Correction, I did HEMA before you, me and my friend had a stick fight when we were 4, after studying the historical manuscripts of He-man and Thundercats.
You absolutely nailed the problem. Back when I was still training HEMA, I once pulled off a destreza play straight out of the manual against a more experienced /better fencer. They immediately pulled out their mask and pissily told me that I should "use the rapier less like a longsword". Funny thing is that I never did longsword, and don't particularly enjoy training 2-handers. I've been grappling for way longer than I've ever fenced, and not once have I heard anyone say that my wrestling single-legs "weren't bjj", or that I should "scramble less like a sambo guy". My coaches and training partners are primarily concerned with making sure that whatever I do just works consistently enough. Same goes for strikers.
@@EnglishMartialArts imagine a few years from now, the Internet shuts down. After the reboot, we are left with only 10 videos of bjjfanatics. All the oldtimers are abducted by Aliens. And now we try to recreate Grappling with the Dogma of doing everything like in the leftover videos.(not even going to books with this exampel)...yeah, good luck with that! i think its hard to recreate something like Swordfighting in a time where you dont have actual fights with sharp swords, you can only try to get as close as possible. Thanks for this contribution oz, love your videos.
The story from your first paragraph has nothing to do with HEMA. He was just an arrogant prick trying to reduce your victory. People like that EVERYWHERE. And I mean everywhere. Cheers!
@@Flow1987this thing actually happened with traditional striking. You have some moves preserved as katas. And you have to interpret how the said moves would work in a fist fighting, in a country that banned fist fighting. We know how well this pure theoretical aproach went for the wing chung masters. Well you can touch each others with stick and judge it. Yeah that aproach also didn't work for the point karate guys. And nowadays when grapplers dont fight, just roll on the floor for submission, a real fight dosen't favore even them that much anymore.
Glad that I've come into HEMA with most of these resources taken care of, and then my poverty drove me out of the more rigid HEMA academy in the city nearby and into the arms of the "fencing group". This year in my area there's a very skilled HEMA fencer who just found a good meeting spot and invites anyone to come (Toronto Historical Combatants). He brings spare equipment, films whoever wants to be filmed, and is friendly. Boffer fighters, practicers of non-Euro historical martial arts, kali practitioners and others come to the fencing group and join in. I fenced rapier there with no serious training besides basic training on guards and thrusts and lunges and no one complained when I fought them as a reckless goon. The founder of that group encouraged me to contact a HAMA practitioner to found a group in my city and the ball has begun rolling. The founder of the THC is in fact an Olympic Fencer and openly says he just uses that when he uses sabre and rapier. No one in our group cares, we'll do katana vs smallsword, any application is a chance to learn more about the weapon and body's mechanics. It's funny because I have only experienced the stuffy HEMA community you describe online. So I've been spared the issues you described. That said, I can say that myself and others will continue to change things in the way you are too exhausted to do, as usual the young'uns will just do it naturally. My philosophy is that the majority of historical practitioners did NOT use manuscript styles. Vulgar fencing was the law of the land in most places and the manuals are often written FOR EXPERIENCED PRACTITIONERS. Or for rich people. Relying solely on the manuals limits your understanding of how to use the weapon because the plays are not the basics, they are the advanced stuff. And what is the most common mistake for a martial artist? Getting fixated on advanced, impressive techniques before knowing your basics. I want to learn Fiore's cool disarm, sure, but first I want to make sure I don't get hand-sniped when I choose a guard, I want to be able to run roughshod over people in a grapple, I want to be able to strike an opening exactly when I see it. Once I can do that, THEN I can obsess over how Posta di Donna can be used to cure cancer or whatever.
Hahaha, this reminds me of seeing some HEMA groups fencing with two swords or sword and cloak when they clearly aren't even holding one sword correctly. I have students in my sport class that have fencing a year and we don't teach in fighting to them yet because they need the basics first. I couldn't imagine giving them another sword.
You're so spot on with what HEMA has become. My old sword master Aaron (RIP) had a lovely philosophy that made me fall in love with what HEMA could have been. He was a black belt in jiu jitsu, brazilian jj, and karate. With all of that, his number one saying was |"The market is your teacher.". My favorite example is when someone in our group got REALLY good at disguising his sword throws into a running grapple. It frustrated so many of us because it wasn't in our manual but Aaron would say "But you can't complain when you're dead." So we had to keep trying, over and over again until all of us got REALLY good at deflecting sword throws and immediately swinging on a charging body. Aaron's sharp wit would always push us to be better while cooling our egos. I'm no expert, the more I learn the more I find out how much more I have to learn. But I've fought classical fencers and kendo practitioners and they were all REALLY good at unexpected things. In the end we learned to be scrappy and take a puzzle solving mentality to combat. I didn't know how spoiled I was to have Aaron and I haven't found another teacher like him.
I went to a Silat Seminar once. The instructor covered striking, throwing and grappling, knife, and bolo. During the grappling segment the instructor showed us a shoulder throw into an arm lock on the ground. After we trained with it a bit he said "Now I'll show you how to use this in a real fight". He had one of us come at him, he threw the student but instead of holding on and following him to the ground, he let the student fall, then stomped the ground beside his head and said "In a real fight you never follow him to the ground you make sure he can't get up and run before his friends come for you". During the knife section he modified some of the drills to use stabbing instead of slashing reasoning that "Your country is cold, people wear layers and thick coats, cutting is no good"
This isn't about HEMA lol... it's just about martial arts. You know from doing Aikido and now BJJ... this piece perfectly encapsulates the ego driven resistance to reality that most traditional martial artists cling to. They want so badly to preserve their arts that they're gonna end up killing them.
Honestly, I feel like HEMA being the bridge from the bookish world of study to the rough and tumble of athleticism is one of its great strengths as an art. Even if Hema practitioners are not elite athletes, we can still enjoy the benefits of exercise, community and sportsmanship that it cultivates in us, not to mention the cultural, historical and anthropological knowledge. The fact that HEMA is populated with a wider range of athleticism is actually a good thing for all those who would not otherwise be exercising at all. Of course we would do well to listen to more experienced and athletic martial artists, but the fact that we don't match them athletically I personally don't see as a major flaw. In any case, as the art matures, I don't think it's at all unreasonable to expect us to close the gap. I also want to acknowledge that, in my personal experience over the past decade, much of what is being taught in HEMA has gotten less reliant on literary interpretation and more so on identifying sound principles discovered from the repeated application of the textbook applications in sparring and competition. The art is still maturing, sure, but it has come quite a ways from when I first joined up. Seems like that's not everybody's experience, which is definitely a shame.
I think the issue he is bringing up isn't that HEMA practitioners need to step up their game and elevate their athletic abilities as a community. You can remain as casual and fun oriented as you want. It's just about not shunning those that do excel in some way due to a different background.
Been practicing kendo rn and we have contact with a HEMA club and tbh fencing in general but specially HEMA and Kendo have made me regain contact with childhood friends to share a passion we all have and I'll always appreciate that community spirit for us folks who love history
I spent four or five years getting right into HEMA. I translated Fiore's work, wrote a curriculum and was teaching a class. I have several decades of other martial arts experience, and by combining my two favourite hobbies of history and hitting people, it should have been great. What really turned me off was the volume of people, especially online, that are often unskilled and raging drama queens who vitriolically attack each other for getting something different out of the experience. It is just such a toxic and exhausting culture to be around.
I'm a 2nd generation buhurt fighter & my parents met through medieval reenactment. The amount of HEMA people who have talked down to me about my fighting skills & knowledge have been tremendous, while buhurt & SCA fighters who were leagues better than me were the kindest I've met. I have also found that the internet has a lot of armchair HEMA fighters as well.
@@tx7140what is buhurt? I haven’t heard of it. I’m a martial artist interested in European history who’s always wanted to get into HEMA but don’t know where to start. Any tips?
I'm a self-taught lower economic class swordsman. Tried to get involved in the online HEMA community, and they all made assumptions about my ability despite never once seeing me fight just because I couldn't afford the protective gear...
I used to work a stand selling drinks at a Renaissance Festival. Jousting is no joke in regards how dangerous it is. That was my only exposure to HEMA. Seeing Renaissance Festival knights and knowing some of them. That is brutal with a lot that could go wrong.
I worked at a clothier. One night drinking absinthe with some crew I heard jousters telling tales. It shouldn’t be possible for a lance to hit a pommel, go under the armor, and pierce a jouster’s scrotum…but they told me about a dude to whom that happened TWICE 😬
@@hithere4719Well anyone who’s stupid enough to risk getting his ballsack pierced by a sharpened telegraph pole for a *second* time because he wasn’t bright enough to take the hint the first time round shouldn’t be having any kids anyway.
Correction: It isn't HEMA that people don't respect. It's other people. This happens in literally every community throughout all of history. People are fickle, jealous and insecure. The illusion of honor is easier to maintain when there's more structure or financial support involved, which HEMA does indeed lack.
What other people? And what are you trying to accomplish with HEMA? Athletic people will have a leg up in athletic activities, and even more so when their athletic activity is related. Surely what happens between the pictures in the books looks a lot like what modern combat sports looks like. The "move" in the picture might be the right thing to do, but if you can't do the in-between part effectively you are going to be late to the party.
@@deadstump4970For real! I think a lot of people doing hema sometimes forget that modern fighting sport techniques( especially sport fencing) are innovations on the old techniques. And it turns out being athletic is the root of most of them. As a side note, what I hear online, it seems like a lot of people are drawn to hema because sport fencing "Isnt real enough" when they are doing the same things they criticize except with bigger sticks and less reliable judges.
@@madeline6815 That's not true at all as modern sport fencing has a lot more rules which has forced techniques to morph and adapt. In a real conflict, those rules don't exist. The point of HEMA was to stick to what the original manuscripts says as that is the closest representation we had to techniques of old where people fought in battles or duels.
@@neurofiedyamato8763 You're quite correct, HEMA in essence is probably more accurate than fencing, not to strike argument, but by "more accurate" I mean more accurate by a longshot. But fencing is still a great sport with skills that are transferrable into HEMA, while HEMA has skills that are transferrable into fencing. One thing I hate about both Fencing and Hema is how they treat each others communities, and how wrong people can be about both fencing and hema because of their bias. Also yes, It's HEMA which is often insulted and made fun of, which isn't okay nor is it right. The meanest thing people in hema say about fencing is that it's more of a sport (which it is, also every time I say "fencing" I mean modern fencing). But it's completely wrong to say modern fencing has lost its way, modern fencing has become its own thing, outside of traditional duels. It's literally a sport, it has its own set of modernised rules, and is essentially a game of sword tag instead of actually trying to inflict damage. Modern fencing is very official, they are in the Olympics, they have far more opportunities than hema. But yet there's just a very small amount of people in fencing who obviously feel threatened when hearing that what they do is mostly a sport, it's not supposed to be an insult. Although unfortunately this leads to a lot of aggression between the communities. Now onto what's said about hema, there's a long list here. I've heard that it's a fake martial art, that people in it are delusional. I've also heard that it's unprofessional, unregulated, terrible at teaching anything, and has no transferable skills to fencing. These are obviously all untrue, and are insults created out of immensely small apsects of hema which anger induced people have used against the hema community. It's true you get the people that just want to roleplay and mess around, but they aren't true Hema members, just as some guy who dressed up like a fencer and claimed to be one even though they've never done fencing in their life, isn't a true fencer, but a fraud. Simply putting on a costume and holding the weapon doesn't make you either a Hemaist or Fencer, it's about the skill, and whether you are actually a faithful representation of the sports/ martial arts description. Now I'm a person who has never done either Hema or Fencing, but I'm currently deciding which one to do. I've been reading opinions, all I've found is endless pages of people attacking each other. My entire argument is based off both sides of the arguments I've read. I don't understand why there's so much beef between Fencers and Hemaists, and why Hemaists are so disrespected. There are times where Hemaists truly insult Fencing, that's wrong, and the fact that Hemaists are often disrespected more doesn't make them being disrespectful right. Now in conclusion, who exactly is the problem here? People like @madeline6815, who can't shut their mouth and only put more wood onto the fire. What madel said has some truth, but is mostly wrong. Modern fencing simply isn't real dueling, and is more of a sport, but a very awesome sport with a lot of benefits. Many skills learnt from fencing are very much transferable into a more realistic duel though, this is what makes modern fencing still nudge on the martial arts side of things. Fencing has of course evolved out of old techniques, but Madel? Guess what organisation still practices those old fencing techniques? Hema. Also about the athleticism, the constant association to only fencing and not hema is simply wrong. Athleticism is important for both fencing and hema, hema practices military style dueling, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that if you want to be the best at hema, you must be fit. You can be unfit and do both fencing and hema, will you be good or decent? Perhaps, but less likely. Will you be the best? No, never. Some advice for @neurofiedyamato8763, is that you should work towards ignoring these people on the internet, as they have no clue what they're talking about. I know politics quite well, I've been involved in it as well, and I know what it's like when two professional groups clash. I also am training in aviation, which is a very competitive and professional environment where pilots and other airlines can have quite heated clashes. It's all the same as having two opposing political parties, they're always going to have something negative to say about each other when you view them as an entire group. But in the real world, when you're off the internet, if you speak to these people in person, they have so much in common even though they have different ideas, and different means of doing things. And often they are nowhere near as aggressive to each other as the internet portrays. But this is nowhere near as mentally complicated as aviation structures or politics, which is why, as a new person to interacting with these online communities, it is quite shameful to see. Modern Fencers and Hema should be able to get along and respect each other perfectly, there is no reason for opposition, there is no reason for them to recognise each other as unofficial. It's honestly sad to see, but this type of aggression can be found in most online groups sadly. I just want to state CLEARLY that Modern Fencing can be seen as an official martial art, just as Hema can be seen as an official sport. Although it's basic fact that modern fencing is more of a sport and less of a martial art, while Hema is more of a martial art than a sport. No one be offended by this, it's honestly just the unbiased truth, personally looking at it through a lens which hasn't been poisoned by bias from being either a fencer or hemaist. Anyways good day, and please if there's anything wrong here, prove me wrong. As I'm only beginning my journey into these communities.
You're right. Except HEMA nerds are out of shape wannabe martial artists who make the sport look bad. How about yall get your blue belt in BJJ and your yellow belt in Judo, ect, before yall start pretending like you're one of us. Not you in particular, I know there are some badasses in Hema.
Excellent points. Thoughtful explanation. I'm reminded of the saying "there's no such thing as Canadian geometry." All martial arts are going to have common techniques even when they share no lineage at all because they're all working from the same baseline human anatomy. Its very hard to balance academic (learn by documentation), instructional (learn by observing), and experimental (learn by playing) martial arts and very few people have the mindset to go beyond their preferred mode. But when you do, you can really start to see continuity between styles regardless of time, culture, or geography.
I think one of the biggest problems with HEMA is accessibility. By making it all about the manuals, it has become rigid. Also, the equipment cost is insane, so I started to mess around boffers. It made it more accessible for the average person. Trust me when I say one of the HEMA organizations, I was part of didn't like what I was doing. They acted like it was a sin.
I got flack for *borrowing* equipment on one HEMA group on FB. That experience made me choose the SCA over them even though I’d gone on there to vent about my frustrations with the SCA. At least the SCA supported me trying to get into things instead of just telling me to buy a bunch of HEMA specific stuff or F off. Also, it feels like in my neck of the woods, the interest in HEMA is mainly in the longsword. And for people with “historical” in the name, they sure do dress like modern fencers...
@@ciaosonoAlbertoG Unfortunately, maces that move as historical maces are not able to be made as safely as historical swords. Much of the danger of swords comes from the bifurcating edge and not from the energy of the impact. If you dull the blade properly, there is not a lot of energy to cause physical damage. The same is not true of bludgeons, which generally operate through transfering energy. To make it safe, you would have to make it so much lighter than the historical weapons that it no longer handles like the weapons they are intended to simulate. While part of the matter is that swords are that much more popular, it is also that they are much easier to safely simulate than most other historical weapons. We see little proper greatsword simulation, either, since at their speed and size, they are generally too dangerous to spar with outside of restrained use in fairly skilled hands.
I think as the art matures, most of this will go away. You have to keep in mind that most of the things taught in HEMA are less than 50 years old. And because it’s a revival rather than a continuation (as most other arts are) care has to be taken to establish the actual practice of these arts to learn how they were actually done and to escape the Hollywood versions of sword fight that most people have. Once the rules of competition are finalized so that they allow for things that were the goals of traditional EMA to be practiced safely and with integrity, it will develop much like other arts did. Although I find the emphasis on getting the respect of other martial arts to be an odd way of judging things. Most martial arts are fairly obscure outside of MMA, kickboxing, Japanese and Korean unarmed arts, and modern sport fencing. There are problems with too much popularity as well, because once an art becomes mainstream, it tends to lose quality control (although full contact hard sparring tends to slow this) becoming basically glorified dancing and trick kicking. I would much rather HEMA longsword remain obscure than to have it be sloppily taught in every strip mall in America. That’s what happened to Tae Keon Do and Karate and Kenpo. They’re no longer fighting arts, they’re generally gym classes for kids, and a way for instructors to make money pretending to teach self defense to people who don’t know better.
me too, I don't understand why we would want HEMA to be "popular" - I think it's cool that it could all die out now, and in 100 years someone will look at an old manual again and revive it all over again.
@@TrueFork what i want is not that HEMA become mainstream, but what i want is that hema become enough popular so we can have hema clubs everywhere instead only in few places there are no hema club in my town because it's barely know
I think a lot of the issues for TKD and Karate have to do with their sparring. The big issue being that it’s entirely possible to become a “master” in those arts without absolutely having to win a hard sparring tournament. Add in the belt system where you make money on promotions between ranks and there’s a very strong incentive to simply pass the kids to make money as well as creating more and more ranks to have more promotions (the first belt system from Judo had four belts- white, brown, red, and black. The modern MA scenes can have not only 7-8 ranks, but sometimes even half ranks between those ranks. So you end up having 25-30 belts each, with little quality control). The end of the line is a system where you never really have to test properly, and never have to learn the techniques well. If I cannot actually punch you hard enough to make it hurt, it doesn’t matter.
What's ironic, is that I've found more HEMA practitioners far more skilled and practical in their art than many of the traditionalist eastern martial artists out there. Maybe I just haven't encountered the types some people are mentioning, who are not focused on the practice as a real living martial art for practicality and objective testing/refinement. The HEMA I've seen was always very grounded in the cold reality of fighting. A great group I've come across who focus on Fiore's work, are the Exiles, who treat the art as a 'real' living martial art tradition, and to be something drilled, trained and practical in real world function ,even in some modern day scenarios. They believe in actually attaining a high level of competence with a training outlook the same as that of modern sports athletes, bringing the authentic historical art to real world functionality for today.
@@EnglishMartialArts In your opinion how many HEMA people are truly Practicing the old European combat stuff they think they are? Seems to me that those actually doing the fighting would want their stuff to actually work.
The club I was part off, was filled with people doing Judo, BJJ and the likes. At the end of training session, you usually had the drill guys go drill on one side, the fighters do sparing in the middle and the book squad go debate or read together on the other side. Some like me, moved between all 3 groups. Also, note that a lot of HEMA we could directly relate to other martial arts. I have seen literally Judo throw in those manuscripts. No one ever complained about the other using BJJ when a longsword fight got to grappling, instead they asked how to defend against it or do it themselves. The club literally selected a guy to show the beginners how to move around, because he was great at Judo and that translated best to longsword, for the footwork. Note the the first time I joined that club, there was 4 of us, the last time I went, there was 30 and I had been limited by the number of people we could fit in the room. That is in a mere 5-6 years. I have not been there in 2 years, it might be twice as big or small agi, for all I know.
