Historical martial arts reconstruction

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Historical martial arts reconstructions are attempts at reviving martial arts with no living tradition. In recent years, with the resurgence of interest in martial arts, schools of fighting long since discontinued have generated enough interest for individuals and organizations to reconstruct them from historical sources.

The reconstruction of a martial art is very difficult indeed, and opinions on how it is best done differ quite a lot. Usually, written material is used, along with paintings and diagrams of movement. This is, however, usually not enough to capture the dynamics of a martial art, and practical experimentation becomes necessary. Normally the people attempting to reconstruct a martial art have experience in some other, similar martial art with a living tradition, and they normally fill in the gaps with this martial art.

Examples of martial arts reconstruction are pankration and the various historical European schools of fencing (no nomenclature is yet agreed upon).

See also: fencing, historical fencing, I.33