Armored fighting

We mostly do unarmed fighting at SactoHEMA, but here is an account of a real duel in the 14th century.

Their lances struck but failed to penetrate the thick hides covering their shields and the combatants wheeled and charged again, this time striking one another on their helms. Rounding once more, the knights charged a third time, again striking shields and this time both shattering their lances. Reeling from the impact, the warriors drew their axes and charged a fourth time. Slashing and kicking at one another in the centre of the field, they traded blows until Le Gris, the much stronger man, was able to drive his axe through the neck of Carrouges' horse. As the beheaded beast tumbled to the ground, Carrouges jumped clear and lashed out with his own weapon, disemboweling Le Gris' steed in turn.

Now on foot, the knights drew swords and returned to battle, Le Gris again proving stronger than his opponent and slowly gaining the upper hand. After several minutes of engagement, Carrouges slipped and Le Gris was able to stab his rival through the right thigh. As the crowd gasped and murmured, Le Gris stepped back to view his opponent's injury and Carrouges desperately counter-attacked, wrestling Le Gris to the ground. Le Gris' heavy armour prevented him from regaining his feet and Carrouges repeatedly stabbed at his floored opponent, his blows denting but not puncturing the thick plate steel. Realising that his sword was inadequate, Carrouges straddled Le Gris ...
.

No class December 26

Enjoy your holiday. Contact me to see about class on Jan 2.

We are closed Thanksgiving weekend

There will be no class November 28. Class will return December 5th.
Have a happy Thanksgiving.

Is HEMA the new Crossfit?

New York magazine has a write up on a school in NY.

“Here is a problem that can be solved with the body instead of the mind and heart,” Embers added. Though she called herself “a big dork” — pink dyed hair, a Metroid Prime tattoo — she also hoped the sword-fighting would help her feel less frustrated at work: “I think it will, if I get to hit something.”

SoCal Swordfight

I just got back from SoCal.
I took a ton of classes and got my ass handed to me in the open synthetic tournament.
I took classes on how to be a better teacher and how to choreograph fights. I also took a class on bartitsu, the Victorian gentlemen's self-defense system. I took a class on Fiore's pole-axe and taught a class on ringen.
I got a new Blackfencer synthetic trainer and some Cold Steel rondel dagger trainers.
Oh, and then there was teh banquet. I will leave yo with these videos of what happens at a HEMA banquet.

Watch this HEMA documentary now, or I will stab you!

I won't really stab you....
...hard.

Monthly ringen

Starting, well, today, we will have a monthly class that focuses on ringen, which is wrestling.
Here is a vid of our first ringen sparring.

This diagram explain why parries should be short and compact motions.

I noticed that people try to use large or fancy motions as parries when they begin studying.
Let this diagram explain to you why parries, or any action that's in reaction to someone else's move, need to be small and compact. This also explains why attacking is so much more valuable than reacting. The German masters recommend that you be in vor instead of nach, and this is why.
This explains that you have to recognize what's happening, decide what to do, and then act in the same amount of time that the attacker simply has to act. Big motions take too long and fancy ones require too much precision to be reliable.

A Word about the Katana.

You can't teach fencing without it coming up, so I will allow my esteemed colleague to fill us in.

Unified Weapons Master is Crap.

I am tired of seeing this Unified Weapons Master crap everywhere. This thing is crap and I will tell you why.

It seems the designers know little about combat. As far as I can tell, they know a little escrima and some kobudo. They seem to have no experience with actual melee combat or swords. The armor is only useful against blunt clubbing weapons and will be useless to simulate sword or knife combat.

The armor is supposed to have sensors embedded in it so that the simulated damage of blows can be recorded and displayed. It fails on this.

The armor is supposed to keep you safe during the bout;it also fails on this.

Look at this image:

The first thing that jumps out is the open finger design on the gloves. Anyone who has spent five minutes sparring with weapons knows that hands are the most likely thing hit, yet they leave the fingers unprotected. There also would be no sensors on the unprotected fingers, so I would break my opponent’s fingers and not have the score tallied by the non-present sensors.

