Reaction / Commentary: Blades That Wouldn't KEAL (Forged in Fire)

Sometimes swords and other weapons on Forged in Fire break or otherwise fail, and occasionally people wonder if it was really just the blade or it might have been improperly used. I've even seen some comments that criticized Doug Marcaida harshly, to the point of claiming that he doesn't know how to use swords at all. Which I find very unreasonable, although somewhat understandable at first glance.

So here is my opinion on some of those catastrophic failures. Doug definitely knows what he's doing, he is a remarkably skilled and experienced martial artist. Granted, mainly in knife fighting and Kali. As far as I know he hasn't practiced HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts), but that doesn't mean he can't cut with a European sword.

In this video I take a closer look at the slowmo footage from the show and try to gauge how good the edge alignment and overall cutting mechanics are. As usual, I'm not claiming to be a great expert or some kind of sword master. My perspective is based on my personal experience of 5+ years of HEMA practice (plus a few years before joining a school) and over 10 years of occasional and semi-regular test cutting with a wide variety of swords.

The video I'm reacting to:    • Forged in Fire: 4 EPIC Blades That WO...  


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