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Schielhau Krumphau (video)

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Sir Brian:

--- Quote ---A broken finger here or there is really part of the game, look at anyone in competitive or professional sports. In the historical sports world, look at full contact jousters, getting hurt and breaking bones is inherent to the sport. I'm not saying that's for everyone, but I hope that the sport progresses to a level where it's accepted on some level that certain individuals want to compete at that tier.
--- End quote ---
Oh well I guess I met that particular criteria within the first two months of my WMA training when I had my finger broken the week before the 2011 Longpoint tournament. Of course I guess I should have stopped dueling right after it happened but the pain actually fed the fire and I fought two more duels before I had to stop because the swelling became too severe for me to hold the blade anymore. That finger has never been the same since nor will ever be again but I accept that as small payment for learning a lost martial art. ;)

- That said, all training is 'make believe'. It is a controlled exercise. Some sessions, instructors, schools, etc will exert more or less stringent tolerances but the at the end of the day it is still a controlled environment. If half the students are leaving in body bags or ambulances then it would be more true to the martial art but certainly not feasible. After all in the earlier middle ages knights did go to tournaments and trained with their actual weapons of war, it wasn't until the early 13th century when the terrible attrition upon the knighthood throughout Europe had become the likely impetus for the introduction of some safety measures with swords made of bone and blunted lances.  ;)

Sir Edward:

--- Quote from: Ian on 2012-07-09, 23:51:12 ---I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this.

--- End quote ---

Don't get me wrong, I completely understand where you're coming from, and I still say there's more than just ARMA if you want to take it to that level. Each group has their own threshold of acceptable risk. Most of the local groups I interact with (Selohaar, MASHS, MD-KDF, VAF) train to strike with intent. ARMA does have a higher tolerance for risk than a lot of other groups, but they're not the only ones doing so.

Every time I pick up the swords, I know there's an inherent risk of injury. But that doesn't mean I'm going to intentionally try to hurt my training partner in spite of the safety gear he's wearing.

Also another consideration is that many of the sword techniques actually don't require much power to be effective against an unarmored opponent. It's a bit of a myth that you have to wind up and make a really powerful swing for it to be martially sound. Particularly in the thrust, it can only require a few pounds of force to pierce a person. Much of what we learn can be done elegantly and efficiently, in a way that is safe to practice, but also completely sound in an actual fight.

However, part of the problem is that some other techniques are so inherently dangerous or lethal that there simply is no way to train them safely, without hampering the martial effectiveness. An example would be some of the arm-breaks, that are intended to break the elbow or shoulder. So there will always be some considerations taken, just like any other lethal martial art.

This has to be true of military training. Unless you use live rounds aimed at each other in training, there are safety considerations being taken. I haven't been in the military myself, so correct me if I'm wrong, but they don't actually shoot at each other with live rounds in training, do they?

What most practitioners will do is take a combination of approaches. For instance, you can use a variety of cutting materials to see how the sword behaves in cutting through targets, combined with training with steel simulators to get the proper feel for bind-work, while also fighting with synthetics for safer full-speed bouting (though arguably steel can be one of the safer materials to work with in general), and so on. Just as you would train with firearms in a controlled firing range, and do other wargames without live rounds, you can train with mixed simulations for HEMA/WMA as well.

I'm not arguing with you, you're right that not all people take it seriously as a martial art. Lots of groups are turning it into more of a sport, and most treat it as a hobby. Many are interested from the historical aspect alone, and don't care about becoming truly proficient. But we're also talking about an obsolete martial art. You're unlikely to need to defend yourself in a dark alley with a longsword. No one has a need to learn it from a life-and-death standpoint as our ancestors did, so we're all approaching it from some other angle to begin with.

So the "tl;dr" point I'm making is that there are a wide range of approaches with different goals, and all martial arts training has some level of safety built in by necessity. Risk of injury is part of the game, but there's a difference between taking a risk to practice your art, versus getting reckless, or even following through with potentially lethal maneuvers with your training partner.

And some of the groups that "take it to the extreme" are also not learning the arts correctly either. They're so intent on making it "hardcore" that they're not learning from the period manuscripts, they're not training a particular cut or "play" with the necessary repetition to get it right. If the risk outweighs the martial training, you're not representing the art.


--- Quote from: Ian ---Which school do you want to go to?  I know my answer.  I just feel like so many HEMA/WMA schools are fall in to school 2.  I want to go to school 3.  That element is missing from the schools I've been exposed to, and I have a feeling that masters of defence in the 14th and 15th centuries tended to employ their skills at School 3 as well.

