Art of the Sword

“No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.” - Socrates I, like many other people it seems on Facebook, enjoyed the TEDex talk by Devon Boorman's . It was refreshing to see someone talk about HEMA from a personal development perspective which I think is a very compelling selling point for HEMA in general. It's also something I could watch with my Wife and discuss themes that we could both relate to. My perspective was/is slightly different from Devon's but similar. I was physically capable of "sports" and on school "field" days I did quite well and spent several years being gently harassed by various Coaches to attend games. Now I was never top shelf material and I'm pretty sure I was only seen as necessary to make up a full squad. But they could just never get me to show up for games.  This was large...

"Take care not to be so delicate of spirit, or flighty of will, that at every minimal clash, or trivial occasion, you look to put your hand to your sword; copying the example of the bravoes of our age, who think that by using it often they acquire the reputation of being brave and strong. The gentleman I deem more gallant than any other, is the one who with the mere presence of his virtue, and credit of his valour, renders himself formidable to enemies, and esteemed by companions; not one who does not pass a day without seeing his brand unsheathed in his hand. He is the most vile, and least regarded of all, since it shows he lacks the virtue to make himself feared, and the qualities to make himself esteemed. Hence he is often given occasion, to have insults to avenge."  - Francesco Antonio Marcelli (via Piermarco Terminiello)

"In unarmed fighting, the relative difficulty of accomplishing a single, instantly incapacitating blow means that an aggressive fighter can take a reasonable, calculated gamble in dodging, blocking, absorbing, or riding his opponent’s blows while launching his own strikes. This same level of aggression becomes reckless when faced with e.g. a sharp sword, due to the increased risk of incapacitating injury as well as the additional speed required to traverse the increased effective range of the weapon." -  Dakao Do

"How can profit and authenticity be reconciled so that one does not destroy the other?" -  Ashley Read, Authentic Profits I'm currently reading  this book  which is rather good. It's about  how  to run a Martial Art club in a way that does not compromise your integrity (and still make money if that is a goal that interests you). I have always been rather skeptical of people who run their HEMA club as a business, the main reason for this is that many appear to automatically fall into the ubiquitous "Mcdojo" approach. To run such a model leads to most of the pitfalls I see in most Martial Arts and is, from what I can see, an ongoing and emerging issue in HEMA: 1. High quantity, low-quality The club will never turn away anyone because larger groups equal more money for the business owner. It's all about getting as many people as possible in the door and paying fees. This means heavy marketing and appealing to every possible market: this is "str...

"For in combat you cannot easily know or quickly see what kind of device he will execute against you, much less be so quickly able to think how to counter it. Therefore I always hold with one who knows many devices and few counters, and how to execute them judiciously in the Before and After, and allows his opponent to concern himself about the counters" Joachim Meyer 2.27v.1

"The forces generated by larger swords and the contact nature of the sport demand more than a fencing mask with HEMA written on. The Titan mask uses stainless steel mesh that is 20% stronger than a traditional FIE mask, the bib is bigger and uses the contour plus strap to keep your mask locked onto your head." Recently I upgraded my old style Leon Paul mask for the new " Titan Range HEMA X-change mask ", which I'll assume will just be called the Leon Paul "HEMA Mask" from now on. I've updated this review following having the mask for a year. Ordering I ordered this from the main Leon Paul site (rather than the Leon Paul Australia site, which doesn't seem to work for me). It was a breeze to order thanks to a well thought out online ordering system. Postage wasn't expensive and it arrived in New Zealand from the UK is less than a week. There were email updates as the order was processed and the courier tracking system worked nicely. ...

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...