Has HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) lost its way?

We are still studying the sources at the Stahlakademie in Leipzig(Germany). I am a beginner, but I feel our school does a pretty good job at being diverse with the training content:).

I was going to comment abt Frederico Malagutti... but you beat me to it in the video. 😂😂🎉🎉🎉

We need to stop HEMA from becoming a sport. It should not be done just to win points, but to assimilate real life fighting and use real techniques and historically accurate weapons.

Honestly, I feel like more relaxed rulesets and a greater emphasis on Mixed weapons sparring could really help here. I feel like allowing grappling into most matches/changing scoring rulesets (insufficient contact doesn't stop the match, half-points awarded to blows deemed likely superficial, time-based matches instead of point based, submissions allowed, etc.) could really help keep HEMA in a much closer context to what it was historically. Sure, it could STILL just become "sword MMA" with that approach, but I feel like the closer we can keep our sparring to the historical context, the longer the reconstruction aspect will stay VIABLE, if that makes any sense



There's also the (controversial) topic of safety here. Historically speaking, most emphasis was put on training user restraint when it came to keeping people from hurting each other, now, its almost entirely based on protective gear and strict rulesets. I really do believe this is why polearm fighting is so unpopular nowadays. Even with a very light, padded weapon most schools are terrifed of you swinging it in any capacity. Why do quarterstaff if all you can do is lightly poke with it or slow-drill? Why do Halberd, Partisan or even simple spear if you can't do anything cool with it like you can with a longsword, per say? Again, it's borderline a taboo in most HEMA schools that I have seen so I'm not sure if it will change anytime soon. But I've been in kids karate classes that have had more lax rulesets when it comes to handling padded weapons, and MOST other Weapons' martial arts that I've seen still focus on self restraint vs crazy strict rulesets. So again, if we wanna KEEP HEMA's complete, multi-discipline reconstructive element, we need to actually ALLOW people to, well, practice closer to the way that THEY would've done it historically speaking

Martial arts and warfare are competition. Regardless if the prize is a metal or life.

That's why modern military plays war games and laser tag.

If you want to make it more realistic, all you have to do is make it more painful to lose.

If you go to play paintball just minimal face protection, a t-shirt and shorts, you will quickly find out how painful it is to get hit and start making use of cover and concealment as if they were real bullets.

HEMA can focus on historical treatise in a way HMB/Buhurt can't. If you primarily want to smash something with a medieval weapon, then (come join us in) Buhurt.

Hema is like cyberpunk Catholicism

We just want to swing swords. The historicity of it was just a show for legitimacy, that's not as necessary anymore.

I think a combat sport can go one of two ways; It can be an amateur sport designed for the practitioners, such as Olympic sport fencing, and traditional Asian martial arts. Or it becomes a professional spectator sport for the entertainment of an audience, like pro boxing, pro wrestling and MMA. In pro spectator sports the fighters are there to get paid. And professional sports design their bouts to be exciting for the paying spectators. Personally, I greatly prefer the pure amateur combat sports. Professional boxing, MMA, etc. are bad for the fighters and bad for the audience. I hope HEMA will not go in that direction.

As someone who participates in "Olympic"-style fencing (Sabre and Epee), when HEMA practitioners say fencing is "fake" and HEMA is "real" fighting, then I watch the tournament HEMA... I don't get it. What's any more "real" about that kind of HEMA? At least there's a swordsman's aggression and good footwork with modern fencing. If someone is going to look down on modern fencing, then I don't think tournament HEMA is a good example of how to do sport better while becoming a "real" swordsman. Go watch Max Heinzer and say he's not a real swordsman. Tournament HEMA often looks like extra passive, stand-off Epee with bad footwork.

Or the flailing, "swing a sword around" kind of casual "HEMA"... jump attacks, and Star Wars flailing - what's real about that? What's good swordsmanship about that?

As a Sabreman and an Epee fencer, it's just bothersome that HEMA practitioners discard modern fencing as unworthy when HEMA is often just as fake or even more fake (in the case of the "HEMA" casuals who just want to recreate anime or Star Wars).

I'm glad that my club works from the (translated) text and sometimes it tells you to do some very 'odd' things, sometimes that could be because of our misinterpretation of the instructions, but that's all part of the fun for us.