--- End quote ---

I see your distinction, and I wrote most of the above before I read your second message. :) That's true, it's hard to find groups that are fire-breathing athletes, but not impossible. The MD-KDF group I mentioned earlier is headed up by a former ARMA member, and they're a pretty athletic bunch. Some of the MASHS guys are fast and hard-hitting. At Longpoint last year, we saw quite a few injuries as a result of the intensity in the competitions, since people wanted to WIN.

These things aren't completely absent from the community.

Ian:

--- Quote from: Sir Edward on 2012-07-10, 03:28:47 ---This has to be true of military training. Unless you use live rounds aimed at each other in training, there are safety considerations being taken. I haven't been in the military myself, so correct me if I'm wrong, but they don't actually shoot at each other with live rounds in training, do they?

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No of course not, but I think that would be more along the lines of sparring with sharps, which I think we can all agree would be stupidly dangerous.


--- Quote from: Sir Edward on 2012-07-10, 03:28:47 ---
--- Quote from: Ian ---Which school do you want to go to?  I know my answer.  I just feel like so many HEMA/WMA schools are fall in to school 2.  I want to go to school 3.  That element is missing from the schools I've been exposed to, and I have a feeling that masters of defence in the 14th and 15th centuries tended to employ their skills at School 3 as well.

--- End quote ---

I see your distinction, and I wrote most of the above before I read your second message. :) That's true, it's hard to find groups that are fire-breathing athletes, but not impossible. The MD-KDF group I mentioned earlier is headed up by a former ARMA member, and they're a pretty athletic bunch. Some of the MASHS guys are fast and hard-hitting. At Longpoint last year, we saw quite a few injuries as a result of the intensity in the competitions, since people wanted to WIN.

These things aren't completely absent from the community.

--- End quote ---

That's good to hear.  I hope those things become more ingrained in the community.  The Japanese have gotten this right, look at Kendo for example, and that too for all intents and purposes is an obsolete martial art.  You can bet your bottom dollar I will be the first to sign up at a school where I can learn to train HEMA with athleticism.  I will say that even the 'study group' of ARMA closest to me is no where near what I was looking to do.  The dude in charge of running that group is not even authorized to progress students to steel blunts.  That was all I needed to hear on my 3rd lesson...

Sir James A:
Sir Edward makes a great point with the arm and elbow breaks. When Sir Nathan and I had our harnessfechten at the VARF demo, we agreed no locks or breaks. It does limit methods of attack, though, but I'll take a safer bout where nobody gets broken. :)


--- Quote from: Thorsteinn on 2012-07-10, 00:40:21 ---With Ian here. One must accept injury & pain to train the martial arts.

--- End quote ---

Ian, correct me if I'm wrong, but what I'm reading from your posts is that you don't have to *get* injured (or injure someone else) to be training with full intensity and drive, and just because you *get* injured (or injure someone else) doesn't mean that you were training with full intensity and drive. In other words, the injury itself is completely irrelevant to the "level" of training; the key is in the *accepting potential injury* that opens the door to more intense training that most others will not do?

Das Bill:
If I may make a brief contribution to this discussion...

I'm an athlete. Pure and simple. I train historical European martial arts hard, and I train the way I learned in other martial arts. I spend at least four to five hours a day doing drills (both solo and partnered, depending on circumstance), and I teach this 40 hours a week as a full time job. This is coupled with strength training and agility training (from pushups to medicine ball drills to sprinting drills). And while what I see in the video is excellent, I also train with people who can move every bit as fast and precise (both within my own group as well as people from other groups).

I'm not saying this to brag (in fact, I've never even brought this up before on the internet), but I say this to bring up the point that you can't generalize that all groups are the same. In fact, you can't even generalize that all people within a group are the same: I have many students who fall into all three of the categories you listed before: Kids who's parents want them to do something besides play video games, older adults who want a slow paced but unique work out, and people who are serious martial artists and want to become the best they can be. I encourage students to go as far as they want to go, and I don't push them to be something they don't want to be.

Heck, I know for a fact that this is true for ARMA. I've had a number of ex-ARMA guys come to my school over the years. Some are high level athletes, and some barely know their left from their right, and can't even keep balance during footwork drills. Just because you're part of a particular group, no matter how good the instructor is, you only get out what you put in.

So while I don't disagree with a lot that you said, I also don't want you to assume EVERYONE is like that in the HEMA scene. I think more and more you're going to see a much bigger variety of people involved as the art grows.

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