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- #EPIC WAR 5 WANDERING SWORDMASTER MANUAL#
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D’Aubigny continued her remarkable career as a singer and duelist until her early thirties, when she abruptly hung up her sword and entered a convent.
In another famous incident from 1695, she scandalized the guests at a masked ball by kissing a young woman on the mouth and then fighting-and defeating-three different swordsmen who tried to defend the lady’s honor. Despite having no vocal training, she later found fame as a contralto opera singer and spent several years performing under the name “Mademoiselle de Maupin,” or “La Maupin.”D’Aubigny also took part in numerous sword duels, including one against a nobleman who initially mistook her for a man. After fleeing a loveless marriage during her teen years, she began an affair with a fencing master and made her living staging sword-fighting exhibitions in taverns. The daughter of a court nobleman of King Louis XIV, d’Aubigny was a fencing prodigy who bested male opponents from a young age. Illustration of Mademoiselle de Maupin, from “Six Drawings Illustrating Theophile Gautier’s Romance Mademoiselle de Maupin”, by Aubrey Beardsley, 1897.ĭuring the late 17th and early 18th centuries, Julie d’Aubigny fascinated the French public with her outsized personality, heavenly singing voice and deadly sword skill. Julie d’Aubigny-The Ferocious Lady Sword Fighter One contemporary wrote that the Italian was “a most perfect master” in the art of sword fighting and “had trained an immense number of valiant disciples.” 5. “You must never attack without defending, nor defend without attacking,” he writes in one of the manual’s early chapters, “and if you do this you shall not fail.” Little is known about Marozzo’s life, but he is believed to have come of age in Bologna and later made his name as the operator of one of the city’s top fencing academies.
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His book Opera Nova (A New Work) is a compendium of Renaissance-era swordplay that boasts detailed outlines of fighting stances, parrying techniques and even instructions for how to defeat left-handed opponents.
#EPIC WAR 5 WANDERING SWORDMASTER MANUALS#
The oldest known European fencing manuals date to the 1400s, but the most important early treatise didn’t arrive until the mid-16th century and the work of the Italian master swordsman Achille Marozzo.
Illustration from “Opera nova de Achilee Marozzo Bolognese, mastro generale de larte de larmi”.
#EPIC WAR 5 WANDERING SWORDMASTER MANUAL#
Shortly before his death in 1732, he summed up his experiences in a raucous autobiography and fencing manual titled The Expert Sword-Man’s Companion. Despite suffering some two-dozen wounds from musket balls, bayonets and grenades during his military career, McBane continued dueling well into his old age and even worked as a prizefighter in his sixties.
One signature move, the “Boar’s Thrust,” called for the fighter to drop to one knee while simultaneously jabbing his sword upward in a vicious uppercut blow. Along the way, he also opened a fencing school and developed a sword-fighting technique that combined graceful movement with swift and deadly lunges.
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A professional soldier by trade, this Scottish highlander was a born brawler who claimed to have participated in at least 100 duels, including a few in which he crossed steel with several different opponents in succession. Weird and Wondrous: Evolution of Super Bowl Halftime Showĭonald McBane’s colorful career included side jobs as a tavern-keeper and brothel owner, but he is best remembered as one of the 18th century’s most accomplished swordsmen. His Book of Five Rings is now considered a landmark text on martial arts and strategy. Having never been bested in battle, Musashi later retired from dueling and became an acclaimed ink painter and writer. Kojiro was known as one of Japan’s greatest swordsmen, yet Musashi easily dodged his attacks and delivered a fatal blow with his wooden weapon. He is said to have perfected a two-blade fighting technique, but he was so accomplished that he often engaged in single combat armed with only a wooden sword, or “bokken.” One such duel came in 1612, when he squared off against a rival samurai named Sasaki Kojiro using a sword carved from the oar of a boat. While he occasionally served as a soldier, Musashi spent much of his career wandering the Japanese countryside and doing battle with any warrior who dared challenge him.
The life of Japanese samurai Miyamoto Musashi is obscured by myth and legend, but this “sword saint” reportedly survived 60 duels-the first of which was fought when he was just 13 years old. Musashi Miyamoto with two Bokken from an ancient Japanese scroll.