I’ve practiced a little w/ sword work during my MA days. It’s much harder than firing a gun and probably why the samurai got all bent out of shape at the idea of peasant armies training w/ guns.
I have never trained with any edged weapons but their history and uses have always been of interest.
The interesting thing to me is so many different warrior cultures used a wide variety of weapons.
The Romans with their short swords, The Gauls with their tomahawk type axes, The Scots with the huge Claymores, the Samurai with their slightly curved swords, and perhaps the toughest of them all, the Spartans with their Dory or stabbing spear.
I think it goes to show that they all can be deadly if used by someone used to their weapon.
I think the Scottish Army which William Wallace used to defeat a far larger English army at Sterling Bridge were mostly using their farm implements with which they were extremely familiar.