The second thing is the huge gap at the shoulder joint and the enormous gap at the hip. This suggests the designers are not familiar with thrusting weapons. Thrusts will be dangerous and often not earn a score.

The third thing is that, as far as I know, there is no way to record a slice or pull/push cut. Imagine cutting a steak. You do not chop; you press the blade against the target and push or pull to cut. This is a common use of both knives and swords in combat. However, slices will not be scored.

So we have a system where you cannot safely swing a weapon, for fear of breaking fingers, nor can you safely thrust for fear of tearing a hip or shoulder muscle, and thrusts will be inconsistently scored anyway, and slices not scored at all.

Imagine a bout that is supposed to be between two people with knife simulators.  They cannot score from a swinging attack because a knife doesn’t have much mass and will seem no different than punches to the sensors and the slicing action of the blade will be ignored. Thrusts might be dangerous to the participants and will possibly not be scored at all, even if they land solidly. How is this fight supposed to be anything like the MMA of weapons combat when most of the techniques can’t work or be scored? The most effective tactic will be to ignore the opponent’s weapon and grapple and punch, which is the forte of unarmed combat, not armed combat. There is plenty of punching and grappling in unarmed combat, but it not the same due to the threat from the weapon, but if the weapon scoring is inconsistent at best, why bother?

It’s crap.

SoCal swordfight

The SoCal sword fight is happening at the beginning of November. I may get to teach a jujitsu class to show how it complements ringen. I'm looking forward to this because it seems that in the HEMA world, if one tries hard the pool is small enough that you can still be noticed without being drowned out by millions of other Hema practitioners.
Anyone who is interested in coming to SoCal sword fight with me please contact me and maybe we can share gas costs.

SoCal Sword-fight registration......

...is OPEN! Sign up now!

HEMA for self defense

These guys robbed the wrong store.

Abzug

We have been working on withdrawals without getting tagged with the afterblow. We have drilled closing the line as you attack and making contact with their weapon during this withdrawal in pflug.

A nice video of some grappling and halfswording.

Enjoy.

Gear

Here is a list of gear and links to them:

Nylon longsword trainer.

Padded jacket for men.

Padded jacket for women.

Basic mask.

Better mask.

Cover for basic mask that makes it like the better mask.

Gloves (be sure to look at the different sizes).

Throat protection.

SoCal Swordfight.

I think I will try and go to this huge HEMA event this year in November.

Basic footwork

This is a part of what will eventually be in my syllabus book.

Basic footwork

Footwork is of utmost importance, because controlling distance and position in relation to your opponent is 90% of the fight. If you only know one sword play, but have solid footwork, you can be a very dangerous fencer.

Passing step

The most basic step when using a longsword is the passing step. This is little more than a normal step made during walking where one foot passes the other, just like when you are taking a stroll.

Start in a balance fighting stance with your left foot forward. Your legs should be flexed enough to give you good balance and mobility. Step forward with your right foot and end in a right fighting stance.

Shuffle step

The shuffle step is performed when you need to move forward without changing which foot is in the lead. Start in a fighting stance with your left foot forward. Lift your left foot and move it forward as you push with your right foot. Set the left foot down and bring the right foot forward to regain the same fighting stance.

Adjustment step

Sometimes, such as right after a passing step, you need to shuffle forward some extra distance, but your weight is on the front foot. In this case, bring the rear foot forward and then move the front foot. This is a special case and should not be used unless a shuffle step is awkward.

Double step

A double step is either a passing step or a shuffle step where you also move to the side. If you perform a passing step and place your right foot forward, you would do the same, except your right foot would land to the right as well. You would then move your left foot to the right to return to a fighting stance.

All footwork should be done with the weight on the balls of your feet and lightly. Do not get in the habit of planting your feet in the earth or stomping. You should be able to move any direction quickly and with no preparation at any time. All footwork can be also done to the rear by simply moving the other foot first.