I think that nobody respects HEMA is because of three reasons. 1. Most people don't really know what it is. They think it's JUST sword fighting, or even worse, it's just D&D LARPing. They don't understand that it includes all forms of combat including hand to hand and grappling. 2. For whatever reason, the most common practitioners of HEMA are middle aged fat geeks and D&D nerds. 3. There are a lot of practitioners of HEMA who simply are not the "experts" they claim to be. I once saw an episode of "Somebodies Got To Do It" with Mike Rowe. He visited a HEMA gym and the owner told Mike, on national TV, that medieval swords were only as sharp as butter knives.
I've studied weaponry, martial arts and combat from all over the world for 41 years... and the one thing I've learnt is, if a combat system has rules, its probably not a combat system. Hema is about what it might be and could very easily not be. Some people act like its the be all... the only way, a combat above all others.
But every combat system has rules. Perhaps not in their theoretical "Real world situation" which a person maybe will encounter once in their life. but if a combat art has any form of competition/sparring/pressure testing, then there are rules to participate in that. If those rules didn't exist, then no-one would ever compete/spar/pressure test and THEN I can guarantee that it's not a combat system. It's just bullshit. So, when you think about it. it's kind of the opposite. A combat system WITHOUT rules cannot be a combat system, because it can never be anything but theoretical.
Any systematised way of fighting has to rely on ingratiated automatic reaction to remain effective in the face of rapid unexpected danger. Since time immemorium the most important element of any military training has always been basic drills, and it is no different even witht he technological context evolving from bronze shields and slings to automatic rifles and reconnaisence drones. The "rules" of a combat system are nothing more than a list of the drills it uses to teach the required automatic reactions. As HEMA is meant to be a reenactment style, its objective is to recreate the styles of european fencing before it became all epée and cavalry saber. These drills may not be the most effective of all time, or even the most effective possible with the tools they were used with, but that has never been the objective of HEMA? at least how I see it.
@@egoalter1276 It really depends on what camp you're in. In my experience there are a number of separate objectives in HEMA. First there are the scholars who want to recreate the art of the old master exactly as it was in it's historical context. Then there are the Martial Artists who want to learn everything they can from the treatises and then blend that with their own understanding and martial efficacy to not only learn the art but advance it. And then there are the tournament fighters who want to optimize their style for winning tournaments. There is a place for all of these and more. Some people even fall into more than one camp. Personally I prefer the martial artists approach. Which, I might add is actually historically accurate. When Joachim Meyer wrote "The Art of Combat" he didn't just write down what he had been taught. He took his education in the sword from those who came before and added onto it everything that he had learned in his life and his fighting and his education and his experience to expand on what he had been taught and pass it along. There are many in HEMA today that follow this example.
As someone who switched from traditional Japanese martial arts, to modern combat sports and find myself interested in HEMA more as I get older, I understand the dynamic you describe very acutely and it makes me sad that this is the general state. I know how stunted these things can become when that distrust is present (my eyes were opened up by a 6 month white belt in BJJ after training JMA for most of my life at 24 years old).
@@EnglishMartialArts lol right! 😂 That first class was quite the experience for me. Glad I decided to do it on a whim though. I was already a black belt in a style of Ninpo my dad helped create here (a hybrid Ninpo + Street self defense)
So you left Japanese martial arts because a BJJ white belt beat you? If that's the case then the issue was you and your understanding of the martial art, not the martial art itself. The fact that one's failure to make a fighting style work isn't the fault of the style but rather the student is known by talented and wise martial artists. People say that BJJ is the best martial art period and make it sound like even someone with trisomy 21 (not taking my chances with TH-cam censorship) could handle themselves against anyone if they train BJJ. However, the Gracies have reviewed videos of BJJ losing on the street. So what happened to BJJ being the best? MMA, BJJ, Muay Thai etc. fans will argue against the reality even when presented to them. Look in various martial arts forums, channels etc. and you'll see what I mean. Hell you could even google it specifically. You tell someone you defended yourself using BJJ, people would believe you, tell them you defended yourself using freakin' ninjutsu or Bagua and they'll say you're full of it. It's a cult of sorts if you think about it. Anyways, going forward take Bruce Lee's advice into practice: Disregard what is useless, take what is useful. The full quote is as follows: "Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless and add what is specifically your own". I'm a 1st Dan in TaeKwonDo, not Olympic TKD, but, what I call, real TKD, traditional TKD. I don't use any of the fancy high kicks (but front kick, axe kick, and the crescent kicks I'm comfortable with) because they don't suit me, my most powerful and devastating kicks are low and mid kicks like basic roundhouse, back-kick, sidekick etc. I prefer to stay rooted and staying rooted gives those kicks a lot of power. Does that make me any less of a TKD practitioner? No. I currently do Ninjutsu under To-Shin Do, does me leaving out some techniques in favor of others make me any less of a Ninjutsu practitioner? No. There's also the possibility of that certain Japanese martial art you did was not suitable for you, and that's fine. Like, you may not be good at Daito-Ryu but yet you're fantastic at Sambo. And there would be a reason as to why.
@@adandyguyinspace5783 Nothing "happened" to BJJ being the best. It still is, when everything is taken into account. No system is perfect, but BJJ (the original Vale Tudo style) still has the best track record.
I had the same experience with traditional martial arts moving into combat sports, spent 8 years learning Tae Kwon Do, Karate, Wing Chun. Got curious about MMA and joined a gym, and found that everything I had learnt was broken apart by any Muay Thai fighter and made me look like child swatting at flies, at that point I could never go back to traditional martial arts and had to get over the mental challenge of starting the journey all over again, and I'm so glad I did, have now trained in Mauy Thai, BJJ, Boxing and Wrestling
Honestly, same. I was in European Middle Ages weaponry and history for a long time. But I started TKD about 4 years ago (I’m a black belt now), and I’m considering starting HEMA. But my school (martial arts school, not educational to make sure there’s no confusion) did offer Brazilian jui jitsu, so I took those classes in tandem with the TKD ones when I could. I definitely preferred the jui jitsu over the TKD.
I have been studying what became HEMA since the late 80s- at first it was just to make our reenactment fighting look better. But I have always done various other martial arts/combat sports I trained with Terry Brown decades ago and I even jousted. Over the years the overriding issue has been the massive distance between the drilled/practiced techniques and the competitive sparring bouts. In some cases the sparring looks like a pale version but in most cases they have virtually nothing in common. They also have absolutely nothing that resembles how people move when real violence and consequences are on the line. I cannot tell you how many times I have watched groups reproduce historical techniques and practice the moves over and over only to see this silly "tippy tappy" awkward footwork unconvincing sparring or competition fighting/fencing. One issue is probably the rules/scoring system. Practicing techniques designed for real violence and then trying to make a touch, point score competitive sport of it is like the difference between a modern sports karate tourney and a Mua Thai bout. I know I am being very general but in general terms it's what I have seen. I think you are 100% correct that doing other existing martial arts can only make your HEMA better.
I agree, especially about the difference between sparring and what we see in the manuals. A match is a match where you want to win, not a life or death encounter where you want to survive/kill. With weapons even more than unarmed it completely changes the mental landscape of the bout, which then of course changes the physical one. It's almost impossible to simulate the feeling of naked steel being pointed at you with ill intent. (Been there, felt that.) I think HEMA would do well to look at some of the old school Kôryû practices here - do two person kata like sets at full power but with a little bit of distance added to prevent death. Then again, the schools where these still rather dangerous practice methods can be found are quite martial and athletic, something the modern HEMA movement is still lacking. I've trained HEMA on and off since the late 90s, and the development of advanced modern protective gear and the shift towards point tournaments have not been good for the art overall in my opinion.
@@rangda_prime - You are right - it does start to move in to an old conflict in HEMA between the more academic folks and the more martial/physical side. They need to look to each other rather than being in conflict. It needs the research of the academic side AND it needs the visceral physical skills of the experienced martial artists. I do think taking a good hard look at competition rules and what counts as a "blow" can make a huge difference though.
As a Muay Thai fighter who wants to get into HEMA, do you think it would be acceptable if I brought over certain techniques like the front kick, trips, or clinch knees to HEMA? Would I get a bad reaction if I did?
When people join my HEMA Club I always recommend they take one of the 4 Pillar MMA classes (Boxing/Muay Thai/Jiu Jitsu/Wrestling) on the side to supplement their fencing- especially the grappling ones. A "sword fight" still has the word "fight" in it. The more we interact with the mainstream martial arts community the better. If a HEMA practitioner has a blue belt or higher in BJJ, he's just immediately more legitimate in my eyes.
I've fenced for 17 years, various styles, but one year of Muay Thai has unlocked footwork/movement modalities in my brain that no other sword art has. It's been great.
What modern martial arts are really useful for is teaching fundamentals which is something that can't be taught very well through source material (especially pre-renaissance when fencing culture was more exclusive)
Been doing martial arts for 20+ years, but only got a couple of months in HEMA. My perspective on this was people getting into HEMA don't want to learn how to actually fight, they get into it to swing a sword for a couple of hours a week and have some a bit of relaxed fun, in short its treated as a game/hobby. If something detracts from that, like someone winning because "they're not following the rules of your system and are just fighting" it takes away from that. They don't want to learn to adapt or become better fighters, just have a casual swing of a sword and feel good about themselves. Despite being rubbish at actually sword fighting, when it came down to scenario training/sparring, I was able to put up a good fight against most of the people there based not on my skill with a sword, but because unlike most of them I could actually fight, at least well enough for a HEMA class.
Being a little athletic and willing to commit violence against another human puts above 50% of people in a fight. Actually understanding body mechanics and being able to apply that puts above about 80% of people. Adding a sword to that doesn't really change the equation.
I’m not a HEMA practitioner myself, but I’ve been interested in it and following it for a while now. I really appreciate your perspective in this video, as it mirrors realizations that I have come to in my own experience. Truth is discovered through experience, and experience comes through action. Tradition gives us a framework for effective action, but we need to eventually progress beyond that framework in order to continue to become more effective. But progress beyond traditions in no way invalidates nor dishonors that which was done by those who came before.
HEMA quickly turned into what 80s Kung Fu was. It doesn't focus on function, it doesn't even focus on form, it focuses on an artificial "purity" based on interpretation of a holy word from people whose actual prowess is unknown. It's more along the lines of Tai Chi than it is functional fighting.
@@EnglishMartialArts I say it with a heavy heart and a lot of experience, and nothing but love for the people who enjoy it. I think it comes down to the identity crisis HEMA has always had. It doesn't know if it wants to be a martial art or a reenactment. It's way too rigid and book focused and suffocates its practicality because of it.
Yeah. Tai chi evolved from a military martial art to an exercise system. A very good exercise system, mind you... But the best Tai chi practitioners I know (with actual knowledge of it's practical use) just either teach it only to family or close associates or else primarily train in one or more other martial arts.
Yeah sure grandpa living deep in the jungles of china only teaches true form of tai chi to the select few chosen people on this planet, only those with a pure mind and soul and clean white teeth 😂😂😂😂 Lol why do all you tma advocates sound the same 😂😂😂😂 @@niccosalonga9009
Good One Oz! I started in sports fencing, even becoming a coach, but always wanted to do hema, way before it had a name. I was part of the proto-SCA here in Australia, and remember the first fighter training I went to being told how to use the sword and shield (according to their ideas at the time, which changed when greater access to original sources came with the internet). Needless to say my fencing training and experience were far more useful than the minimal period sources we had back then, and they were quite put-out that I kept hitting them in ways they didn't expect. Mind you, I also started using the back-edge cuts that the SCA calls 'wraps' in sabre competitions, and a number of my opponents got quite upset that I was hitting them in ways they didn't expect 😆, so turns and roundabouts.
I just remember the local Kendo/Japanese Jujutsu sensi rocking up at the local SCA Armoured Combat club and owning everybody, his knowledge from those two arts helped him greatly with that style of combat, although watching him throwing people in armour was awesome. I do prefer the SCA stuff to HEMA because it does feel more instinctive than some HEMA clubs.
I'm sure it was fun. Mind you, having a grappler throw around people whose combat sport *includes no grappling* isn't super-impressive. 😉 Though I 'm sure it opened their eyes to the wider world of fighting arts. 😃
@@mikeprendergast8946 m-1 medieval rules does(or did) include some grappling/clinch fighting, the guy im talking about he's polish but now lives in Oxford, I'm guessing it's what he was used to before he moved to the uk and in the red mist of combat auto pilot took over.
@@jackreacher4488 He doesn't yet but as he's here in the uk doing his PhD in military history I really really want to do a collaborative project with him for youtube.
Yeah, lots of traditionalists today complain about non-classical techniques that work. The Irony of it all, is that back in the time when the sword was really used to kill your opponents, your opponents didn't get to complain when an unusual technique worked.
I was in the Society for Creative Anachronism back in the 90s and did a lot of fighting with rattan weapons, mostly sword and shield or two swords. We wore full armor and used the rattan weapons so we got bruises but not maimed. I’ve since done sparring with training weapons and such along with my martial arts and the tactics I used in the SCA work just fine without unnecessary flourish.
I did heavy quite a bit later, but I still found this to be true in the SCA. There is a huge culture of historical study, but most of how the fighters there actually fight comes from direct personal experience fighting others and training under those even more experienced. It's fun to do because they take what applies historically, which often does help, while retaining the sport element of it and allowing the meta to evolve on its own. I've found what I've learned in the SCA over the years has generally applied to other martial arts styles I've done since, especially what you can learn about footwork and body mechanics.
"Unless you´re Bob Brooks..." 🙂 made my day hahahahaha On the general topic, yes, you got a good point about HEMA in general. Though there are some factors, which make the difference. If you have an extensive background in another solid martial art or combat sport, then you have a much better start into HEMA than coming from nothing (or nearly nothing like the occasional 2 years of Judo as a kid or a highschool fencing course or something). Of course, not everyone has that and just came into HEMA like a newborn. A good way to overcome this (and this is also true for people who have said solid background in another form of combat) is to keep your mind open and check out and exchange with as much martial artists and fighters as you can, and by that I mean first and foremost all outside of HEMA. This has the positive side-effect, that you also get in contact and help to show people HEMA and they will start to respect you. I am saying this from my own 25+ years of martial arts experience and journey as a fighter, being a Kendoka for 10 years (tournaments, dan-graduation and all), exchanging and training with all sorts of combat forms, modern or traditional, from Escrima to Combatives, from Grappling to Boxing, from Koryu to Krav Maga, from Italian Knife to Maori Mau Rakau. One of the biggest problems in HEMA in general is, that some are nerdy about the historical stuff only. I am nerdy about all things that have to do with fighting and martial arts, that helps me to understand my nerdy love for the historical stuff. Just my two Pints of Beer.
I want to argue with that on a few levels but I wouldn't know where to start. Thing is it can be hard to separate out what goes into things. Let's use this as an example. I've heard it and I've seen it happen, people coming in from a dancing background. They have the same kinethetic sense of their own body that more practised martial artists have and that gives them an advantage. They already know how to move their body, a strong sense of timing. Is that an advantage with no technique? Well, yeah it is. I think HEMA's strength is that same 'weakness' that we're making it up on some level. We find the stuff that doesn't work and then we try things out. We learn about the context of the time and we try things that we feel fit in there. We research, argue in the academic sense. We try to work out what it really means. Even in other languages. We're in fact working in the same way they did back then, they trained, they learned, they tried things out and built their own set of tools. They've built up schools around collections of techniques they found worked for them. They just made it more formal and wrote stuff down. I need to get back to training, but the historical side of it, that keeps me interested. Maybe that's the real strength of HEMA, it's not one thing and can't be one thing. It's a mix, balance and the stuff you want from it can change, but the interest doesn't. I'd also add, it's not on us to be taken seriously. If we're doing it, learning, trying new things and finding new sources, that's what we're doing. If we're still learning about the sources, then that's doing it 'right', whatever that really looks like. If other people don't want to take us seriously, that's on them. Just because it's not modern, not for the street, not valid because no-one carries a sword? That's on them. If they want to be even more an arsehole about it? See previously.
I've been reading a lot of the comments here, and I've only been in HEMA for two years. This seems to read closest to what I'm getting as a consensus. There is the contradiction, and in that, we find our identity. A lot of HEMAists, myself included, lack athleticism, and I think that's actually part of what makes the activity so enjoyable. Someone unathletic like me can take on strong opponents with proper application of technique, and I think that's amazing. What are we trying to accomplish, really? Are we competition fighters? Are we historical reenactors? I think the answer is be however much of either that you want to be. Federico Malagutti did a very good video recently on strict vs loose interpretations of HEMA, and his conclusion was more or less that both approaches complement each other. If you want to be experimental and modern, you should still learn the source material as a tool to help you. If you want to be strict, you should use the experimental approach to sanity check your findings. I'll concede that HEMA might not have enough emphasis on fitness and hard physical training. That might be where the discrepancy lies.
HEMA in my opinion should best be described as experimental archaeology for martial arts. The goal is to replicate and apply sword techniques as if it was real combat. Not sport as is modern fencing with a bunch of rules that would not exist in live combat. But it also means its not meant to be adapted to the modern self-defense scenarios where you wouldn't carry a sword and assailants potentially having firearms. It is meant for a world long gone but recreated for an academic purpose. The lack of rules mean it won't be looked favorably by those into sports because its not fair or competitive. While the modern martial artists community think HEMA is impractical or stuck in their ways. So yea, you're right, its on them if they don't want to take HEMA seriously, no one asked them to. Its history and experimental archaeology aspect is why so many nerdy non-athletic types are attracted to it.
I'm an mma fighter and I love HEMA! Where I'm from it is quite popular and people absolutely love to see folks going at it with swords and different styles. It's truly an expensive sport but damn it's beautiful and the guys are really nice too! If you can't afford something, they will share it. I guess I'm just lucky
I think I must have found the golden ticket of HEMA clubs, because not only do we accept people from other martial arts, we absolutely love it when they come in. A plurality of our membership has at least one other martial arts background, be it kung-fu, kendo, judo, wrestling, modern fencing, anything you can think of. The result is we have a ton of people who fight and fence entirely differently to one another, which keeps the sparring interesting and demands that you practice skills and techniques that you otherwise might not normally be comfortable or see the point in practicing, simply because of the variety of styles we have to deal with. Club leadership fully promotes cross-training, and I took up MMA this past year not only because I wanted to get better at unarmed martial arts, but also because, as you said in the video, it will make me a better HEMA practitioner, which it has. Anyways great video. I can say for sure that our club would be over the moon if you came in and taught grappling like you talked about at the end, but we're across the pond, so we'll probably have to content ourselves with enjoying your content from afar.
Started MY martial Journey on HEMA. I must admit that our little clubs sparring was almost More buhurt than actual HEMA so it kinda made it easy to transfer to MMA. But as you said and I would agree that MMA has made me better In HEMA. NOT to mention it has made it possible for us to widen our scope to HEMAs unarmed side, abrazare In our case. And yes, I used to have SAME argumentti with ONE if our leasing members about combat sport and HEMA.
Lowkey reminds me of when I joined my first Hema classes for like two weeks. I was expecting sparring and drilling but instead I got a bunch of nerds telling me that it’s “not like the movie 🤓” as if I didn’t know that, and mocked me for my actual field of study. At the time too I was debating if I wanted to do muay thai so I was taking both. The MMA gym was way more welcoming and had the intensity of training I was looking for. I didn’t felt like I was being talked down to and felt like I was really learning how to fight. Obviously I chosed the MMA gym cuz why would I want to train with people with heads so far up their own asses that don’t apply their theory to the real world.
