Historical European Martial Arts

What do you guys think of HEMA? Is it Veeky Forums approved?

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That's like asking what people think of boxing or football. It's a sport like any other.

gay LARPing, not a real sport

Totally, the study of martial culture certainly falls under humanities and often history. There is an academic discipline called hopology which does so systematically.

While my own interest is in the Japanese sword methods I love reading about weapon arts from all times and cultures

Too much of it is LARPing with insufficient understanding of the source material and outside of a historically accurate setting. Modern HEMA is probably better than historical longsword fencing for fighting with grippy shoes on an indoor basketball court, but favors a very different set of techniques compared to fighting in leather soled boots on grass or dirt.

Watch the footwork in one of those Swordfish championships, and notice how much they lunge and dance around. Compare that to the solid passing and transversing footwork shown in the source material. You'll notice that footwork isn't a particular focus in any of the sources, because the prevailing idea was to just do what feels natural. However, what feels natural in a high-grip situation is not what feels natural in a low-grip one, and lends itself to the use of different techniques.

>What do you guys think of HEMA? Is it Veeky Forums approved?

It's basically European Kendo, except generally practiced with metal practice weapons instead of bamboo/wood.

Its, at least when practiced properly, trained using manuals from whichever period in history and authors are relevant to the weapon being trained.

There are literally hundreds of treatises and manuscripts detailing every kind of style of fighting imaginable, with almost any weapon ever commonly used (in Europe).

For a (semi)readable selection, see here: wiktenauer.com/wiki/Treatises

Lots of people will argue that much or all of HEMA practices are not legitimate martial arts, or are just LARPing, and to some degree they'd be right, as HEMA has no governing body, and literally anyone can start their own school and claim to be authentic. It's like a lot of Japanese martial arts, in that you'll find dozens of McDojos for every legit practitioner, because there is no binding standard, and anyone can put on a Gi and a black belt and wave their arms around and tell people they're basically Mr Myagi and then sell 'Authentic Kung-Fu lessons'.

Not every HEMA instructor is Matt Easton, and a lot of/most people get into HEMA for the same reasons people get into reenactment and actual LARPing; because they want to do cool swordfighting. This means you have to be very wary of people that don't have a very legit reputation, because then it probably will just be LARPing. When done properly, HEMA is basically just reading through a LOT of really old treatises and books and putting together techniques found therein, then practicing them in sparring with other people who have done such.

Thats one thing the Japanese arts talk about a lot, sparring and tournament fighting lend themselves to very fast "jumpy" footwork and cutting with the arms rather than the whole body in order to score a touching "point" before the other guy. This is particularly a problem with lightweight training weapons.

Of course some styles also argue the benefits and even necessity of such practice, as long as its done right, and argue that its the best way to train freestyle now that matches with live swords are banned and wooden weapons cannot be used for full force contact without injury.

you know what grinds my gears? Veeky Forums will spend days debating whether the katana was crap, or whether a spear is better than a sword, but when people want to talk about how these weapons were taught and used its crickets.

>Matt Easton
Is he /ourguy/?

At the very least he uses primary sources for a lot of his information.