Wild Flailing with SHARP Swords... How About No? 

Right, I forgot to mention that these people have also challenged HEMA practitioners to fight them with sharp blades... And of course they *totally* wouldn't sue the crap out of anyone if they lost a limb while playing tough guy, right? And then they have the gall to call people "cowards" for refusing their challenge to illegal duels. Oh, humanity... Might be time to drop the meteor and re-start from scratch.

Five people gave this a thumb down, because that's the only finger they got left...

I think their helmets were just throwing off their form, prob should ditch 'em for safety

One thing my Infantry solider cousin taught me, never underestimate the confidence of the un-trained.

"Recklessness is not a sign of masculinity. Recklessness is a sign of immaturity." Thank you. Far too many people need this pointed out to them.

I like how he said recklessness is immature, very true, before making a butt joke.

It's like training with live rounds... and the opposing force isn't made out of cardboard and plywood.

I've actually been stabbed while practicing. It was a long time ago. Three quarters of a inch in my calf. Took me more than 6 weeks to even be able to stand on it. 6 months of physical therapy to gain back flexibility. I lost enough blood to significantly drop my iron levels in lab results. I almost didn't make it. I still feel it when I walk sometimes. This is not a joke at all. Take it from someone who has actually been stabbed in real life.

I remember a quote a while back, don't remember exactly but it was to the effect of " Master doesn't fear another Master because they know what they're going to do, a master fears the amateur because neither of them have any idea what he's going to do. "

Skall: "There is no way to messer round with this" Yep. Got that point across.

"You can't hit each other on the head because that could cause cumulative brain damage over time..." I'm gonna go out on a limb here and suggest this isn't a concern for these gentlemen.

Me: "Practice with sharp swords? Well yeah, how else are you supposed to cut stuff?" Skall: "Where people actually...S-P-A-R with sharp blades" Me: "...oh."

If a HEMA practitioner actually challenged these guys either A: All the bravado would drop and they would shit themselves... or B: Someone is going to jail for murder.

Wildly flailing weapons is precisely what Wii Resort taught me and I will NOT forsake the lessons of my motion control master.

“I haven’t used a sparring sword since I was nine” “That explains the golden hand 🙄”

Thank you so much for this video. As someone who suffered from a large number of symptoms of borderline personality disorder for a good part of my life, i understand why the holmgang hamburg guys might be doing this. Yet today, as a grown-up, sane person (into hema) i can't find anything beautiful about it anymore. The following might sound a bit... i don't know, arrogant?... but anyone who feels the need to do what holmgang hamburg does should start looking for professional help. No offence intended.

" *_Butt_* , and that's a big one right here." Skall being a man of culture as always.

Their videos are actually 100% historically accurate. Whenever two idiots get a sword each and want to fight for whatever reason, this is exactly how things go when they've never held a blade or received proper training before in their life.

Many (many, many, many) years ago I was part of a group that used sharpened blades to do Renfest shows. Each show ended with an unchoreographed melee. Oddly enough we logged less injuries than groups using foam and rattan weapons. But we were a group that literally practiced with live steel 3-5 days a week and followed a lot of safety protocols. I wouldn't attempt it today because I haven't done it for well over a decade. I am in full agreement with Skall... these guys look like future Darwin Award recipients...

One time at my local weebcon I brought a set of twin "straight" katanas (the kind that sheaths into each other's handle, yeah, I know) for a cosplay contest, safety regulations were not that safe in the early 2000s, a friend of a friend asked if he could hold it for a moment, so I handed the swords (still sheathed into each other) I turn for 1 second to say hi to another friend, then I heard a loud "GO!!!" behind me and turn back to see this guy and another rando pull from the oposite sides of the sheathed twin-katana-stick (the handles), do a 360 heel turn and try to clash the blades... and I say "try" 'cause I grabbed the closest knucklehead by the forearm and pulled him away while pointing the sword to the ceiling before they manage to harm each other... moral of the story do not bring a "real" weapon to a weebcon.

Those "Holmgang" guys talk about realism constantly and then swing like Hollywood swordsmen.

„No way to messer round“-Skall, 2020, holding a Messer

God it's like the guys at mma gyms who insist on doing nothing but hard sparing and end up with so many injuries they never actually make to a fight.

"I'm bored"..."wanna try to kill eachother in the woods with some swords?"...."hell yeah! I'll bring the beer!"