@@syys5640 that’s exactly what I was looking for man, luckily that’s what I found with the MMA gym and dam my fighting skills skyrocketed since I’ve joined said gym.
Yay you're back!!!! You should write a book compiling all the wrestling and pudgism you've learnt together to keep it alive and in a more acceptable manner
@@EnglishMartialArts if you're worried about the historic community not responding your historian credentials because you've actually spent time learning how to fight, then I suspect that you could turn round and make a encyclopedic book off the top of your head which would still be of historical significance in its own right. It almost feels like it would be a shame if you didn't, considering how much of your life you've dedicated to keeping them alive and reviving them, to not create a written legacy as well. Juuuuuust sayin
I teach HEMA at Oklahoma State University, and I have a degree in tech writing. If you ever decide to and need an editor, let me know!@@EnglishMartialArts
An interesting take on the situation. I haven't noticed much in the way of "lack of respect" for HEMA as a martial art, even among more traditional martial artists. Of course, this is only my own personal experience but every time I've spoken with someone that does other martial arts, they mostly just don't know about us. What's more, when I tell them, they're often intrigued and want to know more. So far, we've had a kickboxer, a veteran kung fu instructor and a long time Kyokushin practitioner join us and are some of our most dedicated members. At the same time though, I can't claim to be pure HEMA as I practiced modern fencing for several years as well as practicing a number of other martial arts before getting into Historical Fencing.
I think HEMA is at least somewhat respected. I watch both HEMA videos and Asian MA videos, and the videos that get the most trolls in the comments are the Asian ones. I doesn't even seem to matter if it's a Tai Chi for health video. There will be a troll there telling them that it sucks and to get in the ring. I don't see that in the HEMA video comments. Maybe a little, but not as much.
@@ambulocetusnatans Right, I see a lot of that as well. I think because MMA practitioners feel very confident in their ability to overcome traditional martial arts simply by virtue of the video evidence available on TH-cam. MMA has come to dominate modern martial arts because it has incorporated almost all of the useful items from other martial arts and married them together. However, you can't say that with regards to weapons and weapons make a HUGE difference. The best boxer in the world is at a disadvantage to Joe Schmoe with a machete. I feel like even people who do MMA recognize that they're not likely to beat a swordsman unarmed.
@@resolvedinsteel Yeah, that's true, but I'll go one step further. I have seen the same type of troll on Asian weapon videos. I've seen more than one commenter saying how practicing with Chinese weapons or Japanese swords is stupid and useless, and I don't see very much of that on HEMA videos. I suspect that some of them are slightly motivated by a touch of racism.
That may be true, though I suspect it's likely the sample size. Every now and then I'll run into someone that has heard of HEMA, which is way more than I used to. But, HEMA is not nearly a household name yet. Almost everyone has heard of Taekwondo, Karate, tai chi etc... even if they don't know anything about them. Not only that but they come up in searches for other things such as movies and in actor's bio's so even people searching for something else are likely to find videos about them. HEMA not so much. Not yet >: D
@@ambulocetusnatans I supect that comes from people who haven't figured out that you can use sword techniques with a stick or knife techniques with just about any solid object roughly the size of one. they've just assumed train with sword and knife has no application without the exact tool.
This hits close to home, I and several other of the younger (so like mid thirties) fighters at my club are butting up against the attitude that anything that wasn't in our clubs lesson plan drawn up ten years ago is 'sport fencing' and for 'HEMA-tards' who care more about winning then 'proper martial technique.' Bring in anything that reeks of learned through competition or collaboration with other tournament fighters and who-boy is there drama to be had. I don't get it, if any martial art is to be valid then a D1 basketball level athlete should be able to rock up to a club and be dominating within a year or two, if athleticism is not rewarded in an art then how could it ever be valid?
I tried HEMA for a little while. We were doing sparring with daggers. We wore full pads including padded gloves (I think they were for hockey or lacrosse). My opponent stuck out his knife hand and I slammed it with my dagger. They said it didn't count because I didn't strike a vital area. I explained that in a real fight like that, I would have slashed his wrist, maybe broken a bone, and while he was trying to hold onto his knife, I could stab whatever vital area I wanted. They argued that what I was doing wasn't in some manual and to not do it again. I never went back.
I guess I have been really lucky as all of the HEMA people I have met have all been very kind and willing to help and teach or even learn something that they haven’t seen but still works my experiences have been overwhelmingly positive in the HEMA Community so far
Taira Shinken largely did the same thing with Okinawian Kobudo nearly 100 years ago. Very little of any original style was left & what he did find had been passed on under oral tradition. Perfect that you are seeing what actually works & what doesn't. I study Ryukyu Kobudo Shimbukan under Hiroshi Akamine Sensei & we do the same thing with Bo vs Bo & against other weapons of the style.
Some issues, what is the persons goal? If its to fight like a Victoria era gentleman, ok. Read all that stuff and train like that. If its to be effective, then you have to train on the efficiency curve where the manuscripts mean less. Going with that idea, John Danaher had a great video awhile ago about needing to train with a MA that has a sport component. The basic idea is that it forces you to know not just basic moves to that MA, but the fundaments to make them effective. This will transcend any specific MA. It will force one to be so effective that you can compete against someone else. As you train along those lines the older manuscripts will show one the variants that you can play with. ALL MA are based on things like kinesiology, physics, physiology, body mechanics. The martial science will transcend the martial art.
Pretty well said, I'd say. My goal is to get more and more people wrestling in the scene in my area. There's some hesitation to wrestling amongst HEMA folk despite it being very clearly in just about all the sources and usually talked about as a fundamental. I know I can't stand up to any good wrestler but I do face current BJJ practitioners and folks who used to wrestle and usually do alright, so I think I must be doing something alright with the way I'm interpreting and teaching it. Well, hopefully! FIGHT TEAM!
We should consider teaming up for a Noble Science North America event of all unarmed HEMA? I did one pre-COVID. Then COVID happened. And Oz, you'd like the Corrugated Cavalier.
For wrestling and throwing you need mats and to drill people how to fall safely. No safety gear can protect you from bad fall and that can wreck shoulder or knee. Just like armlocks needs safety. Even some disarming techniques can hurt badly if done without stopping on time.
I explain it in the following way- most of us divide into Ramirez (competent teacher, OK fencer) or Kurgan (competent fighter, OK researcher); what we lack is a McLeod (competent fighter, competent researcher) cos having the resources to do both are rare, let alone finding enjoyment in both, cos one detracts from the other (if you’re reading you aint fencing and vice versa), and even less if trying to pass it on to others too (so being Ramirez wins out on average, especially as research is easier done solo and around Real Life ). Pondered how to resolve this for about 15 years and still haven’t an answer.
That’s before the fact that Kurgans were generally the sort of people that discouraged most of the people that my classes appeal to as they were the competent, socially adapted “popular kids” at school who could catch a ball and tell their @rse from their elbow. They were also the gatekeepers for sport cos they won medals, which is what most fencing and boxing clubs are after as that’s what attracts funding. If you couldn’t do that then clubs generally had no interest in you other than as a cashcow to buy kit for the first team or sell tickets to exhibition nights.
I was heavy into freeform sparring before HEMA. Then did real proper organized HEMA for many years. HEMA made me a substantially better fighter going back to my old freeform sparring friends, which included great boxers. But people who only did HEMA never really developed as fighters, even though we did drills and sparring. There was some kind of disconnect regarding focus or something. I can confirm that book study and HEMA will teach a person who is already a fighter a lot. You will see things more scientifically and be in conscious control of what used to be instinct, aggression and gambling.
I'm doing hema for 18months now and I never noticed the issue with what you describe. It either has changed enough or people moaning just went into seclusuion. Wessex league tournaments are showing quite a spike in the skill of participants as well. I think it did evolve more and is going better (skillwise). The only thing I hear about that is controversial is the 'fleche'. That's still on everyones nerves.
I did a couple years of sport fencing before joining a hema club, and it was useful, but not directly. I was lucky to have some very good training partners there. Over time though, people move around, and i rarely train with people that fence... Athletically. For a weekend warrior like myself, i know that training under this weird 'full speed, except for footwork ' mentally is not good, especially as a majority of my training time. But there aren't enough people, and we're all quite casual. It's one of the reasons the comparisons with hema seem unfair to me, generally sport fencing clubs aren't made up of people who train 2-3 times a month, and don't work out lol.
Agree, doingMMA made me better with HEMA and allowed us to start developing our approach to abrazare. Altough I must say that our approach to HEMA was always bit buhurt and also made it easier to step to MMA scene 😂 funny paradox there I guess. I also agree that some HEMA folks are pretty insular and have weird view on combat sport as just sport that has no value for their deadly historical arts.
Just watching scientific wrestling on Instagram has shown me allot, I could only imagine how much the online or in person classes will teach 😁🥋 Ive seen that with scholars of all types they just study and assume they know but if they were to train or be athletic its different story in real life applications. I think thats how McDojos start too
As Billy Robinson said, there are no new moves. So the "modern sport" versions of martial arts are still based on fundamental things that worked before. It's just rulesets that change and are adapted to.
My story with martial arts started in some respect with Tang Soo Do for a couple years back in junior high school, this was the early 1980s. It wasn’t until in my 30s that I sighted up with American Kenpo. That instructor explained to me that the style he is reaching is a hybrid of the Japanese art and western foot work and boxing. Long story short this got me into researching the history of western fighting arts. Before long I found a local HEMA school and sighted up for the next 7 years or so. I absolutely love HEMA & WMA and believe in it as an affective system that when properly taught and understood can hold its own across the world. I also, not always but at times experienced the same thing you mentioned and that is the sort of stuffy learning by numbers, over thinking stagnate approach. At times it would feel like a drawn out discussion group at a library. The interesting thing is, in retro spect some the wrestling and boxing techniques I learned as a kid from my nearly Victorian age Grandfather and relatives who’s parents and Grandparents migrated from the U.K. and Denmark had an unarmed fighting style not that unlike Pugilism / HEMA, etc. I have also found that sparing with some modern boxers as well as Karate practitioners is that they start off sort off a little baffled and even giggling a bit at the extended arm stance used at times in classic pugilism until they realize what it’s real proposes is for. Of course it all boils down to the experience of the individual in any art. I had an Italian instructor tell us once that he felt some of the American institutions have done a good job of carrying on the WMA traditions. Anyway I’m preaching to one of the masters here, so pardon my rant. I also subscribed and purchased your course back in 2016 or so and my Son’s and I really enjoyed it. Thank you All the best Josh
Just my personal experience, but training with longsword and mostly studying Fiore, I had to stop moving like I'd learned in karate (I did Kenpo, and jinen-ryu, mixed with a bit of TKD). My footwork was killing me in sparring - strangely enough, moving like a striker is not the best way to fight with a longsword. >
One of the reasons Ive been unbelievably happy in finding the HEMA club I found. Yes we want to get that technique right as a foundation. But we also have no issue with other interpretations or something completely new. Of course this can land us with scowls from other hema instructors. But we have always been one to think about applying these techniques in a fairly realistic scenario of fighting. Once I went to a larger seminar with other HEMA clubs, I definitely started seeing that sort of stereotypical ego driven elitism first hand. Some even with the attitude that what I was doing for my sparring wasn't historically valid. It was definitely just a bizarre thing to be around. Its unfortunate HEMA can get this bad rep as I fear it can turn a lot of people off from giving it a shot. But like with anything else there are good clubs and bad clubs. The most important takeaway though is there is no end all be all martial art. Anyone looking to take HEMA and think that will cover them for real fighting is in for a very rude awakening. But thats the case if you only ever focus on one martial art regardless of what that may be. A martial art is just a tool for your belt.
I do remember one of the bigger names in HEMA community recently did a video where he said that when HEMA fencers do a lot of tournaments, they start fencing like, well, modern sports fencers... So instead of thinking maybe modern fencing and HEMA are not as distant as we all pretend they are and the modern fencer fence the way they do for practical reasons, and acknowledging we can maybe all learn from each other (as a largely modern fencer and iaidoka who only dabbles in HEMA I love watching it, and talking about it), he declared HEMA fencers should stop doing tournaments 🤷♂
Can you tell me what video that is? Honestly I don't trust generalisations like that at all. The tournament scene is so wide and different among countries. Then again. Only because their perception of historical combat doesn't show in tournaments doesn't mean it's not historical. And at last. I sometimes fence in the eastern european tournament scene and it's the most athletic and "sporty" scene on the planet. It's packed to the brim with historical techniques and it's a joy to be part of.
The algorithm is a bitch! I thought you were on a break and now I see that I've been missing your last 5-10 videos. Well, I got a large pot of coffee and some time on my hands. Binging time :D
There's a Zen saying, "Before and after enlightenment, chop wood, carry water." I'm sure ancient people fought pretty much the same way they did now. They probably pass down the knowledge in a different manner, or they chop wood or carry water in a manner that is suited to the individual learning. Even today, the techniques or kata is the only thing that the teacher can impart. The rest of it depends on how quickly they can make it work on their own and develop their own style.
THIS IS WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING!!! It's like people in HEMA resist all attempts to make it an actual living tradition, and insist on keeping it as a niche and nerdy exploration into experimental archeology. Which only serves to make sure that HEMA will always be less than a generation away from extinction. Even I, as a giant nerd, don't feel welcome in HEMA. And if HEMA can manage to drive OGs like Oz away, then there's a big problem.
@EnglishMartialArts I basically already did in my video on HEMA. If you make it an entertaining combat sport, the art gets bigger. As it gets bigger, you get more "athletes," but you also get more "nerds" interested in doing experimental archeology with you! The goal should be to appeal to a mass audience instead of "keeping the art pure."
There is literally nothing stopping anyone from developing their own system for fighting with blunt swords (some people are already doing just that), but I don't get why you want to take the name HEMA with you if you clearly don't like what we do. I don't like Boxing, but I don't go do something else and call what I'm doing Boxing.
@@SirKanti1 See, this is what I'm talking about. How do you see someone attempting to add a new kind of approach to your art and conclude that they're "taking" the art away from you? If boxers acted that way they would say, "The guard you're using isn't in Jack Dempsey's book, so you're not even doing boxing! Why are you taking boxing away from us??" People ABSOLUTELY do different things and call it boxing. And boxers are fine with that! Does modern bare-knuckle boxing ring a bell? Boxing itself has significantly changed over its history! And at no point did nerds try to gatekeep a new innovation out of the sport. They adapted, they changed, and they held new ideas up to scrutiny instead of dismissing anything not done by John L. Sullivan as "not boxing." And that's why boxing is a worldwide multi-billion dollar industry, while HEMA is somehow less popular than larping.
@@ArmchairViolence You kinda confirm my point, there is a difference between bare knuckle boxing and boxing, so they both have different names. So why can't we have HEMA and say [Insert new name here] fencing. People wanting to learn to hit someone with a stick or someone interested in history and how people long now dead used to fight can both have options, just as boxers still box and bare knuckle boxers now bare knuckle box. It's not Highlander where there can be only one, you don't need to replace the meaning of the acronym HEMA just come up with a new one. If you or anyone wants to come up with a new style of fencing, then go for it, just don't expect for anyone who enjoys the historical stuff to really care all that much. Come to think of it, is that why you want to have the name HEMA, to give some sense of credibility to something that just made up?
I've had a few run-ins with HEMA, or HEMA-esque, people and my issue has always been when they've tried to "show me" a technique (big guys make great demonstration dummies I guess). When I easily defeat whatever it is they're doing they say that I'm the one "doing it wrong".
Ah, the classic suicide? Happens a lot in my experience. Sure, you could ignore my blade and stab me in the body, thus getting you a hit. Meanwhile, my blade is free to stab your face. The beginner attacking people wrong is a true statement, as is DOCUMENTED by the historical masters. No greater danger to both himself and another is a beginner. Fencing beginners will test the knowledge of the more experienced in truly understanding universal openings and counters. Beginners lack the knowledge of what they face, and thus, go blindly into attacks.
There are theoretical physicists and experimental physicists I honestly think what HEMA needs is a clear divide between the two groups. My suggestion is to let HEMA be focused on historical reenactment where the point is on accuracy to the source material and historical evidence. The second group lets call it RIHEMA (Roots In Historical European Martial Arts) can focus on practicality, efficiency and evolution of European martial arts. The foundation can be in the source material but at the same time you can take what works tinker and adapt what almost works while not being afraid to abandon what doesn't work. The most important point being the freedom to adapt and integrate the lessons of other martial arts into the art. Without a clear divide between the groups there is going to be no end to the argument of what HEMA should be.
I respect it! And I think it's one of a very few martial arts that has major potential in the "Martial Arts Marketplace " with the one that I have my eye being Kudo Daido Juko. And perhaps some form of sportive Aikido (could be Tomiki, could some newer adaption)
I practice FMA and sparred with several HEMA practitioners. We're all good friends and were just, as you said, trying to understand the manuscripts and wondered how an arnis/eskrima practitioner would handle a manuscript based martial arts. They of course, made good use of the range advantage. And there is the misconception that all dual wielding is ineffective. But there's a catch. Espada y daga (Sword and dagger) OR two short swords can definitely have an advantage over a long sword. The parry and rush the FMA teaches students was extremely effective and even I was shocked by how efficient it was. We then switched to single swords, short sword vs short sword, mine was a talibong trainer and they had a messer trainer. They were confused with the movements (redonda), they tried to bind despite it being a short sword (very confusing why they did that), when a simple redonda can flick it away. This continued and they did manage to get some hits in as all spars tend to do when done over a long period of time but over all I had the edge over them. Personally I just think HEMA practitioners should exercise more in addition to the research. There is too much arguing online and not so much actually implementing it. Thank you for the video. It's very interesting.
Boom! Yes boss... Well said. And honestly, in this new age of cross pollination, if there are HEMA unarmed fundamentals that are of use, I don't see why that can't be spread pragmatically...
Hm, maybe some parts of HEMA are more a fantastic hobby then a competetive sport. Mostly the ones were a comparable sport already exists. Like Rapier fencing, or unarmed combat. But what about the parts were there is no comparable, surviving sport were techniques have been refined over centuries, like Shield and Sword fencing in a armored battlefield context. Areas were the only way to tap sources of previous knowledge, to refine the martial art quicker and more efficient, is to dive into the books. That, to me, was always what HEMA was about. Just another way to refine fighting techniques. For me it was never about limiting the sport to what is found in the sources. I hope that doesn't bother you :)
In my short yet ongoing experience with HEMA and other martial arts I will say this: Everyone does martial arts and or combat sports for different reasons and there's nothing wrong with that. Some people are more open minded and honest than others when comparing, contacting, and practicing their respective styles. Personally, I practice HEMA because it's fun, I find the history side of it fascinating, and I enjoy the sport side of it. I also love kickboxing and MMA for vastly different reasons. I also love many traditional martial arts, too. In my experience the people I've trained with have been open-minded and far from elitist in HEMA. I do generally agree with your points made. Online discussion can get tribalistic in various martial arts communities. One question that does come to mind is: Is HEMA generally approached as a "process based" or "objective based" martial art? Armchair Violence did a solid video some time back on how a martial art can be one or the other and in my experience I'm still wondering myself exactly where HEMA falls given its spread out community of people and their reasons for approaching it.
I have had nothing but respect from the martial arts community. Did rapier fencing in my old MMA gym and some of the guys began fencing with me. Nobody at my FMA gym wanted to fence long sword with steel fedders.
