HEMA - Matt Easton Edition

Let's discuss Historical European Martial Arts.

youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMUtS78ZxryNYFe-Z4jV_KxQ2sQaevrUz

wiktenauer.com/wiki/Main_Page
communitywalk.com/user/view/81443
zeemaps.com/map?group=619536
middleages.hu/english/martialarts/treatise_database.php

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=meEdJ54RVfA
encasedinsteel.co.uk/2012/12/14/one-art-of-the-sword/
selohaar.org/CW2010/OneArtoftheSword.pdf
youtube.com/watch?v=kP-0wZsLYRI
youtube.com/watch?v=vAxDqM8Qfz8
youtube.com/watch?v=EerANVZRypM
youtube.com/watch?v=UFXoaQYb_j4
youtube.com/watch?v=SsBBrcJUrqA
youtube.com/watch?v=0-ZHHKU1DPc
youtube.com/watch?v=bcMrQpdK-DU
woodenswords.com/product_p/type-iii-f.htm
woodenswords.com/product_p/type-iii-f.fuller.htm
youtube.com/watch?v=iow7Z1msPF4
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musō_Jikiden_Eishin-ryū
youtube.com/watch?v=Yegd3YpjmWY
youtube.com/watch?v=xyfuwLLVUdM
youtube.com/watch?v=gWZ2_lHPUUE
youtube.com/watch?v=RWcZ08p1PfM
youtube.com/watch?v=fWAMN23q5kU
youtube.com/watch?v=1YBlfuSuVEY
fioredeiliberi.org/training/
thearma.org/Youth/rapieroutline.htm
youtube.com/watch?v=jKNYw2eM1NI
youtube.com/watch?v=rll-p4Gas7I
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

...

Bump

I enjoy Matt he is my favorite source on youtube for information.

Has anyone here done HEMA? It looks like it would be good fun to give it a go.

HEMA is all very well, but why should I learn how to stab someone with a sword when I could just learn how to drop bombs on them from an airplane?

I dont think it is for protection, it is just a form of experimental archaeology to understand how people fought in the past.

HI GUYS

why does it have to be limited to hema. This isnt asp after all

>I dont think it is for protection, it is just a form of experimental archaeology to understand how people fought in the past.
Kek, you don't actually believe this, do you?

Fighting in form goe out the fucking window when you are fighting someone who has no form.

You're literally retarded if you think at any point in time how martial arts were taught is how martial artists fought. Only THE most basic aspects of the martial art stay in true combat, that's all.

sword fights between someone with form and those without seem to almost always end with the formless guy getting hit with a sword, at least if matches with safety weapons are any indication.

Well of course, but that's literally besides the point. Watch Wushu forms, then watch UFC or Sanda counterparts in actual fights. You CAN see their form in their strikes and kicks, but everything else is a true brawl by nature, sword fighting is exactly the same if not worse as when fighting with swords there is much, much more chance of death.

youtube.com/watch?v=meEdJ54RVfA

Do you wanna know why I use a sword? Guns are too quick. You can’t savor all the… little… emotions. In… you see, in their last moments, people show you who they really are.

Yes. I've done 4 years worth even occasionally with Mr Easton not that that's a rare achievement in the UK. HEMA is actually better than it looks and it looked fantastic to me before I found my club.

I couldn't reccomend it highly enough.

desu I think the whole "i-it's experimental archaeology meant to help us understand the p-past" line is bullshit and fails at what it's intended to do: shut up weeaboos and fedora tippers who don't like White people having fun doing a cultural activity.

Like this guy here , for example. Why the fuck should I care that he hates himself? HEMA is fun, so I encourage people who are interested to do it.

Two beginners one with 'form' maybe.

Good form exists for a reason if you genuinely have it down it works without doubt.

It's hard to tell with HEMA perhaps sometimes because there are no weight classes and everyone can compete it's not an elitist sport but if you ever get the chance to do it yourself you'll quickly realise how wrong you are. This is true of all full contact martial arts and combat sports.