One of the best things that modern Kendo has done is codified a set of 10 kata that preserve the original context and ideas of older Kenjitsu forms as they relate to the practice of Kendo. These 10 sequences, practiced by a “teacher” and “student” using wooden swords (and steel swords for advanced instructors) codify the original techniques of Japanese swordsmanship. These ideas, techniques and movements are performed, slowly with deadly seriousness and focus. They represent every thing that gets lost in contemporary competitive practice with bamboo shinai and protective bogu. I believe that HEMA would benefit from something similar. Think of it like an abstract movement manifesto for a particular weapon set. I think that such a meditative approach could ground and reconnect HEMA to the historical roots.

A little bit about my background: Currently I am involved in HEMA ( almost a year), practicing regimental Scottish broadsword (Angelo, Roworth, Tuohy). Before that I studied Kendo in Japan (Shodan), Rapier (SCA) and Epee in college (US). Later about a year or so of Classical Foil. I am not an expert in any one martial art; however I am a keen observer with a broad background.

yes it has lost it's way, that's why i invented my own version; called H-WMA.

I’ve been concerned about this trend for awhile now.

I don't study hema as much as I like - gear is a bit too expensive for my situation - but I find this video interesting nonetheless.

I am reminded of back when I did karate. We met three days a week, Tuesday and Thursday nights, and Saturday mornings. We focused on a different skill set each of those days: Tuesdays, we would learn traditional stuff, like a kata or special strike or something; Thursdays, we would learn practical self-defense techniques; and Saturdays would be sparring days, possibly learning specific competition sparring techniques. Could that be a possible solution.

The fun irony of the situation is the main reason fencing is unappealing to me is how gamified and how unlike swordfighting it can often be (sabre is the worst where fencers often just wack each other simultaneously again and again and again as they try to abuse RoW rules instead of fence).

HEMA is so appealing because it looks and feels far more like an actual sword fight.

In the Russo-Japanese War, Russian soldiers could not defeat Japanese soldiers who had trained in judo. The Soviet Union studied judo and developed sambo.
Thomas Cowen” At some of the forts men fought at close quarters, bayonet to bayonet, and it was once again shown that, though the Russians have the advantage of size and weight, they are no match for the quicker and more skilful Japanese”

I have an appreciation of the history involved, but I wouldn't spend 1000 plus on gear to recreate history. I spend that to dress up badass and test myself against other people with a "sword".

Got kicked out of a hema club for questioning safety standards in longsword tournaments. The cult leader vibe of US hema instructors is beyond tangible.

I think it's natural that swordfight would always develop into a sport with rules. This happens naturally since we don't practice this to actually "end people rightly" anymore. What we want out of this at the end of the day is a fun way to exercise, a sort of game basically. The main differentiating thing about HEMA is the historical aspect though, "feeling" history first hand so to say, and that's something that shouldn't get lost of course. It's applied archaeology.

i think theres something to be said for the fact that we jsut dont use swords to fight to the death anymore, the only way to be part of a living tradition is trhough competition; thats what gives waving pieces of metal about meaning in our context. i would like rulesets that retain/simulate as much of the historical practices as possible, but the incentives of compeition and training vs to the death duels, self defence and even first blood duels are so different that some compromise is inevitable. i am certain that when teaching these systems, the historical masters would have run up against the same issues and come up with similar compromises and abstractions; you literally cant learn to fence with the mindset that if i get hit in sparring im going to die, becuase you wont practice anything

One of my observations of HEMA is similar to my observations of Airsoft, which is that in real life, the risks one would take when real bullets or real sword fighting, IMO, profoundly changes one's approach. This is similar to watching point-based sport karate compared to MMA, or watching a real firearms fight taken by a police car's camera. The emphasis on defense and not getting hit, mixed with the movement and actions of one's body while terrified, looks very different. I just think in a real sword battle, most of those involved would be significantly less aggressive, unless that is their approach in an attempt to overwhelm the opponent with ferocity (which can backfire spectacularly and in a very catastrophic if not deadly manner).

If it were possible, I think taser technology could be incorporated into the armor or under it, whereby depending on the hit, the person would feel a burst of intense pain. This real and dramatic consequence would change how people fight. You could "turn the shock down" for practice and only use the intense pain in competition. Part of this technology would incorporate the fact that different people's skin has different conductivity (in general, male skin is significantly thicker than female skin to the point where I have witnessed male electricians who can touch a 220 volt house current wire, twist it up, then cap it while its still "on." They still feel pain, and this is decidedly very dangerous, but they can do this while most people can't.)