My HEMA teacher bludgeons me with no less than 10 ripe coconuts a day - Often when I am not expecting it. I am slowly becoming immune to ripe coconut blows, incapable of being ambushed, and developing CTE. Seriously though, I trained MMA from 2001 to 2011. Won 3 smoker fights and was invited to train with the pro team at what was then one of the premier gyms in the game (Team Quest). Fast forward to 2017 where now 40lbs fatter and much more injured me learned I could AKSHUALLY learn to wield a broadsword and halberd and I zoomed over to my first HEMA class. My footwork, knowledge of fight biomechanics, and ability to excel close in had me beating everyone in class on my first day. I felt bad because I could see it was irking everyone, the teachers included. I didn't go back because I felt unwelcome, I should probably give it a go again.
As an example, what i like about bjj is that they like anything that works and love what can work on a real fight. As a simple curiosity, yesterday was all about Josh Barnett. The correct hand grip to perform a "baseboll choke" with out a gi in side control, and ofcourse that very andy "shotgun arm bar" from casgatame that we can see very rapidly in one of the pictures you showed. So its not about the new or the old. Its about what works.
I live in a town where there is no active Hema club and I would give ANYTHING for the chance to get good at Meyers sides word and have a great manual to train with. However I've decided to start with sport fencing to help me get good at footwork and mechanics. I am still new to Hema and have been eager to find a good starting point and think this is the best way. I also have done some training in boxing and bjj. But i always came back to the sword and will likely love it forever. If I ever get good at the side-sword and dagger I would love to learn wrestling.
Alright, I was going to say something vaguer and more polite about the problems of HEMA, but since you were being brutally honest in this video I think that I owe you the courtesy of doing the same. I come from a classical fencing lineage that has also brought some of the historical weapons back into our curriculum and I can tell you that we do not take HEMA remotely seriously. In the 90's and 00's (full disclosure this is before my time) we engaged with the HEMA community as we hoped that it would be an opportunity to spread the art and science of fencing to a wider audience (classical fencing is a community so small it makes HEMA look massive by comparison), but as the years have gone by we have pulled back from it more and more because we were so underwhelmed by what we were seeing. The martial arts office politics, arrogance of certain instructors, and interpretation arguments are all annoying to be sure, but the thing that really drove us away is just the abysmal skill level among even the "experts" in the HEMA world, and the rise of the tournament scene has only made this worse. My instructor has remarked on more than one occasion that what you see in the average HEMA tournament is neither historical, nor European, nor martial, nor an art, and having been in a tournament at a major HEMA event, I fully agree! But taking a step back from tournament woes, what do I mean when I refer to the "the abysmal skill level" in HEMA? Am I just complaining that it doesn't look like the classical Italian school of the 19th century? No. Look at any HEMA fencing video and you will see: poor distance control (people throwing/parrying cuts that would never land, people trying to bash each other with 4-foot longswords from 2-feet away, etc.), poor sense of timing (you said yourself that sporties are often better at this and they're not exactly classical musicians), atrocious footwork (hopping, tripping, inconsistent spacing between the feet, etc.), panicked responses to basic actions, postures that look nothing like what your claiming to emulate (Can anyone show me a Medieval illustration of the leaning forward sword-on-the-shoulder posture all competitive longsword fencers use? And don't try to tell me it's post di donna/zornhut because it's not.), minimal or half-hearted feints, and wild attacks being launched with no particular target in mind. These are not fencing problems, this is a complete failure to grasp the most basic principles of martial arts. Am I saying that all historical fencers are bad? No, though I have noticed that the ones who aren't tend to distance themselves from the HEMA mainstream. Am I saying that reading a book, no matter how carefully, doesn't make you an expert in martial arts? Yes. You MIGHT be able to learn a system of fighting from a book, but only if you already have a great deal of prior training, and right now the HEMA community is completely failing at being martial artists. That's why the real martial artists don't respect you. P.S. Full respect to Catch Wrestlers, you guys are crazy but definitely effective.
And one more thing (I'm posting this separately because sometimes TH-cam deletes comments that contain links), if you read that whole thing and think I'm an idiot, fair enough. But below I am going to give some examples of HEMA as opposed to non-HEMA bouts, and I challenge you to try and tell me that the HEMA fencers have better form or martial fundamentals in any of them. French fencing classical vs. HEMA: th-cam.com/video/H3F8_7yZhQc/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/w82dYYVea_8/w-d-xo.html Knife fencing traditional Italian vs. HEMA: th-cam.com/video/C1D_6mJqkpw/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/lO0TAGX7k6w/w-d-xo.html Longsword fencing vs. Kenjutsu: th-cam.com/video/cFGPCTMp2cw/w-d-xo.html
@@EnglishMartialArts No thank you, the fact that you as someone who has been involved in HEMA for so long is willing to listen to my rather negative opinion is more impressive than the fact that I am willing to say it. Also, the TH-cam algorithm is the shared enemy of us all.
@@andrewk.5575 "But taking a step back from tournament woes, what do I mean when I refer to the "the abysmal skill level" in HEMA? Am I just complaining that it doesn't look like the classical Italian school of the 19th century? No. Look at any HEMA fencing video and you will see: poor distance control (people throwing/parrying cuts that would never land, people trying to bash each other with 4-foot longswords from 2-feet away, etc.), poor sense of timing (you said yourself that sporties are often better at this and they're not exactly classical musicians), atrocious footwork (hopping, tripping, inconsistent spacing between the feet, etc.), panicked responses to basic actions, postures that look nothing like what your claiming to emulate (Can anyone show me a Medieval illustration of the leaning forward sword-on-the-shoulder posture all competitive longsword fencers use? And don't try to tell me it's post di donna/zornhut because it's not.), minimal or half-hearted feints, and wild attacks being launched with no particular target in mind. These are not fencing problems, this is a complete failure to grasp the most basic principles of martial arts." As a non-martial artist who is nevertheless a long-time HEMA enthusiast, I'd be rather annoyed at the criticism, except...I've noticed a lot the same thing, particularly the out-of-distance attacks.
I just started HEMA a few weeks ago and they aren’t very strict on what is historical or not because the president of the club pulls crazy moves all the time and it usually works. I like it so far and I want to also eventually get into other martial arts like wrestling or something
Great video--thank you for these insights and for sharing them. So much of what you say here needs to be said, but tends to put people on their ear... I should say that there are some of us trained in both academic research and recreational violence/martial arts, that have been involved in WMA/HEMA/etc. since the 90s, but who made the mistake of saying some of these same things and have, as a result, been relegated to the margins for upsetting the arrogant darlings in HEMA whose ego needs cannot brook anyone daring question their ability, credentials, or interpretations. We soldier on anyway, but each time someone like yourself says these things people are more inclined to listen, and if they do, well, we all benefit (and with luck see slightly fewer fireworks on facebook ;-) )
The emphasis on "historical technique" has always been confusing to me. I guarantee that the old masters, the ones whose lives depended upon their technique anyway, wouldn't hesitate to adapt and change when something better is placed in front of them. They were innovators, and I have to imagine them rolling over in their graves when people elevate "historical accuracy" above efficacy. I find myself most fascinated by the stuff Craig Douglas and his people (ShivWorks) are doing. They're working on a complete, modern fighting system, more or less based on Greco-Roman wrestling, that includes knives, firearms, and other weapons. It turns out that GRW's hyper-focus on controlling an opponent's hands and balance, which seems odd in unarmed combat when compared to BJJ and other forms of sport grappling, is staggeringly important and useful when someone has a weapon in those hands. It's interesting to see the marriage of old and new, plus the effect that context has upon the efficacy of technique.
I suppose it's like language preservation in some people's minds. Yes, it is much easier to just speak English for some people in dying language communities (or even those living where dead languages once were), but the point isn't to be as effective as possible in communication, it is to preserve or revive a different way that people previously communicated. Likewise, some people are looking at HEMA as a way to understand and interpret old combat styles, even if modern ones are more efficient and effective - they aren't interested in maximizing real-world combat effectiveness, but in maximizing faithfulness to what people in previous eras seemed to be doing, even if what they were doing wasn't as developed as what we know to do today. And that clashes with those who want to use historical stuff as a starting point and then get right back to modernizing and improving it, to create an effective combat style on a level with other modern developed styles. The academic focus and the practical focus disagree, and people who prioritize them differently will inevitably butt heads.
@@Pomguo It's interesting that you bring dying languages into this. I think it's an entirely appropriate comparison, although it brings me to a different conclusion. Martial arts styles and languages die for the same reason: They aren't useful anymore. By refusing to adapt and change along with the collective need for the language to change, there's nowhere to go besides obscurity and disuse. French and Spanish, for example, which are not "dead languages" by anyone's standard, are very quickly falling into disuse, almost entirely due to the restrictive rules of those languages and the exclusionary haughtiness with which those who want to "preserve" those languages treat those who are learning or don't speak the language. Life is an intrinsically chaotic thing that requires constant adaptation to innumerable stimuli. The act of trying to "preserve" something by freezing it in time and protecting it from competing ideas or technologies is, therefore, what kills the thing.
6:20 For some reason, what you’re talking about reminds me of a video I saw from a fairly prominent HEMA practitioner saying that we, in the comfortable, cosy modern day, are on average superior fighters then our ancestors… who actually fought and killed people… who got shot in the eye by arrows and kept fighting for hours… pierced by every weapon known to me and survived… who had weekly competitions with prizes, using sharps… whom were used to seeing death… who were far more willing to deal death… and whom actually know the techniques we’re trying to emulate firsthand… Some HEMA practitioners are full of it, you’re not warriors, you’re not knights whom trained their whole lives for combat, you’re sportsmen and tournament fighters. That’s fine, own it, but don’t be so full of it that you think you’re better then actual warriors. 100% the vast majority of HEMA practioners would get decked by our ancestors soundly, including that guy, and no few of them would complain that they’re ‘not playing by the rules’.
Very interesting, i'm an argentinian HEMA trainer and i'm happy to say that at least in my club, one of the biggest of the country, this does nos happen. Very useful information.
This definitely encapsulates things that have kept me from trying HEMA out in the first place. Nerdy cliques are the worst. Its people who are trying to be the cool kid in their high school, except they're still trying to do it in their 30s and 40s. People with atrocious social skills and egos who gatekeep tend to accumulate in every nerdy hobby. Its super irritating. Its like all the nerd positivity we've had doesn't account for the neckbeards that ruin everything. I also appreciate this video though. I am reminded of how classical improvisation died, and how there are all these gatekeeping modernists types who studied music academically, but everything they write simply sounds like garbage. Or people who get too caught up in the history to move the art forward, on the flip side.
What would you suggest we could do in our Hema practice to improve in this kind of a quality? Going to practice other, more martial, arts of course makes sense, but what could we do in the hema practice itself?
Theoretical book-knowledge is nothing without physical, real-life applications. Real-life application without actually knowing the theoretical makes one just "groping in the dark", instinctively doing things instead of actually knowing what to do, when to do it and where to do whatever it is you want to do. Great video on an important topic
This is why I like SCA rapier and c&t hema works under this ruleset, but so dose kendo, and modern fencing and many ither arts. So far my rapier, long sword and new to me broadsword skills are still working against all of it and Im having a blast facing off more than just matching weapons, I feel like I get more out of my art when I know it works against things it historically never fought against.
6:50 if i could take a moment and say that being the big fish in a little pond, while fantastic for ones ego, is the absolute worst to increase ones skill set. Surround yourself with people who are much more knowledgeable and gifted than yourself. Do not let your ego get the better of you. Being the worst of a group of 10 truly exceptional people will make you the best in 99% of other groups.
My reenactment group (that doesn't take itself too seriously) does 16th century English pike and shot. Any thoughts on what grappling would be most appropriate for me to study? Or what modern grappling sport would lead to the best results if I try period wrestling? (I'm the noob of the group, and don't know all that much yet)
For authenticity try to find something like Cumberland and Westmorland. For fun and to just get good at fighting any form of ground fighting like BJJ or Catch.
@EnglishMartialArts It is also costs. Mail armor with a good longsword that can take a hit and gloves and boots.. well you are closing at around 2000 euro. HEMA usually assumes armor compared to say kenjutsu, where a wooden sword is a "good enough" simulation most of the time.
the problem is we have been inculcated with the attitude of Asian Arts that if your school and system can't trace it's self in a direct lineage it's phoney. Most people don't realize that atleast one form of Hsing-I aka Xing-Yi had died out and a chinese individual found a manual detailing it and used it to recreate it
I'm not involved in HEMA, I would say however, that this could be a fantastic team sport. For example, I have a good friend who is into the historical aspects and in many clubs who go out and grind out a few weekends in medieval conditions. I'm more of the physical guy, I started my life with martial arts and I enjoy having the shit kicked out of me, after all, we grow in adversary. Perhaps we wouldn't be a good team, but I sure as fuck would love to get my arse kicked while learning something new (old).
Counterpoint number one: not all of those who study and practice HEMA are necessarily scholars, historians or academics. Most of these people learn from others like Matt and a developing community which has already done the research for them, so the argument of "they're just nerds" doesn't necessarily apply and it will be invalidated further as the years pass. You're experienced, but your experience is from the 90s; you didn't start in 2015, when HEMA was becoming known even in my country, which is not an English speaking one. Counterpoint number two: HEMA isn't supposed to be a "martial art" to beat people up, unless you live in México and use machetes in your regular life like i do (joking, of course); you're no supposed to use a few grappling techniques from an armed combat art and expect to dominate unarmed focused martial arts. If that was your expectation when changing training environment, you obviously had another thing coming. Maybe you were shit because of an individual lack of experience which you failed to notice? (Not) Counterpoint number three, but a strong criticizim: i feel like the title should be "why is HEMA not widely known/why is HEMA not as effective as a martial art"; the fact that HEMA can bearly be considered a martial art in today's context had nothing to do with the respect we owe its researchers and fencers. . You clearly wrote the title in a fashion that would get you the outrage of those who practice or simply study this interesting art/hobbie/entertainment medium/whichever way you may choose to represent it. We do agree on everything else, but i have come to realize you are a most arrogant (or click baity, at best) individual, as you kindly forewarned in the contents of your video Good day to you.
In intrigued to see that you assume because I started in the 90s that the experience I have from the 2000s and 2010s and 2020s isn't valid. I'm also intrigued that you consider studying under an instructor and not looking at source material still HEMA.
I really resonate with this video after coming back from Fightcamp a few weeks ago. I think it boils down to HEMA being a scene where you have to sub categorise yourself until you are the master of a style so specific that nobody can criticize you. What I think is most interesting is this is far from the first time this has happened in martial arts. Just look at the myriad styles of Kung Fu where every knuckle on the hand seems to have a specific style and of course a grand master to go with it!
This holds true for the more specific side of things, but when you look at longsword, which is the most practiced weapon of all of them, it kinda doesn't apply. However what is extremely sus to me, is HEMA schools actively deciding not to compete, or rarely ever competing. Cause that's were you see if their stuff actually works.
I train at a club that doesn't really complete, because the weapons are blunt, too many people just rush in and you get a double hit. I train as if it is for personal self defense. I want to know if what I train will work against all weapons, not just a copy of what I am holding , which is what mostly happens at comp.s. We partake in sparring/free play when interacting with other clubs at festivals or at international meetings.
@@FriedEdd In the end what we do is a sport. It always has been. Even back in the day they fought in sport tournaments. So often there was one every other weekend in germany. Even when thinking about you wanting to know if it works in a theoretical self defense scenario. Tournaments put pressure on you like no other sparring, or workshop. The mental side of things, fencing people you don't know at all. There is nothing like it. The double thing is not applicable on all of the tournament scene, as there are so many. you talking nordic, eastern european, germany, french, UK, american, korean, or chinese tournaments? Cause they all differ a little. This is a video that calculates the dutch lions cup double average, which is 14,3%: th-cam.com/video/YluMh8FQqeA/w-d-xo.htmlsi=twta-SElhfeURJ7W Maybe interesting watch. I said clubs are sus that actively discourage from competing. I said what I said. If you decide for yourself that's fine. But a club that tells you not to, is sus.
I've had this same conversation many times. I often compare it to the "theoretical magicians" vs the "practical magicians" in the novel Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. Classical martial artists and HEMA people are "theoretical", live resistance training is "practical".
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Correction, I did HEMA before you, me and my friend had a stick fight when we were 4, after studying the historical manuscripts of He-man and Thundercats.
Ha! Thundercats. I was 13 when that was launched in the UK. When I was 4 we were pretending to be Lin Chong from the Water Margin.
@@EnglishMartialArts OK you beat me, you are the real deal.
@londiniumarmoury7037 Sadly all that proves is that I'm an old deal...
@@EnglishMartialArts lol
@@EnglishMartialArts old stuff IS the real stuff. Go ahead!
You absolutely nailed the problem. Back when I was still training HEMA, I once pulled off a destreza play straight out of the manual against a more experienced /better fencer. They immediately pulled out their mask and pissily told me that I should "use the rapier less like a longsword". Funny thing is that I never did longsword, and don't particularly enjoy training 2-handers.
I've been grappling for way longer than I've ever fenced, and not once have I heard anyone say that my wrestling single-legs "weren't bjj", or that I should "scramble less like a sambo guy". My coaches and training partners are primarily concerned with making sure that whatever I do just works consistently enough. Same goes for strikers.
The BJJ guys I roll with love that I feel different. It just adds to the big tapestry of grappling!
@@EnglishMartialArts imagine a few years from now, the Internet shuts down. After the reboot, we are left with only 10 videos of bjjfanatics. All the oldtimers are abducted by Aliens. And now we try to recreate Grappling with the Dogma of doing everything like in the leftover videos.(not even going to books with this exampel)...yeah, good luck with that!
i think its hard to recreate something like Swordfighting in a time where you dont have actual fights with sharp swords, you can only try to get as close as possible.
Thanks for this contribution oz, love your videos.
Martial arts are not a science, everyone is different and arts work different for everyone. I'm glad that you found a gym that agrees
The story from your first paragraph has nothing to do with HEMA. He was just an arrogant prick trying to reduce your victory. People like that EVERYWHERE. And I mean everywhere. Cheers!
@@Flow1987this thing actually happened with traditional striking. You have some moves preserved as katas. And you have to interpret how the said moves would work in a fist fighting, in a country that banned fist fighting.
We know how well this pure theoretical aproach went for the wing chung masters.
Well you can touch each others with stick and judge it.
Yeah that aproach also didn't work for the point karate guys.
And nowadays when grapplers dont fight, just roll on the floor for submission, a real fight dosen't favore even them that much anymore.
Glad that I've come into HEMA with most of these resources taken care of, and then my poverty drove me out of the more rigid HEMA academy in the city nearby and into the arms of the "fencing group".
This year in my area there's a very skilled HEMA fencer who just found a good meeting spot and invites anyone to come (Toronto Historical Combatants). He brings spare equipment, films whoever wants to be filmed, and is friendly. Boffer fighters, practicers of non-Euro historical martial arts, kali practitioners and others come to the fencing group and join in. I fenced rapier there with no serious training besides basic training on guards and thrusts and lunges and no one complained when I fought them as a reckless goon.
The founder of that group encouraged me to contact a HAMA practitioner to found a group in my city and the ball has begun rolling. The founder of the THC is in fact an Olympic Fencer and openly says he just uses that when he uses sabre and rapier. No one in our group cares, we'll do katana vs smallsword, any application is a chance to learn more about the weapon and body's mechanics.
