Dual wield

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Mongolian soldiers dual wielding knives during skills display

Dual wielding is the technique of using two

ronin
, was said to have conceived of the idea of a particular style of swordsmanship involving the use of two swords.

In terms of

video games
).

History

A young boy in a black vest over a white shirt and a black hat raises a pistol high in his right hand and lets another hang from his left hand.
An urban proletariat boy dual wields pistols in Eugene Delacroix's painting La Liberté guidant le peuple.

Dual wielding has not been used or mentioned much in military history, though it appears in weapon-based martial arts and fencing practices.[2]

Dimachaerus were a type of Roman gladiator that fought with two swords. The name is the Latin-language borrowing of the Greek word διμάχαιρος meaning "bearing two knives" (di- dual + machairi knife)[3] Thus, an inscription from Lyon, France, mentions such a type of gladiator, here spelled dymacherus.[4] The dimachaeri were equipped for close-combat fighting.[5] A dimachaerus used a pair of siccae (curved scimitar) or gladius and used a fighting style adapted to both attack and defend with his weapons rather than a shield, as he was not equipped with one.[5][6]

The use of weapon combinations in each hand has been mentioned for close combat in western Europe during the

Renaissance era.[8] The use of a parrying dagger such as a main gauche along with a rapier is common in historical European martial arts.[9]

North American Indian tribes of the Atlantic northeast used a form involving a tomahawk in the primary hand and a knife in the secondary. It is practiced today as part of the modern Cree martial art Okichitaw.

All the above-mentioned examples, involve either one long and one short weapon, or two short weapons. An example of a dual wield of two sabres is the Ukrainian cossack dance hopak.

Asia

During the campaign

Khalid ibn Walid was reported to favor wielding two broad swords, with one in each hand, during combat.[10]

Traditional schools of Japanese martial arts include dual wield techniques, particularly a style conceived by Miyamoto Musashi involving the katana and wakizashi, two-sword kenjutsu techniques he called Niten Ichi-ryū.

rattan sticks and also Espada y daga or Sword/Stick and Dagger. Okinawan martial arts have a method that uses a pair of sai
.

Chinese martial arts involve the use of a pair of butterfly swords and hook swords.

Famed for his enormous strength,

ji (a halberd-like weapon), each of which was said to weigh 40 jin
.

Chen An, a warlord who lived during the Jin dynasty (266–420) and Sixteen Kingdoms period, wielded a sword and a serpent spear in each hand, supposedly measuring at 7 chi and 1 zhang 8 chi respectively.

During

Ran Wei–Later Zhao war, Ran Min
, emperor of the short-lived Ran Wei empire of China, wielded two weapons, one in each hand, and fought fiercely, inflicting many casualties on the Xianbei soldiers while mounted on the famous horse Zhu Long ("Red Dragon").

Punjab region
, is known to use two sticks at a time.

The Thailand weapon-based martial art

Krabi
in each hand.

Kalaripayattu teaches advanced students to use either two sticks (of various sizes) or two daggers or two swords, simultaneously.

Modern

The use of a gun in each hand is often associated with the

American Old West, mainly due to media portrayals. It was common for people in the era to carry two guns, but not to use them at the same time, as shown in movies. The second gun served as a backup weapon, to be used only if the main one suffered a malfunction or was lost or emptied.[11]

However, there were several examples of gunmen in the West who actually used two pistols at the same time in their gunfights:

  • John Wesley Hardin killed a gunman named Benjamin Bradley who shot at him, by drawing both of his pistols and firing back.[12]
  • The Mexican vaquero Augustine Chacon had several gunfights in which he was outnumbered by more than one gunman and prevailed by equipping himself with a revolver in each hand.[13]
  • King Fisher once managed to kill three bandits in a shootout by pulling both of his pistols.[14]
  • During the infamous Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight, lawman Dallas Stoudenmire pulled both of his pistols as he ran out onto the street and killed one bystander and two other gunmen.[15]
  • California Gold Rush, was ambushed by thirteen outlaws while together with two of his comrades. One of his friends was killed and the other was mortally wounded during the ambush. Davis drew both of his revolvers and fired, killing seven of the bandits, and killing four more with his bowie knife, causing the final two to flee.[16]
Model dressed as Lara Croft dual wielding pistols

Dual wielding two handguns has been popularized by film and television.[17]

Effectiveness

MythBusters compared many firing stances, including having a gun in each hand, and found that, compared to the two-handed single-gun stance as a benchmark, only the one-handed shoulder-level stance with a single gun was comparable in terms of accuracy and speed. The ability to look down the sights of the gun was given as the main reason for this.[18] In an episode the following year, they compared holding two guns and firing simultaneously—rather than alternating left and right shots—with holding one gun in the two-handed stance, and found that the results were in favor of using two guns and firing simultaneously.[19]

In media

See also

References

  1. ^ "Why Dual Wielding Doesn't Work in Real Life". YouTube.
  2. .
  3. ^ CIL XIII, 1997
  4. ^ .
  5. ]
  6. ISBN 978-1-4402-1638-1. Retrieved 12 June 2013.[permanent dead link
    ]
  7. . Retrieved 12 June 2013.
  8. .
  9. . Retrieved 12 June 2013.
  10. . Retrieved March 30, 2011.
  11. ^ Texas Gunslinger, Outlaw and Lawman.
  12. ^ Metz, Leon Claire. 1979. Dallas Stoudenmire: El Paso Marshal. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. 162 p.
  13. ^ The Spell of the West: Captain Jonathan R. Davis. Retrieved: 2012-10-31.
  14. ISBN 978-1-4402-1767-8. Retrieved 12 June 2013.[permanent dead link
    ]
  15. ^ Savage, Adam; Hyneman, Jamie (November 23, 2011). "Wheel of Mythfortune". MythBusters. Season 2011. Episode 177. Discovery Channel.
  16. ^ "Hollywood gunslingers". Mythbusters - Discovery. Retrieved 13 June 2013.