I've been frustrated enough to echo your sentiments in the past but it was my being shit was the problem not the art. I'm lucky to know some truly excellent technical fencers and they dominate without compromising what they teach.

What has that got to do with what I said?

HEMA is about studying how people used weapons in the past, it is not about fighting to defend yourself.

It's not really fair to compare Wushu (or any other art which focuses heavily on unrealistic forms) to actual what actual fights look like and make claims like that. Of course real fights look different than flowery techniques, that's why Sanda is usually trained separately from the demo stuff. If you compare UFC fights or other more realistic scenarios to how training looks in arts that are based more on practical training (Judo, BJJ, Muay Thai, etc), you'll find more similarities than differences. It's all about training, and practical training produces fighters who use techniques.

Similarly, HEMA fighters at least look like they use roper technique in the tournaments that I've seen. Training realistically is harder because of how easy it is to get hurt, but it seems like the techniques stick reasonably well, which is why people who are good at HEMA can usually wreck untrained people so easily.

Your post is very stupid. Fencing literally comes from Defence it's where so the work comes in you can learn to kill with s sword in about 2 hours. It's defending yourself that's the art.

>using modern day fencing as a point in your argument in formless fighting
xD

>it is not about fighting to defend yourself.
What the fuck do you think people used weapons for in the past?

>unrealistic forms
Right.

You are literally still operating under the assumption that only people who practiced HEMA are good at sword fighting? Anyone who is actually trained in actual combat, with out without HEMA will dominate someone in this form.

Again, you all hold the point "IT'S HISTORICAL, IT'S AUTHENTIC!!!!" and you then practice over and over choreographed movements, it's true plebbery, and I said this in the last thread.

WIthout threat of death, there is literally no such thing as an authentic sword fight, practicing any of these forms is literally LARPing, which is fine in it's own right - but you're all pretentious as shit.

Why can't you just do something for the fun of it? Like , why do you have to add some bullshit, obviously false reasoning to it? Are you embarrassed by it or something?

Jesus, you're that same sperglord from the last thread with all that "threat of death" bullshit. What's your problem? What compels you to come into every HEMA thread, talk shit about HEMA's validity using nonsensical reasoning, and talk about how Wushu is better for some reason?

People are into different things, just accept it. No martial art teaches anything with a threat of death, and most martial arts do at least some things unrealistically. HEMA is about learning how people in the past used swords for self defense. If you don't think it's a cool concept, cool, but stop being a dick about it.

HEMA is a modern reconstruction of medieval martial arts using treatises, at no point do practitioners of HEMA expect to defend themselves using a sword.

If you are talking about people in the past training to fight for warfare that is a completely different thing.

KEk, so yes, you're embarrassed by what you enjoy, probably because you are so massively overweight?

Tell me, have you fought anyone before? In an actual fight? Hell, even a competitive fight? Practice fighting when you are training and fighting in an actual scenario are very, very different things you simply cannot understand.

>and talk about how Wushu is better for some reason?
Yeah, "some reason" totally disregarding the reason I gave as it doesn't fit into your view.

At least they are actually athletes with skill in their form, not some fat autist burger reading an old book and practicing "authentic" sword fighting.

comparing UFC to a sword fight absurd, as is the idea someone with a strong competitive background is going to wipe the floor with anyone remotely competent with a sword. The one does not effortlessly transfer to another without a lot of training.

1. sparring is a huge part of hema.

2. Forms were used to train swordsmen all over the world going back hundreds of years. Living lineages still exist from that period and they focus around forms, not like wushu forms but two man forms

>People that do CMA aren't by and large fat middle-aged white guys trying to be Bruce Lee

5/10 on the troll, job, mate. Got me to respond a couple of times.

wait why would someone who does wushu be talking about the formlessness and UFC?

that makes no sense

I am not comparing UFC to sword fighting. But of course, you would have no argument if you didn't project that fact.

