Great time for quotes at the moment: if you're asking what is HEMA? STFU.

-

Is it HEMA... Is it HEMA if we use this weapon or that? Is it HEMA if we add to the texts? Is it HEMA we compete in tournaments? Is it HEMA if we train against multiple opponents? Is it HEMA if we grapple? Is it HEMA if we train to the touch? Is it HEMA if we study Japanese sword fighting?


Who care's if it is "HEMA"? You can do whatever you want. Some people will think it is cool. Some people wont. Nobody owns any of this stuff. You can manifest your love of history, swords, martial arts, etc... however the hell you see fit.


The only thing that is important is that *you* know what *you* want from *your*self, and you have a way to measure that. If you want to be the best larp fighter ever, than all you have to do is win all the larp fights. If you want to be an expert on Capo Ferro, than all you need to do is know everything there is to know about Capo Ferro.


If you are looking for approval, acceptance or status in an established community of people who have already decided what HEMA should look like, than by all means continue asking permission. Otherwise, stop bollocksing around and do the bloody thing you want to do. -  James Reilly

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

HEMA games

-
Image
I've spoken about this before  but I feel that one of the key pillars of successful swordsmanship is developing a good mental attitude. Being relaxed and adopting a playful mindset allows you apply your knowledge gained from study and drilling to successful sparring. Like with strength or technique there is training you can do to develop this. Training for a good mental attitude is partly about training to reduce stress and reducing the likelihood that you will freeze under pressure. It is also partly about encouraging you to understand the linkages between techniques, how to apply the technique in different situations and how a technique fits into the bigger strategic picture. So, what's a solution? Games. Here's a list of some that I like to use with descriptions (I'll keep updating this list as I come up with new games): Without swords Slappy facey / tag -  based on a childhood game from my upbringing in Scotland, slappy facey in it's natural form is
Read more

Kit Review: Superior Fencing "16th C. HEMA Jacket 800 N"

-
Image
Kit Review: Superior Fencing "16th C. HEMA Jacket 800 N" These jackets have become pretty much the standard jackets of my club and, at the last count, I think over half of our club members now use them. As far as I can see they also seem to be very common throughout the Australian clubs as well. However, most of the orders for our Club have taken place as collective efforts and one observation is that it definitely seems like Superior Fencing handles these larger orders better than an individual order (see below). One thing to observe about Superior Fencing is that they seem to have designs that are surprisingly similar to other designs on the market but better made and with better touches. Possibly this is an advantage of making each one individually, they can better incorporate upgrades and improvements as they go. This jacket reminds me of a Neyman Fencing Renaissance jacket but it has improvements like ventilation grommets etc. Finally, I've had this jacket fo
Read more

10 simple tips for improving HEMA sparring

-
Image
Shamelessly inspired by this article: 1. Game I agree that relaxation is important. Being tense means you're thinking about being tense and not smiting the other guy. One of the simplest ways I've found to do this is to play more. This means treating sword fighting more like a game than a serious life and death situation because the only thing in danger in our pretend sword poking is our egos. Here are a whole bunch of games to help induce a relaxed mindset. 2. Train fast and get faster Not many sword fighting sources have ponderous complex actions but rather lots of simple actions done at the correct time and measure very, very fast. Want to be fast? Then recognise that what you are doing now is actually slow and do specific drills to improve your explosive speed. Just try this and see what I mean: Throw a glove in the air and do as many cuts as you can before it falls. Go as fast as you can while maintaining good body mechanic s. If you're loosing good mechani
Read more