The thing about martial arts is that they work: if you do them properly, you're going to kill someone (or be killed). Every group that does stuff with swords, therefore, has to sacrifice something to ensure that everyone can have fun again next week.
In HEMA, it's the aesthetic that's sacrificed: we (I'm one of them) wear gear that makes us look like modern riot police, but the weapons are (at the very least) historically weighted, and the techniques are from historical fencing manuals. There's a lot of arguing over the interpretation of medieval manuscripts in the community.
Re-enactment groups wear historical clothing, so they have to reduce the scope of their combat: they typically disallow strikes to the head, for example.
The Society for Creative Anachronism dispense with everything but the aesthetic of history, and consequently have the most fun.
Of course some people participate in multiple groups. It's more expensive: modern HEMA gear isn't cheap, period-accurate armor & clothing isn't cheap, getting both is thus a lot of added expense.
There is also the madness that is armoured MMA or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Medieval_Combat_... . They don't seem to sacrifice much, apart from points and sharp edges. But they seem to have a fair few concussions and broken bones, as a result. If you have never seen it, have a look on YouTube. It's pretty mad.
Maybe in the future you could have no sacrifices by fighting a android that is programmed not to hit strongly enough to inflict harm, and is too tough to be "killed" itself even in regular armor...
It will still be a social activity! Nothing here forces lonely 1-1 battles, it's just that you'll only be able to fight full force with a selected android subgroup from the other side if it's some historic battle reenactment
That would be equivalent to only being able to play chess against a computer, so plenty of people would be left unsatisfied. That said, I like the direction you’re going.
Since we’re going the science fiction route of letting imagination run wild, perhaps the solution could lay in the sword itself. Picture something superficially indistinguishable from the real thing made from an equivalent to nanobots which remain tight and hard against each other but immediately let go and “shatter” when struck against something else. You could bang and clash swords in fierce battle, but as soon as you would deal a severe blow against your opponent your weapon would break and deal no real damage (but still count as a win). That could be intensely satisfying and lead to great moments.
In the world of non-weapons (which I'm more familiar with), say a kick needs to go into the space my body was occupying a moment ago, or avoiding it is not realistic.
HEMA is great but I always find myself wondering what it would be like if there was no tennis and Federer, Nadal and Djokovic were all born into HEMA - like what would combat look like if we put weapons into the hands of the greatest 1vs1 athletes of all time.
As with any physical activity, a person who plays with swords every week likely significantly reduces their all-cause mortality compared to spending that time sedentary. So if that's your jam and gets you active, enjoy it.
Olympic fencing obviously sacrifices something, but as a layman I'd have trouble describing it.
Kendo uses wooden swords, does it sacrifice anything else? Would practitioners be proficient in HEMA and vice versa?
Another widely practiced sword art is stage combat. Obviously it has a different focus, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone well trained in stage combat could perform well against the average poorly trained swordsman.
Olympic fencing has very well-defined rules, and so is a poor reflection of actual combat. You can lose a point in fencing just because it wasn't your turn to attack.
Kendo is highly ritualised, and therefore has the same problems. The shinai (bamboo swords) also behave very differently to actual swords.
I forgot to mention bohurt/buhurt, which, as far as I can tell, is just Eastern European chaps donning plate armour and giving each other concussions with pollaxes.
Kendo and Fencing are both sports. For starters a shinai is way lighter than a real sword, even an iaito is usually lighter than a real sword. The "meta" then evolves around a might faster and lighter style.
Slicing with a katana is also very technical, if you've ever watched tameshigiri being able to properly cut is much more than just scoring a point. Kendo tries to simulate that in its subjective judging parameters, but having your attacks properly cut will be a different technique than sport Kendo.
In real life warfare knowing how to not get your weapon jammed in an opponent is important for survival but is very hard to practice in modern day life...
