Harnish-fechten

Discussion in 'Western Martial Arts' started by Stolenbjorn, May 28, 2012.

  1. Stolenbjorn

    Stolenbjorn Valued Member

    Me and two others have been fiddeling with some harnish-rules for HEMA, and here's a video showing some highlights from the first tournament where the rules were tested out for the first time:

    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZyI2mf3si8&feature=share"]Halvsverding og påleøks - Hadeland folkemuseum - YouTube[/ame]

    The rules are quite simple:
    Longsword-halfswording:
    Thrusts to armpits, innside of the hands, innside of the elbow, back of the knee = 3 points, thrust and pommel-strike to head=1p

    Polllaxe:
    Thrusts to armpits, innside of the hands, innside of the elbow, back of the knee, strike to the head = 3 points.
    Thrust towards the face and strike on other parts of the body=1 point.

    First to 10 points or max 1,5 minute fight. A successful takedown where you stay in control makes you reaching 10 points and ending the fight.

    The rules is intened to reward use of historical tecnhiques as shown in the manuals, and make the fights resemble how we believe a real medieval fight in harness would look like. We use plastic waisters and rubber pollaxes at the moment, but provided enough participants are able to get sufficiant harness-protection, we're considering doing the tournaments with metal blunts (with tips wider than the eyeslits of the Bacinets).
     
  2. Polar Bear

    Polar Bear Moved on

    The polearm stuff was nice. The rest was really scrappy. I'm not into armoured fighting so probably not the best judge.

    The Bear.
     
  3. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    Well, that is definitely not something you see every day.

    Good stuff though!
     
  4. lklawson

    lklawson Valued Member

    Looks fun.

    I loved the knock-down from the Murder Stroke at 51 sec. Absolutely beautiful and matched the historic docs. Lovely.

    I also loved the pole-arm winding at 1:44. Nice control of the opponent's weapon. He didn't exploit it well, but that's no big deal. Luck, experience, and any number of things affect that.

    I didn't mind the "scrappieness" of the half-swording at all. My experience tells me that when people are otherwise invulnerable to strikes, they crash to clinch range most of the time. This jives with the historic docs and the example vid above. The reason that it looked scrappy was because, well, it was. It will look a lot more technical when one person has a clear experience and training advantage over the other. I don't know if the participants were comparatively inexperienced in grappling or if they were just well matched. You can't always tell. When I watch Olympic Judo matches, they often look scrappy even though the competitors are cream-of-the-crop scary good.

    However, I'll venture that the competitors do need some more time in training for this style competition. I saw little use of the hips, no use of leg sweeps and trips, and poor implementation of leverage when they came to grips. While this might be an artifact of the rules or simply that the few clips didn't illustrate those instances, I'm thinking probably more practice in this area is indicated.

    Still though, I don't want to be hyper-critcal. I saw a lot to like and props for being willing to put this stuff to the test in a competitive environment.

    I think I'll post a link to this vid on another forum I participate on.

    Peace favor your sword,
    Kirk
     
  5. Pretty In Pink

    Pretty In Pink Moved on MAP 2017 Gold Award

    I'm a big fan of HEMA stuff, and I understand that to re-enact a duel like that you need to wear the full armour. I was wondering why everyone else was dressed up though?
     
  6. Stolenbjorn

    Stolenbjorn Valued Member

    good observations on all of you. As you noticed, we're scrappy, this was the first time we tried the half-swording and pollaxe full-speed, full-contact in armor. Some of us have tried this stuff in gymsuits and fencing masks, and the difference is immence.

    Firstly, you don't get enough oxygene, a claustrophopbic experience that adds to the stress-level.

    Secondly, the vizer gives a severe restriction to sight, which makes it virtually impossible to see oppertuneties.

    Thirdly the weight and movement-restriction of the harness gives new weight-points, and desturbes fluency in techniques we have drilled in without harness. Personally, I'm not that bad at HEMA-wrestling, but I am so much slower in harness, that I need to train several hours/weeks/months to re-ajust to the increased weight and movement-restriction.

    Fish: The judges are wearing medieval costume as we arranged the tournament at a museum, so that is fluff for the audience.
     
  7. lklawson

    lklawson Valued Member

    That could totally account for the failure to take advantage of the winding and control that I saw. Thanks for pointing that out.

    I don't think it'll take you that long if you're already fluent in grappling and throwing. Part of the issue, I think, is using the half-sword as a lever for the throws. It changes the game in some significant ways. I don't know how much "live" practice you have with "stick grappling" but it really is different enough that it really throws a monkey wrench in for people who are otherwise really good at grappling and throwing.

    Peace favor your sword,
    Kirk
     
  8. Stolenbjorn

    Stolenbjorn Valued Member

    Sorry, I'm as scrappy with names as with harnish-fechten :topic:

    The explenation for your question was valid, though (we were performing at a museum, and the judges and water-personel was allso in period costume to add to the flavour).
     
  9. Pretty In Pink

    Pretty In Pink Moved on MAP 2017 Gold Award

    Fair enough, looks fun either way!
     

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