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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
What A Shame,
By Andrew (Oxford, England) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Medieval Swordsmanship: Illustrated Methods and Techniques (Paperback)
I was rather excited when I found this book, but left it feeling rather disappointed. The diagrams are very good, indeed better than other books in the field; The author's writing style sadly does not match. He adopts a "my way or nothing" approach, spending almost as much time talking of how bad or unrealistic modern fencing, kendo or re-enactment fighting all are that he does talking of his own techniques. The book desperately needed editing to remove this rather unnecessary annoying rubbish. While I applaud the author's notion of restoring western fighting techniques as martial arts, I did not even bother to finish, but put the book down rather sadly, just too frustrated with it to continue.
24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great concept, so-so execution,
By A Customer
This review is from: Medieval Swordsmanship: Illustrated Methods and Techniques (Paperback)
John Clements' latest book is a welcome and valuable resource in the international effort to revive traditional European swordsmanship as a martial art. It is well-illustrated by the author (a professional graphic artist)and covers a great deal of technical and historical ground.Unfortunately, "Medieval Swordsmanship" is not well organised and does not present a structured guide to learning the art. In his enthusiasm to cover a wide variety of techniques, the author has omitted to discuss many of the fundamental principles of swordsmanship, such as body mechanics. This would not present any real obstacles to experienced practitioners but could be confusing or even dangerous for novices. The main fault in this book lies in the author's writing style, which is undisciplined and tends towards egotism. He appears to confuse his own motivations with those of fantasy-game enthusiasts, fencers and fight-scene directors and to waste a great deal of space comparing apples and oranges. Some of these critiques seem rather petty and detract from the otherwise positive tone. Footnotes would also have been welcome, in that the author cites a great diversity of sources but seldom follows through with specific details. Any future editions of "Medieval Swordsmanship" will benefit from some professional editing and accurate citations, and several of the more vociferous appendices could usefully be dropped or replaced.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not for a novice,
By
This review is from: Medieval Swordsmanship: Illustrated Methods and Techniques (Paperback)
It is a good book into which the author has put a lot of effort and inspiration.
However it should not be treated as an ultimate guide to sword fighting, rather additional material for one's study of sword. While the text is interesting (even though a bit over stretched and vague in places) and the diagrams are informative, one should not base his or her training entirely on this publication. The main drawback of the book is the fact that the author has attempted to cover too wide a field which resulted in the main subject being somewhat neglected, or so it seems at times. Still it is an interesting work which may give someone with previous experience in sword fighting a few new ideas.
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