Edit: as an analogue: if you learn boxing or muay thai, first you learn how to hit a bag properly. Then you spend 10-100x longer figuring out how to execute those techniques in an actual fight. Then you watch a master like Canelo or Tawanchai work their beautiful art and feel depressed
Kenjutsu is the older Japanese martial art of fighting with a sword and has a wider selection of techniques, but isn't a sport. Some of the schools do spar, and the end result doesn't look quite like kendo.
I think the biggest difference between HEMA and modern (sparring) kenjutsu is the weapons they practice with, their weight, shape, length and style of use -- matching the random path of history in each region.
If you want to try sword fighting there are a bunch of ways to do it.
HEMA people are generally very welcoming and probably slightly mad. quite expensive to get into, but great fun.
Fencing is more common, but start out with epee, foil is a big weird as you have right of way, its a training system and it shows, its harder to learn and not as fun. Sabre is for people who like shouting lots, more one hit wonder.
For the eastern styles:
A good Aikido class should start out with weapons, you wont be going full speed as even with wooden sticks, stuff gets dangerous pretty quick.
Korean sword work is going through somewhat of a renaissance, I don't know that much about it though.
If you're doing eastern style sword work, don't be tempted to get a metal sword, you'll never be able to train with it, and they are almost always poor quality. (unless you know what you're doing)
I enjoy Foil _because_ of right of way, it encourages blade work, movement and technique. Without right of way Epee is quite boring to watch because the fencers spend so much time trying to figure out how to hit their opponent without being hit themselves, but the lack of rules makes it easy to learn. Saber kind of has the opposite problem in that it's so fast it's hard to watch and there is very little extended blade work. To each their own though.
I fenced 4-5 times a week for about 10 years, even teaching and was at one point ranked.
Our policy was to start people on foil with a strong focus on form for usually about a year before moving to Sabre or epee.
Of course, we also usually started people with a French grip, and wrist up vs sideways.
One goal for example would be in lunge practice to have a penny or dime a few inches in front of your shoe, and have that go flying without your shoe hitting the floor.
I agree with you though that epee is the most fun, and also the most realistic.
The right of way in foil is not realistic. Furthermore, I always disliked Sabre as it is very showy but not nearly as enjoyable.
In short, foil to learn initial form and practice, and then move to epee. (I realize the arm position difference can create a challenge for some there )
The way it was explained to me, foil evolved from training for duels to the death (body strikes only), epee evolved from training for duels to first blood (hit anywhere works), and sabre from cavalry training (edge is legal, but only waist up as you're often on a horse).
Then they took on their individual quirks like right-of-way.
On the contrary, when your blade is in their foot it’s not delivering a lethal strike nor is it defending you. Driving a blade through bone doesn’t always come out easily. A trained opponent could probably kill you before they even felt any shock.
> If you're doing eastern style sword work, don't be tempted to get a metal sword, you'll never be able to train with it, and they are almost always poor quality. (unless you know what you're doing)
This is so wrong. Metal is fantastic. Just buy a sparring quality Jian (metal), or wood. "Keep it real" so to speak, for weight, handling, etc. Get the Rodell Sparring Jian.
Chinese Swordsmanship is undergoing a renaissance. Yes, it is dangerous. Buy protective gear (especially your eyes), and work with a teacher.
A guy called Steve Paul coached me for a few years, the connection is that he was Peirce Brosnans double in Die another Day. He got motor neuron disease just before covid and the poor old sod fell down some stairs when he was on holiday and died.
Irony can sometimes be a bit harsh.
Fencing was such a big part of my life for so long, but when I got to my late 30's the power went out of my body. It was shocking, but just true, I couldn't do what I used to be able to do when I was young and I had to come to terms with it. A lot of people go into coaching, or make their peace and fence as a veteran, but I couldn't do that. It took me a long time to grasp why because I used to coach when I was competitive, so why could I not abide it when I knew I could not compete.
The answer was not attractive. I envy the young. I cannot stand to watch them and know I am not one of them.
