I just saw a trailer for History Channel's Battles B.C. that was about.... *drum roll* David vs Goliath.

I wouldnt expect too much sling-wise, it seems to be taking a wider view of Davids life and achievements. The trailer featured a  heavily CGI'ed clip of Goliath falling with graphic '300' style blood splatters spewing from his forehead.

   

Yeah, I've seen a few episodes of Battles B.C.  There was a pretty interesting one about Romans vs. the Gauls I saw a few months back.  The style of the show (and a lot of people knock it because of this) is very "300"ish.  The simulated battle scenes, well... while I enjoy them, they aren't entirely accurate.  There was a whole lot of dual wielding, spin flourishing, generally flashy and inefficient swordplay going on.


Now I'm all for watching historical reenactments... truth be told, my interest in slinging was sparked by a History Channel special (not Battles B.C.) about the Bible, when they had a Balearic slinger demonstrate how David would have killed Goliath.  

And though this episode could be fairly interesting, I agree that there's probably nothing going to be learned sling-wise.

quepy wrote on Jul 28^th, 2009 at 3:28am:

Now I'm all for watching historical reenactments... truth be told, my interest in slinging was sparked by a History Channel special (not Battles B.C.) about the Bible, when they had a Balearic slinger demonstrate how David would have killed Goliath.   .

I believe that Balearic gentleman is a member of this forum. I recently watched an interveiw with him. I don't understand Spanish but I just became mesmerized by the young lady interveiwing him. :D

Yep Luis Livermore, He was almost a topic in and of himeself on this particular subforum

Marc Adkins


ilovepancakes wrote on Jul 28^th, 2009 at 9:02am:

quepy wrote on Jul 28th, 2009 at 3:28am: Now I'm all for watching historical reenactments... truth be told, my interest in slinging was sparked by a History Channel special (not Battles B.C.) about the Bible, when they had a Balearic slinger demonstrate how David would have killed Goliath.   . I believe that Balearic gentleman is a member of this forum. I recently watched an interveiw with him. I don't understand Spanish but I just became mesmerized by the young lady interveiwing him. :D

The episode about David is trash; the sling is too wide, I hate the helicopter throw, typical of movies and cheap shows with ppl who don't know anything about slings.

Jabames wrote on Jan 3^rd, 2010 at 2:18am:

The episode about David is trash; the sling is too wide, I hate the helicopter throw, typical of movies and cheap shows with ppl who don't know anything about slings.

Hold on. I sometimes hold my sling with each strand coming out either end of my fist, and some here on the forum genuinely get good results from helicopter style.

Not my favorite casting style, But it is one I use with my Manchegan slings. reesults are not spectacular, but respectable. And yes it is a wide sling as well.

Now I didn't see the episode in question but if the posters have been following this and other related threads they would know we have no idea what kind of sling david actually used. Although we do have some opinions on slings that would have been most probable...


Masiakasaurus wrote on Jan 3^rd, 2010 at 6:38pm:

Jabames wrote on Jan 3rd, 2010 at 2:18am: The episode about David is trash; the sling is too wide, I hate the helicopter throw, typical of movies and cheap shows with ppl who don't know anything about slings. Hold on. I sometimes hold my sling with each strand coming out either end of my fist, and some here on the forum genuinely get good results from helicopter style.

Perfectly respectable style, helicopter, even though difficult to master-- and the various ancient sources do mention, for the Clacssical world, revolutions above the head before release (e.g. Virgil in his epic poem, or vegetius in his technical treatise).

Mixed feelings about helicopter.
Yes it sort of works.
But it just looks so crap !

If you're trying to impress someone (read: showing off) ripping out a fig8 or sidearm just looks way better, goes further and gives the slinger a wee bit more kudos :-)
Hell for showing off underarm is also pretty good. Helicopetr - just never took to it.

As for battle shows - we've had the warrior versus other warrior thing on recently. watched the first one. Never bothered watching the rest.

Samurai versus viking - come on ! samurai 99 times out of 100. No question. Better armour, better swords, much better training and fighting technique. Big arse bows - samurai bow is about the only thing that can give the old english longbow a run for it's money.