see certain places you can remember paths you haven't used in years from key features because they allow you to retrace your steps mentally, effectively anyway. The carpet would therefore be a linking point to all of the minor memories, being that, same place, etc its easy to forget, but once you see the carpet you recall various memories that were associated with its presence.

The second is the significance. One of the key ways things jump to our long term memory is through emotional significance, if something is highly impacting then you will recall it very easily and vividly often, this is because we take a lot more notice of the event. This is why you can recall various important events in your life years after they happened but you can't recall what you did this morning. So with these two working together, particularly with the Christmas events for example, you recall many details because it is an emotional holiday that invokes many responses on its own, when adding in the state recollection, it is like opening the floodgates in your mind. I hope this explains things for you. Sorry its so long winded and rushed (what an odd combination of words) but my brother is pestering me atm so gotta brb. Take care!

 

[hairyjeff]

Hello Again, back to the normal world……where was I? Oh yes, back story….. we had a warrior lad called Les the Knife, for reasons which will become apparent, who travelled to and from shows in full kit with an old Royal Navy duffle coat over it all. Wandering home late one evening, coat tightly buttoned, he was approached by a couple of thugs, one holding a knife. "give us your money". "No". I'll stab ya". " No you won't" "I mean it" "Go on then" . so he did. The knife broke on Les's mail shirt, and he grinned as three of us came out of the chip shop, in armour, right behind him. One of the thugs fainted, the other one actually pissed himself. Talking to the police would have been complicated, to say the least, so we decided they'd had enough of a lesson, and went home. I shouldn't think they ever truly recovered!
A couple of years later, two guys tried to stop me as we walked home from a showing of Excalibur ( giggle movie). As I loosened my cloak, my girlfriend peeped out from behind me, and with a brilliant smile, said " Boys; you're going to die" They were so distracted, I was able to hit one with the nearest heavy object - his friend. Then I realised what had distracted them so much - Sooze had opened her top, and had her boobs out. We did call the police for that one, after she'd got dressed. Aaaah, happy days.

 

[Cela Shyish]

Wow that sounds crazy hehe, I hope you enjoyed your holiday. I'm certainly happy to hear another few funny stories, particularly the first one. That must have been absolutely terrifying for them XD An army of grown armoured men just emerging from the darkness, so creepy XD

 

[hairyjeff]

It's been a while, and I have had to check some facts with old friends, but this is my ' nearest death experience'. It still worries me how easily this happened, and no-one was to blame….. in the early 80s, at a biggish show in wessex, we fought against cavalry, in my case for the first time. They had been around, I just hadn't had any direct combat with them. The horses had been ( very well) trained to avoid bright colours on the ground - shields, cloaks, etc, and were demonstrated to us doing this. I admit, I was impressed. So, on the day, it rained. and rained and rained. It was a mud bath, and within ten minutes, everyone was brown, and sticky - it was ,after all, the county farming show!. I lost my shield, the strap snapped, and shortly after was put down by a good blow to my stomach. Since I was about 6 feet from the audience, I had to accept everyone could see I was dead! Then it went wrong. A galloping horse didn't see me ( no bright colour) and stepped on my ribs. The armour took most of the force, but I had several ( it later proved 19) breaks in my ribs, plus a cracked vertebrae. The poor horse fell, the rider was knocked cold, but recovered completely, but the stumbling horse kicked my leg and shoulder, breaking my collar bone and cracking my ankle and toe. Luckily, the horse was fine, although the owner never used it at reenactments again. I took about 8 months to heal, and seriously came close to quitting, but did my first healed show exactly a year later - but as a non-combatant. Nowadays, the horse groups are used differently, although I got knocked out again a couple of years ago by a mace wielding horseman when his mount panicked.
Do I blame anyone? NO, I can't - we don't control the weather, and it is a risk we knowingly take. But I still don't like fighting horsemen!!!

 

[Dragonet]

That's pretty hardcore! Worst I've ever had is I chipped a piece off my ankle playing rugby; also broke a tooth and cracked a couple of ribs, but thar pales into insignificance... 19 broken ribs and collarbone, a cracked vertebra, plus the ankle, toe and doubtless a lot of bruising. I won't say you were lucky with that list of pain, but I dare say that could have gone a lot worse.

Still for all that, it must be a brilliant experience doing reenactments. What kind of insights do you take away with you? Is the shield wall as effective as we're led to believe? What's it like receiving a cavalry charge?