If you are young then take up swords, or racquets, or gloves and revel in your sinuous power. Soon it will be gone, and all you will have is memory, until something comes sliding and slipping and takes even that, and you find yourself tumbling into the night.
>when I got to my late 30's the power went out of my body
Do you mean strength? Obviously everyone is different. But from my experience in martial arts, men in their 40s, 50s and even 60s are still plenty strong. But you do lose a bit of flexibility and speed as you get older.
Maybe it's different for other people, but I just couldn't move the way I used to, I had less gas, less snap, my reactions were poorer. There's a thing of power coming from your gut/core... that's what lets you really move and use leverage, and that really faded. Competing with guys in their mid twenties was the shocker. I guess that there's a think where experience and training builds advantage but then you go over a cliff where the physical difference just overwhelms that.
Look, we don't see professional athletes in their 40's much if at all. Mike Tyson was the best fighter (ever?) and looked in shocking good shape - but he still lost to that goon.
"One of Farley Chevrier’s go-to books is a 1736 treatise by Pierre Jacques François Girard, a former French navy officer, which includes twelve essential tips on how to save one’s life. The book is part of seventy documents that were digitized and shared online by the French HEMA federation".
Link to a directory listing the various texts digitized by the French HEMA federation: https://www.ffamhe.fr/collection_palas/ (clicking on any of the links will take you to a page with more detail. To download the document click on the link beside the text that says "Pour télécharger la numérisation, cliquez sur ce lien").
It's a shame that the west lost much of it's martial heritage, and is now having to reconstruct it from old manuals. Whereas some Asian arts have been handed down from generation to generation, in an unbroken tradition, for hundreds of years (e.g. Japanese Jui-Jitsu).
There are a whole lot of different types of swords, but in general spears and polearms are more effective combat tools. I like to use the modern analogy of pistols and rifles, rifles are objectively superior combat arms in pretty much every way but anyone who can get away with not carrying one carries a handgun instead.
You probably don't want to be standing between 2 people swinging swords on a battlefield. A spear (or polearm) is a better choice for massed infantry. The extra range of the spear is also useful. Spears are also much quicker, easier and cheaper to make than swords.
Some of the allure of swords perhaps comes from the fact that they are the shape of a Christian cross.
Yes. All else being equal, reach and leverage win every time. Even the samurai considered their swords to be secondary to spears and bows, and preferred to fight on horseback rather than in the trenches (because they weren't stupid,) and then picked up guns as soon as they were viable.
The thing about martial arts is that they work: if you do them properly, you're going to kill someone (or be killed). Every group that does stuff with swords, therefore, has to sacrifice something to ensure that everyone can have fun again next week.
In HEMA, it's the aesthetic that's sacrificed: we (I'm one of them) wear gear that makes us look like modern riot police, but the weapons are (at the very least) historically weighted, and the techniques are from historical fencing manuals. There's a lot of arguing over the interpretation of medieval manuscripts in the community.
Re-enactment groups wear historical clothing, so they have to reduce the scope of their combat: they typically disallow strikes to the head, for example.
The Society for Creative Anachronism dispense with everything but the aesthetic of history, and consequently have the most fun.
Of course some people participate in multiple groups. It's more expensive: modern HEMA gear isn't cheap, period-accurate armor & clothing isn't cheap, getting both is thus a lot of added expense.
There is also the madness that is armoured MMA or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Medieval_Combat_... . They don't seem to sacrifice much, apart from points and sharp edges. But they seem to have a fair few concussions and broken bones, as a result. If you have never seen it, have a look on YouTube. It's pretty mad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq4vADoT9pQ
Maybe in the future you could have no sacrifices by fighting a android that is programmed not to hit strongly enough to inflict harm, and is too tough to be "killed" itself even in regular armor...
All of these things are inherently social activities. The fact that you're up against another human being is what makes it fun.
