Historical swordfighting
Historical swordfighting is a term used in Australia to distinguish between the sword using combatative arts being practised today based on historical sources (such as fechtbucher) rather than other forms derived from modern invention (SCA combat, re-enactment combat) or derived from martial sports (kendo, Olympic fencing).
Students of these styles often learn them from study of historical fighting manuals or from those who have studied from them.
This is a growing area of study and interest worldwide, with a numbver of works being published including reproductions of original manuals and books and DVD's interpetting the same.
The usefulness of these fighting styles varies depending on their nature. Many depict combat moves unsuitable for modern recreationist combat due to artificial rule sets imposed on recreationists or use of recreated weapons that fail to incorpate some aspects of their historical counterpart.
Other aspects however, do lend themselves readily to such combats and are quickly incorporated.