It's funny because I have only experienced the stuffy HEMA community you describe online. So I've been spared the issues you described. That said, I can say that myself and others will continue to change things in the way you are too exhausted to do, as usual the young'uns will just do it naturally.
My philosophy is that the majority of historical practitioners did NOT use manuscript styles. Vulgar fencing was the law of the land in most places and the manuals are often written FOR EXPERIENCED PRACTITIONERS. Or for rich people. Relying solely on the manuals limits your understanding of how to use the weapon because the plays are not the basics, they are the advanced stuff. And what is the most common mistake for a martial artist? Getting fixated on advanced, impressive techniques before knowing your basics. I want to learn Fiore's cool disarm, sure, but first I want to make sure I don't get hand-sniped when I choose a guard, I want to be able to run roughshod over people in a grapple, I want to be able to strike an opening exactly when I see it. Once I can do that, THEN I can obsess over how Posta di Donna can be used to cure cancer or whatever.
I have also only see this toxic part online and never in an actual training sessions or sparing.
Hahaha, this reminds me of seeing some HEMA groups fencing with two swords or sword and cloak when they clearly aren't even holding one sword correctly. I have students in my sport class that have fencing a year and we don't teach in fighting to them yet because they need the basics first. I couldn't imagine giving them another sword.
You're so spot on with what HEMA has become.
My old sword master Aaron (RIP) had a lovely philosophy that made me fall in love with what HEMA could have been.
He was a black belt in jiu jitsu, brazilian jj, and karate. With all of that, his number one saying was
|"The market is your teacher.".
My favorite example is when someone in our group got REALLY good at disguising his sword throws into a running grapple. It frustrated so many of us because it wasn't in our manual but Aaron would say
"But you can't complain when you're dead."
So we had to keep trying, over and over again until all of us got REALLY good at deflecting sword throws and immediately swinging on a charging body.
Aaron's sharp wit would always push us to be better while cooling our egos.
I'm no expert, the more I learn the more I find out how much more I have to learn. But I've fought classical fencers and kendo practitioners and they were all REALLY good at unexpected things.
In the end we learned to be scrappy and take a puzzle solving mentality to combat.
I didn't know how spoiled I was to have Aaron and I haven't found another teacher like him.
I went to a Silat Seminar once. The instructor covered striking, throwing and grappling, knife, and bolo. During the grappling segment the instructor showed us a shoulder throw into an arm lock on the ground. After we trained with it a bit he said "Now I'll show you how to use this in a real fight". He had one of us come at him, he threw the student but instead of holding on and following him to the ground, he let the student fall, then stomped the ground beside his head and said "In a real fight you never follow him to the ground you make sure he can't get up and run before his friends come for you". During the knife section he modified some of the drills to use stabbing instead of slashing reasoning that "Your country is cold, people wear layers and thick coats, cutting is no good"
What was in the enemy's manual was not in your manual! This is how historical martial arts was!
This isn't about HEMA lol... it's just about martial arts. You know from doing Aikido and now BJJ... this piece perfectly encapsulates the ego driven resistance to reality that most traditional martial artists cling to. They want so badly to preserve their arts that they're gonna end up killing them.
Couldn't agree more. Got another one coming out soon more focussed on traditional martial arts! It's significantly more ranty 😀
Waddup Icy Mike.
I simply can’t resist inserting my best Icy Mike impersonation and say “People who do HEMA can’t fight” in his honor.
@michaelmorgan8311 some of us can, but then do we still truly do HEMA... 🤣
Icy Mike dropping facts like an uzi.
Honestly, I feel like HEMA being the bridge from the bookish world of study to the rough and tumble of athleticism is one of its great strengths as an art. Even if Hema practitioners are not elite athletes, we can still enjoy the benefits of exercise, community and sportsmanship that it cultivates in us, not to mention the cultural, historical and anthropological knowledge. The fact that HEMA is populated with a wider range of athleticism is actually a good thing for all those who would not otherwise be exercising at all. Of course we would do well to listen to more experienced and athletic martial artists, but the fact that we don't match them athletically I personally don't see as a major flaw. In any case, as the art matures, I don't think it's at all unreasonable to expect us to close the gap.
I also want to acknowledge that, in my personal experience over the past decade, much of what is being taught in HEMA has gotten less reliant on literary interpretation and more so on identifying sound principles discovered from the repeated application of the textbook applications in sparring and competition. The art is still maturing, sure, but it has come quite a ways from when I first joined up. Seems like that's not everybody's experience, which is definitely a shame.
I think the issue he is bringing up isn't that HEMA practitioners need to step up their game and elevate their athletic abilities as a community. You can remain as casual and fun oriented as you want. It's just about not shunning those that do excel in some way due to a different background.
Been practicing kendo rn and we have contact with a HEMA club and tbh fencing in general but specially HEMA and Kendo have made me regain contact with childhood friends to share a passion we all have and I'll always appreciate that community spirit for us folks who love history
Sound gay
@@maxcritchley619 could be, what's it to you?
@@maxcritchley619 I can almost guarantee you're not an athlete of any kind
I spent four or five years getting right into HEMA. I translated Fiore's work, wrote a curriculum and was teaching a class. I have several decades of other martial arts experience, and by combining my two favourite hobbies of history and hitting people, it should have been great. What really turned me off was the volume of people, especially online, that are often unskilled and raging drama queens who vitriolically attack each other for getting something different out of the experience. It is just such a toxic and exhausting culture to be around.
Yep, agreed. It's the main reason I haven't been on Facebook for several years.
Nerds are mostly insufferable
I'm a 2nd generation buhurt fighter & my parents met through medieval reenactment. The amount of HEMA people who have talked down to me about my fighting skills & knowledge have been tremendous, while buhurt & SCA fighters who were leagues better than me were the kindest I've met. I have also found that the internet has a lot of armchair HEMA fighters as well.
@@tx7140what is buhurt? I haven’t heard of it. I’m a martial artist interested in European history who’s always wanted to get into HEMA but don’t know where to start. Any tips?
I'm a self-taught lower economic class swordsman. Tried to get involved in the online HEMA community, and they all made assumptions about my ability despite never once seeing me fight just because I couldn't afford the protective gear...
I used to work a stand selling drinks at a Renaissance Festival. Jousting is no joke in regards how dangerous it is. That was my only exposure to HEMA. Seeing Renaissance Festival knights and knowing some of them. That is brutal with a lot that could go wrong.
I worked at a clothier. One night drinking absinthe with some crew I heard jousters telling tales. It shouldn’t be possible for a lance to hit a pommel, go under the armor, and pierce a jouster’s scrotum…but they told me about a dude to whom that happened TWICE 😬
@@hithere4719Well anyone who’s stupid enough to risk getting his ballsack pierced by a sharpened telegraph pole for a *second* time because he wasn’t bright enough to take the hint the first time round shouldn’t be having any kids anyway.
This is not hema, this is buhurt
@@syys5640 Finally, someone use this word =) .
This is not Buhurt, this is jousting. Buhurt originally describes combat on a tournament by 2 groups via foot or some times on horseback. @@syys5640
Correction: It isn't HEMA that people don't respect. It's other people. This happens in literally every community throughout all of history. People are fickle, jealous and insecure. The illusion of honor is easier to maintain when there's more structure or financial support involved, which HEMA does indeed lack.
What other people? And what are you trying to accomplish with HEMA? Athletic people will have a leg up in athletic activities, and even more so when their athletic activity is related. Surely what happens between the pictures in the books looks a lot like what modern combat sports looks like. The "move" in the picture might be the right thing to do, but if you can't do the in-between part effectively you are going to be late to the party.
@@deadstump4970For real! I think a lot of people doing hema sometimes forget that modern fighting sport techniques( especially sport fencing) are innovations on the old techniques. And it turns out being athletic is the root of most of them.
As a side note, what I hear online, it seems like a lot of people are drawn to hema because sport fencing "Isnt real enough" when they are doing the same things they criticize except with bigger sticks and less reliable judges.
@@madeline6815 That's not true at all as modern sport fencing has a lot more rules which has forced techniques to morph and adapt. In a real conflict, those rules don't exist. The point of HEMA was to stick to what the original manuscripts says as that is the closest representation we had to techniques of old where people fought in battles or duels.
@@neurofiedyamato8763
You're quite correct, HEMA in essence is probably more accurate than fencing, not to strike argument, but by "more accurate" I mean more accurate by a longshot. But fencing is still a great sport with skills that are transferrable into HEMA, while HEMA has skills that are transferrable into fencing.
One thing I hate about both Fencing and Hema is how they treat each others communities, and how wrong people can be about both fencing and hema because of their bias. Also yes, It's HEMA which is often insulted and made fun of, which isn't okay nor is it right. The meanest thing people in hema say about fencing is that it's more of a sport (which it is, also every time I say "fencing" I mean modern fencing). But it's completely wrong to say modern fencing has lost its way, modern fencing has become its own thing, outside of traditional duels. It's literally a sport, it has its own set of modernised rules, and is essentially a game of sword tag instead of actually trying to inflict damage.
Modern fencing is very official, they are in the Olympics, they have far more opportunities than hema. But yet there's just a very small amount of people in fencing who obviously feel threatened when hearing that what they do is mostly a sport, it's not supposed to be an insult. Although unfortunately this leads to a lot of aggression between the communities.
Now onto what's said about hema, there's a long list here. I've heard that it's a fake martial art, that people in it are delusional. I've also heard that it's unprofessional, unregulated, terrible at teaching anything, and has no transferable skills to fencing. These are obviously all untrue, and are insults created out of immensely small apsects of hema which anger induced people have used against the hema community. It's true you get the people that just want to roleplay and mess around, but they aren't true Hema members, just as some guy who dressed up like a fencer and claimed to be one even though they've never done fencing in their life, isn't a true fencer, but a fraud. Simply putting on a costume and holding the weapon doesn't make you either a Hemaist or Fencer, it's about the skill, and whether you are actually a faithful representation of the sports/ martial arts description.
Now I'm a person who has never done either Hema or Fencing, but I'm currently deciding which one to do. I've been reading opinions, all I've found is endless pages of people attacking each other. My entire argument is based off both sides of the arguments I've read. I don't understand why there's so much beef between Fencers and Hemaists, and why Hemaists are so disrespected. There are times where Hemaists truly insult Fencing, that's wrong, and the fact that Hemaists are often disrespected more doesn't make them being disrespectful right.
Now in conclusion, who exactly is the problem here? People like @madeline6815, who can't shut their mouth and only put more wood onto the fire. What madel said has some truth, but is mostly wrong. Modern fencing simply isn't real dueling, and is more of a sport, but a very awesome sport with a lot of benefits. Many skills learnt from fencing are very much transferable into a more realistic duel though, this is what makes modern fencing still nudge on the martial arts side of things. Fencing has of course evolved out of old techniques, but Madel? Guess what organisation still practices those old fencing techniques? Hema. Also about the athleticism, the constant association to only fencing and not hema is simply wrong. Athleticism is important for both fencing and hema, hema practices military style dueling, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that if you want to be the best at hema, you must be fit. You can be unfit and do both fencing and hema, will you be good or decent? Perhaps, but less likely. Will you be the best? No, never.
Some advice for @neurofiedyamato8763, is that you should work towards ignoring these people on the internet, as they have no clue what they're talking about. I know politics quite well, I've been involved in it as well, and I know what it's like when two professional groups clash. I also am training in aviation, which is a very competitive and professional environment where pilots and other airlines can have quite heated clashes. It's all the same as having two opposing political parties, they're always going to have something negative to say about each other when you view them as an entire group. But in the real world, when you're off the internet, if you speak to these people in person, they have so much in common even though they have different ideas, and different means of doing things. And often they are nowhere near as aggressive to each other as the internet portrays. But this is nowhere near as mentally complicated as aviation structures or politics, which is why, as a new person to interacting with these online communities, it is quite shameful to see. Modern Fencers and Hema should be able to get along and respect each other perfectly, there is no reason for opposition, there is no reason for them to recognise each other as unofficial. It's honestly sad to see, but this type of aggression can be found in most online groups sadly.
I just want to state CLEARLY that Modern Fencing can be seen as an official martial art, just as Hema can be seen as an official sport. Although it's basic fact that modern fencing is more of a sport and less of a martial art, while Hema is more of a martial art than a sport. No one be offended by this, it's honestly just the unbiased truth, personally looking at it through a lens which hasn't been poisoned by bias from being either a fencer or hemaist.
Anyways good day, and please if there's anything wrong here, prove me wrong. As I'm only beginning my journey into these communities.
You're right.
Except HEMA nerds are out of shape wannabe martial artists who make the sport look bad.
How about yall get your blue belt in BJJ and your yellow belt in Judo, ect, before yall start pretending like you're one of us.
Not you in particular, I know there are some badasses in Hema.
Excellent points. Thoughtful explanation.
I'm reminded of the saying "there's no such thing as Canadian geometry." All martial arts are going to have common techniques even when they share no lineage at all because they're all working from the same baseline human anatomy. Its very hard to balance academic (learn by documentation), instructional (learn by observing), and experimental (learn by playing) martial arts and very few people have the mindset to go beyond their preferred mode. But when you do, you can really start to see continuity between styles regardless of time, culture, or geography.
"there is no canadian geometry".....never heard it explained that way.
yup, that's how two people made calculus simultaneously newton and leibniz
I think one of the biggest problems with HEMA is accessibility. By making it all about the manuals, it has become rigid. Also, the equipment cost is insane, so I started to mess around boffers. It made it more accessible for the average person. Trust me when I say one of the HEMA organizations, I was part of didn't like what I was doing. They acted like it was a sin.
The solution is just dressing with heavy coats and bike helmets and use sticks as swords! Budget friendly!
I got flack for *borrowing* equipment on one HEMA group on FB. That experience made me choose the SCA over them even though I’d gone on there to vent about my frustrations with the SCA. At least the SCA supported me trying to get into things instead of just telling me to buy a bunch of HEMA specific stuff or F off.
Also, it feels like in my neck of the woods, the interest in HEMA is mainly in the longsword. And for people with “historical” in the name, they sure do dress like modern fencers...
@@Redshirt214 More maces in hema! Put the "martial" in the arts
@@ciaosonoAlbertoG Unfortunately, maces that move as historical maces are not able to be made as safely as historical swords.
Much of the danger of swords comes from the bifurcating edge and not from the energy of the impact. If you dull the blade properly, there is not a lot of energy to cause physical damage.
The same is not true of bludgeons, which generally operate through transfering energy. To make it safe, you would have to make it so much lighter than the historical weapons that it no longer handles like the weapons they are intended to simulate.
While part of the matter is that swords are that much more popular, it is also that they are much easier to safely simulate than most other historical weapons. We see little proper greatsword simulation, either, since at their speed and size, they are generally too dangerous to spar with outside of restrained use in fairly skilled hands.
Let me guess, lots of derogatory comments about "LARPers" the moment you mentioned boffers
I think as the art matures, most of this will go away. You have to keep in mind that most of the things taught in HEMA are less than 50 years old. And because it’s a revival rather than a continuation (as most other arts are) care has to be taken to establish the actual practice of these arts to learn how they were actually done and to escape the Hollywood versions of sword fight that most people have. Once the rules of competition are finalized so that they allow for things that were the goals of traditional EMA to be practiced safely and with integrity, it will develop much like other arts did.
Although I find the emphasis on getting the respect of other martial arts to be an odd way of judging things. Most martial arts are fairly obscure outside of MMA, kickboxing, Japanese and Korean unarmed arts, and modern sport fencing. There are problems with too much popularity as well, because once an art becomes mainstream, it tends to lose quality control (although full contact hard sparring tends to slow this) becoming basically glorified dancing and trick kicking. I would much rather HEMA longsword remain obscure than to have it be sloppily taught in every strip mall in America. That’s what happened to Tae Keon Do and Karate and Kenpo. They’re no longer fighting arts, they’re generally gym classes for kids, and a way for instructors to make money pretending to teach self defense to people who don’t know better.
me too, I don't understand why we would want HEMA to be "popular" - I think it's cool that it could all die out now, and in 100 years someone will look at an old manual again and revive it all over again.
@@TrueFork what i want is not that HEMA become mainstream, but what i want is that hema become enough popular so we can have hema clubs everywhere instead only in few places
there are no hema club in my town because it's barely know
I think a lot of the issues for TKD and Karate have to do with their sparring. The big issue being that it’s entirely possible to become a “master” in those arts without absolutely having to win a hard sparring tournament. Add in the belt system where you make money on promotions between ranks and there’s a very strong incentive to simply pass the kids to make money as well as creating more and more ranks to have more promotions (the first belt system from Judo had four belts- white, brown, red, and black. The modern MA scenes can have not only 7-8 ranks, but sometimes even half ranks between those ranks. So you end up having 25-30 belts each, with little quality control).
The end of the line is a system where you never really have to test properly, and never have to learn the techniques well. If I cannot actually punch you hard enough to make it hurt, it doesn’t matter.
What's ironic, is that I've found more HEMA practitioners far more skilled and practical in their art than many of the traditionalist eastern martial artists out there.
Maybe I just haven't encountered the types some people are mentioning, who are not focused on the practice as a real living martial art for practicality and objective testing/refinement. The HEMA I've seen was always very grounded in the cold reality of fighting.
A great group I've come across who focus on Fiore's work, are the Exiles, who treat the art as a 'real' living martial art tradition, and to be something drilled, trained and practical in real world function ,even in some modern day scenarios. They believe in actually attaining a high level of competence with a training outlook the same as that of modern sports athletes, bringing the authentic historical art to real world functionality for today.
Oh you should hear what I think of traditional martial arts! 🤣
@@EnglishMartialArts I know well, haha.
@@EnglishMartialArts In your opinion how many HEMA people are truly Practicing the old European combat stuff they think they are? Seems to me that those actually doing the fighting would want their stuff to actually work.
@@tritchie6272 How would we know what the actual old European fighting stuff actually was?
@@btf_flotsam478and why would it matter?
The club I was part off, was filled with people doing Judo, BJJ and the likes. At the end of training session, you usually had the drill guys go drill on one side, the fighters do sparing in the middle and the book squad go debate or read together on the other side.
Some like me, moved between all 3 groups.
Also, note that a lot of HEMA we could directly relate to other martial arts. I have seen literally Judo throw in those manuscripts. No one ever complained about the other using BJJ when a longsword fight got to grappling, instead they asked how to defend against it or do it themselves. The club literally selected a guy to show the beginners how to move around, because he was great at Judo and that translated best to longsword, for the footwork.
Note the the first time I joined that club, there was 4 of us, the last time I went, there was 30 and I had been limited by the number of people we could fit in the room. That is in a mere 5-6 years. I have not been there in 2 years, it might be twice as big or small agi, for all I know.
Striking similarity between Judo and European throws and arm locks is probably due striking similarity between Japanese and European bodies.😁
I think that nobody respects HEMA is because of three reasons.
1. Most people don't really know what it is. They think it's JUST sword fighting, or even worse, it's just D&D LARPing. They don't understand that it includes all forms of combat including hand to hand and grappling.
2. For whatever reason, the most common practitioners of HEMA are middle aged fat geeks and D&D nerds.
3. There are a lot of practitioners of HEMA who simply are not the "experts" they claim to be. I once saw an episode of "Somebodies Got To Do It" with Mike Rowe. He visited a HEMA gym and the owner told Mike, on national TV, that medieval swords were only as sharp as butter knives.
I've studied weaponry, martial arts and combat from all over the world for 41 years... and the one thing I've learnt is, if a combat system has rules, its probably not a combat system.
