HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) is the practice of historical European close quarter combat as a martial art. The styles of western swordsmanship have been extensively documented since the Fourteenth century by masters across many European nations. The Academy of Historical Fencing operates two clubs, in Caerleon, South Wales, and Bristol, United Kingdom.
The aim of the clubs is to study, research and practice historical fighting forms and use them in a competitive manner. The schools study Longsword (two handed), Rapier and Companion weapons, sabre/backsword, and sword and buckler. Primary sources are Joachim Meyer (1570), Capo Ferro (1610) and the Rowarth Sabre/broadsword manual of 1798/1824.
Indeed, and Back of the head protection is now standard across our clubs, but back when this video was published, 13 years ago, people were only just starting to make their own, as we did around that time. Now we just have a wealth of off the shelf options. Gear has coime on a long way since then.
Would be nice to know the rules of the bout. Would think the Longswords hands would be chopped up in a fight. Are the gloves considered proof against attack?
Thanks. This was an old video which had the audio track muted due to a copyright infringement of background music and so has had a free music track placed over it to allow it to stay on YT. Come and check out the club channel I am now posting from where all new content is placed, all with original audio.
You have absolutely no fucking clue what you're talking about. They are attacking the person, hacks and lunges are being used because they're valid and are ways to get to the opponent. Those two gentlemen who are "fighting the sword" are some of the most skilled HEMA fencers. Stop trying to make yourself look smart
The biggest problem with regards to HEMA would be that a “historically oriented” fencer would have to search for all strands of discourse and evidence from the medieval period (law, literature, theology, medicine, historiography, art and cultural history, etc.) and create/collect a corpus of mutually complementary information on exercise methodology, weapon characteristics and application systematics in the various forms of combat, so that they would have the vague possibility of achieving what they want. However, the unfortunate truth is that most HEMA fencers are too lazy to even read about German stage fencing (the only existing descendant art of Liechtenauer’s fencing tradition).
Speaking as someone who knows very little about HEMA, it seems like the longsword user had the most success when he used one-handed strikes, letting his blade close that extra bit of distance. In a way, he had to use his longsword more like a rapier to beat a rapier. Or maybe I'm talking bs, I don't know
Both absolutely reckless if a real fight is what they are trying to reenact. If they trained without padding, many strikes or thrusts would not even have been attempted because the pain in training would have shown that they are too risky. Same for some of the one-handed longsword cuts where control of the weapon was totally abandoned in the hope of hitting the opponent. Technically very good, but they visibly never fought with sharp blades against anybody who wants to hurt them ....
Not true at all. There isn't padding there, these jackets merely give newton rated thrust protection in case of broken blades and also burrs. You absolutely feel pain through them, and they are about equivelent to the sort of clothing that was commonly worn by civilians during the times of these two weapons. Everything in a fight is a risk, and you must weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of them. For example, those one handed strikes you mention, those are very well documented in period medieval and renaissance sources. Yes they lose control at the end of the strike, but they gain massive reach and with training the recovery can become very quick. The strikes we are attempting are exactly as was taught with these weapons in their time and place, by actual swordsmen who were using these techniques for real.
@@AcademyofHistoricalFencing I am not doubting that you and your colleagues teach and execute exactly according to the manuals and what was taught at the time, I do not doubt your skills neither your learnedness. Having fought several times with sharp blades, what I want to say is: it is a different attitude when every strike you make might be your last, or you might at least get severely hurt. Many moves you do you would not dare to, as they are very risky. Best example: the longsword one-handed thrust in the armpit. The opponent's tip is just centimeters from the mask. If the lunge was deflected, or slightly deviated, the longswordman would impale himself on the rapier, blade through the eye. It works here and today because he scores a point, back then you'd have to be very daring or very desperate to do it. I understand that fencing is about risk taking, and that is what you do. In real combat, it is also about weighing risks with a potentially catastrophic downside against other courses of action. That is what you don't do.
I can't begin to express how much I love spears. They're often incredibly overlooked by people today, with everybody solely fascinated with swords. A spear has reach, speed and is incredibly cheap to make. It's one of the oldest and most effective (close combat *and* ranged) weapons known to mankind. It really deserves more love from more than just the HEMA community.
It's so crazy how you chose this song. As a kid I always imagined myself with a rapier fighting a ton of Spanish guards dancing across the floor. I am pursuing HEMA now but you just dug up a long lost memory for me. Thanks!
The object isn't to make an even or fair fight, it is merely an exhibition of the weapons described. Yes the buckler has a real hard time against a spear in two hands, and that is quite an eye opener for some when it is so effective against a range of swords. If you check out our club account where I (Nick) am now posting from you will find viking type shield vs spear in two hands, and it is a much easier fight foir thr swordsman.
The sword would not be much cop at 300m against an experienced archer, either. Stick these two in a confined corridor and it'd be a different story. As for a WW1 soldier with a bayonet and rifle...
Техника боя с холодным оружием имеет приоритет - скорость и точность, и потом сила. Сколько видео просмотрел - везде сумятица сплошная... Вроде метлы держат
1:10. This is the problem with these matches. They are glorified tag and completely unrealistic. Here the long sword guy barely has a hold on his weapon as he has almost thrown it to make a very weak connection with his opponent. In real life this would done very little damage and he would never attempt it. He'd risk losing his sword and the encounter completely. Instead he scores a point?!? This unrealistic, point based sparing, also leads to bad technique. 5:27. Same BS from the long sword guy. It's just a game of tag to him. Hitting with the flat side of his sword while tossing it. 🤦♂️ They both move very well and I like the rapier guy. That longsword guy would get shredded to pieces in a real sword fight against a real long sword opponent trained for real combat.
Those one handed strikes are completely legitimate and well documented in period sources. I think the issue if you are assuming they are intended primarily as a cut, when they are not. They are cast out and look like a cut to begin with, but the idea is to land it as a thrust, of which they can then do immense damage at massive reach. This method was even used with very large two handed swords (montante/zweihander). The 5:27 time ended up as a cut but we scoured it as it was against the face, of which it would have given a significant cut. Lastly, you have to remember that a mixed weapon fight will almost always be quite strange looking compared to a matched weapons fight. There are things which are done, added or removed to adapt to the scenario. Neither the rapier or longsword user here is fighting the way they normally would against the same weapon, so you cannot judge how the longsworder would do in a longsword fight from this. But seeing as we have both travelled about the world and fought agaisnt a vast amount of people trained for sword combat, that has not been the case. We can also do even more realistic contests today due to hugely improved equipment, seeing as this video is 13 years old and things have come on a long way.