Because you have literally no reading comprehension xD

Funny, how none of you have actually said 'yes, I've fought in the competitive scene and it's exactly the same as when you practice HEMA'.

;^)

You all have literally no idea what you are saying, go pick up an actual martial art and ask your teacher to organize you some competitive fights. I've been doing it since I was 12 in Tae-Kwon-Do - practicing and 'the real thing' are two very fucking different things, in all forms of martial arts. HEMA Isn't some golden goose not subject to this.

In short, it's in no way authentic, at all like you all claim it is - it's LARing, admit it. And move on. Take the pretentiousness out of the things you enjoy.

Pfft speak for yourself.

I do endorse this. I'd love to do as many sword arts as possible that said I do miss our HEMA generals and it would be nice to have it here.


The threat of death point is actually a very valid one and one really at the heart of HEMA. It's why we penalise double hits and afterblows so much.

You're perhaps confusing HEMA with the tournament or sparring aspect alone and this is honestly a valid point and one that's a regular debate at all levels of HEMA. Fully geared sparring doesn't 1:1 simulate swordfighting but that's not what it's in the manuals it's an extrapolation of the real Martial Art for a competitive scene partly but largely at least until now as a pressure tester for interpretations.

Fencing with good intensity with no gear at all and it becomes very different and suddenly looks and seems much more like the descriptions in the treatises. That said it's not worth the danger and sparring is as close as we can get for now.

Our uninitiated friend implies anyone is saying HEMA is the be all and end all sword sport better than all the rest. I really don't see how that came across but I'm confident that it is the equal of any martial art in the world at this point. I'd love to see more competition between weapons arts.

>practicing and 'the real thing' are two very fucking different things

Maybe for shit martial arts like Tae Kwon Do. Try practicing a martial art with emphasis on realistic, full contact training, like Judo, and you'll see that practicing a decent martial art and the real thing don't need to be very different.

>WIthout threat of death, there is literally no such thing as an authentic sword fight, practicing any of these forms is literally LARPing, which is fine in it's own right - but you're all pretentious as shit.

You might be surprised that there are people who do train swords with the threat of death or serious injury, Ive known and know of people, who have

been sent to the hospital from sword cuts

who have been knocked out or broken bones from wooden swords.

These people essentially train in the same arts with the same methods as when a sword fight was a real possibility. If your training with swords seriously people sometimes get hurt, just like in any martial art.

Kek. I practice BJJ and Judo, I have training in using Nunchucks (for some reason), all in the same 'dojo'. But you cannot bring BJJ and Judo into competitive Tae-Kwon-Do fights, are you retarded?

>implying there is such a thing as a 'shit' martial art
RIght, everything you have said is now utter trash. Kek, everything I said about your pretentiousness is actually true, you should be careful in your arguments, user.

>people sometimes get hurt in training
>therefore it has the authenticity of a fight to the death
Right.

Not my exact words here but I've competed in the UK and Europe and also practiced and competed in Muay Thai and boxing so similar to TKD in som senses and I'm very happy to tell you your trepidation's are misplaced.

Your heads in the right place and it's actually the attitude the best HEMA people approach the art with. It's not about geared sparring but the techniques have to work in geared sparring or there's something we've got wrong.

I'm happy to say they do and our understanding is getting better every year. It's a very exciting time to be practicing HEMA to be quite honest.

YOu are the user who is honest in his enjoyments though, I've got no qualms with you? You enjoy it for what it is. You are not kidding yourself into training 'authentic sword fighting'.

I have actually been very interested in picking up HEMA, but there is no where in my shitty town that teaches it.

All I have is Tai Chi, TWD and other MMA's around the joint, and a shit tonne of boxing.

Of course its not like a fight to the death, but you can certainly die from a cut from a sword or a strike from a wooden one.

