Obviously Robert Jordan is not a martial arts expert. Rather than try and do some research and attempt to sound like an expert (which he would most likely get called on anyway), he chose to use sword forms, which convey a sense of art or grace, and usually at least hint at the different moves.

If he tried to actually describe the fights, you'd get people complaining that he doesn't know what he's talking about and he quite obviously has no training with medieval weapons.

Jordan's fight scenes get the point across quite well. We still have a pretty good idea of how the fights go down, for instance, I know that Valda liked to go for the arms and legs, and I know that an accepted strategy is to take a mortal wound in order to kill an enemy. He does well when he writes other things, I'm willing to give this a pass.