It will still be a social activity! Nothing here forces lonely 1-1 battles, it's just that you'll only be able to fight full force with a selected android subgroup from the other side if it's some historic battle reenactment
HEMA is about recreating what's described in the historical manuscripts, which is almost always 1v1 stuff. Examples here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91IIARM5lVs
That would be equivalent to only being able to play chess against a computer, so plenty of people would be left unsatisfied. That said, I like the direction you’re going.
Since we’re going the science fiction route of letting imagination run wild, perhaps the solution could lay in the sword itself. Picture something superficially indistinguishable from the real thing made from an equivalent to nanobots which remain tight and hard against each other but immediately let go and “shatter” when struck against something else. You could bang and clash swords in fierce battle, but as soon as you would deal a severe blow against your opponent your weapon would break and deal no real damage (but still count as a win). That could be intensely satisfying and lead to great moments.
> that is programmed not to hit strongly enough to inflict harm
The difference between an attack that is hard to defend and an attack that will hurt if it succeeds is very slim.
... for a human
A robot has more strength and reaction to stop / reroute a successful attack
It's a tough sensory problem.
In the world of non-weapons (which I'm more familiar with), say a kick needs to go into the space my body was occupying a moment ago, or avoiding it is not realistic.
A hypothetical future robot may. Right now, anything with the strength to wave a heavy stick is a threat to be around.
Or by being part of the brain upload simulation and unable to die.
Nah, that's pure fiction...
HEMA is great but I always find myself wondering what it would be like if there was no tennis and Federer, Nadal and Djokovic were all born into HEMA - like what would combat look like if we put weapons into the hands of the greatest 1vs1 athletes of all time.
More generally, someone who plays with swords is more likely to die by a sword than any random person. Therefore, maybe better to stay away from them.
As with any physical activity, a person who plays with swords every week likely significantly reduces their all-cause mortality compared to spending that time sedentary. So if that's your jam and gets you active, enjoy it.
Yeah and someone who swims at the beach is more likely to drown than any random person.
There's an old Soviet proverb.
Those who don't know how to swim don't drown.
I suppose the average person in Soviet Russia didn't go sailing that much.
Keep going, please.
Olympic fencing obviously sacrifices something, but as a layman I'd have trouble describing it.
Kendo uses wooden swords, does it sacrifice anything else? Would practitioners be proficient in HEMA and vice versa?
Another widely practiced sword art is stage combat. Obviously it has a different focus, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone well trained in stage combat could perform well against the average poorly trained swordsman.
Olympic fencing has very well-defined rules, and so is a poor reflection of actual combat. You can lose a point in fencing just because it wasn't your turn to attack.
Kendo is highly ritualised, and therefore has the same problems. The shinai (bamboo swords) also behave very differently to actual swords.
I forgot to mention bohurt/buhurt, which, as far as I can tell, is just Eastern European chaps donning plate armour and giving each other concussions with pollaxes.
Just googled it. Buhurt looks pretty close to what I imagine the Melee was like at a medieval tournament.
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-07-10/mediev...
Kendo and Fencing are both sports. For starters a shinai is way lighter than a real sword, even an iaito is usually lighter than a real sword. The "meta" then evolves around a might faster and lighter style.
Slicing with a katana is also very technical, if you've ever watched tameshigiri being able to properly cut is much more than just scoring a point. Kendo tries to simulate that in its subjective judging parameters, but having your attacks properly cut will be a different technique than sport Kendo.
In real life warfare knowing how to not get your weapon jammed in an opponent is important for survival but is very hard to practice in modern day life...
Edit: as an analogue: if you learn boxing or muay thai, first you learn how to hit a bag properly. Then you spend 10-100x longer figuring out how to execute those techniques in an actual fight. Then you watch a master like Canelo or Tawanchai work their beautiful art and feel depressed
Kendo is "simplified" fencing and point scoring.
Kenjutsu is the older Japanese martial art of fighting with a sword and has a wider selection of techniques, but isn't a sport. Some of the schools do spar, and the end result doesn't look quite like kendo.