But the idea that we cannot learn anything about this from studying the forms created by people who did have real life and death sword fights and by training with sharps and safety weapons ourselves is silly. A methodology does not stick around for hundreds of years and in multiple cultures if its a waist of time

Practicing technique under the threat of serious injury is the appropriate perpetration for doing the real thing in combat.

>You are not kidding yourself into training 'authentic sword fighting'.
No no I literally am and I honestly can't believe my luck that I have access to a martial art that I can feel so strongly about in that sense.

I do not fight with sharp swords. I hope I never will (past maybe some morbid curiosity) and that's beside the point because in the first world thats never going to happen but if I did I would fight exactly the way I train because i'm very confident in the authenticity of our training. Not sparring... not with masks and gloves and no true subconscious/adrenal responses.. but the training we endeavour to make legit as possible.

I forgot I actually do FMA as well. Never competed but the lessons I learned from HEMA transferred without change.

>All I have is Tai Chi, TWD and other MMA's around the joint, and a shit tonne of boxing.
I know the feeling I REALLY REALLY want to do more wrestling (I actually enjoy it more than HEMA sparringwise) but it's just not an option in my area. I'd jump on that MMA if i were you.

well ok wrestling is part of HEMA and it's HEMA were I caught the bug for it but I mean I prefer it more than fencing... or do I... fuck it probably not but I really want to do more.

>Historical European Martial Arts
Literally LARPING and WE WUZ KNIGHTS

MATT EASTON HERE

FROM SCHOLA GLADIATORIA, UMMMMM

RIGHT, SO I'D LIKE TO MAKE A POINT OR TWO ABOUT

That's a pretty big reason for me, I'm on team #HEMAfag now!

>>implying there is such a thing as a 'shit' martial art
there is.
dont tell me youre one of those retarded "its not the art but the artist" idiots

mucho baito

Trying to get back a little bit more on the subject.
What do you people think on the "One art of the Sword" theory. I have seen this thing coming up again through Roland Warzecha (adapting longsword techniques to spear, zornhau-ort mainly), and though there is nothing wrong to find analogies between one system or one weapon to another, the theory of the "one of art of the sword", which in fact is based on a single sentence in a single manuscript seems bogus to me. I think people like to give the Lichtenauer tradition a little bit too much credit, as if there were like apostles of HEMA when there were many other theories made by equally good people ("italians") for starters that have little to do with what is done in KdF. I also think that since KdF is suppose to be a reaction to common fencing, it would be silly to consider it the source of the One art of the Sword.

Coming mostly from a japanese swordsmanship background, I find it there even more impossible to prove the OAS line as the JSA has clearly at least three original schools of swordsmanship (Nen-ryu, Kage-ryu, Shinto-ryu) all with a distinct thought and process of the whole fighting thing. If one country can have diverse lines of combat thought, how could Europe has but even the base concepts unified. There are stuff that will always be true (senses of measure, tempo, footwork, covers) but that doesn't mean that there is only one way to apprehend those.

Here's pieces by Alex Bourdas and then Greg Mele and Christian Tobler about this whole thing.
encasedinsteel.co.uk/2012/12/14/one-art-of-the-sword/
selohaar.org/CW2010/OneArtoftheSword.pdf

Very interesting thanks for the links.

>Wushu

You're welcome, here are Warzecha's video of the Zornhauort with the spear if anyone's interested but lazy.
youtube.com/watch?v=kP-0wZsLYRI
youtube.com/watch?v=vAxDqM8Qfz8
Interesting but I would probably disagree about it being a beginner's play. There's most certainly easier and more straightforward stuff to do with a spear first, but then it's just one lesson. I'm pretty conflicted about him, some stuff I like, some others seems just like way too wild guesses.