The importance of sparring

Sparring teaches "open skills" that require quick decision making in a static environment. Technique drills, what some martial arts call kata, teach "closed skills", which means you know just what will happen, what you must do, and when.

Open skill practice may improve the brain in important ways that closed skill practice does not.

One article mentions a study on how older fencers (who would have sparred a lot), had perceptual and reaction abilities that did not degrade with age like people who did not practice an open skill. Another found a similar difference between tennis (open) and swimming (closed). Excellent reading.

This is your brain on fencing: How certain sports may aid the aging brain 

Science may be able to explain what’s going on in Michael’s aging brain when he’s on the fencing strip. A small but growing body of research suggests that fencing and other sports that require quick decision-making may improve cognition in both young and old people, and help stave off certain mental declines associated with aging.
In addition to fencing, sports that use what are called “open motor skills” include basketball, hockey, football and table tennis. “Closed motor skills” are those used in a stable, predictable setting in which the performer typically chooses when to start using the skill and knows exactly what to do. Closed-skill sports, which include biking, bowling, golf and gymnastics, involve self-paced movements.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/this-is-your-brain-on-fencing-how-certain-sports-may-aid-the-aging-brain/2015/04/06/92b70970-c98c-11e4-b2a1-bed1aaea2816_story.html?postshare=81428430695138

Neural Correlates of Attentional and Executive Processing in Middle-Age Fencers

http://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/Fulltext/2012/06000/Neural_Correlates_of_Attentional_and_Executive.11.aspx

Open vs. Closed Skill Sports and the Modulation of Inhibitory Control

Here we compared inhibitory control across tennis players, swimmers and sedentary non-athletic controls using a stop-signal task without a sport-specific design. Our primary finding showed that tennis players had shorter stop-signal reaction times (SSRTs) when compared to swimmers and sedentary controls, whereas no difference was found between swimmers and sedentary controls.  

 In general, sports may be categorized into two types: open skill and closed skill sports. Open skill sports are defined as those in which players are required to react in a dynamically changing, unpredictable and externally-paced environment (e.g., basketball, tennis, fencing and etc.) [20]. By contrast, closed skill sports are defined as those in which the sporting environment it is relatively highly consistent, predictable, and self-paced for players (e.g., running, swimming) [4], [20]. Athletes from open skill sports may develop more flexibility in visual attention, decision making and action execution [21], relative to athletes from closed skill sports. 

(emphasis mine AH)

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0055773

PC Gamer gives HEMA a little love

I hope people find out that we are real and freaking cool. Here is the link. If you like Skyrim, you'll also like...

A little Meyer

This is from an older, no so great, translation of a Meyer play.

The katana is the perfect sword.

I have realized something recently, the katana is the perfect sword and, therefor, SactoHema will now shift its entire focus to the arts of kendo, kenjutsu, iaijutsu, and battojutsu, so as to absorb the lessons of Japanese swordsmanship and focus on the pursuit of perfection.

Bullet cutting classes begin next week.

What is the difference between fencing and FENCING!!!

THIS IS FENCING!! For some reason I can't embed it, so you will have to click the link.



With apologies to 300...a film I didn't like much anyway.

Sacto Hema got a GoPro

Expect several videos in the future that are much better then this one. I will be building a custom rig to mount it.

I was unable to flip it 90 degrees in post, which I though I would be able to do, so....yeah.

Who says you cannot learn martial arts from a book?

Gear details

Hi, We can get Red Dragon gloves for $72 +tax. Nylon wasters are $72+ tax. If we order some now, we should get them by three weeks out. I am sure you have all heard about the dock worker's strike which is slowing down shipping. Gambesons can be ordered here, and you should do that on your own. Contact me if you are not sure which one to get.

New Sparring rules and an apology

Wow, it has been a whole since I posted. I need to get better at that. Sorry. Anyway, we instated a new rule in sparring. If you get hit, you drop and do ten pushups. Double hits mean you both drop and push. I did more pushups to day than I have done is quite a while.