 

[hairyjeff]

Cavalry is as scary as anything you can imagine. You know that it's all planned and you are 'safe', but the animal in you screams RUN! at top volume. Whats worse is that you don't really hear them so much as feel the ground start to shake and rumble. Then you see the flash of spear points and blades, and realise you have nowhere to go. You completely forget that these guys were in the bar with you last night, singing rowdy songs and sharing old tales; the feeling is more intense than any drug, and then it's up close and they're hacking at your shield from 3 feet above you. Absolutely amazing, and such a come down afterwards.
The shield wall is as effective as the worst guy in the line. If the pole weapons behind you hold the ground, you should be pretty safe. But the minute someone falls, the gap can be exploited, and you've got a spear in your side ( Thanks, Rosie, I'll get you back some day!) . The wall can be 'kamikaze' broken by hurling yourself at the feet of the front line to trip them up, but your dead meat if you do. Weight and brutality will usually break it, but at a high cost. As a side line, at Hastings several years ago, the wall held so well that at the end of the day, about a hundred Saxons surrendered to a handful of Norman knights - all they had left!.
As for the injuries, I'm so glad to live with a National Health Service. The insurance paid out, but the treatment and support care I received was world class even before that was started. Of course, all this was years ago. Today, the training is better, the risk assessments are far more inclusive, and we have much better armour. I am trying to get some of our old pictures posted, but they don't always transfer very easily. They clearly show how little protection we used to have. Now I'm older, I wouldn't dream of doing what I did then!

 

[Dragonet]

Wow. I'll definitely take that with me, you really put me right in the front rank for a moment! I always fancied getting into medieval combat but my impression was always that reenactment was tame, like LARPing, I never knew I could be so wrong! I've seen there's a modern tournament style event that's popular in Europe called HMB, I saw it on a documentary, and there's some very hi-tech armour about for competitive weapons fighting as well, monitoring speed, heart rate and impact force and location, and offering a 1st person view of the combat! What do you reckon to these kind of innovations?

 

[hairyjeff]

BoTN is an international Tournament system, have a look, but can be VERY expensive, so not for me! I haven't come across this high tech armour, so don't really feel I should comment. For a FPV , try looking up Wolin Viking Festival - doesn't give the feeling, but shows some idea. For a look at me pratting about , look up Battle of Lewes 2014. And for an example of Shield walls , look up National Heritage Battle of Hastings 2006. Then start training!

 

[TMS]

@Dragonet, a different take on medieval combat would be historical European martial arts, or HEMA. There are HEMA groups spread all throughout the US and Europe. The NY times made a pretty good coverage of a US event from last year.

 

[hairyjeff]

I've met a few HEMA guys, and I admire and respect them. They seem more involved in the technique of fighting than the drama, and as far as I've seen, they don't have experts breathing down their necks about having the "wrong type of stitching on their shoes". The guys I've seen were extremely good, and we had long discussions about 1-1 as opposed to 'mob' fighting. It's a really cool approach.

 

[hairyjeff]

Something more recent, and much more light hearted. Earlier this summer, a handful of us were at a local fair in Lewes, just having a bit of fun and demonstrating what weapons did and how they were used. Some HEMA guys came along, did a demo of their fencing styles, and as the afternoon drew on, we set out all the equipment to give the kids a 'hands on' session . Out of the crowd, a big guy called " of course this is all pretend, no-one could have done this in real life".For about ten minutes, he slagged off reenactors and historic groups, since even someone "as strong as ME" couldn't fight wearing "all that shit". After a quick chat , it turned out he was a body builder - no neck, his arms couldn't touch his ribs, impressive musculature, empty cranium. My pal, Eddie, who has a wicked sense of humour, agreed. "Here, sir, lets show you." He then proceeded to strip off his armour and equipment, loading the guy with each piece as he took it off. War sword, saex, belts, mail coif, mail shirt, helm, arming cap, arming gambeson, tassets, mail legs, shield……. as he put the mail gauntlets onto the pile the guy was holding, his knees buckled and he dropped the lot. Then one young lad , about 19, came out of the tent in his full kit, and started swinging a great sword about. One humiliated body builder stormed off, with the rest of the audience laughing- including his girlfriend!. About a hundred kids immediately wanted to try the same, but we just let them hold the swords. Don't think he'll be joining up anytime soon.