Historical Fencing & Martial Arts Academy
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[…]
“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
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 ?[…]
While Meyer is more specific than most German masters on the topic of footwork, there is still a lot left unsaid within his various texts on how and where one should move. Throughout the text, though, he does provide at least some diagramatic assistance on footwork, generally scattered throughout his illustrations. One of the mostRead more about Examining Meyer’s Footwork Diagrams: The Divided Circle[…]
“When this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you’re going to see some serious sh!t…” Emmett ‘Doc’ Brown Caveat: If you don’t care about maths of physics at all, stop reading now, however a better understanding of some simple physics will improve your understanding of which cut to apply when. Not to mention the fact thatRead more about Stand Back, I’m about to do… SCIENCE![…]
“They were likewise taught not to cut but to thrust with their swords. For the Romans not only made a jest of those who fought with the edge of that weapon, but always found them an easy conquest. A stroke with the edges, though made with ever so much force, seldom kills, as the vitalRead more about Getting to the Point of Cutting[…]
In general terms deflecting the opponent’s sword comes under the term “parrying”, though you may also encounter the term “setting aside”, as well as the German words “absetzen” or “versetzen” (which basically mean setting aside or displacing). Meyer himself tends to describe all parrying using absetzen/versetzen, but in other texts there are very specific passagesRead more about Meyer’s Longsword: On Parrying[…]