Scottish Claymore Basic Attacks, Blocks, and Form with GrondeTM

hey guys this is grande thank you for coming to my channel and watch me one of my videos today we're gonna make a video about the Scottish claim war and we're gonna talk a little bit about different ways to move with the sword to move your body different attacks that you can make different blocks you can employ and we will put it together at the end to walk through a very basic form after which I'll show you one or maybe two slightly more advanced techniques for for a beginner swordsman and then we'll wrap it all up with some cultural and historical background of not only where this weapon came from but why and how it was employed on the battlefield so I hope you enjoyed the video let's get started this is the Scottish Claymore there's some debate in certain historical circles about the naming terminology for these weapons I'm gonna refer to it as a Scottish Claymore because honestly that's what I grew up calling it and I think this is the weapon that comes into the minds of most people when they hear Scottish Claymore the overall length is about 55 inches the blade I think is roughly 40 to 43 here you can see it's cross guard slipping down with our food these are collie they're quill yinz on the side very stereotypical cultural part of this weapon the ball pommel has a beam across the top to fix it in place leather wrap handle spring steel blade I don't remember exactly what kind of steel this is a reproduction of a historical model in a museum and I have made a little leather wrap right there that you can see to protect my hand when I want to hold the sword because this is the point of balance point of balance is not in the handle because it's too big when a balance is roughly in the middle of this leather wrap it's sharp it is very very sharp that doesn't mean I can't safely hold the edge of the sword but it means I don't want to slide my hand along it or I'll cut the junk out of it it is pointy this blade was not intended for stabbing just because of the the size of this sword I guess it would fall into the category of broad swords even though I don't think people would refer to it as a broadsword it's mostly employed for a slash or cut technique yeah let's get into some attacks here you can see my target dummy it's literally just three paper plates that I have taped to the path of the spear and they're representing the head of your opponent the abdomen of your opponent and the knee joint of your opponent those are gonna be the three focal areas of our attacks today we're gonna go over Oh for know probably five attacks no scuse me four attacks my apologies we're gonna do a shoulder a strike from our shoulder like so we're gonna do a strike from above our head like so we're gonna do a strike from beneath like so and then we're gonna do a stab like so and I know that was quick but I'm gonna go over each one in depth and we're gonna hit each target with each strike let's get started we're gonna start with the right handed shoulder strike to the head notice the positioning of my feet my left foot is forward with my right foot back since I am throwing the strike from my right shoulder and I'm gonna start out without moving my feet but as we advance in the video I'll throw in some footwork so you guys watch for that right hand his shoulder strike to the head notice how I'm not turning the play and smacking it with the flat I don't want to hit with the edge because that's the part that does damage now to the abdomen now to the knee notice how my left hand isn't jumping out there because it's not the force of the strike it's holding the bottom of my sword so that I can pivot and my right hand delivers force pretty easy stuff let's do it from the other side even though I am now throwing a left-handed shoulder strike my hand position doesn't change I'm a right-handed swordsman ergo my right hand is on the top of the sword and so without moving my feet here's our left-handed shoulder strike to the head again notice the position of my blade with the edge hitting the opponent all right we got that let's move on to an overhead strike for this particular strike I'm not gonna start from this stereotypical stance I'm gonna start from right here because the way I like to do you have to generate some power getting the sort of above your head I'm gonna twist and rotate my hands I'm just pivoting along the central point to get the blade back behind me rotating my right hand up damn boom legs boom and now I am holding the sword this way I'm slightly angling it so I can come into the into the paper plate but this strike would be done like this because of the direction of force you're moving the edge into your opponent whereas with this one the plate is sideways because that's where the edge needs to be now let's do this overhead strike from the other side again same footwork same hand posture starting from the bottom we're gonna break our sword in the other direction we're twisting with our hands but I think I broke the wrong way last time so twist break rotate up down twist break rotate up down and for a third time perfect now for the upper strike from the right-hand side I'm going to go ahead and toss in some footwork cause I think you guys can handle it and I'm tired of not moving my feet when I throw a strike I'm going to step into it so for the shoulder strike it would be here for the downward strike it would be here you see how I'm moving my right foot forward I am closing distance between myself and my opponent and I am delivering more force to the target so now to show you the upward strike with footwork left the board right foot back right on top left hand on bottle we're gonna come down I'm pivoting on my left hand sweeping the sword diagonal Inc step so with back I can hit either up the top I can hit any of the targets now from the other side I've been framed good that's always good gonna hit it sweet it's a little harder because I'm gonna heal right here throwed it sweet up and hit it sweep up easy stuff the last strike is a stab it's really simple hold the sword here in your normal guard position rotate it down so it's inside my shoulder because I want the blade close to me in case I have