a reconstructed martial art necessarily rests on historical records, either combat manuals or pictorial representations. martial arts reconstruction specifically does not claim an unbroken tradition of some historical martial arts. on the contrary, the premise is that in an unbroken tradition, styles significantly evolve over time. it is not necessary for the tradition to have been interrupted in order to reconstruct an earlier style; a case in point is classical fencing which reconstructs the sport fencing of the 19th century before it evolved into current olympic fencing, or historical german "ringen" which over time developed into contemporary styles of folk wrestling. claims of ancient martial arts which survive unchanged by unbroken tradition (e.g. as suggested by yehoshua sofer), do not fall under reconstruction and are by their nature unverifiable, even to the person making the claim.