I think the biggest difference between HEMA and modern (sparring) kenjutsu is the weapons they practice with, their weight, shape, length and style of use -- matching the random path of history in each region.
If you want to try sword fighting there are a bunch of ways to do it.
HEMA people are generally very welcoming and probably slightly mad. quite expensive to get into, but great fun.
Fencing is more common, but start out with epee, foil is a big weird as you have right of way, its a training system and it shows, its harder to learn and not as fun. Sabre is for people who like shouting lots, more one hit wonder.
For the eastern styles:
A good Aikido class should start out with weapons, you wont be going full speed as even with wooden sticks, stuff gets dangerous pretty quick.
Korean sword work is going through somewhat of a renaissance, I don't know that much about it though.
If you're doing eastern style sword work, don't be tempted to get a metal sword, you'll never be able to train with it, and they are almost always poor quality. (unless you know what you're doing)
I enjoy Foil _because_ of right of way, it encourages blade work, movement and technique. Without right of way Epee is quite boring to watch because the fencers spend so much time trying to figure out how to hit their opponent without being hit themselves, but the lack of rules makes it easy to learn. Saber kind of has the opposite problem in that it's so fast it's hard to watch and there is very little extended blade work. To each their own though.
Foil is definitely a better game to play, the problem is fencers (usually those starting from Epee) who are thinking of it as a duel.
I would disagree about starting with epee.
But that may be a bias about form.
I fenced 4-5 times a week for about 10 years, even teaching and was at one point ranked.
Our policy was to start people on foil with a strong focus on form for usually about a year before moving to Sabre or epee.
Of course, we also usually started people with a French grip, and wrist up vs sideways.
One goal for example would be in lunge practice to have a penny or dime a few inches in front of your shoe, and have that go flying without your shoe hitting the floor.
I agree with you though that epee is the most fun, and also the most realistic.
The right of way in foil is not realistic. Furthermore, I always disliked Sabre as it is very showy but not nearly as enjoyable.
In short, foil to learn initial form and practice, and then move to epee. (I realize the arm position difference can create a challenge for some there )
“Foil is art, Sabre is theater, epee is truth”.
In Epee, if you poke someone in the toe, it "kills" them. Not sure it is any more realistic than foil.
The way it was explained to me, foil evolved from training for duels to the death (body strikes only), epee evolved from training for duels to first blood (hit anywhere works), and sabre from cavalry training (edge is legal, but only waist up as you're often on a horse).
Then they took on their individual quirks like right-of-way.
It's a duel to first blood.
I mean conversely if you drove a blade into someone's foot, the chance they recover before you deliver a follow-up strike is probably quite low.
On the contrary, when your blade is in their foot it’s not delivering a lethal strike nor is it defending you. Driving a blade through bone doesn’t always come out easily. A trained opponent could probably kill you before they even felt any shock.
> If you're doing eastern style sword work, don't be tempted to get a metal sword, you'll never be able to train with it, and they are almost always poor quality. (unless you know what you're doing)
This is so wrong. Metal is fantastic. Just buy a sparring quality Jian (metal), or wood. "Keep it real" so to speak, for weight, handling, etc. Get the Rodell Sparring Jian.
Chinese Swordsmanship is undergoing a renaissance. Yes, it is dangerous. Buy protective gear (especially your eyes), and work with a teacher.
A guy called Steve Paul coached me for a few years, the connection is that he was Peirce Brosnans double in Die another Day. He got motor neuron disease just before covid and the poor old sod fell down some stairs when he was on holiday and died.
Irony can sometimes be a bit harsh.
Fencing was such a big part of my life for so long, but when I got to my late 30's the power went out of my body. It was shocking, but just true, I couldn't do what I used to be able to do when I was young and I had to come to terms with it. A lot of people go into coaching, or make their peace and fence as a veteran, but I couldn't do that. It took me a long time to grasp why because I used to coach when I was competitive, so why could I not abide it when I knew I could not compete.