Also, painful subject I know but is Fiore's one-handed sword pretty much the only one-handed sword material of the late medieval period? Not talking about Marozzo and Manciolino who already have a more complex guard than the simple arming sword's crossguard. I think I remember hearing about Talhoffer but maybe it was only sword and buckler and not arming sword alone.
youtube.com/watch?v=EerANVZRypM
youtube.com/watch?v=UFXoaQYb_j4

Bumping with the last of the Fabris guards, quarta, demonstrated by Martin Fabian from his very nice series on the rapier.
youtube.com/watch?v=SsBBrcJUrqA

Though I think his idea of "all of the master's knowledge are in books" to be quite optimistic, but then one can dream (and as Tom Leoni thinks Fabris's Lo Schermo is a good catch at this).

Matt Easton looks like what the singer from Coldplay would've looked like had he not spent years in a faggy band.

The Owari kan ryu, despite containing no sword techniques in its core curriculum, never the less considers swordsmanship essential to mastering the spear, and trains shinkage ryu along side their spear art

youtube.com/watch?v=0-ZHHKU1DPc

Matt Easton is alright
He used to study with the company I'm with before he went to do his own thing, but this was way before I got into HEMA.

How many martial artists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?


>100
>1 to screw it in and 99 to tell him how that wouldn't work in the streets

What do you guys think of Skallagrim?
youtube.com/watch?v=bcMrQpdK-DU

I'm looking to start HEMA and so far from what I know the historical manuals also cover fighting without armor and without weapons which would essentially make it a wrestling/fist fight hybrid.

Started HEMA last month (Cincinnati finally - FINALLY - got a group together), and I'm ordering from Purpleheart this week, and I have a general question. What's the difference between these synthetics?

woodenswords.com/product_p/type-iii-f.htm

woodenswords.com/product_p/type-iii-f.fuller.htm

They look identical in the photos.

Also, if anyone cares, somebody from class took some video of end-of-class sparring. Again, we're all relatively new: the guy with the armor is a professional theatrical fight director but is relatively new to HEMA, and the other guy has a bunch of Japanese credentials, but has had a longsword for about 3 weeks. These are the only guys who feel confident enough to even try to cross swords yet.

youtube.com/watch?v=iow7Z1msPF4

>Wushu is bad
>HEMA is great!!

Generally speaking this is true.

and I dont do either, but you would have to be blind not to see the difference in quality

by the armor do you mean the shiny armor?

what Japanese styles if I may ask?

Yeah. He took off some bits of his harness and is wearing a quilted period arming doublet. A gorget (or bevor, I can't remember) and the shoulders. He says hes going to come in sometime in his full harness, which'll be pretty awesome.

The other guy did Kenjutsu and (IIRC) Ishin-Ryu Iaijutsu or Iaido. I can't remember which. Both of them are in their late 20s, I think; they're about 8 years older than everyone else in the class.

>any help or recommendations on the synthetic wasters...?

You mean Eishin ryu iaijutsu?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musō_Jikiden_Eishin-ryū

he didn't do to bad for and iaido guy

youtube.com/watch?v=Yegd3YpjmWY
youtube.com/watch?v=xyfuwLLVUdM
youtube.com/watch?v=gWZ2_lHPUUE
youtube.com/watch?v=RWcZ08p1PfM
youtube.com/watch?v=fWAMN23q5kU
youtube.com/watch?v=1YBlfuSuVEY

HEMA should just be called EMA. Why? Because there's not a shred of historical knowledge in the whole HEMA community. It's all a bunch of retards taking youtube videos as historical, unquestionable evidence. A bunch of retards who's only interest is arguing about whether a falcion can beat a zweihander or some other retarded shit.

They don't know the first thing about science, culture, or history.

>inb4 butthurt

He's a faggot. And a loser. But HEMA faggets take his word for gospel. Yet you might as well ask some random hobo about swords and history.

