Norse 'Berserker' warriors

[The Real]

Vikings & their Gods - Berserker

Interesting. You have to wonder about these trance-like states/ecstatic rages and their biological component. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some connection between this and people catching the "Holy Spirit" in church or whirling dervish trances, etc. It seems like the rituals described above are meant to induce a certain mental/bodily state (well, besides the bear-killing, which just seems like a classic test of strength/initiation ritual.)

 

[Julius Skrrvin]

Yeah you're right. In fact, all the Glima "masters" I looked up online (claim to) have backgrounds in Eastern martial arts, which I guess is not surprising. It seems to be another part of the general orientalist/new age strain of modern thinking. I'm willing to bet they just pass off other stuff as Glima and that there's a marketing gimmick involved in the novelty, too.

Theres a silly element of nationalism to it as well definitely, like you're not proud enough of european martial dominance so you have to make some shyt up about chi applications in folk wrestling?

I dont begrudge a martial art for being new or recently developed but the idea of new or older martial arts being good or shyt are kind of silly to me. Martial arts are fluid, everything has a counter and to be honest, there are only so many ways of doing something. When i throw a Beng Quan in xingyi practice i know its truly not that different from a straight to the body in boxing for example. Punching someone in the face is not that different from.... punching
someone in the face.

to me its always a reinventing the wheel argument, and you'll see this on boxing forums with people trying to compare different eras and shyt. Makes no sense.

 

[Mowgli]

Vikings & their Gods - Berserker

They were probably on shrooms when they did this. An unfocused beast with no technique.

 

[Mowgli]

I noticed, as VVD pointed out, you've slowly replaced yourself with Jon Jones.

You always get your boyfriends to fight your shyt for you?

your 10k mat hours < 5k in battle fighting for your life + 20 years of military training and fighting.

Sorry JB that's just life. You got yourself all gased up looking at the oiled up pick of Jones on your wall that you've blinded yourself to way to much shyt. Do yourself a favor, take your eyes off your man for a second and listen to what some of these intelligent guys are saying. I've told you once before and i'll tell you again I have an MMA background too JB and even at that I'm not saying an MMA dude couldn't win, just that i'd not bet the farm on it either.

I dont listen to guys who cant fight. Whos fists i dont respect. You respect Vikings hand to hand combat skills based on nothing. You are cattle. Me vs a viking is elementary. No different then a snarling scrappy white belt meathead who comes in geeked off his career as a street fighter only to be made humble and indoctrinated into common sense.

 

[Dirty_Jerz]

 

[Gallo]

So now we got people claiming that modern sport fighters who've never caught a body have the same mindset as warriors who've killed others since childhood and spent their lives on battlefields. Yall aren't killers, period.

The wild speculation about ancient fighting we don't know anything about is also useless.

That mindset irrelevant, skill is infinitely more important and these Ikea dudes weren't throwing hands like that. You're too focused on their mindset and not yours. In the desert I wasn't afraid of no battle hardened Taliban. In fact I felt sorry for them, me, an engineering nerd. They were running from us. Real, I respect you but all you're doing is revealing your cowardice. Some snarling Swede who's been killing babies all his life holds zero advantage to someone who is skilled and not a b1tch. In fact, his mindset means he's probably at disadvantage as he's prone to make more mistakes.

 

[The Real]

Viking sword and shield demonstration sequence - YouTube

This is mostly fabrication and a sham, just like those pagan revivalists who want to reinstate viking religion. Just look at the historical sources they list and you'll see why besides the particular weapons, they can't actually know enough about viking martial arts to teach anyone to use it.

 

[Brown_Pride]

In retrospect This whole thread is retarded.

 

[zerozero]

You obviously have never heard of Lt Michael P Murphy

Firefight not the same thing as running around a field with a mace or morning star or even a longbow. I mean a few sikhs held back 10,000 afghans in this battle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Saragarhi but it's still not the same as a medieval fight

You're talking out of your ass. Don't let that painting fool you.

The painting doesn't matter, he did kill 8 people and wound dozens on that combat stone. And "fighting in a trance like fury" is not "grunting and snorting." I mean when we talk about old wars we're talking about people who attacked elephants on horses like this:

I think some of you are really underestimating the psychological component of things here. I know you want to call everyone a weakling but there's a reason horns, body paint and everything else was used in warfare. I mean, think of yourself walking through some dark damp castle and coming face to face with some of this:

I don't want to mystify the past but there's a type of essence that a darker, more brutal era required of its lifetime fighters

 

[Julius Skrrvin]

@ZeroZero

A lot of warriors in the past used to induce themselves into different trances or mental states with singing, shouting, intoxicants, and rituals. I don't see why this is a bad thing- combat and battle is as much mental as it is physical and every martial practice worth a damn has something in the way of mental conditioning, be it through zen meditation, neigong, intent practice, singing...

Look at the Hashashin, for example.

 

[Dusty Bake Activate]

In retrospect This whole thread is retarded.

Yeah, to be totally honest with you I have no stake in any of this shyt and I have no idea what would happen in any of these hypothetical fights. I just used this thread as an opportunity to make fun of Mowgli, which I never pass up on.

At first it did sound like he was saying he could be one of these bezerker dudes while they had weapons, which is absurd.

