Battle of the Nations have held the UK national tournament in our local park for the last couple of years. My wife and I went to watch the first year, thinking it would be a quaint medieval reenactment thing.
It wasn't. A few minutes into the first bout we realised they were dead serious and properly going for each other. It was a lot of fun, but there was definitely an odd feeling of 'how much should I be enjoying this?' as it was so violent. Basically two people in full armour beating the crap out of each other with a heavy metal bar and a big wooden plank.
Some all-out kendo fights / training are downright frightening in that regard. Many blows would be maiming (some even lethal) were it not for the protective gear.
People have similar reactions to the Gloucestershire cheese rolling. "How fun!" they think. Then they see people hurling themselves down a really steep hill and realise that it's not so quaint. Most people aren't running, they're falling, and they have little control over those falls.
Often multiple people end up with broken arms or legs.
It's certainly an activity that requires a lot of fitness; sparring/bouting without all that armour on is tiring enough for me.
But, I hear from mediaeval HEMAists that it's not really quite the same as mediaeval combat in that thrusting into the gaps of the armour has been replaced (for obvious safety reasons) with bludgeoning and that it is not based on any particular historical systems.
I wouldn't know, not specialising in that period myself.
> I hear from mediaeval HEMAists that it's not really quite the same as mediaeval combat
As soon as anything becomes a sport it deviates from how it works in real life. It has to, especially when the thing is combat based because killing someone in the name of sport simply isn't cricket.
I'm a member of a group that practices medieval sword, dagger, and unarmed techniques - with a view to being martially sound and historically accurate (within the limits of not actually maiming each other - there are things we know how to do that we would never try on a live training partner or in a tournament). Other groups have a different set of priorities: re-enactors tend to be very detailed about the look of the uniforms, equipment, and formations, but are much from lax/free with the actual combat techniques; people doing it for sport obviously can't be entirely accurate both for safety and audience entertainment reasons; and so on.
> I wouldn't know, not specialising in that period myself.
Even those that do don't 100% know how people back then trained and fought because the surviving manuscripts are not complete and even if they were would not contain all the information a modern audience would need as there was a certain amount of play combat kids would have been exposed to very early that didn't need to be taught - no one writing the training down thought that some of those details would ever need writing down. As with many historical studies, working out how the masters intended their work to be trained out is often therefor an exercise in reading between the lines (filling in the gaps with morsels of information from other sources and sometimes just from what we know about how the human body and the materials in the weapons and clothes/armour physically work) and of course this leads to multiple differing interpretations. This isn't just an issue when looking as far back as medieval periods: there are a few parts of the original Fairbairn/Sykes techniques from WWII (modified versions of which are still in use today by many forces), including the areas that were deliberately simple overall so they could be taught quickly to new intakes of soldiers who were sometimes completely inexperienced at fighting, where people can't entirely find agreement about how to translate the written instructions to useful physical techniques.
> Even those that do don't 100% know how people back then trained and fought because the surviving manuscripts are not complete and even if they were would not contain all the information a modern audience would need
My wife and I did HEMA for a bit, and as I understand it, most of the knowledge in longsword combat comes from Liechtenauer, who - and he was not unique in this - would write down his training techniques, but almost as a riddle, to ensure that it would not be enough to just read his book and apply it - you'd have to actually have to pay him, or his students, to come and teach you.
I'd argue that it cannot ever be close to the same for as long as it's missing the vital psychological component of the fear for life that accompanied the real thing.
The impact of fear can be observed even in relatively safe modern combat sports. Moving from, say, freestyle wresting into MMA makes one a whole lot more cautious changing the fighting style altogether. In fact, I've witnessed multiple times how trained sportsmen coming to MMA would lose to newbies simply because they were too weary of traumas and acted less aggressively. Sportsmen often get lost when the whole setup changes from scoring points to physically beating opponents into submission risking the same fate for yourself. I can only imagine how much different it would be when the very life is at stake.
Indeed, the fear of being hit by a sharp sword is something that I am certain has an effect upon bouts. One major effect of the lack of fear is that participants become more and more keen to hit their opponents at all costs, resulting in double hits. Rules therefore exist to penalise those who aren't fighting "properly" by ignoring their own defence (e.g. the right-of-way rules in modern fencing).