>HEMA is superior to all forms of Chinese martial arts

Holy fuck HEMAfags are deluded

>inb4 modern standardized wushu

Which itself is still superior

Fucking this, literally using some idiot on YouTube as a historical reference, 90% of these goons dont even have or haven't read the "old master treatises" they love to jerk off over, literally all HEMAdweebs care about is arbitrary shit like holding swords by the blade or if their repro rapier can parry a fake claymore because Maestro Cuckalino of rennaissance Abruzzo said he did

Nice to see I'm not alone in this.

Well, maybe where you are but in my country, a good deal of HEMA instructors have PhD in History or Archeology... So stay butthurt I guess.

fioredeiliberi.org/training/
Matt Easton is pretty respectable, I believe. There are lots of shitty LARPers perhaps in HEMA community.

You can't have a real martial art without a continuous tradition anyway. Anyone trying to "reconstruct" a martial art is deluding themselves.

There are a tons of respectable people in the HEMA community, knowledge and proeficiency wise. Tom Leoni, Piermarco Terminiello, Fabrice Cognot, Rob Runacres, Greg Mele, Reinier van Noort, Roger Norling, all of those (and many others) are engaged in the research and interpretation and or respected teachers and/or practitioners.

But sure you won't see a lot of them in Skallagrim-ish videos I suppose (though Easton mentions some of them here and there). You'd have to check some a bit more in-depth channels (like Alte Herren for instance) or oh-crazy read stuff.

The fact that there are some HEMA practitioners that are here to smack each others with replica swords doesn't mean that there aren't extremely knowledgeable people in the hobby as well.

>The fact that there are some HEMA practitioners that are here to smack each others with replica swords

This is the real issue. Sparring has zero relevance to recreating real-life fighting styles. Only actual combat with sharp swords can do that, and it's idiotic to think otherwise.

I don't think the ultimate goal of HEMA is to breed swordfighters though. It's not the goal of most if not all living lineages of japanese swordsmanship, I don't see why it should or is the goal of reconstructed styles. It's about traditions not practical applicable usage.
Advocating for fighting with sharp swords in our days is ridiculous and even more more edgelordy than nylon sparring. And most of the recreation is done through interpretation and research, not blind sparring.

As stated there isn't a "Ishin-ryu iaido", it should be Eishin-ryu, and therefore MJER, which is probably the biggest Iaido Koryu there is out there (if you aren't counting Muso Shinden-ryu as koryu). I guess the level would depend on the particular instructor, but there isn't any reasons to doubt its value.

There is a Enshin-ryu iaido but iirc it's made up (though it says nothing on their skills). There is also Isshin-ryu but it's a chain and sickle (kusarigama) school that isn't taught by itself (but in Shindo Muso-ryu Jodo), so I think it's safe to say it isn't this.

Then again, MJER teaches a few kenjutsu techniques, but it's mostly for advanced students, do you know the "kenjutsu" stuff he did? Or maybe it's just sidenotes in his MJER class... which is good enough I suppose.

there is no ultimate goal, goals are personal, and yes some people do practice HEMA to become the best swordfighters they can. there are lots of HEMA guys who are not into translating historical texts. though understanding the context for a treatise is key to understanding how and why some techniques were used.

>These are the only guys who feel confident enough to [spar].

Given the age of your group (2 months?), that's not bad. I can see some technique being used - a Scheitalhau, a Zwerhau, some decent winding - but it's not clean and it's pretty clear you're all fairly unpracticed if these are the best you have locally. Remember, to make any progress, you need to have a teacher locally who's capable of qualifying for the semis at Swordfish, otherwise you're going to be wasting your time.

As for your fighters:
The guy with the motocross armor is clearly in better shape, and I'd guess is younger; he's saving himself with reflexes a lot. If you all are doing German longsword, then he's not fighting as per the style dictates, by aggressively taking the initiative. I think I saw him as the aggressor in two exchanges out of something close to 30. If he's a Japanese-origin martial artist, then being a "counterpuncher" makes some sense.