 

[Mowgli]

In retrospect This whole thread is retarded.

After you realized the Vikings have no chance against modern day warriors, of course. You were letting these intellectual weaklings carry you away into their world of weakness where a snarl and drool turns their spine into jelly. For me, that just pisses me off.

 

[The Real]

That mindset irrelevant, skill is infinitely more important and these Ikea dudes weren't throwing hands like that. You're too focused on their mindset and not yours. In the desert I wasn't afraid of no battle hardened Taliban. In fact I felt sorry for them, me, an engineering nerd. They were running from us. Real, I respect you but all you're doing is revealing you inner cowardice. Some snarling Swede who's been killing babies all his life holds no advantage to someone who is skilled and not a b1tch.

I can't agree that the mindset is irrelevant, whatever importance skill does or doesn't have. I've been training martial arts for over a decade, and I've seen mindset make a real difference in person, and that's not even in life or death struggles. In fact, I'd go so far as to argue that skill/mindset are inseparable to some extent, maybe less so in modern gun-based one-on-one scenarios, but even there I'm not sure.

But even that is less relevant. Really, what I'm specifically saying is 2 things: that we can't understand their mindset, however much skill comes into play, and that we don't know anything about their skills, either. That's a historical black hole for us. Look at all the assumptions that have been made in this thread- that they just killed babies and starving peasants, untrained people, that they had no formal hand-to-hand method, that they relied more on psychological, fear-inspiring techniques like making noises than on combat skill, etc. This is really all wild speculation based on media stereotypes. Christianity and other historical forces wiped out almost everything we would actually use to get a real perspective on them with respect to the specifics of how they fought.

And I also have to disagree with the comparison between a Taliban fighter and a viking. They're militants with some training in modern warfare and guerrilla tactics and some experience fighting in those contexts. I can see that there would be some crossover, but I don't think one maps neatly onto the other. The Taliban culture may have precedents in Afghanistan's older warrior societies, but it's still not a culture where people are killing from childhood on (one of the few things we do know about vikings is that they did do that) even if for some of them, things are indeed moving in that direction, and also where this kind of fighting is the primary method of settling disputes, establishing social hierarchies, etc, as we know it was for the vikings up until they started settling down in monarchies. They also know that they are outmatched when it comes to arms, etc, against an army like the one you were in.

 

[Mowgli]

Firefight not the same thing as running around a field with a mace or morning star or even a longbow



The painting doesn't matter, he did kill 8 people and wound dozens on that combat stone. And "fighting in a trance like fury" is not "grunting and snorting." I mean when we talk about old wars we're talking about people who attacked elephants on horses like this:

I think some of you are really underestimating the psychological component of things here. I know you want to call everyone a weakling but there's a reason horns, body paint and everything else was used in warfare. I mean, think of yourself walking through some dark damp castle and coming face to face with some of this:

I don't want to mystify the past but there's a type of essence that a darker, more brutal era required of its lifetime fighters

The reality of today makes us far scarier then any Viking could have hoped to be. Imagine a man walking over to a Viking with a smile, pulling out a shot gun and turning a vikings chest into hamburger. Whats scarier, a snarling drooling savage or gun powder going, blaow?

"by the norse gods what is this sorcery he wields"

"um a shotgun? "

"by the norse Gods what is this feeling in my chin that has sent me into a tizzy"

"um an uppercut?"

We have progressed beyond their feeble technology and primtiive fighting techniques. If that man pulls out his blade and bum rushes you obviously, it might be curtains but be real here, if any man with a sturdy physical build wields a blade against an unarmed man, its curtains. There was nothing special about them. They were ambushing, pirating raiders not some powerful army.

 

[Gallo]

I can't agree that the mindset is irrelevant, whatever importance skill does or doesn't have. I've been training martial arts for over a decade, and I've seen mindset make a real difference in person, and that's not even in life or death struggles. In fact, I'd go so far as to argue that skill/mindset are inseparable to some extent.

But really, what I'm specifically saying is 2 things: that we can't understand their mindset, however much skill comes into play, and that we don't know anything about their skills, either. That's a historical black hole for us. Look at all the assumptions that have been made in this thread- that they just killed babies and starving peasants, untrained people, that they had no formal hand-to-hand method, that they relied more on psychological, fear-inspiring techniques, than combat skill, etc. This is really all wild speculation based on media stereotypes. Christianity and other historical forces wiped out almost everything we would actually use to get a real perspective on them with respect to the specifics of how they fought.

And I also have to disagree with the comparison between a Taliban fighter and a viking. They're militants with some training in modern warfare and guerrilla tactics. I can see that there would be some crossover, but I don't think one maps neatly onto the other. The Taliban culture may have precedents in Afghanistan's older warrior societies, but it's still not a culture where people are killing from childhood on (one of the few things we do know about vikings is that they did do that) even if for some of them, things are indeed moving in that direction, and also where this kind of fighting is the primary method of settling disputes, establishing social hierarchies, etc. They also know that they are outmatched when it comes to arms, etc, against an army like the one you were in.

Let me clarify. That viking mindset(bloodthirsty killer his whole life) is irrelevant to a modern skilled fighter who isn't a b1tch. Now I can understand some medieval baguette eating Frenchman being afraid of all that snarling and face paint.