Samurai Sword question

[Matt Wallis]

Striderteen said, Japanese schools have access to highly effective "secret" techniques, but teach them only to a select handful of heirs; this leads to better swordsmen,

I don't buy it. First, where's the evidence for this assumption that "Japanese schools have access to highly effective "secret" techniques..."?

Second, what makes you think Europeans also didn't have "secret techniques"? Leichtenaur's (sp?) stuff (basically the founder of what people would call the German school of fighting) often appears in verse and rhyme so that it could only be properly understood by people who had already trained in the techniques.

Third, what makes "secret techniques" better than not secret techniques anyway? I mean, combat is combat. You use movement, footwork, cuts, thrusts, parries, grabs, strikes, etc. What secret is someone going to come up with that would not ever had occurred to someone experienced in combat?

Regards,
Matt

[striderteen]

Ummmm. I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.

*Waves hand*

ME: "Samurai are invincible."

YOU: "Samurai are invincible."

ME: "Knights were a bunch of kluzes in tin cans."

YOU: "Knights were a bunch of kluzes in tin cans."

ME (aside): Now, who said secret techniques were useless, hmmm?

[Joe Demko]

Ah yes, "secret techniques..." If they are secret, how do you know about them?

[striderteen]

Three words.

Vietnamese royal family.

[PaladinX13]

Matt has a knack for concisely arguing points I need paragraphs to say. But I'll focus on his third one, questioning the effectiveness of "secret techniques". 1. There is no correlation between having STs and success (examples both ways have been cited already). 2. The origin of STs came from largely unemployed samurai (mostly trained similarly- the "school" didn't exist yet) trying to differentiate their school from the one across the street (examples, look at MA schools today).

Your equations and saying two-on-one means you STILL don't get my argument... sigh. Spartacus seemed to so I won't go through it all again. You still fundamentally believe a samurai is better than a knight. At least you gave us a "because" this time, albeit one based on "secret techniques". I'm not touching the royal family thing with a ten foot pole.

... Well, maybe I'll prod at it (all good natured, of course!):

Unfortunately, the Ultimate Super Secret Special Technique passed on to me by the Dutch ancestry in my Chinese bloodline combined with the 5000 year old Iron Skin art is FAR better than anything invented by the Japanese! I have personally used it to vanquish nearly 100 ninjas- both Mall and Original varieties.

[CWL]

Unemployed Samurai came as a result of gunpowder weapons, introduced in the 16th Cent. European Knights lost their jobs about the same time due to firearms.

Every sword school in Europe and Asia had their "secret techniques" -yet their students still managed to get themselves killed.

[striderteen]

Your equations and saying two-on-one means you STILL don't get my argument... sigh. Spartacus seemed to so I won't go through it all again. You still fundamentally believe a samurai is better than a knight.

Re-read my post. I pointed out that the knights would win even if you assumed an elite samurai would beat two elite knights, and I also admitted that assumption was heavily (and unrealistically) stacked in the samurai's favor!!

I'm not touching the royal family thing with a ten foot pole.

I'm actually not kidding, although the royal family of Vietnam could only be described as defunct. Heh heh. As for any secret techniques, they're just as dead as my revered ancestors.

I am a master of Tae Kwon Leep, though.

[PaladinX13]

Re-read my post. I pointed out that the knights would win even if you assumed an elite samurai would beat two elite knights, and I also admitted that assumption was heavily (and unrealistically) stacked in the samurai's favor!!

Sigh... exactly. You still don't get it. I'll try... one last time.

Pretaining to ONE on ONE (ONLY!), elite vs elite, European swordsman vs Japanese swordsman (Knight v Samurai- only when terminology is sematically similar in their respective cultures); Premise of the "best" knight defeating the "best" samurai is as follows:

1. Individual ability and experience is the single most important and relevant factor in determining the quality of a warrior. "It's the man not the art..."
2. All other factors (schooling, training, elitism, secret techniques, etc.) are irrelevant, unprovable, or equivalent. "There is no quantifiable basis to claim East/West superiority."
3. There are more knights total throughout history than samurai.
4. Holding all the above to be true, you have the best chance of drawing the best warrior in the larger of the two pools.

Example 1: Elite Reds vs Elite Blues (despite whom you favor, there's no proof), there are 200 Blues from which 1 is picked to represent them against 1 of the 10 Reds. Blue's Best is not garanteed to win against Red's Best, but it's statistically more likely. It's similar to asking whether someone who wins a tournament amongst 200 is better than one that wins 10 (not necessarily, but likely)... by now you're probably saying "But what if the 10 are all better?" 1. You have no basis to say that 2. You should get a Normal Curve in both Populations, so it's technically possible, just not at all likely.

Example 2: Red vs Blue, One on One, person w/ highest number wins. 10 Reds, 3 Blues, each one randomly draws a number (1-1000) from a hat. Each team selects their highest number to represent them. Which team is most likely to win?

That's the best I'm willing to do without looking for my old Quantifiable Methods notebooks....

[striderteen]

I could go on arguing about secret techniques, but you are correct in noting that it's a lost cause because they're an unknown variable. Barring the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of said secret techniques, we are perfectly in agreement.

Knights, having numerical superiority, will have more warriors in general and more elite warriors as well. Both quantity and quality, simple because they have a bigger pool to draw from.

There is one factor, however, we have previously not considered. Knights generally fight with lance as primary, backed up by sword and shield. Samurai fight with bows, backed up by nagatina or yari (i.e., halberds and spears), further backed up by katana and wazishiki (sp?).

This means that samurai have ranged weapons and knights do not. Now, knights generally did deploy alongside peasant infantry, including archers, but samurai were of course better trained than the latter.

While the shorter bow used by samurai probably isn't as powerful as a European longbow, that also (theoretically) gives it a higher rate of fire -- and I suspect it would still have enough power to penetrate all but the heaviest plate mail.

This means that the samurai could potentially pull a repeat of the Engish upset victory at Agincourt. However, this is not guaranteed, as the French loss was due primarily to their lack of a unified leadership rather than the firepower of the English longbow (although that played an important role); they attacked a semi-entrenched foe despite unfavorable battlefield conditions (muddy), and they refused to pull back even in the face of increasingly heavy losses (because no one really had the authority to order a retreat).

[Lavan]

My opinion is to practice Ronin-awai.

[striderteen]

LOL! I prefer the legendary secret technique of Call-A-Shnikov.

[madmike]

Find the book, "Arms and Armor of the Samurai" by Crescent Books.

Covers from the early Korean swords to the Tachi and Uchi Gatana, to the Katana, the Wakizashi, and the Tanto

[Matt Wallis]

Madmike,

Okay, so what does the book say that would bear on this discussion? Fill us in, man.

Regards,
Matt