I remember hearing a story of someone who practiced disarming gunmen of their guns, he practiced so much that when he actually had to do it, he returned the gun back to the gunman. I can't find the story so I don't know if I remember that story correctly but this is the problem with real sword practice: If you don't have intent to harm but you are using blades that can; you'll place a mental block in your mind that when your sword meets resistance, you'll instinctively withdraw your cut. This is why sparring uses blunt practice swords. Combat will always be different from sparring because the intent to harm exists in real combat. Sparring was originally meant to replicate that intent without causing harm to each other. So when you do find yourself in real combat, you don't instinctively hold back from an opportunity to win the battle.

Holmgang Hamburg are somewhat infamous in the German sword fighting scene. I don't know if you've read their website or your German is good enough to understand what they are saying. They basically say that the historical manuals suck and it's useless in a real combat situation. Only what they are doing is the real deal. And of course, none of those phoney HEMA suckers ever stood a chanch against them. Most probably, they will challenge you to a fight if they learn about this video. Now, you could argue that they can kill or hurt (which is usually their goal, as they are fighting till first blood) themselves all they want as long as they stay among themself. The problem is that they might make life harder for every German sword enthusiast. Right now, it is fairly easy to buy a sword as a collector's item or practice sword fighting as a sport. Should one of these guys be seriouly injured or even killed, this is going to change, especially with our current Minister of the Interior, but that's another story.

It's actually amazing to me the damage people can suffer without even noticing it. I have a coworker whose dad cut his leg wide open when he mishandle a chainsaw, but didn't even notice until a few minutes later after losing a whole lot of blood

Don Diego: Do you know how to use that thing? Alejandro: Yes. The pointy end goes into the other man. Don Diego: [sighs] This is going to take a lot of work.

This reminds me of that video where Skall looked at that "Training" session where the instructor used a sharp axe against a student with a shield... With the axe going right through the shield and into the students arm... Sharp weapons were literally designed to *kill* people wearing protection on battlefields and should be treated as such.

They called hema and fencers cowards cause they dont want to die,its like calling a person weak because they use the shopping cart.

to me the funniest part is the fact that these guys didn't seriously maim or kill each other basically means that they are both terribly incompetent swordsmen

This is an actual thing. 2 people died in Quebec City due to someone wielding a sharp sword. But they are in prison now

And with the mention of a garlic finger, Skall has truly become a Nova Scotian.

This is a more complicated subject than many people seem to realize. Many people use to say, and some still do, that because traditional martial arts don’t train full contact sparing they can’t fight and so we got mma. I remember how they would talk about beating the sh1t out of each other almost every night. Now however it has changed a lot. Just about every GOOD mma gym does light contact sparing and reserve full contact for special nights seeing that you can’t really survive to fight in your 40’s and 50’s if you get seriously injured every other day.

Great video! Safety has weighed heavy on my mind this week as I’m on day 8 in the hospital for a bizarre injury caused by a blunt, steel Longsword. Geared-up in all but the helmets at our feet, I was explaining a drill to a second-year student and we were doing slow work as we normally do before testing at full speed with our helmets on... I was Thwarting at him from side-to-side and teaching him how to block one side with the long-edge and the other with the Short-edge-Crooked-cut, stepping away from my cut slightly with each counter-cut - nothing abnormal, right? Then my student, after blocking with the Crooked-cut on his left, anticipated the counter-to-the-counter and reversed against the bind, flicking the tip at me in a doubling, which I’d taught him a ways back. This caused our blunt blades to load like a spring, and then all in an instant, his blade sprung in a flick and shot at my right eye! Having 6 years of binding experience under my belt helped me to feel the ‘wrong’ movement for the drill and I ‘matrixed’ my head back as the flat of the blade slapped me across the eye and forehead... oooor, so I thought. I stopped our warm-up and immediately tossed my right glove off and went to one knee, as did my partner, so we could assess damage. All I felt was a ‘sharp’ stinging pain, much like someone slapped me in the face or punched me in the eye and after some assessment we moved to the washroom where I could see for myself in a mirror and things seemed fine, other than a little rub on the side of my eye?!? I decided I should go to the hospital and get things checked out, just in case, and I called in a ride and we packed up gear. I was obviously in shock, but filled with adrenaline, and though I had a slight worrying feeling, I felt fine. After six hours of waiting in emergency and getting assessed and CAT-scanned (I have a picture & yay for Canadian health-care!), they said that I was very lucky and that the blade had missed my eye and went back in behind to break-through the top of my orbit... into my f-ing brain!!! Like to a 4-5” depth. So, even a blunt steel, slow-sparring, warm-up, and a crossing of the arms for a flick, almost killed me, or at least took my eye... A harsh reminder as to why I’m constantly slowing everyone’s drilling down: we train with weapons, and that even a blunt, spatulated, version can kill with a flick of the wrist because of the unpredictability of spring-steel in the bind. To say anything other than this was ‘eye-opening’ would be to miss the golden opportunity to use a pun that I could never do quite the same justice to, but seriously, lol, I feel like I was simultaneously in a head-on-collision, tossed out the front window, flipped, over the oncoming car, and landed on my feet and casually walked away, all while lighting a cigarette using the friction from the roof of the passing car to Snoop Dogs, “Dunn, Dunn Dunn Dunn, he’s the MF’ing D.O. Double-G”... 1-in-a-million chance?? Anyway, I’m going to test out the same kind of bind-and-wind, flicking at some water bottles (with safety gear) to see if I can replicate the action (I have the image ‘stuck’ in my head - sorry, pun not intended), but I would guess that if we’d practiced with sharps, like in the video you described, even at our slower speed, his tip would have come out the top of my head and I’d have almost immediately dropped dead, inexperience not required... 😬⚔️🤔 My advise, based on this: even slow work requires helmets when it comes to binding-and-winding work. It takes too long to gain an intuition about how the blades react in the bind to teach binding-and-winding properly, especially if you’ve developed strength with the crossing and uncrossing of the hands... Take care all, and learn from this anecdote and Skall’s video - safety first and go to the hospital, just in case! 😁 Oh, and yeah, I seem to be recovering well, and should be fine - being released today - woohoo! I’ll start slowly with the sword again, just in case, and might treat myself to a new helmet - something I can speak in, so I can run, even the slow speed demos, while in helmet... 🤔