Hema is about what it might be and could very easily not be. Some people act like its the be all... the only way, a combat above all others.
But every combat system has rules. Perhaps not in their theoretical "Real world situation" which a person maybe will encounter once in their life. but if a combat art has any form of competition/sparring/pressure testing, then there are rules to participate in that. If those rules didn't exist, then no-one would ever compete/spar/pressure test and THEN I can guarantee that it's not a combat system. It's just bullshit. So, when you think about it. it's kind of the opposite. A combat system WITHOUT rules cannot be a combat system, because it can never be anything but theoretical.
Any systematised way of fighting has to rely on ingratiated automatic reaction to remain effective in the face of rapid unexpected danger. Since time immemorium the most important element of any military training has always been basic drills, and it is no different even witht he technological context evolving from bronze shields and slings to automatic rifles and reconnaisence drones. The "rules" of a combat system are nothing more than a list of the drills it uses to teach the required automatic reactions. As HEMA is meant to be a reenactment style, its objective is to recreate the styles of european fencing before it became all epée and cavalry saber. These drills may not be the most effective of all time, or even the most effective possible with the tools they were used with, but that has never been the objective of HEMA? at least how I see it.
@@egoalter1276 It really depends on what camp you're in. In my experience there are a number of separate objectives in HEMA. First there are the scholars who want to recreate the art of the old master exactly as it was in it's historical context. Then there are the Martial Artists who want to learn everything they can from the treatises and then blend that with their own understanding and martial efficacy to not only learn the art but advance it. And then there are the tournament fighters who want to optimize their style for winning tournaments. There is a place for all of these and more. Some people even fall into more than one camp. Personally I prefer the martial artists approach. Which, I might add is actually historically accurate. When Joachim Meyer wrote "The Art of Combat" he didn't just write down what he had been taught. He took his education in the sword from those who came before and added onto it everything that he had learned in his life and his fighting and his education and his experience to expand on what he had been taught and pass it along. There are many in HEMA today that follow this example.
As someone who switched from traditional Japanese martial arts, to modern combat sports and find myself interested in HEMA more as I get older, I understand the dynamic you describe very acutely and it makes me sad that this is the general state. I know how stunted these things can become when that distrust is present (my eyes were opened up by a 6 month white belt in BJJ after training JMA for most of my life at 24 years old).
There's nothing more humbling than having your face ground into the floor by a supposed beginner...
@@EnglishMartialArts lol right! 😂
That first class was quite the experience for me. Glad I decided to do it on a whim though. I was already a black belt in a style of Ninpo my dad helped create here (a hybrid Ninpo + Street self defense)
@@kovenmaitreya7184jujutsu is a traditional martial art. Bjj is jujutsu . Nothing about that art is Brazilian
So you left Japanese martial arts because a BJJ white belt beat you? If that's the case then the issue was you and your understanding of the martial art, not the martial art itself. The fact that one's failure to make a fighting style work isn't the fault of the style but rather the student is known by talented and wise martial artists. People say that BJJ is the best martial art period and make it sound like even someone with trisomy 21 (not taking my chances with TH-cam censorship) could handle themselves against anyone if they train BJJ. However, the Gracies have reviewed videos of BJJ losing on the street. So what happened to BJJ being the best? MMA, BJJ, Muay Thai etc. fans will argue against the reality even when presented to them. Look in various martial arts forums, channels etc. and you'll see what I mean. Hell you could even google it specifically. You tell someone you defended yourself using BJJ, people would believe you, tell them you defended yourself using freakin' ninjutsu or Bagua and they'll say you're full of it. It's a cult of sorts if you think about it. Anyways, going forward take Bruce Lee's advice into practice: Disregard what is useless, take what is useful. The full quote is as follows: "Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless and add what is specifically your own". I'm a 1st Dan in TaeKwonDo, not Olympic TKD, but, what I call, real TKD, traditional TKD. I don't use any of the fancy high kicks (but front kick, axe kick, and the crescent kicks I'm comfortable with) because they don't suit me, my most powerful and devastating kicks are low and mid kicks like basic roundhouse, back-kick, sidekick etc. I prefer to stay rooted and staying rooted gives those kicks a lot of power. Does that make me any less of a TKD practitioner? No. I currently do Ninjutsu under To-Shin Do, does me leaving out some techniques in favor of others make me any less of a Ninjutsu practitioner? No. There's also the possibility of that certain Japanese martial art you did was not suitable for you, and that's fine. Like, you may not be good at Daito-Ryu but yet you're fantastic at Sambo. And there would be a reason as to why.
@@adandyguyinspace5783 Nothing "happened" to BJJ being the best. It still is, when everything is taken into account.
No system is perfect, but BJJ (the original Vale Tudo style) still has the best track record.
I had the same experience with traditional martial arts moving into combat sports, spent 8 years learning Tae Kwon Do, Karate, Wing Chun. Got curious about MMA and joined a gym, and found that everything I had learnt was broken apart by any Muay Thai fighter and made me look like child swatting at flies, at that point I could never go back to traditional martial arts and had to get over the mental challenge of starting the journey all over again, and I'm so glad I did, have now trained in Mauy Thai, BJJ, Boxing and Wrestling
Nice to hear from someone whose journey echoes mine!
Honestly, same. I was in European Middle Ages weaponry and history for a long time. But I started TKD about 4 years ago (I’m a black belt now), and I’m considering starting HEMA. But my school (martial arts school, not educational to make sure there’s no confusion) did offer Brazilian jui jitsu, so I took those classes in tandem with the TKD ones when I could. I definitely preferred the jui jitsu over the TKD.
I have been studying what became HEMA since the late 80s- at first it was just to make our reenactment fighting look better. But I have always done various other martial arts/combat sports I trained with Terry Brown decades ago and I even jousted. Over the years the overriding issue has been the massive distance between the drilled/practiced techniques and the competitive sparring bouts. In some cases the sparring looks like a pale version but in most cases they have virtually nothing in common. They also have absolutely nothing that resembles how people move when real violence and consequences are on the line. I cannot tell you how many times I have watched groups reproduce historical techniques and practice the moves over and over only to see this silly "tippy tappy" awkward footwork unconvincing sparring or competition fighting/fencing. One issue is probably the rules/scoring system. Practicing techniques designed for real violence and then trying to make a touch, point score competitive sport of it is like the difference between a modern sports karate tourney and a Mua Thai bout. I know I am being very general but in general terms it's what I have seen. I think you are 100% correct that doing other existing martial arts can only make your HEMA better.
I agree, especially about the difference between sparring and what we see in the manuals. A match is a match where you want to win, not a life or death encounter where you want to survive/kill. With weapons even more than unarmed it completely changes the mental landscape of the bout, which then of course changes the physical one. It's almost impossible to simulate the feeling of naked steel being pointed at you with ill intent. (Been there, felt that.) I think HEMA would do well to look at some of the old school Kôryû practices here - do two person kata like sets at full power but with a little bit of distance added to prevent death. Then again, the schools where these still rather dangerous practice methods can be found are quite martial and athletic, something the modern HEMA movement is still lacking. I've trained HEMA on and off since the late 90s, and the development of advanced modern protective gear and the shift towards point tournaments have not been good for the art overall in my opinion.
@@rangda_prime - You are right - it does start to move in to an old conflict in HEMA between the more academic folks and the more martial/physical side. They need to look to each other rather than being in conflict. It needs the research of the academic side AND it needs the visceral physical skills of the experienced martial artists. I do think taking a good hard look at competition rules and what counts as a "blow" can make a huge difference though.
Absolutely!
@@deanmaynard8256
As a Muay Thai fighter who wants to get into HEMA, do you think it would be acceptable if I brought over certain techniques like the front kick, trips, or clinch knees to HEMA? Would I get a bad reaction if I did?
@@anon2427 That would so totally depend d on the club you join I can't answer that - my guess is no but there are HEMA equivalents to all of those.
When people join my HEMA Club I always recommend they take one of the 4 Pillar MMA classes (Boxing/Muay Thai/Jiu Jitsu/Wrestling) on the side to supplement their fencing- especially the grappling ones. A "sword fight" still has the word "fight" in it. The more we interact with the mainstream martial arts community the better.
If a HEMA practitioner has a blue belt or higher in BJJ, he's just immediately more legitimate in my eyes.
Nice idea!
I've fenced for 17 years, various styles, but one year of Muay Thai has unlocked footwork/movement modalities in my brain that no other sword art has. It's been great.
@@paulconrad6220 exactly
What modern martial arts are really useful for is teaching fundamentals which is something that can't be taught very well through source material (especially pre-renaissance when fencing culture was more exclusive)
Been doing martial arts for 20+ years, but only got a couple of months in HEMA. My perspective on this was people getting into HEMA don't want to learn how to actually fight, they get into it to swing a sword for a couple of hours a week and have some a bit of relaxed fun, in short its treated as a game/hobby.
If something detracts from that, like someone winning because "they're not following the rules of your system and are just fighting" it takes away from that. They don't want to learn to adapt or become better fighters, just have a casual swing of a sword and feel good about themselves.
Despite being rubbish at actually sword fighting, when it came down to scenario training/sparring, I was able to put up a good fight against most of the people there based not on my skill with a sword, but because unlike most of them I could actually fight, at least well enough for a HEMA class.
Sadly I don't think you're alone in that experience.
Being a little athletic and willing to commit violence against another human puts above 50% of people in a fight. Actually understanding body mechanics and being able to apply that puts above about 80% of people.
Adding a sword to that doesn't really change the equation.
I’m not a HEMA practitioner myself, but I’ve been interested in it and following it for a while now. I really appreciate your perspective in this video, as it mirrors realizations that I have come to in my own experience. Truth is discovered through experience, and experience comes through action. Tradition gives us a framework for effective action, but we need to eventually progress beyond that framework in order to continue to become more effective. But progress beyond traditions in no way invalidates nor dishonors that which was done by those who came before.
HEMA quickly turned into what 80s Kung Fu was. It doesn't focus on function, it doesn't even focus on form, it focuses on an artificial "purity" based on interpretation of a holy word from people whose actual prowess is unknown. It's more along the lines of Tai Chi than it is functional fighting.
In some ways you are very right.
@@EnglishMartialArts I say it with a heavy heart and a lot of experience, and nothing but love for the people who enjoy it. I think it comes down to the identity crisis HEMA has always had. It doesn't know if it wants to be a martial art or a reenactment. It's way too rigid and book focused and suffocates its practicality because of it.
Yeah. Tai chi evolved from a military martial art to an exercise system. A very good exercise system, mind you... But the best Tai chi practitioners I know (with actual knowledge of it's practical use) just either teach it only to family or close associates or else primarily train in one or more other martial arts.
Tot much into the manuscripts,at least that was the impression I got,when I gave Hema a try.
Yeah sure grandpa living deep in the jungles of china only teaches true form of tai chi to the select few chosen people on this planet, only those with a pure mind and soul and clean white teeth 😂😂😂😂 Lol why do all you tma advocates sound the same 😂😂😂😂 @@niccosalonga9009
Good One Oz! I started in sports fencing, even becoming a coach, but always wanted to do hema, way before it had a name. I was part of the proto-SCA here in Australia, and remember the first fighter training I went to being told how to use the sword and shield (according to their ideas at the time, which changed when greater access to original sources came with the internet). Needless to say my fencing training and experience were far more useful than the minimal period sources we had back then, and they were quite put-out that I kept hitting them in ways they didn't expect. Mind you, I also started using the back-edge cuts that the SCA calls 'wraps' in sabre competitions, and a number of my opponents got quite upset that I was hitting them in ways they didn't expect 😆, so turns and roundabouts.
I never felt disrespected from other martial artists in my area... actually, they mostly don't even know that HEMA exist 🤷♂
I just remember the local Kendo/Japanese Jujutsu sensi rocking up at the local SCA Armoured Combat club and owning everybody, his knowledge from those two arts helped him greatly with that style of combat, although watching him throwing people in armour was awesome. I do prefer the SCA stuff to HEMA because it does feel more instinctive than some HEMA clubs.
I'm sure it was fun. Mind you, having a grappler throw around people whose combat sport *includes no grappling* isn't super-impressive. 😉 Though I 'm sure it opened their eyes to the wider world of fighting arts. 😃
@@mikeprendergast8946 m-1 medieval rules does(or did) include some grappling/clinch fighting, the guy im talking about he's polish but now lives in Oxford, I'm guessing it's what he was used to before he moved to the uk and in the red mist of combat auto pilot took over.
Hello. Could you please share his name? I'd like to see if he has anything on TH-cam.
@@jackreacher4488 He doesn't yet but as he's here in the uk doing his PhD in military history I really really want to do a collaborative project with him for youtube.
@@lewisb85 Ok, please keep me posted. Is there anything online I can read about him, maybe Instagram?
I legit got an ad after you said "I am sponsored by "Scientific Wrestling"
This is honest, brutal and BRILLIANT. Well done Oz.
Thanks buddy!
Yeah, lots of traditionalists today complain about non-classical techniques that work. The Irony of it all, is that back in the time when the sword was really used to kill your opponents, your opponents didn't get to complain when an unusual technique worked.
I was in the Society for Creative Anachronism back in the 90s and did a lot of fighting with rattan weapons, mostly sword and shield or two swords. We wore full armor and used the rattan weapons so we got bruises but not maimed. I’ve since done sparring with training weapons and such along with my martial arts and the tactics I used in the SCA work just fine without unnecessary flourish.
I did heavy quite a bit later, but I still found this to be true in the SCA. There is a huge culture of historical study, but most of how the fighters there actually fight comes from direct personal experience fighting others and training under those even more experienced. It's fun to do because they take what applies historically, which often does help, while retaining the sport element of it and allowing the meta to evolve on its own. I've found what I've learned in the SCA over the years has generally applied to other martial arts styles I've done since, especially what you can learn about footwork and body mechanics.
"Unless you´re Bob Brooks..." 🙂 made my day hahahahaha
On the general topic, yes, you got a good point about HEMA in general. Though there are some factors, which make the difference. If you have an extensive background in another solid martial art or combat sport, then you have a much better start into HEMA than coming from nothing (or nearly nothing like the occasional 2 years of Judo as a kid or a highschool fencing course or something). Of course, not everyone has that and just came into HEMA like a newborn.
A good way to overcome this (and this is also true for people who have said solid background in another form of combat) is to keep your mind open and check out and exchange with as much martial artists and fighters as you can, and by that I mean first and foremost all outside of HEMA. This has the positive side-effect, that you also get in contact and help to show people HEMA and they will start to respect you.
I am saying this from my own 25+ years of martial arts experience and journey as a fighter, being a Kendoka for 10 years (tournaments, dan-graduation and all), exchanging and training with all sorts of combat forms, modern or traditional, from Escrima to Combatives, from Grappling to Boxing, from Koryu to Krav Maga, from Italian Knife to Maori Mau Rakau.
One of the biggest problems in HEMA in general is, that some are nerdy about the historical stuff only. I am nerdy about all things that have to do with fighting and martial arts, that helps me to understand my nerdy love for the historical stuff.
Just my two Pints of Beer.
I want to argue with that on a few levels but I wouldn't know where to start.
Thing is it can be hard to separate out what goes into things.
Let's use this as an example. I've heard it and I've seen it happen, people coming in from a dancing background. They have the same kinethetic sense of their own body that more practised martial artists have and that gives them an advantage. They already know how to move their body, a strong sense of timing.
Is that an advantage with no technique? Well, yeah it is.
I think HEMA's strength is that same 'weakness' that we're making it up on some level. We find the stuff that doesn't work and then we try things out. We learn about the context of the time and we try things that we feel fit in there. We research, argue in the academic sense. We try to work out what it really means. Even in other languages.
We're in fact working in the same way they did back then, they trained, they learned, they tried things out and built their own set of tools. They've built up schools around collections of techniques they found worked for them. They just made it more formal and wrote stuff down.
I need to get back to training, but the historical side of it, that keeps me interested. Maybe that's the real strength of HEMA, it's not one thing and can't be one thing. It's a mix, balance and the stuff you want from it can change, but the interest doesn't.
I'd also add, it's not on us to be taken seriously. If we're doing it, learning, trying new things and finding new sources, that's what we're doing. If we're still learning about the sources, then that's doing it 'right', whatever that really looks like.
If other people don't want to take us seriously, that's on them. Just because it's not modern, not for the street, not valid because no-one carries a sword? That's on them. If they want to be even more an arsehole about it? See previously.
I've been reading a lot of the comments here, and I've only been in HEMA for two years. This seems to read closest to what I'm getting as a consensus. There is the contradiction, and in that, we find our identity. A lot of HEMAists, myself included, lack athleticism, and I think that's actually part of what makes the activity so enjoyable. Someone unathletic like me can take on strong opponents with proper application of technique, and I think that's amazing.
What are we trying to accomplish, really? Are we competition fighters? Are we historical reenactors? I think the answer is be however much of either that you want to be. Federico Malagutti did a very good video recently on strict vs loose interpretations of HEMA, and his conclusion was more or less that both approaches complement each other. If you want to be experimental and modern, you should still learn the source material as a tool to help you. If you want to be strict, you should use the experimental approach to sanity check your findings.
I'll concede that HEMA might not have enough emphasis on fitness and hard physical training. That might be where the discrepancy lies.
HEMA in my opinion should best be described as experimental archaeology for martial arts. The goal is to replicate and apply sword techniques as if it was real combat. Not sport as is modern fencing with a bunch of rules that would not exist in live combat. But it also means its not meant to be adapted to the modern self-defense scenarios where you wouldn't carry a sword and assailants potentially having firearms. It is meant for a world long gone but recreated for an academic purpose. The lack of rules mean it won't be looked favorably by those into sports because its not fair or competitive. While the modern martial artists community think HEMA is impractical or stuck in their ways. So yea, you're right, its on them if they don't want to take HEMA seriously, no one asked them to. Its history and experimental archaeology aspect is why so many nerdy non-athletic types are attracted to it.
I'm an mma fighter and I love HEMA! Where I'm from it is quite popular and people absolutely love to see folks going at it with swords and different styles. It's truly an expensive sport but damn it's beautiful and the guys are really nice too! If you can't afford something, they will share it. I guess I'm just lucky
I think I must have found the golden ticket of HEMA clubs, because not only do we accept people from other martial arts, we absolutely love it when they come in. A plurality of our membership has at least one other martial arts background, be it kung-fu, kendo, judo, wrestling, modern fencing, anything you can think of. The result is we have a ton of people who fight and fence entirely differently to one another, which keeps the sparring interesting and demands that you practice skills and techniques that you otherwise might not normally be comfortable or see the point in practicing, simply because of the variety of styles we have to deal with. Club leadership fully promotes cross-training, and I took up MMA this past year not only because I wanted to get better at unarmed martial arts, but also because, as you said in the video, it will make me a better HEMA practitioner, which it has.
Anyways great video. I can say for sure that our club would be over the moon if you came in and taught grappling like you talked about at the end, but we're across the pond, so we'll probably have to content ourselves with enjoying your content from afar.
Don't rule it out, I've been over to teach a few times. We may be able to sort something. Drop me an email!
Started MY martial Journey on HEMA. I must admit that our little clubs sparring was almost More buhurt than actual HEMA so it kinda made it easy to transfer to MMA. But as you said and I would agree that MMA has made me better In HEMA. NOT to mention it has made it possible for us to widen our scope to HEMAs unarmed side, abrazare In our case. And yes, I used to have SAME argumentti with ONE if our leasing members about combat sport and HEMA.