to block and staff you can also step with this attack for more range so we're here rotate pretty easy stuff I'll show it from the other side now rotate my hands my right hand still in taught left hand stolen bottom step through and so what you can see here from this angle in this side my right hand is not in a position to stab and so as I'm stabbing I'm opening slightly opening slightly and then rotating my hand into a stab position here twist or rotate it down move my hand as I step move it again easy stop and you can step into all of those of course all right now we've talked about strikes that you can make with this weapon we're going to talk about three different types of blocks that will block the majority of attacks of normal attacks that people would employ for the first block normal stance looks like this from the side I'm just facing the camera now because it's easier for you to see the type of block if I'm facing the camera I'm also going to employ footwork with this so two things at once I believe in you you can do it just keep up normal stance left foot right foot back this block is gonna block a strike that's coming in on my head from my left side my opponent's right side to do that we're going to step to meet the attack or if he was close we would step back away from the attack to create distance but for the purpose of the block I'm going to step forward we're gonna move our hands to rotate the hilt on the blade and therefore the rest of the blade to our side up as we step what this does is it creates a a diagonal bar against the opponent's blade that it has to pass through to get to me since it can't pass through your sword you've then blocked the sorting you know you're good to show you again full speed block block and then from the other direction so if I was already in this stance and there was a sword strike coming through this way at me hands like this block just step and block notice when I throw my block I have the edge of my sword pointing to my opponent normally but I'm not blocking with the edge I am twisting my sword so that the flat of my blade is facing his edge what that does is hopefully blunts his edge with my block but saves my edge from being blunted therefore so I mean so that I can cut him afterwards which is the purpose of sword fighting so we'll show those again real quickly up block one up block - easy-peasy moving on this block will block a shoulder strike coming from your opponent so coming from a right sided solar strike from my opponent I'm here I'm here I'm twisting my hands again just like with the up block and stepping forward but instead of blocking here it's a different strike so I'm blocking here again this is keeping my entire sword between me and my opponent and I'm on the inside of his guard as well this will allow us to employ some counter attacks later on that I'll show you now to block the opposite side we're here block all I'm doing is pivoting my right hand and pushing with my left to put that sword in the same position on the other side of my body easy-peasy stuff we are not wanting to move the point of our blade to meet the enemy's sword to block it the reason for this is the enemy can be throwing a feint and if they're throwing a feint this block allows me to recover and keep the point of my sword at my opponent between me and him which allows me to counter-attack recover into a new block doesn't leave me open like this does alright the last block is a low block it's pretty simple stuff same stances before left foot forward right foot back holding the sword I'm just going to allow my wrists to flip so my left hand is just coming up my right hand rotates down stays on the sword I'm opening it to allow the sword to fully rotate and my turn but I'm not gonna step you see how my foot Khan comes out like a like a baseball swing I'm allowing the flat of my blade to hit the opponent's edge and I've blocked from there to the ground walk now from the other side we're here block it's a little more awkward if you're coming across your body this way if you're a right-handed swordsman because your left arm is at an awkward angle what I like to do it's from this stance or even from this stance it works better from this stance though as you just walk and rotate down here if I was caught in this stance on a low strike coming from my right side my opponent's left side I would step back out of the way in dodge instead of blocking and that's that's a whole nother that's a whole nother video of dodging and moving while in a sword fight I'm just trying to show basic attacks and cuts which I have done are in blocks excuse me which I have done now it's time to synthesize that into a basic form all right so we're moving into a basic form for this weapon are basic attacks while moving in sequence will turn there are basic blocks while moving in sequence turn again and then I'm gonna do some blocks and counter-attacks that I haven't shown you yet but that I believe you can follow because they're not too difficult there just employing the same movements we've already been practicing and yeah we're gonna see how it goes start this out getting my normal sorts dance though start with a shoulder strike right side left side so all I did was come up above my head there now I'm gonna do from this because we're moving with the form so I'm here now I'm gonna do a down strike on my right down strike on my left reposition up strike right up strike left turn and we're gonna read you our feet position block block side block block down damn on both sides of our body we turn again now I'll come to counter-attacks counter we're gonna change form side counter some County low counter hello so yeah that's the basic form practice that if you're wanting to get into swordsplay and that shows you the basic attacks and blocks to make with Scottish claim or to wrap up this section of the video we're going to talk about to some of the advanced techniques that I'll show you in just a moment first one's called an ox guard it's when you hold your sword here as a high guard fist in two attacks the second is a mort Hollway according the sword or a half sorting way of the sword which I hold from my mother up here left hand on the pommel and what