Decision trees are sometimes derided by practitioners of historical fencing; after all the chaos of a fencing match rarely allows the luxury of time for complex decision making, and even a relatively simple decision tree can have multiple recursive branches and layers.  As a result even a relatively sedate exchange gives precious little opportunity theRead more about Decision Graphs: When You Can’t See the Forest for the Trees[…]

When it comes to Historical Fencing, few things draw more intense community discussion than that of rules and scoring at HEMA events.  This should come as no surprise – everyone’s motives and goals for taking part in Historical Martial Arts are different, and so everyone is looking for the ideal ruleset which captures what it isRead more about Refereeing in Historical Fencing: Consistency & Communication[…]

The video below shows an adaptation of the Zornhut play described below. “If you stand in the right Wrath stance and your opponent strikes from his right to your left, then with a step of your right foot drive with displacement under his blade and over your head, and catch his strike on your flatRead more about Adapting a Zornhut Play[…]

“Even though this art must be learned chiefly through the practice of the body, yet it is certain and true that as with others, students can conceive it in their memory much better when it is assembled, written out, and placed before their eyes in a proper pedagogical order, and afterwards it can also beRead more about A Taxonomy of Technique: Meyer’s 5 Things[…]

An observation often made of late period German fencing (such as that described in the work of Mair or Meyer) it that it uses a surprisingly large number of guard positions.  In fact some criticism can be made that there are in fact too many postures, depending on the fencing background of the reader.  Read more about Guards! Guards! Notes on the Many Postures of Meyer[…]

Just a brief post to provide a link to the material presented at Swordplay 2016 this year in Brisbane, covering a selection of material from Meyer’s polearms.   Swordplay 2016 Workshop-Fundamentals of Meyer’s Polearms

The following is a repost of a friend’s (/u/hussard) comments on reddit under /r/wma, it uses the metaphor of siegecraft for how we might approach fencing. I’m reposting it here because it’s so damned good. Before you attack, you must do the preparation necessary in order to execute your actions. Against an undefended target, youRead more about Siege Mentality in Fencing[…]

In an earlier post concerning hand positions in Meyer’s rappier while thrusting I briefly mentioned a comparison to roughly contemporary Italian sidesword styles.  While I’m certainly not the first to do this, it seems that the comparison is most often made with Marozzo of the Bolognese method.  In this post we’ll veer slightly away fromRead more about Meyer’s Rappier vs Viggiani’s Sidesword: A VERY Brief Comparison[…]

While Meyer’s longsword appears to have had an ongoing practitioner base for many years, his rappier system (which seemed to exist in the shadow of the longsword and dussack parts of the 1570 text) has been rising in popularity quite slowly in comparison.   Happily the readership of this part of the text has increasedRead more about Interpreting Meyer’s Rappier: Chambering the Thrust in 2.75V ?[…]