Having said that, period texts discussing fighting with sharps acknowledge the problem of double hits, which were apparently quite common in duels with rapiers and smallswords, so the effect of tournament fighting is presumably to exaggerate an existing problem rather than introducing a completely new one.
> Having said that, period texts discussing fighting with sharps acknowledge the problem of double hits, which were apparently quite common in duels with rapiers and smallswords, so the effect of tournament fighting is presumably to exaggerate an existing problem rather than introducing a completely new one.
I've mistakenly thought that by "the same thing" you meant the actual medieval combat, not tournaments. Imitating tournaments is indeed a more achievable goal.
What I meant was that in contests with blunts, such as competitions or bouts in class, both fencers will sometimes hit each other simultaneously. I perceive a lot of this as being due to a lack of caution because the participants know they are not really in danger of death. Indeed, some people will simply rush forward to attack, with no thought of defending themselves, in an attempt to hit first and win.
However, in actual fights where the participants' life was at stake such double hits also occurred as well; many period authors were concerned about it and discussed tactics and techniques to minimise occurrences. So, I suggest that the effect of the lack of fear is to make an occurrence from "real combat" more likely rather than to introduce a new factor.
As an example, here's a book which discussed the matter (here called a "contretemps"). The same author wrote a different book discussing what to do in competitive school play; this one relates only to self-defence, duels and other deadly combat:
Pretty much any fighting style (armored or otherwise) that's adapted to not actually maim or kill (or at least carry a significant risk of doing so) is probably going to look quite a bit different from the "real thing." See, for example, discussions about which fighting/martial arts styles are closest to no-holds-barred street fighting.
Not necessarily "quite a bit" different; various HEMA forms seem to have done quite a good job of reproducing combative styles very well, within their limitations.
Of course, this requires rules sets which are designed primarily towards the goal of producing sword bouts which look like a fight with sharps, and participants who are keen to achieve the same effect. When those conditions are not met then the fight will indeed diverge from the techniques and tactics of the "real thing". Modern fencing is an excellent example of this - it's a fine sport requiring great skill and stamina but it does not resemble fighting with sharps.
There are many HEMAists who will avoid tournaments out of a concern for the effects that competitive rules sets and the pressure to win may have upon their art, and there are others who don't mind. It is a topic of constant debate within the community.
I strongly disagree with that link. Training for combat is more than just a few simple brutal takedowns. Understanding and implementing minimal force is a vary real and important skill set. Further many people study sports and get a completely biased understanding of fighting. This can be dangerous for them, but also anyone else they take a swing at while not wearing pads.
People spend years learning a mix of the useless and horrifically dangerous. They then ingrane twitch reflexes to do something often with little thought as to what it actually does in a real world context.
With which part do you disagree strongly? If it is that the description of the first focus omits mention of other important factors such as de-escalation and use of minimal force then I would agree that those should be included.
The rest of your comment, e.g. "...many people study sports and get a completely biased understanding of fighting..." suggests that you are in agreement with the general thesis of the article, i.e. different focuses bias the selection of tactics and techniques taught and training for one focus may be of limited use for another.
I agree that there is a range of goals. But mostly just treating things as separate silos. They all have different focuses and cover different bases. Where a 6'6" guy who takes boxing may feel it meets his minimal needs for fighting in the modern world, a 5'2" female may enjoy the sport but reasonably feel the need for something more effective on the side for self defense.
There is also things like learning to fall which have utility in a wider context or some like archery also cover hunting etc. There is also a range of risks, as boxing is far more likely to result in head trauma than tai chi. Judo risks joint injury etc.
Basically, rather than silos I feel a list of outcomes and a 0 - 5 scale much better maps to reality.
PS: Further, people tend to use whatever they have in whatever context they are put in. Fall off a horse and know judo?
If I understand correctly what you mean then it is a valid point, but I think the writer of that article is discussing something different.
For example, consider the art of foo-jitsu, which is mostly based around kicks and so suits tall people and is good for sport, or bar-fu, which involves shorter range open-hand striking and has some good ground fighting techniques, making it good for self-defence or for shorter people, according to the sort of classification I think you mean. Based on this description you would pick the system depending on your goal.