It’s not even sparring, how do you win, first blood? That’s a real duel...

Be prepared Skall, those guys at Holmgang have a tendency to call anyone who criticize them coward and will definitely challenge you for a fight.

Reminds me of stories of people shooting their friends to test if "bulletproof" vests work. Great if it stops the bullet, but what if it doesn't... or what if you miss and hit somewhere else. Maybe refrain from using lethal weapons against your friends for "fun".

"You can't hit each other hard on the head with blunts" Buhurt fighters: "Hur hur, Helmut go Ding"

Hey hey hey. These guys have literally killed two of their members and said “they died with honor” they’re dumb but they’re real

*really* sharp blades are surprising painless to get cut with, (having accidentally deeply cut myself with a razor sharp blade - not sword - before). So together with infight adrenaline, I can totally see people not noticing unless serious structural damage is done (bones, tendons or large muscles severed). Also it's *really* easy to break skin with a properly sharp sword - mine are shaving sharp, despite a solid appleseeded edge angle. Just lightly bumping against the edge while oiling it left me trailing blood droplets to the bathroom. Lesson: Don't watch interesting RU-vid videos while cleaning your swords, kids...

Recklessness is a sign of stupidity If you're going to spar make sure it is controlled and safe

"If you can't be a great example, then be a horrible warning"

As someone who works with extremely sharp metals every day I can “safely” confirm that even seemingly serious cuts can often go unnoticed.

I remember when this story was young. They're absolutely insane. Practically a suicide cult

Actually, it was not that dangerous, they never unscrewed their pommels, they weren't crazy.

"Man why do boxers wear those sissy gloves ?" "So their career won't end after single match."

When I was a kid, we used these metal swords (self made... out of any steel we could find) and sharpened them as much as we could (luckily we weren't that pro) and then start fencing with each other... They weren't sharp enough to cut through anything TOO deep, but yeah, we were kids and we were idiots 🤦‍♂️ 100% right about that ego rubbing stuff with sharp swords. If someone needs their ego rubbed like that, it's a sign of low self esteem and lack of confidence. Guys who do that: Don't be weak little fools. Train with training tools, it won't make you "less of a man". Or don't, and see how many thinks you're awesome when you're missing fingers, perhaps an eye... possibly an arm and you tell them the reason behind the loss 🤷‍♂️ I'm a knife guy myself and while some knife handling needs you to have the actual knife in your hand, anything that involves people around me will be done with dull plastic or rubber knives. If I'm just doing it by myself to get that proper feel to the knife, then yeah sure, use the "real deal". But sparring with someone? Only an idiot would risk injury when training.

Holmgang Hamburg is dead. Well their Homepage is dead. Okay maybe some of their members as well.

Man, I remember those two dorks sparring with sharp axes. Scary stuff.

"The best techniques are passed on by the survivors." ~Gaiden Shinji.