The answer was not attractive. I envy the young. I cannot stand to watch them and know I am not one of them.
If you are young then take up swords, or racquets, or gloves and revel in your sinuous power. Soon it will be gone, and all you will have is memory, until something comes sliding and slipping and takes even that, and you find yourself tumbling into the night.
>when I got to my late 30's the power went out of my body
Do you mean strength? Obviously everyone is different. But from my experience in martial arts, men in their 40s, 50s and even 60s are still plenty strong. But you do lose a bit of flexibility and speed as you get older.
Maybe it's different for other people, but I just couldn't move the way I used to, I had less gas, less snap, my reactions were poorer. There's a thing of power coming from your gut/core... that's what lets you really move and use leverage, and that really faded. Competing with guys in their mid twenties was the shocker. I guess that there's a think where experience and training builds advantage but then you go over a cliff where the physical difference just overwhelms that.
Look, we don't see professional athletes in their 40's much if at all. Mike Tyson was the best fighter (ever?) and looked in shocking good shape - but he still lost to that goon.
The reflexes definitely slow over time. But I can still sometimes beat my 19 year old son at table tennis, and I am 59.
George Foreman was still battering people in the ring at quite an age. But he was an outlier.
I would say that Ali was the greatest heavyweight boxer ever, in terms of sheer virtuosity and skill (before he went to prison anyway). ;0)
"In order to have a competition, you need rules. So you’re getting further and further from a true martial art, and you’re getting into a sport"
Which is all too clear, if you watch the pitiful and embarrassing spectacle that is an Olympic Taekwondo match.
"One of Farley Chevrier’s go-to books is a 1736 treatise by Pierre Jacques François Girard, a former French navy officer, which includes twelve essential tips on how to save one’s life. The book is part of seventy documents that were digitized and shared online by the French HEMA federation".
Link to a scan of 1736 treatise: https://www.ffamhe.fr/collectionpalas/nouveau-traite-girard.... (even if you don't read French, the text includes numerous diagrams)
Link to a directory listing the various texts digitized by the French HEMA federation: https://www.ffamhe.fr/collection_palas/ (clicking on any of the links will take you to a page with more detail. To download the document click on the link beside the text that says "Pour télécharger la numérisation, cliquez sur ce lien").
Illustration 81 is quite strange, with it's behind the back thrust. Slightly reminiscent of the awkward shots pool players sometimes do!
I recommend @robinswords on YouTube for historical fencing.
It's a shame that the west lost much of it's martial heritage, and is now having to reconstruct it from old manuals. Whereas some Asian arts have been handed down from generation to generation, in an unbroken tradition, for hundreds of years (e.g. Japanese Jui-Jitsu).
I remember reading that swords were more the weapon of choice for portability but spears were more effective in a fight?
There are a whole lot of different types of swords, but in general spears and polearms are more effective combat tools. I like to use the modern analogy of pistols and rifles, rifles are objectively superior combat arms in pretty much every way but anyone who can get away with not carrying one carries a handgun instead.
Lindy Beige did an interesting video on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLLv8E2pWdk
But the gist is it seemed spears won more of the simulated combats.
You probably don't want to be standing between 2 people swinging swords on a battlefield. A spear (or polearm) is a better choice for massed infantry. The extra range of the spear is also useful. Spears are also much quicker, easier and cheaper to make than swords.
Some of the allure of swords perhaps comes from the fact that they are the shape of a Christian cross.
Yes. All else being equal, reach and leverage win every time. Even the samurai considered their swords to be secondary to spears and bows, and preferred to fight on horseback rather than in the trenches (because they weren't stupid,) and then picked up guns as soon as they were viable.
In Tai Chi one should master the hand form before taking the sword. Done right, all threats are met with minimum or no harm.
I think we can all agree you're not at much risk of harm against a Tai Chi practioner.