Do you do HEMA?

[R McKim]

My name is Ruaidhri and I've been studying various sword systems on and off since 2009. Firstly with the Dawn Duellists Society and more recently (and intensively) with the Black Boar Swordsmanship School - with whom I've just earned my blue socks I'll be honest here, I do fencing because right now basically I think its lots of fun to prance about hitting folk over the head whilst imagining myself as a some sort of 19th century officer. Apart from sabre, I do lots of smallsword which doesn't come as naturally to me as sabre however I find it more rewarding. I'd really love to do more unarmed striking arts, savate in particular is interesting me but I imagine is very difficult to find a club.

[Megalophias]

I'm Jon, currently living in Calgary, and at this point I haven't done HEMA for years. Though I still poke around in a manuscript now and then, and hope to get back to it eventually.

[Michael Chidester]

I'm Michael Chidester. What's HEMA?

[admin]

From: http://www.fioredeiliberi.org/aboutus/

What is HEMA?

Many people are surprised to learn that Europe has complex martial arts systems like those found in Asia and elsewhere. Historical European martial arts (HEMA), also known as western martial arts (WMA), are the study and practice of Europe's indigenous hand-to-hand combat systems.

These systems were used with great effect across the world by Europeans for hundreds of years. These are the arts that sometimes laid Japanese samurai low (eg. Portugese swordsmen in the 16thC) and defeated Turkish and Indian swordsmen (eg. Austrian swordsmen in the 16thC and British swordsmen in the 19thC respectively). In fact there are many parallels between Western and Eastern arts and anybody who has done Aikido, Jujitsu or Kenjutsu will find many similarities in technique. Similarly, people who have done modern sport fencing will find similarities.

Some of the European arts are continuous living traditions, whilst most have died as continuously-taught lineages (some evolved into sports, like modern boxing or modern fencing). Luckily, many of the old masters thought to write detailed and complex books about their fighting arts, and some of these have survived (we have hundreds of such combat books dating from 1300AD onwards). We use these detailed books and our experience as martial artists/fencers, with pressure-testing, to breath life back into the old arts. The end result are martial arts systems that can stand up against any other.

HEMA has already gained the notice of Asian martial arts, the sport fencing community, modern mixed martial artists and military hand-to-hand instructors, and is currently growing faster and faster, attracting a wider range of students, of all age groups and both sexes, than ever before.

HEMA brings a lot to the world of martial arts and offers students a very broad range of weapons and styles that have distinct regional differences, from Portugese staff, to Spanish rapier, to French smallsword, to German longsword, to Scottish backsword, to English pugilism. These arts were practiced by some of the greatest Empires that history has produced.

Sarcasm is a two-way street.

[Michael Chidester]

Oh please, everyone knows what that only Asians had martial arts, symptomatic of their cultural obsession with perfection in all things (such that they even raised fighting and killing to an art form).

[peterdk]

i'm peter

I train and instruct every thuesday at laurentiusgildet East in vordingborg, denmark. mainly sword and buckler but have started to look into daggerwork quite a bit(the manuals leave me confused).
i also train a youth class at my farm, to see if i can get the kids away from football .

other than that i train about 30-45 min a day (archery, rosfecthing, blade control) i call it training, my dear wife call it evading workrelated items (garden related stuff, cleaning stables etc.)

best

peter

[Herbert]

I'm Herbert and I run Ars Gladii. I do sword and buckler and longsword in the german tradition.
We train twice a week. I've been doing this for about 15 years now.

[snowcelt]

I'm Kevin and i've been doing HEMA since 2004. I train in Turku, SW Finland and my group is closely affiliated with Guy Windsor's school in Helsinki. As such we're primarily Fioristas and dabble in a bit of 1.33, rapier and are open to attending seminars and sword-meets for the fun of it. I'm a mediocre fencer but the more of this stuff I do, the more interesting it gets, not just the fighting aspect but the cultural history also. I've been to swordfish quite often 2007-2011 and have met some very nice people there and introduced slinging as a "fringe" event. I'd like to do more free sparring generally and try singlestick and Hope/Paige baskethilt at some stage too. I haven't done much in six months due to a rotator cuff tear, which is only healing frustratingly slowly. That's it!

[The Salmon Lord]

Oh please, everyone knows what that only Asians had martial arts, symptomatic of their cultural obsession with perfection in all things (such that they even raised fighting and killing to an art form).

Did the asians do martial arts too? Didnt know that. I thought it was just the Scots, Germans and French.

[Michael Chidester]

Oh please, everyone knows what that only Asians had martial arts, symptomatic of their cultural obsession with perfection in all things (such that they even raised fighting and killing to an art form).

Did the asians do martial arts too? Didnt know that. I thought it was just the Scots, Germans and French.

I've looked into this a bit more, and it seems that what probably happened was that European explorers discovered martial arts when they reached China in the 13th century and brought knowledge of them back with them. That's why documentation of martial arts in Europe starts suddenly at the beginning of the 14th century.

[Hotspur School]

Oh please, everyone knows what that only Asians had martial arts, symptomatic of their cultural obsession with perfection in all things (such that they even raised fighting and killing to an art form).

Did the asians do martial arts too? Didnt know that. I thought it was just the Scots, Germans and French.

I've looked into this a bit more, and it seems that what probably happened was that European explorers discovered martial arts when they reached China in the 13th century and brought knowledge of them back with them. That's why documentation of martial arts in Europe starts suddenly at the beginning of the 14th century.

Not true, Mike. The Vikings, on their travels to the east, clearly discovered ninjitsu.

http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Guide-Viking-Martial-ebook/dp/B009M9NGJW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1361488930&sr=8-2&keywords=viking+martial+arts#reader_B009M9NGJW

[Michael Chidester]

[admin]

Did the asians do martial arts too? Didnt know that. I thought it was just the Scots, Germans and French.

It's true. Scottish, German and French martial arts all sadly died out though, under the jackboot of English oppression. The swines.

[Eugenio]

I am Eugenio, senior instructor in the school of historical fencing "Don Diego Lopez de Haro" in Spain,
I teach rapier (the destreza vulgar and the italian school) and sidesword,

[The Salmon Lord]

Did the asians do martial arts too? Didnt know that. I thought it was just the Scots, Germans and French.

It's true. Scottish, German and French martial arts all sadly died out though, under the jackboot of English oppression. The swines.

I knew it had to be the English's fault somehow.

[Michael Chidester]

I knew it had to be the English's fault somehow.

I'm sure if we look hard enough, we can trace pretty much any of the world's problems back to the English.

[admin]

Not just the problems: Everything.

[Chiron]

Including nothing?

[Michael Chidester]

Not just the problems: Everything.

Even the Scottish?

[admin]

The Scottish are a product of the English, yes.