Hello Skal! Sorry to bother you but speaking as a dude who's not a native English speaker + is a bit deaf, I really super duper hope there will be subtitles somewhere down the line, because I miss so much without them. I know that sort of things takes time and all, so if it's at all possible to have them, I'll really be grateful. I still want to say that I truly appreciate the way you keep your elocution clear and slow enough that it's not simply impossible to me to appreciate your videos, even though a bit of lip-reading always helps. It's certainly very welcome to at least one unfortunate minority ;)

I was always told not to play with sharp objects as a kid. I guess they weren't.

I have to wonder what they say if they get hurt and have to go to the doctor. I mean, what would happen if you tell the doctor, "I was cut by a guy with a longsword in a duel?" It is probably not something the doctor hears every day... I remember when I strained an arm joint from too much sword practice. The doctor asked how I hurt it and I said too much sword practice. He didn't get what I meant and I had to explain historical fencing to him. Now imagine a guy showing up actually cut with a sword, the doctor would probably think he was on candid camera or something.

"Idk if they do it anymore. If they're all dead..." Well that's a good indicator of what we can expect.

I'm kinda surprised that the makers of the synthetic swords don't put a non slip material of some sort on the cutting edge to better simulate what you were talking about. I wonder if something as simple as emery cloth, that plumbers use, adhered to the edge would have enough grab against itself to add any sort of realism to the bind.

Remember: Swords cut

Gotta say, its super nice to see you discuss this. I loved snapjelly's assessment of these guys, and you did not dissapoint in the slightest. Love your channel Skal!!!!!

I was tempted already at Cammy, *but*, here is my upvote because of Chun-Li and your "and this is a big one". Just awesome =)

yo skall always a pleasure watching your vids, happy new year in advance.

This reminded me the other side of terrible "real" combat that was those dudes with tons of protection and blunt sword just flailing at each other while feeling next to nothing. They were also kinda cringe to watch and claim "this is real medieval sword fighting".

To be completely honest if it wasn't wild flailing it would have ended with a much more serious injury...

Recklessness is immaturity and not masculinity. Very true, women can be just as reckless.

I feel like this is on par with people who call themselves samurai after buying a $30 katana off etsy and watching a youtube video on kendo or iaido

9:00 "there's no way to MESSER around with this" I see what you did there ;)

Skall: Virtually stabs me in the face. Me: 👁👄 X

Best summed up thusly: never use a sword that's sharper than you are.

First rule of Fecht club: Never talk about Fecht club.

"Cut-parry-counter" is oldschool sabre fencing logic (for example Hutton), but with for example Liechtenauer it is different, he says that you pretty much should have a plan in mind, get the first cut (Vorschlag) and then immediatly follow up with another (Nachschlag), at least once after the first one.

bohurt after too many brain concussions "let's use semi-sharp swords and do the same idiotic thing we do but without armor " "technique and Hema is overrated bro" Lmao

Absolutely love your content! You have a very likeable personality.

It's is really interesting that your old instructors did so little binding. Most of the training we do in my group is focused on binding situations.

Me : „What backwards-thinking placed maniacs would do such thing ?“ .... „Hamburg“ Me living in Hamburg >.>

Oh I remember seeing a gif of one of them getting their arm sliced open. Its a core memory along with that suicide bomber that dabbed before exploding.

I would add that sharp sword simulators actually exist. For those who wanna learn how sharp swords feels and train the binding actions without actually endangering themselves.

I think the concept of sparring with sharp swords is a cool idea because of the type of safety gear and possible scoring it would bring up. Imagine if you did sharp sword sparring for the purposes you mentioned, but then you wore a suit of sturdy polymer that is a bright color (ie bright pink) covered by a thick black paint or even a full suit of metal armor that has been rubberized on the outside. Then it would remove the need for an actual score keeper to call where the strikes are made, and whenever the damage is done to the gear it could just be covered by tape. What are your thoughts on this idea?

Okay no but what about With a blindfold??? And a fire pit???

Ahh the gallowglass... gorgeous.

One of my favorite RU-vidrs ever

The thrusting strategy proposed at ~6min reminds me of all my Epee and Foil training in my university days.