If the scoring system in HEMA tournaments makes people fight contrary to historical methods, because they want to score more points, this means the scoring system is wrong.
Why is historical armour not required in the first place?

Our club got a smith to create Longswords which are normal swords in the strong and springs in the week part. They are save for 100% sparing and handle a lot more like swords then Springswords.

I do not think HEMA has lost its way, because there was never THE way (or ONE way), but many ways. Which all were and still are benefiting from each other.

HEMA is growing and evolving and therefore we have created a martial art or combat sport, which does not necessarily demands every practicioner to study the sources. Of course instructors and those who want to evolve in their game absolutely have to look into their sources. But a bigger audience is able to just "train & consume" HEMA as a pasttime, passion or fitness activity.
That is not a bad thing, as long as the people are really passionate about HEMA and being instructors, feel responsible to work on through the source and always question their own interpretations, exchanging with other, learning, growing, evolving. And it is no wonder, that we see each year more and more new (old) sources translated, transcripted and interpretated by these passionate researchers and instructors. And also the ammount of good video instructions, modern books and the context knowledge around the sources is growing.

But of course it is an important thing to give the combat training a structure and many clubs and instructors do a very fine job in making their martial art also in training structure and physical challenges much more serious. The same goes for tournaments. Though I am not a big fan of them (mostly because the rulesets destroy the fencing attitude and create too many ugly suicidal ttacks and ridicolous double-hit rules etc.), it is for sure an important part to create interest, give people a challenge and let them grow as fencers.

Historical context and knowledge is important in HEMA, that will never go away, in my opinion. The reconstructive side of HEMA was always the work of the very few, very dedicated. That circle is growing as well, though of course much slower then the bigger, beefy part of participants "just" training HEMA.

I think, Matt some interesting points here to keep in mind and there is always the danger of HEMA becoming unbalanced, so too much a competition sport or too much a backyard martial club or too much a "nerdy" hobby without good sport training structure or too much of reenactment or too much of whatever you fear. So yes, absolutely the source work is absolutely important, especially if we want to create competitions and tournaments, which still have a base in the realistic context of swordsmanship.

Nice vid mate, all your kenjutsu info,..... Spot on.... Really enjoyed it, see you at fight camp. 👍

I don't know about Hima but my first renaissance fair I watched two dudes dressed up in armor made from old cars and whale on each other with maces and dull swords covered in rust it looked like a tavern duel of drunken flailing with the crunching of metal like a destruction derby minus the motor noise. then the next year at the fair it was these two skinny guys in armor with these tiny dowel rods going tap tap tap. I found out later that they got Regulated. well At least the Turkey legs were still good.

I originally didn't get into HEMA because I didn't want to be a historian, but then I found out how much sparring they do and joined.

Of the kenjutsu and battodo schools that incorporate freeform sparring as an exercise, it is usually not for students in their first few years of training - or below a certain grade. On the basis that sparring without having good fundamentals and source knowledge creates bad habits that take years to unlearn. And I think they’re on to something there.

I'm having a good time and while my two clubs trains longsword and broadsword, primarily and respectively, we train a lot of other stuff too. Wrestling, polearms of all sorts, Messer, sword and buckler, sidesword, etc.

For starters: Swords should have historical weights, proportions, and balance standards. It's not Historical if you're using a weapon with no historical equivalent.

And very important: rules should adapt to, and preserve the "realistic/original" fighting style, instead of the reverse: where it's the participants who adapt the style to the rules, for the most part.

Lovely video.

I think this is completely misguided. If the UFC, and MMA in general, have taught us anything it's that the old masters who theorized about combat were mostly making stuff up. If we took the historical sources seriously we'd be focusing our qi instead of learning what actually works.