Lowkey reminds me of when I joined my first Hema classes for like two weeks. I was expecting sparring and drilling but instead I got a bunch of nerds telling me that it’s “not like the movie 🤓” as if I didn’t know that, and mocked me for my actual field of study. At the time too I was debating if I wanted to do muay thai so I was taking both. The MMA gym was way more welcoming and had the intensity of training I was looking for. I didn’t felt like I was being talked down to and felt like I was really learning how to fight. Obviously I chosed the MMA gym cuz why would I want to train with people with heads so far up their own asses that don’t apply their theory to the real world.
Sorry to hear that.
@@EnglishMartialArts it’s all good, I’m with the MMA gym now and they treat me waaaay better.
Sounds like you found a very crappy hema club. Good clubs are all about sparring and cardio and learning actually working techniques
@@syys5640 that’s exactly what I was looking for man, luckily that’s what I found with the MMA gym and dam my fighting skills skyrocketed since I’ve joined said gym.
Yay you're back!!!! You should write a book compiling all the wrestling and pudgism you've learnt together to keep it alive and in a more acceptable manner
I've long thought about that, it's a hell of a lot of work, but I'm certainly not ruling it out.
@@EnglishMartialArts if you're worried about the historic community not responding your historian credentials because you've actually spent time learning how to fight, then I suspect that you could turn round and make a encyclopedic book off the top of your head which would still be of historical significance in its own right.
It almost feels like it would be a shame if you didn't, considering how much of your life you've dedicated to keeping them alive and reviving them, to not create a written legacy as well. Juuuuuust sayin
I teach HEMA at Oklahoma State University, and I have a degree in tech writing. If you ever decide to and need an editor, let me know!@@EnglishMartialArts
@@EnglishMartialArtsYou may take a lot of my money sir
@@EnglishMartialArtswrite the book. Get assistance if you need it. Stuff like this is extremely important to preserve.
An interesting take on the situation. I haven't noticed much in the way of "lack of respect" for HEMA as a martial art, even among more traditional martial artists. Of course, this is only my own personal experience but every time I've spoken with someone that does other martial arts, they mostly just don't know about us. What's more, when I tell them, they're often intrigued and want to know more. So far, we've had a kickboxer, a veteran kung fu instructor and a long time Kyokushin practitioner join us and are some of our most dedicated members. At the same time though, I can't claim to be pure HEMA as I practiced modern fencing for several years as well as practicing a number of other martial arts before getting into Historical Fencing.
I think HEMA is at least somewhat respected. I watch both HEMA videos and Asian MA videos, and the videos that get the most trolls in the comments are the Asian ones. I doesn't even seem to matter if it's a Tai Chi for health video. There will be a troll there telling them that it sucks and to get in the ring. I don't see that in the HEMA video comments. Maybe a little, but not as much.
@@ambulocetusnatans Right, I see a lot of that as well. I think because MMA practitioners feel very confident in their ability to overcome traditional martial arts simply by virtue of the video evidence available on TH-cam. MMA has come to dominate modern martial arts because it has incorporated almost all of the useful items from other martial arts and married them together. However, you can't say that with regards to weapons and weapons make a HUGE difference. The best boxer in the world is at a disadvantage to Joe Schmoe with a machete. I feel like even people who do MMA recognize that they're not likely to beat a swordsman unarmed.
@@resolvedinsteel Yeah, that's true, but I'll go one step further. I have seen the same type of troll on Asian weapon videos.
I've seen more than one commenter saying how practicing with Chinese weapons or Japanese swords is stupid and useless, and I don't see very much of that on HEMA videos. I suspect that some of them are slightly motivated by a touch of racism.
That may be true, though I suspect it's likely the sample size. Every now and then I'll run into someone that has heard of HEMA, which is way more than I used to. But, HEMA is not nearly a household name yet. Almost everyone has heard of Taekwondo, Karate, tai chi etc... even if they don't know anything about them. Not only that but they come up in searches for other things such as movies and in actor's bio's so even people searching for something else are likely to find videos about them. HEMA not so much. Not yet >: D
@@ambulocetusnatans I supect that comes from people who haven't figured out that you can use sword techniques with a stick or knife techniques with just about any solid object roughly the size of one.
they've just assumed train with sword and knife has no application without the exact tool.
This hits close to home, I and several other of the younger (so like mid thirties) fighters at my club are butting up against the attitude that anything that wasn't in our clubs lesson plan drawn up ten years ago is 'sport fencing' and for 'HEMA-tards' who care more about winning then 'proper martial technique.' Bring in anything that reeks of learned through competition or collaboration with other tournament fighters and who-boy is there drama to be had.
I don't get it, if any martial art is to be valid then a D1 basketball level athlete should be able to rock up to a club and be dominating within a year or two, if athleticism is not rewarded in an art then how could it ever be valid?
I tried HEMA for a little while. We were doing sparring with daggers. We wore full pads including padded gloves (I think they were for hockey or lacrosse). My opponent stuck out his knife hand and I slammed it with my dagger. They said it didn't count because I didn't strike a vital area. I explained that in a real fight like that, I would have slashed his wrist, maybe broken a bone, and while he was trying to hold onto his knife, I could stab whatever vital area I wanted. They argued that what I was doing wasn't in some manual and to not do it again. I never went back.
Sounds like whatever place you were at sucked?
I guess I have been really lucky as all of the HEMA people I have met have all been very kind and willing to help and teach or even learn something that they haven’t seen but still works my experiences have been overwhelmingly positive in the HEMA Community so far
Taira Shinken largely did the same thing with Okinawian Kobudo nearly 100 years ago. Very little of any original style was left & what he did find had been passed on under oral tradition.
Perfect that you are seeing what actually works & what doesn't. I study Ryukyu Kobudo Shimbukan under Hiroshi Akamine Sensei & we do the same thing with Bo vs Bo & against other weapons of the style.
Some issues, what is the persons goal? If its to fight like a Victoria era gentleman, ok. Read all that stuff and train like that. If its to be effective, then you have to train on the efficiency curve where the manuscripts mean less.
Going with that idea, John Danaher had a great video awhile ago about needing to train with a MA that has a sport component. The basic idea is that it forces you to know not just basic moves to that MA, but the fundaments to make them effective. This will transcend any specific MA. It will force one to be so effective that you can compete against someone else.
As you train along those lines the older manuscripts will show one the variants that you can play with. ALL MA are based on things like kinesiology, physics, physiology, body mechanics. The martial science will transcend the martial art.
Pretty well said, I'd say. My goal is to get more and more people wrestling in the scene in my area. There's some hesitation to wrestling amongst HEMA folk despite it being very clearly in just about all the sources and usually talked about as a fundamental. I know I can't stand up to any good wrestler but I do face current BJJ practitioners and folks who used to wrestle and usually do alright, so I think I must be doing something alright with the way I'm interpreting and teaching it. Well, hopefully! FIGHT TEAM!
FIGHT TEEEEEEEEAM!!!
We should consider teaming up for a Noble Science North America event of all unarmed HEMA? I did one pre-COVID. Then COVID happened. And Oz, you'd like the Corrugated Cavalier.
For wrestling and throwing you need mats and to drill people how to fall safely. No safety gear can protect you from bad fall and that can wreck shoulder or knee. Just like armlocks needs safety. Even some disarming techniques can hurt badly if done without stopping on time.
I explain it in the following way- most of us divide into Ramirez (competent teacher, OK fencer) or Kurgan (competent fighter, OK researcher); what we lack is a McLeod (competent fighter, competent researcher) cos having the resources to do both are rare, let alone finding enjoyment in both, cos one detracts from the other (if you’re reading you aint fencing and vice versa), and even less if trying to pass it on to others too (so being Ramirez wins out on average, especially as research is easier done solo and around Real Life ).
Pondered how to resolve this for about 15 years and still haven’t an answer.
That’s before the fact that Kurgans were generally the sort of people that discouraged most of the people that my classes appeal to as they were the competent, socially adapted “popular kids” at school who could catch a ball and tell their @rse from their elbow.
They were also the gatekeepers for sport cos they won medals, which is what most fencing and boxing clubs are after as that’s what attracts funding. If you couldn’t do that then clubs generally had no interest in you other than as a cashcow to buy kit for the first team or sell tickets to exhibition nights.
If you do find an answer let me know!
I was heavy into freeform sparring before HEMA. Then did real proper organized HEMA for many years. HEMA made me a substantially better fighter going back to my old freeform sparring friends, which included great boxers. But people who only did HEMA never really developed as fighters, even though we did drills and sparring. There was some kind of disconnect regarding focus or something. I can confirm that book study and HEMA will teach a person who is already a fighter a lot. You will see things more scientifically and be in conscious control of what used to be instinct, aggression and gambling.
Preferring form (style) over function, that can often be said for many traditional martial arts.
Great vid by the way.
Thanks!
I'm doing hema for 18months now and I never noticed the issue with what you describe. It either has changed enough or people moaning just went into seclusuion. Wessex league tournaments are showing quite a spike in the skill of participants as well. I think it did evolve more and is going better (skillwise).
The only thing I hear about that is controversial is the 'fleche'. That's still on everyones nerves.
I did a couple years of sport fencing before joining a hema club, and it was useful, but not directly.
I was lucky to have some very good training partners there.
Over time though, people move around, and i rarely train with people that fence... Athletically.
For a weekend warrior like myself, i know that training under this weird 'full speed, except for footwork ' mentally is not good, especially as a majority of my training time.
But there aren't enough people, and we're all quite casual. It's one of the reasons the comparisons with hema seem unfair to me, generally sport fencing clubs aren't made up of people who train 2-3 times a month, and don't work out lol.
I think HEMA is better in terms of a realistic sword fight, simply because of the double kill rule and that makes it so much better.
Agree, doingMMA made me better with HEMA and allowed us to start developing our approach to abrazare. Altough I must say that our approach to HEMA was always bit buhurt and also made it easier to step to MMA scene 😂 funny paradox there I guess. I also agree that some HEMA folks are pretty insular and have weird view on combat sport as just sport that has no value for their deadly historical arts.
Yeah, that's definitely silly.
médiéval/renaissance équivalent of "too deadly for the ring"
Just watching scientific wrestling on Instagram has shown me allot, I could only imagine how much the online or in person classes will teach 😁🥋
Ive seen that with scholars of all types they just study and assume they know but if they were to train or be athletic its different story in real life applications. I think thats how McDojos start too
Yes, I agree. In fact the script I'm working on currently agrees too!
As Billy Robinson said, there are no new moves. So the "modern sport" versions of martial arts are still based on fundamental things that worked before. It's just rulesets that change and are adapted to.
Yep, agreed.
My story with martial arts started in some respect with Tang Soo Do for a couple years back in junior high school, this was the early 1980s. It wasn’t until in my 30s that I sighted up with American Kenpo. That instructor explained to me that the style he is reaching is a hybrid of the Japanese art and western foot work and boxing.
Long story short this got me into researching the history of western fighting arts. Before long I found a local HEMA school and sighted up for the next 7 years or so. I absolutely love HEMA & WMA and believe in it as an affective system that when properly taught and understood can hold its own across the world. I also, not always but at times experienced the same thing you mentioned and that is the sort of stuffy learning by numbers, over thinking stagnate approach. At times it would feel like a drawn out discussion group at a library.
The interesting thing is, in retro spect some the wrestling and boxing techniques I learned as a kid from my nearly Victorian age Grandfather and relatives who’s parents and Grandparents migrated from the U.K. and Denmark had an unarmed fighting style not that unlike Pugilism / HEMA, etc. I have also found that sparing with some modern boxers as well as Karate practitioners is that they start off sort off a little baffled and even giggling a bit at the extended arm stance used at times in classic pugilism until they realize what it’s real proposes is for. Of course it all boils down to the experience of the individual in any art. I had an Italian instructor tell us once that he felt some of the American institutions have done a good job of carrying on the WMA traditions. Anyway I’m preaching to one of the masters here, so pardon my rant. I also subscribed and purchased your course back in 2016 or so and my Son’s and I really enjoyed it.
Thank you
All the best
Josh
Just my personal experience, but training with longsword and mostly studying Fiore, I had to stop moving like I'd learned in karate (I did Kenpo, and jinen-ryu, mixed with a bit of TKD). My footwork was killing me in sparring - strangely enough, moving like a striker is not the best way to fight with a longsword. >
One of the reasons Ive been unbelievably happy in finding the HEMA club I found. Yes we want to get that technique right as a foundation. But we also have no issue with other interpretations or something completely new. Of course this can land us with scowls from other hema instructors. But we have always been one to think about applying these techniques in a fairly realistic scenario of fighting. Once I went to a larger seminar with other HEMA clubs, I definitely started seeing that sort of stereotypical ego driven elitism first hand. Some even with the attitude that what I was doing for my sparring wasn't historically valid. It was definitely just a bizarre thing to be around. Its unfortunate HEMA can get this bad rep as I fear it can turn a lot of people off from giving it a shot. But like with anything else there are good clubs and bad clubs.
The most important takeaway though is there is no end all be all martial art. Anyone looking to take HEMA and think that will cover them for real fighting is in for a very rude awakening. But thats the case if you only ever focus on one martial art regardless of what that may be. A martial art is just a tool for your belt.
Probably because the average person doesn't know what it is...
I do remember one of the bigger names in HEMA community recently did a video where he said that when HEMA fencers do a lot of tournaments, they start fencing like, well, modern sports fencers... So instead of thinking maybe modern fencing and HEMA are not as distant as we all pretend they are and the modern fencer fence the way they do for practical reasons, and acknowledging we can maybe all learn from each other (as a largely modern fencer and iaidoka who only dabbles in HEMA I love watching it, and talking about it), he declared HEMA fencers should stop doing tournaments 🤷♂
Can you tell me what video that is?
Honestly I don't trust generalisations like that at all. The tournament scene is so wide and different among countries.
Then again. Only because their perception of historical combat doesn't show in tournaments doesn't mean it's not historical.
And at last. I sometimes fence in the eastern european tournament scene and it's the most athletic and "sporty" scene on the planet.
It's packed to the brim with historical techniques and it's a joy to be part of.
@@nicopetri3533 I'd feel bad giving names 😝
HEMA? You perfectly summarize the dysfunctions of Tai Chi. 😁
The algorithm is a bitch! I thought you were on a break and now I see that I've been missing your last 5-10 videos. Well, I got a large pot of coffee and some time on my hands. Binging time :D
There's a Zen saying, "Before and after enlightenment, chop wood, carry water." I'm sure ancient people fought pretty much the same way they did now. They probably pass down the knowledge in a different manner, or they chop wood or carry water in a manner that is suited to the individual learning. Even today, the techniques or kata is the only thing that the teacher can impart. The rest of it depends on how quickly they can make it work on their own and develop their own style.
THIS IS WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING!!!
It's like people in HEMA resist all attempts to make it an actual living tradition, and insist on keeping it as a niche and nerdy exploration into experimental archeology. Which only serves to make sure that HEMA will always be less than a generation away from extinction. Even I, as a giant nerd, don't feel welcome in HEMA. And if HEMA can manage to drive OGs like Oz away, then there's a big problem.
I'd be interested in your thoughts as to how it could be promoted better!
@EnglishMartialArts I basically already did in my video on HEMA.
If you make it an entertaining combat sport, the art gets bigger. As it gets bigger, you get more "athletes," but you also get more "nerds" interested in doing experimental archeology with you! The goal should be to appeal to a mass audience instead of "keeping the art pure."
There is literally nothing stopping anyone from developing their own system for fighting with blunt swords (some people are already doing just that), but I don't get why you want to take the name HEMA with you if you clearly don't like what we do. I don't like Boxing, but I don't go do something else and call what I'm doing Boxing.
@@SirKanti1 See, this is what I'm talking about. How do you see someone attempting to add a new kind of approach to your art and conclude that they're "taking" the art away from you?
If boxers acted that way they would say, "The guard you're using isn't in Jack Dempsey's book, so you're not even doing boxing! Why are you taking boxing away from us??"
People ABSOLUTELY do different things and call it boxing. And boxers are fine with that! Does modern bare-knuckle boxing ring a bell? Boxing itself has significantly changed over its history! And at no point did nerds try to gatekeep a new innovation out of the sport. They adapted, they changed, and they held new ideas up to scrutiny instead of dismissing anything not done by John L. Sullivan as "not boxing."
And that's why boxing is a worldwide multi-billion dollar industry, while HEMA is somehow less popular than larping.
@@ArmchairViolence You kinda confirm my point, there is a difference between bare knuckle boxing and boxing, so they both have different names. So why can't we have HEMA and say [Insert new name here] fencing. People wanting to learn to hit someone with a stick or someone interested in history and how people long now dead used to fight can both have options, just as boxers still box and bare knuckle boxers now bare knuckle box. It's not Highlander where there can be only one,
you don't need to replace the meaning of the acronym HEMA just come up with a new one. If you or anyone wants to come up with a new style of fencing, then go for it, just don't expect for anyone who enjoys the historical stuff to really care all that much.
Come to think of it, is that why you want to have the name HEMA, to give some sense of credibility to something that just made up?
I've had a few run-ins with HEMA, or HEMA-esque, people and my issue has always been when they've tried to "show me" a technique (big guys make great demonstration dummies I guess). When I easily defeat whatever it is they're doing they say that I'm the one "doing it wrong".
Lol, "like many beginners you attacked me wrong!"
Ah, the classic suicide? Happens a lot in my experience. Sure, you could ignore my blade and stab me in the body, thus getting you a hit. Meanwhile, my blade is free to stab your face.
The beginner attacking people wrong is a true statement, as is DOCUMENTED by the historical masters. No greater danger to both himself and another is a beginner. Fencing beginners will test the knowledge of the more experienced in truly understanding universal openings and counters. Beginners lack the knowledge of what they face, and thus, go blindly into attacks.
There are theoretical physicists and experimental physicists I honestly think what HEMA needs is a clear divide between the two groups. My suggestion is to let HEMA be focused on historical reenactment where the point is on accuracy to the source material and historical evidence. The second group lets call it RIHEMA (Roots In Historical European Martial Arts) can focus on practicality, efficiency and evolution of European martial arts. The foundation can be in the source material but at the same time you can take what works tinker and adapt what almost works while not being afraid to abandon what doesn't work. The most important point being the freedom to adapt and integrate the lessons of other martial arts into the art. Without a clear divide between the groups there is going to be no end to the argument of what HEMA should be.
I really hope Matt gives his thoughts on this topic. This could lead to a very good conversation in the HEMA community that's been long overdue.
I'd like to hear his thoughts too.
I respect it! And I think it's one of a very few martial arts that has major potential in the "Martial Arts Marketplace " with the one that I have my eye being Kudo Daido Juko. And perhaps some form of sportive Aikido (could be Tomiki, could some newer adaption)
I practice FMA and sparred with several HEMA practitioners. We're all good friends and were just, as you said, trying to understand the manuscripts and wondered how an arnis/eskrima practitioner would handle a manuscript based martial arts. They of course, made good use of the range advantage. And there is the misconception that all dual wielding is ineffective. But there's a catch. Espada y daga (Sword and dagger) OR two short swords can definitely have an advantage over a long sword. The parry and rush the FMA teaches students was extremely effective and even I was shocked by how efficient it was. We then switched to single swords, short sword vs short sword, mine was a talibong trainer and they had a messer trainer. They were confused with the movements (redonda), they tried to bind despite it being a short sword (very confusing why they did that), when a simple redonda can flick it away. This continued and they did manage to get some hits in as all spars tend to do when done over a long period of time but over all I had the edge over them. Personally I just think HEMA practitioners should exercise more in addition to the research. There is too much arguing online and not so much actually implementing it. Thank you for the video. It's very interesting.
