Miscellaneous > The Sallyport

Gotta get this off my chest.

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Thorsteinn:
Sometimes dealing with the HEMA Alliance is painful & frustrating. Someone ask's a general fighting question, you suggest a non-HEMA or <GASP!> SCA-related source and they jump down your throat.

Sometimes it's enough to make me want to challenge the whole lot of them to a single combat, anything-goes, submission fight.

Better now.

-Ivan

Sir William:
So, now that you feel better...can you give us a little background as to what happened?  What was the question, and the answer you gave?

I think that every martial org is going to have their elitists who think what they practice is the epitome of whatever art is the topic at hand...you just smile and nod, and move on to someone with just a wee bit more of a basis in reality (and gentility) than THAT guy.  Gotta love it, though.

I have been made to understand that there is a dissonance between HEMA and SCA...am I correct in my assumption that HEMA does not consider the SCA to be an historically-based style of medieval combat?  I wouldn't either...but that doesn't mean there's nothing to be learned from them.

SirNathanQ:
Well, I don't mean to be elitist here, but SCA simply ISN'T a period style of combat.
There is a good bit to be taken away from fighting SCA, but the fact that it discounts armour, doen't allow for attacks to the shins, doesn't take into account edge alignment and it's overdependence on wrap shots or use of SCA tailored gaurds would make it less realistic IMO than WMA.

However, there is still probably much that it does teach one, and I would put my eggs in the SCA basket before any other when looking for a battle-ready group due to it's practice of large scale battles, something that other groups simply don't do.

I myself do WMA, and plan to do SCA someday.

And please do tell what happened. I deal with this BS in Eastern martial arts all the time  :P

Thorsteinn:
Here is the thread: http://hemaalliance.com/discussion/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1795

I was jumped on for suggesting that 'The Armoured Rose" by Tobi Beck (SCA Fighter and Army MP) or Gemini Asonte might have something good to say on the subject of tiny women being run over by large men in the fighting ring.

I was asked by the moderators to not mention the SCA lest it was more relevant than HEMA and given that there are no HEMA books for women on fighting I felt that I was right on target (notice that they never bitch when I mention SCA armour experience when talking of HEMA level body protection).

And yes there are some HEMA folks who feel that they have nothing to learn from the SCA. My old HEMA instructor & my old roommate felt the same thing as the two guys in the group never brought their A game to any match with the rest of the class. The reasons were two fold: #1) We tend to hit hard in our A games, #2) the rest of the academy was not up to what we would bring and would get themselves hurt.

Sir William:
As I have never experienced a true large-scale medieval battle firsthand (none of us born within the last three centuries can lay claim to that) I couldn't actually say what it was like on the field, but I have come to think that style may have played a part in the initial forays but once the battle was fully underway, it was an 'anything that takes your opponent down' type of mentality.  Who is to say that wrap shots weren't in some way performed?  Or that in the heat of battle, when your adrenal glands are secreting so much of the hormone you could lift a fully armored and barded warhorse barehanded, armor might actually fail on the first blow, especially if it was cheap and/or poorly made?

I think there are definite lessons to pick up with regard to the grand melee that the SCA is known for...

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