I agree with most of the video, excellent job this time too. One thing i have to mention, that paradox when a proficient sword fighter/master fights an inexperienced individual, about the same athletic proficiency (or at least, ones body is not a hindrance in moving the weapon and performing) - there is a chance that the "noob" would surprise the master/experienced individual with some weird stuff: - a monkey business never really seen before and the brain goes like like wait, what the actual fuck? and boom gets hit. This has a lower chance of happening as a master has enough experience to tackle all kinds of shit, regardless of what form they might take. - involuntary suicidal attitude/action from the unexperienced person, disregard for own safety, flailing away or going for a low attack while remaining completely open and losing his/her head but managing to slice a belly or a leg in the process. Because one lacks the mental foresight/the mental chess to assess danger properly. This can happen, an experienced person to do great with other experienced fencers, because its a known attitude - everybody wants to survive and avoid injury as a primary objective, but to be surprised and get a double hit against a lesser adversary, a loss actually (injury or death). It brings in mind that famous Mark Twain (A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court) quote "The best swordsman in the world doesn’t need to fear the second best swordsman in the world; no, the person for him to be afraid of is some ignorant antagonist who has never had a sword in his hand before; he doesn’t do the thing he ought to." So even if I would describe the chances of a master against a random flailing/irrational as very high, think they're not vastly in his/her favor, bordering invincibility. That might boil down somewhat to the state of mind, taking every opponent seriously, especially the unexperienced with who you cant have a "dialogue" through fencing, for they don't know the language.

Skallagrim "Buhtttttt..... and that's a big one right here" And he delivered... "There is no way to Messer-round with this"

I'd be interested in a video about binding and winding and what you learnt/experienced so far.

The reason the guy had to have his injury pointed out is the "adrenaline" rush. One of the effects of adrenaline is to dull pain - that is, he doesn't "feel" the injury immediately. Athletes of all sorts are very familiar with this. That blow you suffer on the football field doesn't feel "that bad" at first, but 3 plays later you're taking yourself out and 20 minutes later you can't even walk because of the pain. This would increase the danger of such "behavior" between sword swishers as well. You can't trust what your body feels, or doesn't feel, and in your zeal to continue the fight you ignore that you're life's blood is seeping from several gaping wounds... Sword combat is brutal, and death often comes hours later, even to the "victors."

Finally there‘s a good video about those guys. To give a bit more background information: Yes, they still are active as well as „practising“ with sharp swords, which they do in polish forests due to legal reasons. When not using sharps, they do what we call „Vollkontakt“, basically full contact sparring with less than safe protective gear. Another thing they like to do (tough I don‘t know if they‘re still doing it) is „Mensur“, a style of fencing with sharp swords popular with some student groups. Might be an interesting topic for another video

Please keep in mind that these people are pretty much a meme in the German HEMA community.

Been a second since I sat down for a good old fashioned skall lecture loved it as always 😁😁

Great video as always! I especially liked the greasy garlic finger metaphor. My brother and I are practicing sword and staff fighting just for fun, though both of us have a martial arts background. We make our own practice weapons from wood and foam. Even with these we manage to hurt ourselves and each other every now and then when things get wild. So far no serious injuries and we're only getting better at it and more careful with time. We never use sharp weapons, we like our extremeties the way they are.

A quick question: I'm not really experienced with swords, altough it seems to me that coatin the edge with a high friction material, like rubber, would let you train binding as effectively as a sharp sword, while being way safer. What am I missing here?

This dude throwing out all those “butts.” Doesn’t he know it’s NNN? Lol

I also enjoy looking down the barrel to check my ammo

These guys have already had one reported death in their group. Pretty dark seeing the montage of injury and laughter after each video knowing this.

"There is one valuable thing about all of this..." yeah, natural selection 🤣

Dear Mr Skalagrim, I am currently working on an Arthurian comic for my lockdown project. Would you be able to do some sparing based on migration era weaponry, as there isn't much information on how to use swords of the time besides "use it with a sheild". P.s: Would you be interested in some of the illustrations?

Beautiful and extremely important to watch video.

ive been doing hema for 7 years now and i would love to try slow sparring with a sharp blade. the way you did it, with the point cut of is a really good way to make it much saver.

This brings up another similar discussion I have thought of. Is there a bit of a code on the handling of sharp swords? Firearms have a very openly spoken and fairly strict code on handling, but with blades I see people like Alec Steele, who makes blades but as far as I'm aware has no training in their use, often swing sharp blades wildly, pretend to attack others and overall seems to be pretty careless with sharp blades. So am I unfairly transferring firearms handling to bladed weapons or is there a genuine lack of safe handling by untrained people?

A cut CAN be a fight stopper no matter how small.. if it cuts exactly right ofc. A severed tendant or muscle is not going to work after it is cut ^^ i imagine most decorated knights and warriors from history knew a fair bit about weak points... and for some reason I dont think the 2 half naked dudes in the dark woods have the same knowledge

Bruh i found this about months ago and i was like waiting for you to make a video about it any time,not dissapointed.

13:56 That was such an amazing clip of defense by offense in defensive step back.