If anyone's ever had grappling lessons in traditional martial arts and wondered "why are there so many counters to wrist grabs? No one's just going to walk up and grab my wrist like that!" Well, this is why. Most of your "unarmed" training is actually intended for armed combat. The idea of fighting without a weapon is an afterthought in most traditional systems and I think that's an idea that's gotten lost over time.

In new Spain, there were soldiers who usually patrol areas where they could be attacked by arrows and spears so they would have shields and body armor made out of leather.

The patience you showed while having to explain why compliance is required for ease of demonstration was absolutely legendary

Fights are not won by weapons, they are won by fighters.

I would think that a blow from the edge of a buckler, while probably not fatally injurious, could probably break a wrist, fingers, or possibly an arm. Even if there’s no actual damage it might cause the saber guy to release their grip.

Since George Silver came up in this video, let's see what he had to say about sword alone vs. sword & buckler: "That all manner of double weapons, or weapons to be used with both hands, have advantage against the single rapier or single sword, there is no question to be made." Silver espoused many controversial opinions & realized they were contentious, spilling ink to defend them. He considered the idea that double weapons like sword & buckler have the advantage over single sword as so widely accepted he didn't to explain or argue for it.

The assumption here is that the shield is used just in unison with a sword. Often the shield hand also holds a dagger.

Also worth bearing in mind in a lot of scenarios an officer is just going to be using their sword to buy time for someone else to step in. It's a similar principle in modern hand-to-hand on the battlefield, 90% of it is literally you grapple, immobilize and orientate them so that you're immediate number 2 can put some rounds through them. It's not fancy but it's pragmatic. Life or death one on ones do happen, have happened and always will happen but that's generally when things have gone completely tits up.

Something people just see to never get about combat is that having the advantage is rarely a guarantee of success.

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Actually one cool thing you can do with a shield/buckler is that if you slant it and angle it right, it can actually either absorb/deflect bullets, especially with the type of guns they had back then. They actually pointed that out in one of Fan dabby dozy's videos where they shot at the scottish bucklers with french pistols/flintlocks and the bullets would literally bounce/ricochet off the brass on the bucklers at certain angles.

In my last sparring on saturday i was fighting buckler and sword vs long sword and I actualy got in a situation where, for a spilt second, i saw the oportunity to grab the hilt of my opponent with the buckler hand. All i could do was push him against my chest and hold him there, whilst simultaniously hitting him on the head with my sword. And he was very much uncompliant. The grabbing of the wrist or hilt in single handed saber fighting is very much more common, happens all the time.

There's counterplay for anything but that doesn't negate the fact that one person's in an advantageous position. That's true in everything from fencing to wrestling to football to video games. A fight's never over until it's over but once the arm is grabbed, the sabre user has a big advantage. That's balanced by the fact that it's not easy to do: grappling is generally harder than just hitting the opponent,

Great cold opening, and thank you for continuing to be Matt Easton.

Thank you very much for this very valuable follow up to a very interesting topic. I am glad smarter people than me are asking good questions to you. Cheers!

Matt Easton aka Captain Context strikes again! :)

Thanks for the wonderful video. I come from archery. It seems that many cultures used small shields also together with bows (and swords if the enemy comes close). See e.g. the famous kalkan shields that could be worn in many different ways to favor different purposes (e.g. combination with bow vs. different combinations with sword). Or the Persian separ which could also be used with a bow in the same hand. The separ is basically buckler size. If you leave the straps a bit looser, you can hold a bow or dagger (and I assume also a gun) in your shield hand. So it seems that using a gun in addition is not necessarily something only available to the non-shield wielder. When you have the straps looser, you also get more possibilities to grapple and can do roughly the same things as with a completely free hand (plus shield punches). Not sure about Indian shields, but since they also were used with e.g. daggers (right?), I assume they can basically perform likewise.

Always enjoy your insights

Thanks for the video ⚔️

Another aspect that I don't see commented on (although I haven't read all the comments), is that if you grab the arm and pull (like Judo or Akido), the other person will be off balance and not able to throw as solid a blow as they could if they were balanced. Also, if you grab the weapon arm and move (or pull them) so you are on the "outside", they would have to punch through their own arm to hit you. Again, as Matt Easton said, there are attacks, riposts, counters, and so on.