Miscellaneous > The Sallyport
Gotta get this off my chest.
Ian:
--- Quote from: RauttSkegg on 2012-02-09, 23:15:50 ---
--- Quote from: Ian on 2012-02-09, 22:43:13 ---but the HEMA / WMA community chooses to strictly adhere to historical technique, and can't be blamed for following through on this.
--- End quote ---
On this I throw the flag as I hardly ever see them doing, or talking of doing, any of the historic formats that we have clear evidence of like fights at the barrier, holmganga, pancration, mixed weapons, and unarmed combat. Right now all I see in the American HEMA is a bunch of people arguing over how to do a simulated unarmoured duel with matched longsword simulators and no Hand-to-Hand moves.
Many of the fights I have seen have bad form and bad follow through. Both Battle of the Nations and the Laurin Tourney are better than the HEMA Alliance for this right now.
Frankly the HEMA community needs to be able to say what it is, and not what it is not before it can be taken seriously. Right now it's arrogance does not match its renown or prowess.
--- End quote ---
What specific organizations are you looking at? The HEMA alliance is made up of many many HEMA organizations and specific schools. Your accusation can be said of any large-scale loosely affiliated group of individual organizations, which is what the HEMA alliance really is. The AEMMA guys in Toronto are pretty legit when it comes to historical accuracy from what I've seen. ARMA (/dodge thrown pies) is also pretty legit when it comes to adherence to historical technique.
Judging HEMA and WMA from the HEMA alliance forums is like judging the SCA as a whole from the AA (which yes, although is not supposed to be an SCA specific site, let's face reality here for a second). I will agree with you whole-heartedly though that the HEMA Alliance really has no sense of itself and is not as coherent an organization as it could be.
My first impression of the SCA was going to my local shire's fighter practice. This is going to sound bad, but it was a group of out of shape gentlemen that were completely winded and exhausted after a couple swings of a stick, with only a small group of people wearing anything remotely resembling an attempt at historically accurate armor or kit. Before I get the whole 'it's very exhausting', I've done my fair share of full contact martial arts and good ol' boxing, and I know what full out physical exertion over a long period of time feels like while getting kicked or punched in the face, and these guys were not in any shape to be doing a martial activity. I cannot judge the whole SCA based on this experience and decided to do a lot of research on my own. I came to appreciate what the SCA does, and in the end wished I had a more serious group of SCA here locally so I could play too.
HEMA is the same way, there are schools and study groups that would rather sit around and debate and act all elitist and then would get soundly trounced by anyone who took the sport seriously. There are other schools who strictly try to recreate what techniques would have been used in historical times but completely miss the point of a martial activity and leave out what I consider vital to any martial art, and that is strength, fighting intent, and real athleticism. Then there are schools that really get it, and train at speed, with intent, respect for what this is (a LETHAL sport), and it's practitioners are athletes with a warrior's mindset. The HEMA alliance is made up of a shotgun smattering of all this and everything in between. I just wish it was easy to find a school that meets your expectations and level of open-mindedness.
The awesome thing about the SCA is it has folks that get it! Like Sir Gemini for example, that man is an athlete with a warrior's mindset, and I think his attitude and mindset are sorely needed in a lot of HEMA organizations. Shame on the elitists in the alliance for not recognizing his potential contributions in this aspect.
Sir Edward:
--- Quote from: Ian on 2012-02-09, 22:43:13 ---
--- Quote from: Sir William on 2012-02-09, 22:21:23 ---Who is to say that wrap shots weren't in some way performed?
--- End quote ---
While it's true we cannot actually rule things like this out, the mere fact that techniques like this are not described anywhere in the treatises on historical warfare and judicial combat are pretty good indicators. We can suppose a lot of things, but without evidence we can't claim it's a valid historical technique. /$0.02
--- End quote ---
Probably the closest thing in the manuscripts would be the various Sturtzhau plays. The thing is, there's some variety and/or disagreement on what a perfect sturtzhau really is. More often than not, I think it's interpreted as a sort of plunging strike. The sword hand turns over, but the sword still leads with the point, rather than being an inverted cut, though it can still result in a back-edge cut.
Anyway, just an extra thought on the subject.
Thorsteinn:
Sir Ian I cannot find any meaningful disagreement for anything in your last post there. You humble me.
I too seek to raise up what the SCA does in it's martial activities and I plan to make it happen by speaking my mind & fighting like I would have us Heavy's fight. I also am on the Cynaguan Guard so I have an impetus to look my best. Prince Richard is going to stop his "Chateau de Camville Schola Weekend's" in Placerville, CA while on the throne but they are his effort to bring up the awesomeness of what we are doing.
Ian:
--- Quote from: RauttSkegg on 2012-02-10, 02:32:02 ---Sir Ian I cannot find any meaningful disagreement for anything in your last post there. You humble me.
I too seek to raise up what the SCA does in it's martial activities and I plan to make it happen by speaking my mind & fighting like I would have us Heavy's fight. I also am on the Cynaguan Guard so I have an impetus to look my best. Prince Richard is going to stop his "Chateau de Camville Schola Weekend's" in Placerville, CA while on the throne but they are his effort to bring up the awesomeness of what we are doing.
--- End quote ---
I think in a very roundabout way we wound up on the same page there. :)
SirNathanQ:
Yeah, you have the gems and the lemons in both sides. You have the HEMA unskilled elitists, and the SCA picklebarrel-clad couch potatoes. Then you have the John Clements and the Bill Grandys, and the Sir Geminis and the (insert favorite SCA fighter here)s.
You see something similar to a wrap shot in the I:33 manual. Although all of my expeience in combat facimilies indicates that it's to be seldom thrown, as it makes the arm a wondeful target.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version