The guy with the metal armor is clearly not in great shape and is probably older; his movements are slower, but they're much cleaner. I'd guess he's had a lot of sparring experience somewhere else; while his longsword technique is fairly rudimentary (granted, they both have that issue), he has excellent estimation of timing and distance, and he controlled the pace and distance of much of the fight. Both fighters passed up opportunities to wrestle, but if you're all new I don't hold that against you - better to have people who have the control NOT to try that before they're ready for it.

I scored the fight 9-4 in clean hits in favor of the metal armor guy. Both of them have 1-2 exchanges where it's tough to tell. The motocross armor guy had by far the two cleanest hits in the bout, there's a pair of headshots that are both beautiful. But the metal armor guy had a lot more hits, defended himself better, and won all the long exchanges which went past 3 blows, which is indicative of experience. Not bad for what it is, though.

John Clements says "What a rapier arguably did best was fight another rapier" in this article: thearma.org/Youth/rapieroutline.htm

Isn't that a roundabout way of saying that rapier was the worst type of weapon?

This really isn't true. Skallagrim only started practicing HEMA recently and before that he was a HEMA fan more than a practitioner himself.

It's funny the HEMA community had such a backlash to his videos he visibly cleaned up his act. Stopped dying his hair and made an effort to lose weight.

Alot of posters in this thread think Youtube is a good indicator of HEMA or any martial art and it really isn't. Skallagrim is completely irrelevant in HEMA.

Stopped reading at John Clements.

Context matters, the question was "what makes the rapier special?". Clements's answer, what I read of it, is that rapier were the first dedicated civilian sword. Longswords and arming swords were all-around weapons while rapiers were designed from the ground-up to be used in unarmored fencing. That doesn't look like a depreciation of the weapon, just a look at how it was different from mainly the older medieval swords.
Now even at that I'd say Clements is probably a bit too much restrictive at what a rapier is, though overall he is probably right.

All the rest of the text points out to the efficiency of this sword in its context, there's no hint of subtext as the rapier being the worst type of weapon at all.

Besides there is no "best" or "worse" while ignoring usage and context, you can't say something is good or bad without knowing the "at what".

If you weren't quoting that poster I would assume you were a HEMAfag vouching for HEMA.

That is literally HEMA's stance on sparring but study without application is completely untested theory. Sparring's the closest we can get.

It's also fun for most people and is developed for the sport aspect of the art. Exactly like every other martial art.

>HEMA ISN'T REAL SWORDFIGHTING BECAUSE FAT PEOPLE DO IT AND NO ONE DIES.

The tone of the article is not on the whole that rapiers were an inefficient weapon. But the implication of the quoted statement is that of all weapons a rapier could face, it would have the best chance of winning against another rapier, i.e. against any other weapon it would be at a disadvantage.

a European comparison to Wushu is Canne de Combat not HEMA.

They're both fucking cool.
youtube.com/watch?v=eMdZjyU7i54

Look at this jedi shit. It's a rules heavy sport ofcourse and not a strict martial art and that's why it can be so flamboyant.

Overall I'd say it's always better to fight a similar weapon, mostly because you usually learned how to fight against said weapon. Fabris and Thibault for instance talked about rapier vs longsword, but as sidenotes. I see it kinda like a universal lefty problem, it's unfamilier for a rapierist to fight a longsworder, but the reverse is equally true, so the disadvantes being shared, a situation of equality is re-achieved.

We could probably say the very same phrase with other weapons "What a longsword arguably did best was fight another longsword", or s&b for that matter.

I fail to see how a rapier would be at a critical disadvantage while facing a longsword. Imho, as far as unarmored fencing goes, rapier & dagger seems more promising than longsword alone. Tom Leoni demonstrated that a rapier could parry a longsword overpowered cuts without difficulties and would otherwise outrange them with thrusts (as expected).

