Ok I'm being a cunt. I'll stop.Grandpa's Spells wrote:I'm just messing with you. The renaissance fair ponytail dudes that crowd attracts invites teasing. 10 minute rants about how other people sword fight wrong beg for teasing.
That being said, you can look at Olympic fencing in the 80's, or especially in the 60's, and it looks quite a bit more like sword fighting. The range control and footwork looks good to me. The modern fencers look weirder to me, but they're no doubt better at the sport. They may be worse at actually fighting with swords than the 60's, but that doesn't make them worse than hobbyists forming guilds.
Good point, there is a lot of the comic book guy from the Simpson's in it. Actually there are a ton of people in HEMA that rub me wrong, but then I am an asshole. There is a large Social Justice Warrior contingent in it. I can't wait to show up with my Confederate cav saber at an event! :-)
Yes, agree with as you go back, Sport fencing, especially saber looks closer to the real deal. There was still a lot of the older coaches around.
And while the WMA-AARMA-HEMA types can make valid claims as to reconstruction Longsword, ect ( even though there have always been people doing it. Hitler Youth used to do it! They have less on saber, because much of military fencing never totally died out. Hell you might remember David E. Steele from the 80s?
He was a Fencer, FMA guy and he did do military saber and other western forms. I'd read about that back then and really want to do it, but there was nothing like that around me, and I was very dedicated to empty hand forms and shooting.
My son's former coach has done a lot of older weapons, way before the HEMA movement got going, because there were a lot more sport fencers who still practised with the old weapons to, as a form of art and connection or some knew a sword in your house is not as obsolete as it is on your side walking down the street. But you just find that those who did older weapons from that end, with no association with the lot that birthed AARMA/HEMA is extremely, extremely rare these days. If a sport fencer does military saber, backsword, rapier or any of that these days, it's because they got into the HEMA, ect movement or they are doing stage fencing.
Now most come from Asian systems, MMA, Krav Maga, BJJ if they come from arts besides the common " 2 years of Tae Kwon Do when I was a little kid" or they are completely new to martial arts or any contact sport.
A lot of the longsword is getting too fast and mean for soft, little hardly training, none lifting twerps, a lot of them are certainly too fast for me to ever "beat" but at least it's past the padded sword whack a dork bullshit that was part of what kept me away from a lot of it back in the day, so it's worth giving a comp or 2 a year a shot and fence with whoever I can and I am lucky that I have a student from our dojo who knows more than me about WMA.
Ju Jutsu and Arnis are not hobbies for me, this is a martial hobbie and PT for me at this point.