Why do you not partake in local combat tournaments? Actually put that gear to use

I was under the impression that a good chunk of HEMA is guesswork and that the manuals wermeant to be used alongside tuition from a master. That and there's a lot of stuff in them that's not very useful in practice.

>t I haven't been ejected from for hitting wrists/hands like every period fencing manual says you should be doing at every opportunity.
Because that makes you a cheap-shoting bitch, that's why.

Pretty much. Its easy to go through the motions of a manual's instructions. Its much harder to put those techniques into practice against a live opponent.

It's quite funny fighting someone who has only learnt from the manuals.

They moved like a weird robot. Stance to stance like when a 8 year old does karate.

because I can't afford... well actually I can but I don't want to spend money on armour and I don't think it's a satisfying way to fight.

I do do a shitload of HEMA and I love both the fencing a wrestling but this sort of shit is just hammering someone who can't see you.

You've been to some shitty HEMA tournaments then. Hand shots are usually allowed. Only back of the head is off limits from any I've competed at.

Guesswork is a misleading term. It's very true that manuals with some rare exceptions all stipulate that fencing can not be learned from a book. It has to be seen in motion, practiced and taught by a tutor. This is on one hand a disclaimer to make sure the writer stays in work and the reader doesn't rush to his death by thinking he's learned fencing from having read the book and shadowboxed some techniques and secondly simply an acknowledgement of the limits of the written word.

Alot of the books are big renaissance commonplace books where the fencing is only one section and even that is dwarfed by the wrestling section. Alot of these books also have dance sections. This is important to note because it puts into sharp relief just how learnable fencing is compared to dancing. You can not recreate the dances in these books. Can't be done. Comparatively the fencing is very clear and the wrestling is actually in many cases very learnable from the texts.

Some posts here are suggesting that since HEMA is essentially just interpretations rather than definite recreation it's just flailing or guesswork. This could not be further from the truth in my experience but my experience has been very good. I've trained with many of the best at this point and at this point that sort of attitude sounds just the same as...

Muay Thai never looks the way I imagined it would in practice. It's like they learn it and throw it all out once in the ring.

Get good and protect your hands. All weapon sports rule 1: Break their hand!

Because BotN is a modern sport, fought with modern equipment that kind of looks mostly like a suit of medieval armour and medieval weapons.

Reenactment: Reinforced armour Sucker punching edition.

Wow that guy got blindsided so hard!!
oh shit it happened!!

Oh Shit!

There it is.

Ok is that all this is?

Holy shit, I actually live near Warsaw. I didn't know they did this type of shit.

This is just dudes in armor pushing over and striking eachother when their opponent is busy with someone else

Because I'm not nearly in good enough shape to fight in plate armor for extended periods of time.

Frankly this has nothing to do with real swordsmanship. You can be sure someone properly trained in armored combat would take these guys apart.

>You can be sure someone properly trained in armored combat would take these guys apart.

Eh skillwise thats true ofcourse but most of these guys to be fair to them have a judo or JJ background so it's better than it looks but really this is the same shit as laser tag.

You put a Special forces soldier in an open laser tag field he can get rekt by all the kids hammering the trigger. What I mean is this isn't really armoured combat as would be seen on the battlefield. It's a game where anything lethal isn't allowed.

That's why you wear protective equipment. I'm not talking about joint strikes and eye gouging here, I'm talking about basic swordsmanship.

No, but it turns into a larp brawl just as quickly.

Protecting the hands is the whole reason why basically everything in HEMA exists. As soon as the hands go off limits, you're playing a game, not practicing a martial art. There's a reason guards like ochs and posta di donna exist, and it's not to look like an edgy animu character. It's because they're positions that allow you to quickly attack or defend while keeping your hands protected.

The manuals are a starting point and somewhat open to interpretation, but "open to interpretation" doesn't mean "ignore everything that's written and start from scratch because I'm a strong independent white man and I don't need no instruction." Some things are pretty fucking explicit like "go for the hands and wrists whenever possible," "if he offers you an elbow, grab it," and "don't fucking sit there in breve/pflug like you're compensating for your shriveled little cock." But everyone ignores that and starts flailing around from breve, exposing their hands and taking ridiculous risks that would have gotten them killed by mistake during practice 500 years ago.

That's a symptom of not practicing against a live opponent or practicing all the plays in order or other learning techniques that have proved ineffectual time and again. It's not a symptom of owning a fencing manual. Just because a history class has a textbook doesn't make it trash.

>Why do you not partake in local combat tournaments?

Probably because its fucking expensive buying and maintaining all that gear.

Same reason why a lot of martial arts look wonderfully artsy in theory with colourful and pinpoint accurate techniques honed to perfection and patterns/katas/forms etc yet in actual fights devolve into sluggish brawls like in MMA or UFC.

Not right now. It's a ruleless clusterfuck atm. They need to give people (fake) maces, and give them points based on their blows.

So basically, grappling/ramming would still be overpowered as fuck, but you could actually tech out a team by, idk, using your actual weapon.