I have an idea on how to fix it: In longsword competition some kind of hits should end the match instantly, no matter if it is a double hit or not (eventually ending it for both). Like a nice thrust to the face or bib, a full cut over the stomach and things. You know, these moments BAM followed by uhhhhh from the audience. - Currently I like watching amateur longsword matches more than pro, because amateurs somehow at least try to do something good looking. High profile sparring also looks good often. But in competitions its like running to the opponent, chopping in and doing helicopter of death. Some specialized in Absetzen. I know it's not that simple and this stuff requires true skill or somebody else would be in the finals. But some high profile matches just look ugly and boring, because they fight the longword without the slightest bit of caution and go for a double hit too easy. Meyer and others have been writing so much about being careful and they are right imao. I would like to see us fighting more careful, that would help a lot. Modern Kamikaze style just sucks, even if it wins after getting 5 single hits with 15 double hits in between.

Yup, me, HEMA is big in my area, a big renaissance fair in my town, so it's a big sport in my area. I signed up for my local school for this summer. I was out in my backyard getting a leg or well a sword length up for class this summer. Context would be king, even in sparing gear, I saw someone break their back getting power slammed on a hardwood floor. If you want a sport, then moves designed to do serious injury or kill someone, may not fit the context of a sport.

In Bujinkan, there would not be competitions

Definitely noticed that, but since i come from having a deep interest in history, it's the history just as much as martial art that drew me to hema. So seeing such a majority focus on it as just a sporting interest is really sad to me. Often feel the odd one out because of that and the sporting aspect not really being all that important to me.

are any of those swords on that wall for sale

The key part is the word "historical" and where you draw the line and it becomes just martial arts. The truth is it was always just martial arts.

OSR by a different name ...

I feel that competition is running into more and more protective equipments, leading a even more brute force used in tournaments and a lot of doubles.
With some other hema clubs we are experiencing fencing with just head protection and gloves. Doubles score as - 1 to both fencers.
It gives a bright new insight into the combats since you don't want to get hurt and don't want to hurt your friend. We get much more interesting swordplay in this way, and.... Much less injuries as well.

Despite my greatest efforts I am still Matt Easton.

What a load of bullshit of completly ignoring Fechtschule. They had WAY more longsword "sportfencing" competitions back then, from WAY earlier than people expect. They literally did it every second weekend. We couldnt even organize that many.

You cherry picked 3 sources for "self defence" but ignored the others of that time which are verry suited for "sportfencing". You narrow the context way to much, which is false.

Every time the scene progresses, people make videos to motivate the martial larpers to push against that progress.

Trying to simulate sources made for a different context than we can simulate is just not working (thats just martial larp). One cant get good in something one cannot actually train. And "Sucking is never martial" -Sean Franklin.

Lets just enjoy the sources we actually can use for our context that work, and be happy.
Our context is a form of even faster and intense Fechtschule due to protective gear, the Masters from back then would have loved it.

Also if people see exchanges and say its not by the source, its often them not knowing the source nearly enough. The sources are more about tactics with a few suggestions to solve situations, than fancy long "plays", and people have stupidly unrealistic expectations.

The reason that beginners dont touch the sources is that average HEMA teaching is from the stoneage and give them barely any tools to interpret the source. We need to raise that quality, in some places its good but the average is extremly mediocre.

A lot is made of the sport vs self defense argument. Does muay Thai not make a strong case against that argument. Most agree that while it’s a sport Muay Thai is Muay Thai Boran stripped down to its most effective moves. Most martial arts have moves that only work for certain body types and could be consider extraneous. Eg im too shoot for a head lock throw hip throw on almost anyone vs a pro basketball player Is too tall for an under arm hip throw.


So that’s it all I had to say on that. Personally though if you were to change the rule system I think you could get a sport scoring system that more closely mirrored self defense. But that’s a different can of worms.

A true historian looks at the sources humbly and soberly. This is why I highly respect this channel.

Give it time and hema will grow up some. There's a lot of rebuilding and relearning to do.

I did reenactment and HEMA from a martial arts background.
I had done muay thai for years but wanted to learn to fight with a blade, against groups. To defend myself in extreme (and increasingly likely) conditions.
In both reenactment, the obsession with rules, safety and authenticity seemed to bother people more than their learning.
There was a culture of finger-wagging condescension that has emerged in the last few years until I couldn't stomach it any more. I left reenactment after 8 beloved years because the rules and regulations based culture in there was stifling.
I'm a fighter and I saw early that HEMA was a scholarly pursuit and respected that and went a different way. Though I respect the work you guys are doing in restoring a treasured part of our history.

I just want to brawl, study edged weapons and polearms and celebrate my heritage.
Still haven't found what I'm looking for