Boom! Yes boss... Well said. And honestly, in this new age of cross pollination, if there are HEMA unarmed fundamentals that are of use, I don't see why that can't be spread pragmatically...
Exactly!
Hm, maybe some parts of HEMA are more a fantastic hobby then a competetive sport. Mostly the ones were a comparable sport already exists. Like Rapier fencing, or unarmed combat. But what about the parts were there is no comparable, surviving sport were techniques have been refined over centuries, like Shield and Sword fencing in a armored battlefield context. Areas were the only way to tap sources of previous knowledge, to refine the martial art quicker and more efficient, is to dive into the books. That, to me, was always what HEMA was about. Just another way to refine fighting techniques. For me it was never about limiting the sport to what is found in the sources. I hope that doesn't bother you :)
In my short yet ongoing experience with HEMA and other martial arts I will say this: Everyone does martial arts and or combat sports for different reasons and there's nothing wrong with that. Some people are more open minded and honest than others when comparing, contacting, and practicing their respective styles. Personally, I practice HEMA because it's fun, I find the history side of it fascinating, and I enjoy the sport side of it. I also love kickboxing and MMA for vastly different reasons. I also love many traditional martial arts, too. In my experience the people I've trained with have been open-minded and far from elitist in HEMA. I do generally agree with your points made. Online discussion can get tribalistic in various martial arts communities.
One question that does come to mind is: Is HEMA generally approached as a "process based" or "objective based" martial art? Armchair Violence did a solid video some time back on how a martial art can be one or the other and in my experience I'm still wondering myself exactly where HEMA falls given its spread out community of people and their reasons for approaching it.
I have had nothing but respect from the martial arts community. Did rapier fencing in my old MMA gym and some of the guys began fencing with me. Nobody at my FMA gym wanted to fence long sword with steel fedders.
Seems like a British problem.
In Sweden, HEMA is part of the national martial arts org, like Judo etc, and HEMAists qualify for Athlete of the Year.
My HEMA teacher bludgeons me with no less than 10 ripe coconuts a day - Often when I am not expecting it. I am slowly becoming immune to ripe coconut blows, incapable of being ambushed, and developing CTE.
Seriously though, I trained MMA from 2001 to 2011. Won 3 smoker fights and was invited to train with the pro team at what was then one of the premier gyms in the game (Team Quest). Fast forward to 2017 where now 40lbs fatter and much more injured me learned I could AKSHUALLY learn to wield a broadsword and halberd and I zoomed over to my first HEMA class. My footwork, knowledge of fight biomechanics, and ability to excel close in had me beating everyone in class on my first day. I felt bad because I could see it was irking everyone, the teachers included. I didn't go back because I felt unwelcome, I should probably give it a go again.
As an example, what i like about bjj is that they like anything that works and love what can work on a real fight. As a simple curiosity, yesterday was all about Josh Barnett. The correct hand grip to perform a "baseboll choke" with out a gi in side control, and ofcourse that very andy "shotgun arm bar" from casgatame that we can see very rapidly in one of the pictures you showed. So its not about the new or the old. Its about what works.
Yes, the downside of course is that BJJ absorbs other systems and they run the risk of dying out.
@@EnglishMartialArts yes, and they dont respect much the origin., the naming, etc. That is good and bad at the same time. Is the b in bjj ;)
Hema is underrated we need more of it in cinema and media. The eastern style have more choreographic acrobatic techniques.. Hema need more promotion.
I live in a town where there is no active Hema club and I would give ANYTHING for the chance to get good at Meyers sides word and have a great manual to train with. However I've decided to start with sport fencing to help me get good at footwork and mechanics. I am still new to Hema and have been eager to find a good starting point and think this is the best way. I also have done some training in boxing and bjj. But i always came back to the sword and will likely love it forever. If I ever get good at the side-sword and dagger I would love to learn wrestling.
It will do you the world of good. Good footwork and timing will stand you in great stead when you get to train more regularly in HEMA.
@@EnglishMartialArts Thanks a ton.
Alright, I was going to say something vaguer and more polite about the problems of HEMA, but since you were being brutally honest in this video I think that I owe you the courtesy of doing the same.
I come from a classical fencing lineage that has also brought some of the historical weapons back into our curriculum and I can tell you that we do not take HEMA remotely seriously. In the 90's and 00's (full disclosure this is before my time) we engaged with the HEMA community as we hoped that it would be an opportunity to spread the art and science of fencing to a wider audience (classical fencing is a community so small it makes HEMA look massive by comparison), but as the years have gone by we have pulled back from it more and more because we were so underwhelmed by what we were seeing. The martial arts office politics, arrogance of certain instructors, and interpretation arguments are all annoying to be sure, but the thing that really drove us away is just the abysmal skill level among even the "experts" in the HEMA world, and the rise of the tournament scene has only made this worse. My instructor has remarked on more than one occasion that what you see in the average HEMA tournament is neither historical, nor European, nor martial, nor an art, and having been in a tournament at a major HEMA event, I fully agree!
But taking a step back from tournament woes, what do I mean when I refer to the "the abysmal skill level" in HEMA? Am I just complaining that it doesn't look like the classical Italian school of the 19th century? No. Look at any HEMA fencing video and you will see: poor distance control (people throwing/parrying cuts that would never land, people trying to bash each other with 4-foot longswords from 2-feet away, etc.), poor sense of timing (you said yourself that sporties are often better at this and they're not exactly classical musicians), atrocious footwork (hopping, tripping, inconsistent spacing between the feet, etc.), panicked responses to basic actions, postures that look nothing like what your claiming to emulate (Can anyone show me a Medieval illustration of the leaning forward sword-on-the-shoulder posture all competitive longsword fencers use? And don't try to tell me it's post di donna/zornhut because it's not.), minimal or half-hearted feints, and wild attacks being launched with no particular target in mind. These are not fencing problems, this is a complete failure to grasp the most basic principles of martial arts.
Am I saying that all historical fencers are bad? No, though I have noticed that the ones who aren't tend to distance themselves from the HEMA mainstream. Am I saying that reading a book, no matter how carefully, doesn't make you an expert in martial arts? Yes. You MIGHT be able to learn a system of fighting from a book, but only if you already have a great deal of prior training, and right now the HEMA community is completely failing at being martial artists. That's why the real martial artists don't respect you.
P.S. Full respect to Catch Wrestlers, you guys are crazy but definitely effective.
And one more thing (I'm posting this separately because sometimes TH-cam deletes comments that contain links), if you read that whole thing and think I'm an idiot, fair enough. But below I am going to give some examples of HEMA as opposed to non-HEMA bouts, and I challenge you to try and tell me that the HEMA fencers have better form or martial fundamentals in any of them.
French fencing classical vs. HEMA: th-cam.com/video/H3F8_7yZhQc/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/w82dYYVea_8/w-d-xo.html
Knife fencing traditional Italian vs. HEMA: th-cam.com/video/C1D_6mJqkpw/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/lO0TAGX7k6w/w-d-xo.html
Longsword fencing vs. Kenjutsu: th-cam.com/video/cFGPCTMp2cw/w-d-xo.html
Thank you for your honesty, it's interesting to hear the things I think coming from someone else!
I'm replying to this one so the algorithm keeps it!
@@EnglishMartialArts No thank you, the fact that you as someone who has been involved in HEMA for so long is willing to listen to my rather negative opinion is more impressive than the fact that I am willing to say it.
Also, the TH-cam algorithm is the shared enemy of us all.
@@andrewk.5575
"But taking a step back from tournament woes, what do I mean when I refer to the "the abysmal skill level" in HEMA? Am I just complaining that it doesn't look like the classical Italian school of the 19th century? No. Look at any HEMA fencing video and you will see: poor distance control (people throwing/parrying cuts that would never land, people trying to bash each other with 4-foot longswords from 2-feet away, etc.), poor sense of timing (you said yourself that sporties are often better at this and they're not exactly classical musicians), atrocious footwork (hopping, tripping, inconsistent spacing between the feet, etc.), panicked responses to basic actions, postures that look nothing like what your claiming to emulate (Can anyone show me a Medieval illustration of the leaning forward sword-on-the-shoulder posture all competitive longsword fencers use? And don't try to tell me it's post di donna/zornhut because it's not.), minimal or half-hearted feints, and wild attacks being launched with no particular target in mind. These are not fencing problems, this is a complete failure to grasp the most basic principles of martial arts."
As a non-martial artist who is nevertheless a long-time HEMA enthusiast, I'd be rather annoyed at the criticism, except...I've noticed a lot the same thing, particularly the out-of-distance attacks.
Billy Robinson was a Catch Wrestling legend.
I just started HEMA a few weeks ago and they aren’t very strict on what is historical or not because the president of the club pulls crazy moves all the time and it usually works. I like it so far and I want to also eventually get into other martial arts like wrestling or something
Great video--thank you for these insights and for sharing them. So much of what you say here needs to be said, but tends to put people on their ear... I should say that there are some of us trained in both academic research and recreational violence/martial arts, that have been involved in WMA/HEMA/etc. since the 90s, but who made the mistake of saying some of these same things and have, as a result, been relegated to the margins for upsetting the arrogant darlings in HEMA whose ego needs cannot brook anyone daring question their ability, credentials, or interpretations. We soldier on anyway, but each time someone like yourself says these things people are more inclined to listen, and if they do, well, we all benefit (and with luck see slightly fewer fireworks on facebook ;-) )
Lol, I think we say it when we finally stop caring.
The emphasis on "historical technique" has always been confusing to me. I guarantee that the old masters, the ones whose lives depended upon their technique anyway, wouldn't hesitate to adapt and change when something better is placed in front of them. They were innovators, and I have to imagine them rolling over in their graves when people elevate "historical accuracy" above efficacy.
I find myself most fascinated by the stuff Craig Douglas and his people (ShivWorks) are doing. They're working on a complete, modern fighting system, more or less based on Greco-Roman wrestling, that includes knives, firearms, and other weapons. It turns out that GRW's hyper-focus on controlling an opponent's hands and balance, which seems odd in unarmed combat when compared to BJJ and other forms of sport grappling, is staggeringly important and useful when someone has a weapon in those hands. It's interesting to see the marriage of old and new, plus the effect that context has upon the efficacy of technique.
I suppose it's like language preservation in some people's minds. Yes, it is much easier to just speak English for some people in dying language communities (or even those living where dead languages once were), but the point isn't to be as effective as possible in communication, it is to preserve or revive a different way that people previously communicated. Likewise, some people are looking at HEMA as a way to understand and interpret old combat styles, even if modern ones are more efficient and effective - they aren't interested in maximizing real-world combat effectiveness, but in maximizing faithfulness to what people in previous eras seemed to be doing, even if what they were doing wasn't as developed as what we know to do today.
And that clashes with those who want to use historical stuff as a starting point and then get right back to modernizing and improving it, to create an effective combat style on a level with other modern developed styles. The academic focus and the practical focus disagree, and people who prioritize them differently will inevitably butt heads.
@@Pomguo It's interesting that you bring dying languages into this. I think it's an entirely appropriate comparison, although it brings me to a different conclusion.
Martial arts styles and languages die for the same reason: They aren't useful anymore. By refusing to adapt and change along with the collective need for the language to change, there's nowhere to go besides obscurity and disuse. French and Spanish, for example, which are not "dead languages" by anyone's standard, are very quickly falling into disuse, almost entirely due to the restrictive rules of those languages and the exclusionary haughtiness with which those who want to "preserve" those languages treat those who are learning or don't speak the language.
Life is an intrinsically chaotic thing that requires constant adaptation to innumerable stimuli. The act of trying to "preserve" something by freezing it in time and protecting it from competing ideas or technologies is, therefore, what kills the thing.
6:20 For some reason, what you’re talking about reminds me of a video I saw from a fairly prominent HEMA practitioner saying that we, in the comfortable, cosy modern day, are on average superior fighters then our ancestors… who actually fought and killed people… who got shot in the eye by arrows and kept fighting for hours… pierced by every weapon known to me and survived… who had weekly competitions with prizes, using sharps… whom were used to seeing death… who were far more willing to deal death… and whom actually know the techniques we’re trying to emulate firsthand…
Some HEMA practitioners are full of it, you’re not warriors, you’re not knights whom trained their whole lives for combat, you’re sportsmen and tournament fighters. That’s fine, own it, but don’t be so full of it that you think you’re better then actual warriors. 100% the vast majority of HEMA practioners would get decked by our ancestors soundly, including that guy, and no few of them would complain that they’re ‘not playing by the rules’.
Very interesting, i'm an argentinian HEMA trainer and i'm happy to say that at least in my club, one of the biggest of the country, this does nos happen. Very useful information.
This definitely encapsulates things that have kept me from trying HEMA out in the first place.
Nerdy cliques are the worst. Its people who are trying to be the cool kid in their high school, except they're still trying to do it in their 30s and 40s.
People with atrocious social skills and egos who gatekeep tend to accumulate in every nerdy hobby. Its super irritating.
Its like all the nerd positivity we've had doesn't account for the neckbeards that ruin everything.
I also appreciate this video though. I am reminded of how classical improvisation died, and how there are all these gatekeeping modernists types who studied music academically, but everything they write simply sounds like garbage.
Or people who get too caught up in the history to move the art forward, on the flip side.
What would you suggest we could do in our Hema practice to improve in this kind of a quality? Going to practice other, more martial, arts of course makes sense, but what could we do in the hema practice itself?
I punch things, I kick things, I grab things, I swing things. All thing weapon. Pancratium.
The Mista Guardia is a prominent stance in the art of fencing, revered for its significance as the tangent line, axis, and the bind.
Theoretical book-knowledge is nothing without physical, real-life applications.
Real-life application without actually knowing the theoretical makes one just "groping in the dark", instinctively doing things instead of actually knowing what to do, when to do it and where to do whatever it is you want to do.
Great video on an important topic
This is why I like SCA rapier and c&t hema works under this ruleset, but so dose kendo, and modern fencing and many ither arts. So far my rapier, long sword and new to me broadsword skills are still working against all of it and Im having a blast facing off more than just matching weapons, I feel like I get more out of my art when I know it works against things it historically never fought against.
6:50 if i could take a moment and say that being the big fish in a little pond, while fantastic for ones ego, is the absolute worst to increase ones skill set. Surround yourself with people who are much more knowledgeable and gifted than yourself. Do not let your ego get the better of you. Being the worst of a group of 10 truly exceptional people will make you the best in 99% of other groups.
My reenactment group (that doesn't take itself too seriously) does 16th century English pike and shot. Any thoughts on what grappling would be most appropriate for me to study? Or what modern grappling sport would lead to the best results if I try period wrestling? (I'm the noob of the group, and don't know all that much yet)
For authenticity try to find something like Cumberland and Westmorland. For fun and to just get good at fighting any form of ground fighting like BJJ or Catch.
@EnglishMartialArts It is also costs. Mail armor with a good longsword that can take a hit and gloves and boots.. well you are closing at around 2000 euro. HEMA usually assumes armor compared to say kenjutsu, where a wooden sword is a "good enough" simulation most of the time.
What system would be best against machete attacks in London, hema or a type of Filipino stick and knife system
the problem is we have been inculcated with the attitude of Asian Arts that if your school and system can't trace it's self in a direct lineage it's phoney. Most people don't realize that atleast one form of Hsing-I aka Xing-Yi had died out and a chinese individual found a manual detailing it and used it to recreate it
I'm not involved in HEMA, I would say however, that this could be a fantastic team sport. For example, I have a good friend who is into the historical aspects and in many clubs who go out and grind out a few weekends in medieval conditions. I'm more of the physical guy, I started my life with martial arts and I enjoy having the shit kicked out of me, after all, we grow in adversary. Perhaps we wouldn't be a good team, but I sure as fuck would love to get my arse kicked while learning something new (old).
Counterpoint number one: not all of those who study and practice HEMA are necessarily scholars, historians or academics. Most of these people learn from others like Matt and a developing community which has already done the research for them, so the argument of "they're just nerds" doesn't necessarily apply and it will be invalidated further as the years pass.
You're experienced, but your experience is from the 90s; you didn't start in 2015, when HEMA was becoming known even in my country, which is not an English speaking one.
Counterpoint number two: HEMA isn't supposed to be a "martial art" to beat people up, unless you live in México and use machetes in your regular life like i do (joking, of course); you're no supposed to use a few grappling techniques from an armed combat art and expect to dominate unarmed focused martial arts. If that was your expectation when changing training environment, you obviously had another thing coming. Maybe you were shit because of an individual lack of experience which you failed to notice?
(Not) Counterpoint number three, but a strong criticizim: i feel like the title should be "why is HEMA not widely known/why is HEMA not as effective as a martial art"; the fact that HEMA can bearly be considered a martial art in today's context had nothing to do with the respect we owe its researchers and fencers.
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You clearly wrote the title in a fashion that would get you the outrage of those who practice or simply study this interesting art/hobbie/entertainment medium/whichever way you may choose to represent it.
We do agree on everything else, but i have come to realize you are a most arrogant (or click baity, at best) individual, as you kindly forewarned in the contents of your video
Good day to you.
In intrigued to see that you assume because I started in the 90s that the experience I have from the 2000s and 2010s and 2020s isn't valid.
I'm also intrigued that you consider studying under an instructor and not looking at source material still HEMA.
I really resonate with this video after coming back from Fightcamp a few weeks ago. I think it boils down to HEMA being a scene where you have to sub categorise yourself until you are the master of a style so specific that nobody can criticize you. What I think is most interesting is this is far from the first time this has happened in martial arts. Just look at the myriad styles of Kung Fu where every knuckle on the hand seems to have a specific style and of course a grand master to go with it!
This holds true for the more specific side of things, but when you look at longsword, which is the most practiced weapon of all of them, it kinda doesn't apply.
However what is extremely sus to me, is HEMA schools actively deciding not to compete, or rarely ever competing. Cause that's were you see if their stuff actually works.
I train at a club that doesn't really complete, because the weapons are blunt, too many people just rush in and you get a double hit. I train as if it is for personal self defense. I want to know if what I train will work against all weapons, not just a copy of what I am holding , which is what mostly happens at comp.s. We partake in sparring/free play when interacting with other clubs at festivals or at international meetings.
@@FriedEdd In the end what we do is a sport. It always has been. Even back in the day they fought in sport tournaments. So often there was one every other weekend in germany.
Even when thinking about you wanting to know if it works in a theoretical self defense scenario. Tournaments put pressure on you like no other sparring, or workshop. The mental side of things, fencing people you don't know at all. There is nothing like it.
The double thing is not applicable on all of the tournament scene, as there are so many. you talking nordic, eastern european, germany, french, UK, american, korean, or chinese tournaments? Cause they all differ a little.
This is a video that calculates the dutch lions cup double average, which is 14,3%: th-cam.com/video/YluMh8FQqeA/w-d-xo.htmlsi=twta-SElhfeURJ7W
Maybe interesting watch.
I said clubs are sus that actively discourage from competing. I said what I said. If you decide for yourself that's fine. But a club that tells you not to, is sus.
I've had this same conversation many times. I often compare it to the "theoretical magicians" vs the "practical magicians" in the novel Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.
Classical martial artists and HEMA people are "theoretical", live resistance training is "practical".
Is it because of the clown pants? I bet it's the clown pants
They don't help I suspect...
初心 shoshin - the beginner's mind. Constant learning and the ability to destroy one's ego in doing so
Karate is in a similar boat. I feel your pain