this allows is a much closer short-range technique of fighting it it's more useful for indoors rather than outside where I have plenty of room to swing a big sword as wide as I want alright let's get started the Ox guard normal sword stance but instead of here my hands are up and the sword slants down my body I might be my port might be low I need to be high I'm not a professional or an expert or anything this is the basic stance from this I'm able to block all high strikes strikes to reposition for would be a low strike if I didn't want to just step away what's special about this guard it's wall blocking all of those it allows me to block and simultaneously move into a counter attack in a very very fluid motion so all these are counter attacks while blocking the entire time and yeah that's the Ox guard wouldn't recommend starting out doing that it's very taxing on the upper body and it's just it's kind of an awkward way of fighting if you're not used to it so I would recommend starting with my basic form that I showed you earlier now for the half sorting technique I'm grouping my sword from my leather wrap left hand goes on the pummel pretty chill stuff and from here I have amazing point control the sword is very very light compared let me do what it is when I grip back here and this allows me to very dexterously grab an opponent's weapon whose you decide and easily counter the stab um there are ways of this where with gauntlet or or a glove you would actually grab the blade of the sword and strike with the pommel or with the hilt especially against armored opponents where striking with the sword blade isn't as effective just because force so forces concentrated over a small area um it does a lot more wind forces concentrated over a small area does a lot more damage then when it's spread out and so striking with this piece of the Quillen versus this amount of the blade it's just a much smaller area so it's concentrating the force much more heavily yeah those are just a couple extra techniques alright this goddess Claymore it's an incredible weapon it is a huge weapon and now it's time to learn a little bit about its history historically it's been used by the Scottish people hence the name Scottish Claymore to my knowledge it was developed in the early 15th century and then used from them until I think the late 17th century where it just starts to get phased out like many other swords do by other advancements that are being made in warfare I was primarily used by foot soldiers this is just too large of a weapon to wield from the back of a horse and it's interesting because it was deployed by foot soldiers as an anti horse tool oftentimes when English Knights are charging into battle they're really heavily armored that have a large lance they can spear the foot soldier or the opposing Knight from a long distance with that lance and they're they're hard to kill Knights are essentially the medieval equivalent of Tanks not because they are incredibly well armored and slow far from it night sir we're incredibly fast because horses are incredibly fast but they are the medieval equivalent of things because they are effective and they have the shock value that normal infantry soldiers just don't have the the Scots oftentimes clash with the English throughout this year and they needed a tool to beat the English night that they could rely on one tool that got developed what's the Scottish claim or they would deploy it against the the English Knights to try to either strike the night down from the back of the board says who's charging it or more often as the horse is running past they were doing a low sweeping cut across the horse's legs which you know for the animal lovers out there that's really hard to hear but when you have the English Knight who's incredibly well armored the the big long lance it can spear you from a large distance away that's the the easiest way to stop that unit from doing what it's supposed to do and then once the the horse has been done but not killed but you've crippled on the the Knights on the ground it was much easier for the Scottish soldier and thirty of his best friends to then deal with that English Knights lying on the ground then when the English line is running around another use that I believe has been documented I'll have to and I don't know what what sources to so I don't have to look back into that another use though for the Scottish claim or is in fighting pikemen English Pike formations were incredibly effective and they they're based heavily on the ancient Greek phalanx formations essentially what you have is just rows of soldiers with really long Spears pikes it's a specialized weapon for that purpose and they they're great at stopping cavalry charges they're great at stopping infantry charges they're just great at stopping charges and what the what the Scottish Claymore is is claimed to be able to do is win the warrior was able to get close enough to the pipe formation some some accounts say they were able to lop off the head of the actual weapon but then the pike itself I've tested this a little bit before and yeah you can definitely cut through like a pretty thick wooden dowel rod but when it's when it's being held by someone it has that movement when you when you apply force to it it's gonna move some so I don't know exactly how effective the cutting power would be against the actual spears even though I know that it can cut through the width of a normal spear on that they have been claimed to do that but but more so past that when you have the soldiers standing in a row for their pike formation and you get a really nice clean sweeping cut across that row the stories claim that it can cut off multiple heads at once yeah those are just two quick examples of how the the Scottish Claymore was deployed in battle and a little bit of the history behind it I really hope you enjoyed the video and if you did I've really appreciated if give it a like and possibly surprise my channel thank you very much have a nice day yeah

Channel: William P.

Views: 14,858

Keywords: scottish, claymore, sword, form, gronde, grondetm

Id: KRvlo15xcSo

Length: 26min 52sec (1612 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 11 2020