Wushu seems to be mostly demo, while Canne de Combat has unchoregraphed fights as well. Flamboyant but not exactly the same thing (I'd say).

Besides, if you want french staff and stick methods, they do exist and have quite the history, from the Bâton à Deux Bouts of the early modern period (see Pashen) to the Baton de Joinville, there is a lot of french staff fighting that is a bit more "serious" than the Canne de Combat.

Here's Maxime Chouinard showing one of them:
youtube.com/watch?v=jKNYw2eM1NI

And here's an algerian stick-fighting "friendly" folkloric fight since we are at it.
youtube.com/watch?v=rll-p4Gas7I

Yes but surely there's some martial value to Wushu aswell.

Good links btw. New channels to me.

Boys suck. There's other things in history than war.

>Yes but surely there's some martial value to Wushu aswell.
Surely, frankly I don't know enough to state, though I think they've been hit hard by the maoists, loosing a lot of the links to the ancient styles, contrary to the japanese for instance. Anwyay, the wushu video was a choregraphed demo, the canne de combat one wasn't choregraphed (or it certainly didn't seemed to), that was my only point really.

Maxime Chouinard is nice, he has a site as well (I don't do longsword).
He is one of the few instructors to do both HEMA and traditional JSA (Miyamoto Musashi's style at that), so interesting cross-experiences.

Said every single armchair expert who has never been in a fight or trained to do so.

The whole point of the training is to instill muscle memory so that you respond intuitively with controlled, measured actions and to develop your experience in a fight so that you don't lose yourself to automatic responses.

You read too many fucking fantasy novels/watch too many movies/play too many games.

Name ten

Holy shit this, HEMA is literally a meme, its not based on any real unbroken tradition like genuine martial arts, it's what some fucking guys have cobbled together from old books (allegedly) seasoned with bullshit, if you sent HEMAfags back to the 11th or 15th century the guys fighting then would be like "what the fuck are these faggots doing"

which is a load of shit, as an unarmoured duel the rapier is at an advantage against most swords because of reach

the european comparison to wushu is rhytmic gymnastics, because thats exactly what wushu is but with paper thin chinese weapon replicas

...Have you ever actually studied HEMA?

Looking good! Some tips: Move sideways more, it lets you change distance without it being obvious, and gives you an advantage on the attack. Don't sit in one position, it makes you slower to react. What longsword treatise are you doing? I've done quite a bit of Meyer and Fiore (about 200 hours of Meyer and 100 on Fiore, over the course of 2 years), so I may be able to give you advice on specific stuff.

yous a dumb nigga

can i just ask the question what martial art you think HEMA is supposed to be?

hemac.org/index.php?site=members

There's easily 10 that fit that description here.

Hopefully this will be a reassuring link for you to see what HEMA actually looks like rather than which Youtubers like to talk about HEMA.

Not that matter. War drives human invention more than anything else, and war solves problems between groups better than anything else when it's not hamstrung by politically-expedient rules. If violence didn't solve your problem with another person your group, you didn't use enough violence.

>Sparring's the closest we can get.

That's not close enough. If you aren't doing it with full intent and with sharps, it's worthless. Go kill each other, HEMAfags, and leave martial arts to the Asians who didn't leave legitimate traditions behind.

>If violence didn't solve your problem with another person your group, you didn't use enough violence.
Wow, careful with that edge... Did you used to burn down the equations given you by your maths teacher claiming that you have solved it?

>leave martial arts to the Asians who didn't leave legitimate traditions behind.
"Asians" don't even care about that, a martial art isn't made by a continuous tradition, gendai budo are just as budo as koryu.
Besides, some europeans traditions like certain type of italian knife fighting or staff arts like Jogo do Pau still have their lineage intact.
Value isn't made by a long lineage, not even the japanese believe that. Besides, you can't (badly) take japanese way of considering traditions and apply that vision on every other culture, that's just idiotic and bad anthropology and sociology for that matter.