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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Practical swordfighting advice from an impassioned source, 10 Feb 2003
First; the bad. Clements could use a better editor, and he often lets his frustration at other sword users (fencers, theatrical choreographers, Historical Societies) get the better of him. That said, there's much here to love. Clements deals with sword fighting, so the intention is to present historically accurate, practical means of injuring an opponent with a sword. This is very different from the sport of Fencing and, to a lesser extent, the Oriental martial arts - to claim his technique is "poor" is missing the point - it's not meant to be Fencing technique, but rather the styles used before there even was the sport of Fencing. The book is copiously illustrated and reasonably clear throughout, although it is not a substitute for personal instruction from a professional. Clements uses many of the Medieval sword manuals as sources, although he does not annotate each example with a specific source. He has also made some logical guesses to extrapolate how you *would* fight with such a weapon, based on the available historical data and his own 18 year experience with blades. The result is an excellent entry into the growing field of Medieval Martial Arts, without requiring you to know latin, Italian or German. If you want to learn more about practical, historical sword-play, this book is a must.
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