Is HEMA Footwork Too Linear? 

Nice video. I think people get obsessed with offline footwork because they think it is necessary to distinguish the sport of longsword from modern Olympic fencing.

I think it goes both ways like you mention in the summary at the end. You need to do the offline as a means to do something else, which means it has to be an intentional choice with tactical implications. We actively practice with constraints and applications of offline, or a better term would be tangentially, if you use circular coordinates and opponent is the origin. It is more taxing as the distance you have to move relative to your opponent to get any significant angle change is greater, but that allows you to flank a side and make the decision to cover one side much easier. Also, going tangentially is footwork people dont practice since there's quite some variations on how to do it. You can have body facing direction you're going, then pivot back to opponent, or you can strafe while facing opponent the whole time. Each have implications on possible followups. Maybe at some point I'll make a video to address this.

I'll try to give some info on the "wider stance" crowd. At least my understanding of the relevant elements for HEMA. A wider stance (not much, to the extent of your hips) gives you more stability against lateral forces, and you tend to be more planted. In grappling, you want more stability. In lunging, not that much. Another thing is that you have a bit of an easier time sidestepping if your weight is in the middle and your feet are more apart from each other. (When you are on the same line, you see inquartatas like in rapier fencing mor or less). I don't particularly think one trumps the other, but different body positions lead to different body mechanics. In HEMA tournaments, the focus is on explosive movements and mostly keeping the centerline with your sword. This seems to lead to a more inline position, more inline footwork to power the big trust to zwecopters combo.

I think linear footwork benefits people with a good athletic base as it relies on speed and reaction time more than anything else. People lacking it (= many if not the majority of hema practitioners) get salty because they get beat by less experienced yet fitter fencers with nothing but lunges thrusts and oberhaus.

“Wide stance” vs “linear stance” being better for certain scenarios entirely depends on your distance from your opponent. Generally speaking, you won’t find much use for offline movement if you’re far away. Though when you’re up close getting into wrestling range, that’s where being able to get off the centerline quickly can be useful.

Great video. I agree that 'good footwork' is what works best in the situation. If you score a clean hit, then it was good enough.

...man, it's really something when out-of-the-ballpark criticism just backfires with a bit of analysis. Good vid! Also guessing that ruleset is some sort of long afterblow window or semi-continuous.

So as someone who attends a club that teachs a lot of non-linear footwork I want to drop my opinion here in the comments. I don't think this fencer demonstrated non-linear fencing in my opinion and I'll explain why without getting into a debate on whether one is better than the other. I can't really comment on longsword too much because I have very little experience in practicing it but when you talk about a "wide stance" as a preparation for an attack I agree that it isn't very useful in the context of longsword. This is because holding the sword with two hands means you can switch between left foot forward or right foot forward "narrow stance". We generally only use wide stance in preparation for an attack in single sword, were being in left foot forward narrow stance has horrible mechanics (linear fences seem to avoid this by always being in right foot forward narrow stance, when using single sword). I find it weird that the emailer used this footage as evidence for non-linear footwork as it was mostly linear from my experience. In my club, the difference between linear and non-linear footwork is mostly shown when a fencer retreats from a riposte. What we define as linear fencing is the action of stepping in to attack and stepping directly back on that same line in retreat upon being parried and riposted. In contrast, my club encourages "the triangle step", where we step in to attack, and step offline with our back foot to the left to retreat backwards, left of where we entered to attack. The only time I noticed anything like that in this video was when the right fencer took steps left of his opponent because he was far too close to keep going forward, not as part as a retreating movement. You also mention non-linear movement as part of the preparation to strike being not very useful due to the attacker having a larger circle of movement to cover than the defender. I mostly agree but there are specific circumstances and attacks that benefit from this kind of movement. The most obvious being positioning yourself to avoid or force your opponent into a corner. I might be able to find some examples from my club's footage but I'll need permission from them to send it to you (and I would send you my own but I am not particularly good and probably not the best example).

pretty much agreed. In hand to hand sports you need to be able to resist throws and deliver attacks with power. In hema your weapon doesn't always need to have power, but even when it does, sometimes your stance doesn't actually add much to that power. it matters when you and your opponent are both strong-on-strong, binding with sidearms, or in a wrestling situation. now one thing I might say is that a lot of the burst movement people whip out in hema maybe lacks ambiguity, and i do truly feel like a high speed lunge is necessarily more telegraphed than short, controlled steps, but i do also see fencers who only fake gathering up for a lunge.

Well we all end up fencing like we are on a lane many a times. But we dont have to.

oh man, wrestling and lunge footwork. I hate hanging out with my leg extended during a lunge, very much prefer to use a shooting stance where I’m more stable -and ready to deliver a double leg takedown.- also still got the habit of dropping a knee to the mat, works for standing strikes and is a hilarious way to sneak in legshots from an overhead position. as for linear vs. circular, you see the distinction in every other martial arts too. there’s also moves where you have to overbalance yourself like the superman punch or literally anything to do with capoeira. nobody’s won as a capoeira fighter but lots of peeps swear by it, since it teaches you how to fight when “unbalanced.”

Yeah I think there's a lot of old "wisdom" for how HEMA footwork should be, from back before people could thrust safely and/or did a lot of slow work. At speed, with someone who doesn't wanna get hit, things start out real linear, and yeah it can open up after that. Personally I'm still trying to figure out how to properly teach footwork/stance, but it seems like it's better just to get people moving and have them figure out how to get their feet where they need to go, so that their sword can go where it needs to go.

Almost all footwork anyone does qualifies as "off-line" footwork given that the slightest angle multiplied over a 39" blade gets you on a different line... if we watch bladework amongst escrima practitioners, we'd see a lot more noticeable "off-line" footwork due to the active range they work in compared to longsword fencers. Most mid+ level fencers aren't exactly just walking into people's points all the time... tldr: sin(angle)*39" = amount of wrong that cheeto-finger-keyboard-warriors that need to fight you are

Yes

Their footwork is just standardly bad

It is too linear therefore I started Spanish rapier. It’s helping a lot. Especially going backwards in circle helps vastly And maybe a short feedback to this video itself. It feels for me that you need to prove something and counter the „bad email“ from this person because you feel offended. You know the person can’t comment is like you so he can’t give his impression on it. Formats like this are…

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If you call that in the video HEMA, then I have news. It's not. HEMA is more as longsword 1:1 sparring. It's more as 1:1 weapons. Maybe you look in montante movement against 5,6,7 opponents. And you learn how footwork looks. In hema.