systlin:

systlin:

Sword drill: Strength and mobility exercise

For those wondering how the hell to start practicing longsword if you have no club near you; here’s a good series of very basic exersizes

There’s a million websites where you can buy a sword. Ebay even. 

Start with a wooden one. A wooden one is cheap and somewhat lighter than a steel blade. And you needn’t be in great shape; a sword only weighs like. 2 pounds. I do 30-40 minutes with a steel blade, but start with like, 5-10 with a wooden sword, or even just a broomstick with the ends cut off. 

https://www.amazon.com/BladesUSA-1607-Hardwood-Training-Equipment/dp/B0060C8GRG This is exactly the wooden training sword I started with

To be quite honest, the best exercises to get into shape for sword fighting are, well, sword fighting. You use muscles with a sword that no other exercise seems quite to get. Your forearms ARE going to hate you at first so know that going in. 

But when you first start after like, 10 minutes your arms will want to drop off, and so you stop. At this point, the “Wet noodle arms that I can barely lift” takes a solid 45 minutes of drills to get to for me, and I’m still pushing that back. (Goal is an hour) 

So it’s more just how long you do drills than what you do to start out, tbh