You'd have to wait till the next day to declare a winner, but itd be worth it.

No need for the HEMA defense force here guys. The positive word count overwhelms the negative already.

Using actual weapons with weight = killing your opponent

So HEMA winds up being karate with mid evil gear, where its more based on points than actual combat effectiveness.

It's not like you can do much better, since if you wanted weighted weapons with points you'd want to use armor that's basically padded fullybody football armor.

>No, but it turns into a larp brawl just as quickly.

thankyou for demonstrating that you have clearly never once been to, or watched a HEMA event.

because I've been doing hema for more than a decade, and I dont know of a single tournament that has had a "brawl", yet alone a LARP.

So, you're talking bullshit.

Greetings from Russia to combat-brother

>So HEMA winds up being karate with mid evil gear
It's like karate in that it's a martial art yea but there's no Medieval gear. The only thing that would fit that description is Federschwerts in Longsword which is is legitimate Renaissance fencing equipment with a little spring steel improvement here and there.

Your points argument is based entirely on competition and not the martial art itself. HEMA by any good standard doesn't train to win points against men in modern fencing gear. It's trained as a lethal martial art as close as possible to the original fencers that practiced it. Who didn't for the record kill their training partners anymore than we do.

That guy claimed he'd never been in a tournament where they didn't count hits to the hand. Let me translate that to nonMartial Arts people: That guy has never been in a HEMA tournament.

>People read all of the manuals and practice all of the techniques, and then as soon as they come up against an opponent it all falls apart into wild autistic flailing

A lot of people simply dont fence well, and forget what they've trained when it comes to the actual fight.

Its actually an element of discussion, did people back then do the same thing, and forget all their training?

older jujutsu meant for grappling with weapons looks nothing like this.

youtu.be/tQXtTxJ7_nA?t=150

I didn't say that was Ju Jitsu I said to their credit the men in that video know that. What they're doing is more like American Football than Ju Jitsu but that doesn't mean they don't know Ju Jitsu they're just playing a game they enjoy. A spectator sport.

I think hema people assume those plays were literal, In kenjutsu traditions they plays (kata) are not assumed be be what you would literally do, but studies in timing, distancing and the psychology of the fight, the physical techniques you learned were secondary to all that.

You'll be glad to hear you're wrong in your assumption and HEMA is a very well rounded and effective in what it does.

You point about Kenjutsu is every bit the case with HEMA but you play down Kata's a little too much and the comparison isn't a perfect one for HEMA guards and techniques.

You're falling for the same trap as that all HEMA people train the same and train solely from whats available in the pretty sparse and simplistic very early texts. This isn't the case.

>You'll be glad to hear you're wrong in your assumption and HEMA is a very well rounded and effective in what it does.

Well I never said that it wasnt

Cool I just want to take any chance to talk about it because I live for this shit.

I really want to. But how does one even get into it? Do you have to buy your own armor? Build your own? Where do you train?

At least post something historically accurate: youtube.com/watch?v=rPrIVEGioU0

Fair enough, I use to start kenjutsu threads on /asp/ but they couldn't survive the shit posting on the nights mandrama aired so I stopped.

Ive actually seen some very good swordsmanship from hema tournaments. the reaction time the guys in your video here have is not something easily achieved

Cool I'd love to do Kenjutsu myself. Yea that was last weeks swordfish and these Russian boys cleaned up in the Saber and pulled off some ridiculous showmanship. Check this shit out.

I remember the old Kenjutsu threads and miss the old /asp/ days. It's a real shame what's happened to it. Only now after about a year are HEMA generals starting to become anything but forced bumping for bumpsake shit shows.

There is some Japanese schools that teach dropping to one knee but that's crazy

Yeah, they should have just given Wrassling a new board rather than ours, but it its what it is. Ive read following the hema thread from time to time there, but I dont what to go off topic with kenjutsu stuff unless its raised.

The one thing I dont like is how sporty their footwork is, balls of feet, hoping around. Not that it doesnt work, at least on a nice flat surface. Its a good way to sprain your ankle on natural ground Since it was a dueling weapon I suppose it fits

That closing shot of the lance about to strike a direct hit straight into the camera makes me diamond hard every single time.

Yea that's a very good criticism actually and one the sources agree with you on.

I've picked up a few related knocks this year myself doing outdoor displays.

The real dangerous aspect of this inst its use in tournaments but that after a few generations of this swordsmen start thinking its the only logical way to move.

There are japanese saber manuals where solider in army boots are taking a narrow kendo stance on the balls of their feet, because that is the swordsmanship they trained in as boys and only a few quaint schools maintained older footwork, since the footwork was more than useless in the context of shinai fighting in the dojo.

I practice martial arts for years and know the way of superior Nippon steel

Mike Tyson, Muhammad Ali, Brock lesnar are savage, bumbling fools compared to my martial art techniques.

I laugh when I see these fools go into the ring without any serious east Asian martial arts knowledge and flail their arms around when I could put them down with one well-placed punch.