The focus article proposes that either of these arts may be used for any focus, depending on the attitude and goals of the teacher. So one could go to a foo-jitsu school that uses the same principles of art and base syllabus as the typical sporting classes found in the style but is oriented towards defence (its students never get involved in tournaments, for example), or a bar-fu class where the instructor has turned it into ground wrestling sport and concentrates on winning trophies. So, it is therefore possible to pick a class based on the characteristics of the system and find that the focus of the class is not quite what one wanted. The article states that there may be more than one focus but there should be one or two primary ones.
Of course, I may have misunderstood exactly what you mean; apologies if so.
Sounds like it's just a load of blokes bashing each other with scant regards to finesse & technique (and even safety).
Plus, it's not like a blunt sword can't maim or kill. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58NVoTocUOk
>I overhear one particularly worrying account from a fighter talking about receiving a head blow from a pole axe: “My right vision completely went; there were sparkly lights and stuff. I spent a week in a brain-fog haze, walking around like a zombie.”
This sport sounds like a great way to earn a concussion and acquired brain injury.
Your post ironically will probably draw more people to this activity. Their choice of course. It seems a bit nuts to me but then again I used to climb mountains every now and again. That might seem nuts to some people.
> More GBH than LARP, it substitutes foam weaponry for real steel and scripted acting for unpredictable scuffling
This sentence confused me deeply, given it contradicts the rest of the article, until I realised they meant to say "it substitutes real steel for foam weaponry and unpredictable scuffling for scripted acting". Or, if you prefer, "it substitutes foam weaponry with real steel and scripted acting with unpredictable scuffling". You substitute new for old, and old with new (but in the latter case you may as well say "replace").
I have a friend who does this and I went to watch one of their events. He says he only does 1-on-1 fights for safety reasons and I can understand why. At least you always have your opponent in front of you in this case. The group fights are super fast and dynamic and the biggest strategy is basically covering distance quickly, teaming up on people, and tackling from behind. They're less about weapons and more about American football-style tackles from the side/back while the opponent is busy sword fighting with your team mate. The armour is also so padded and thick that ordinary weapons like swords are really more for just point fighting. Two handed weapons definitely do more damage. Also, getting jabbed in the face with the edge of a wooden shield looks pretty serious, not to mention quick and unexpected! Watching their event was super exciting, but at the same time there's a looming feeling that someone will get seriously hurt at any second.
I'm part of the SCA. I've done fencing (heavy rapier) and some heavy. Yes, the heavies use rattan (wood) for their weapons. That's because we like our fighters to live afterwards, and be relatively uninjured. Have injuries happened? Yep. Have deaths happened? Yep. But the SCA's policies on fighting are battle-tested, over melees of thousands of fighters.
This article is just 'Not Even Wrong'(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong) - There's ways to do mostly safe fighting, and ways to be a douchebag that can end up breaking bones and killing people. This is certainly the latter.
I've fought both European re-enactment and SCA, and they're both totally different styles, and both about as safe as each other. I wouldn't say the SCA method is the only safe way of doing this. But I don't think they're too worried about safety anyway.
Re-enactment (in Europe anyway, I can't speak about US or Japanese re-enactment) has always has two sides:
The desire to recreate historical costume and practices
vs
The desire to get drunk in a castle with your mates and have a damn good fight
As re-enactment spread east through Europe from the UK, the latter tendency became more pronounced. The Russians and Poles get a real reputation in the European scene for fighting dirty, hitting hard and not taking their shots.
This sport developed from that. Their gear is almost completely unrelated to what was actually used in the time period they say they portray, and safety takes a back seat to "not being a pussy". I suspect the rules around drinking are more lax than you'd expect from a conventional re-enactment society too. They're all about the "beer and bash".
I expect that there'll be a few more splits as they evolve, with the safety-conscious moving to a more toned-down style while the real nutters keep the rules rough and accumulate scar tissue.
Seriously. "...a fast-growing sport that began in Eastern Europe about five years ago..." Even a cursory background check would reveal that the SCA was started in the late 60's and predates these other organizations by decades.
It wasn't. A few minutes into the first bout we realised they were dead serious and properly going for each other. It was a lot of fun, but there was definitely an odd feeling of 'how much should I be enjoying this?' as it was so violent. Basically two people in full armour beating the crap out of each other with a heavy metal bar and a big wooden plank.
A fun day out for all the family.