Dual wielding

I have been sent several requests to make a video about dual wielding that is to say using a weapon not just in one hand but a weapon in each hand and I thought I have one main point to make about this and that is simply that people in the past didn't really do it so I could suggest that that's probably because there are good reasons not to do it you don't go into battle just with an axe or a sword or a mace you've got another hand so you may as well have a shield and shields are really good at keeping you alive one thing that shields are very good for is dealing with missiles now you may say ah yeah I'm really cool if they throw a javelin at me I've got my two weapons and I can knock the javelin out of the air cuz I'm so cool just like in the movies well yeah you may be but what happens when the opposition is a formation of 500 troops and the air is darkened with javelins that are flying all over the shop you're going to parry all of those really well that would be very impressive if you could but I personally would recommend a shield because shields are really good when the missiles are raining down on you another thing of course you might want to use with the other hand is the another part of the same weapon so you've got a bigger weapon an axe a halberd Oh a big more a spear or so forth so you can do more damage with it so if I've got a big double headed axe or a fax or something what I can do much more damage and get a bit more reach because I'm using a two-handed weapon so why would you ever go into battle not making use of your free hand it would be just weird you'd have just just a sword or an axe or a mace or something now if you're a man walking about town you know you're probably not been able to carry a big shield around with you some people would carry buckler's because they were nice and small and convenient for that sort of thing you could reasonably carry a buckler around all the time just in case your fight kicks off but a large shield would be a right pain to have to carry around all the time so people generally didn't so you might under those civil circumstances find yourself with just a weapon to hand but if you're going into battle no no you're going to have something to do with your other hand as I say in the ancient world by and large you have a in the other hand to protect yourself and you can you can actively use that shield in a fight you can bash people with it you can you can knock them into position and so forth knock aside weapons you can use it as a weapon if you like but it's also keeping you alive much more effectively than say an axe in your offhand would do so people like to use shields and they like to use double handy weapons for more reach and more damage but they didn't go in for one weapon in each hand because this doesn't protect you nearly as well as having a shield wood it doesn't give you any more reach doesn't make you do any more damage ah you might say but sure that you can attack more often someone recently sent me a set of war game rules he'd written and one of my comments was that I noticed that if a figure in his war game rules had a weapon in each hand it got to attack twice every round instead of just once in other words dual wielding was twice as effective as single wielding well if that were true surely pretty much everyone in the ancient and medieval world would have gone in for it but it doesn't appear to be true um number of reasons one reason is imagine imagine you're a tennis player and you go to serve the ball would you throw the ball up and then go like that just just a simple movement to serve the ball no you're going to put these two your whole shoulder into it in fact we put everything into a dummy they throw the ball up and as they do so they'll winding up their muscles they're twisting their torso and they are throwing the bat arm goes that way and the weight of that on goes that way the whole arm and the shoulder and the muscles in the back of the cross the chest the whole torso swings great weight of your body swings through you're pushing off with your legs use your whole self to hit that tennis ball and you get a much more powerful serve as a result well similarly if I got the weapon in this hand I want to hit you really hard I'm going to do the same thing I'm going to wind up with my my whole body and I'm going to put twisting torso in it it only has to be a little bit of a twist of the torso that's a lot of massive body which is going to add a lot of oomph behind the blow I'm going to push off with my legs now of course if I'm pushing off with my legs and twisting my body like this this means that if I'm trying to hit you with this hand it's actually subtracting power from this hand whilst adding to this hand so this would be very ineffective and of course if I'm trying to hit you both the same time the two weapons I'm actually endangering my own arm and possibly going to clash weapons here and this going like that is really awkward so you might think well you go one like that and then like that well yes but if I got one weapon in this hand I can go hack hack hack hack hack like that which is about the same speed as hack hack hack etc it's not actually adding to the speed at which I can attack and if all I'm doing is attacking where my Paras how am i how I actually defending myself this point using two weapons is not anywhere near twice as effective as using one now it's true that some people would duel with two weapons rape pure and mangoush for instance was something that was occasionally used it's not really a battlefield situation though that you're a bit of the Three Musketeers they were Musketeers they actually used muskets but when they were dueling in the town they might show off what they could do with a rapier and and long dagger and and it's a shorter thing used for parrying and because it's small you can carry it around all the time so it's a bit like a buckler so you're back to that so there you go dual wielding people generally didn't do it because it wasn't tremendously advantageous and there are other things you could be doing with your free hand

Channel: Lindybeige

Views: 1,000,381

Rating: 4.9101462 out of 5

Keywords: battle, ancient, medieval, sword, axe, mace, weapon, wield, wielding, dual, dual-wielding, hand, melee, combat, fighting, swordsman, swordsmanship, fencing, hand-to-hand, parry, shield, two

Id: gJBEDxh0RQw

Length: 6min 3sec (363 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 26 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/Wonkowich]

Just to give an other perspective, here's Matt Easton respondig to Lindy's video.

[u/MyinnerGoddes]

I've given up on movies/shows ever realistically portraying sword fighting, just don't worry about it and enjoy the spectacle, that's what i do anyway.

[u/99hero99]

Arthur Dayne can do whatever he wants

[u/Arknell]

Dualwielding: Counter and addendum by ScholaGladiatoria

This also underscores that dual-wielding was only practiced by very skilled and very disciplined users, and so the mere fact that Dayne uses it in GoT is an indication that he is really good. Far better.

[u/sik_bahamut]

Speaking as someone who has watched a few people cut some jugs of milk up on YouTube with a katana, I consider myself well versed in sword play. And I thoroughly enjoyed that scene.

[u/rodrikes]

This guy is pretty good; i've been watching his vids for quite a while now. He makes some solid points.

[u/ExpendableOne]

Arguably, Dayne didn't really have to worry about missiles and didn't have a two-handed weapon or a shield handy. He was fighting 4 men in close proximity. If you're going to make a case for it, that might have been as good of a situation as any.

[u/Raidoton]

If Syrio Forel can defeat 5 members of the kingsguard (Edit: Lannister Guardsman) with only a wooden sword, then Arthur Dayne sure as hell can use 2 swords effectively.

[u/StephentheGinger]

However, while most people didn't/couldn't do it, there is always a potential that someone could. granted they'd have to be super athletic and pretty much ambidextrous, but it probably could be done.