HEMA, growing in popularity.

so there are schools specific to time periods too?!
cool!

 

i think theres a bus that runs to oxford but i honestly dont know.

is there a group there?

 

Hey Zaad what was the Indian martial art called? I'm lucky enough to have an original copy of Draegers Asian Figting Arts and there is some really interesting stuff in the chapter on India! Lots of wrestling and knife fighting etc.

I agree about the history side of classical martial arts being the most interesting part sometimes, you're learning about the culture of the time as well and the excitement of controlled violence sort of makes it come alive in a way that no book can do lol.

 

There's a group doing British predominantly 18th century stuff (smallsword, backsword and pugilism) www.sirwilliamhope.org

 

Swords and their context changed through history.

 

The guy who runs it calls it shastar vidya but that just means knowledge of the sword which is a general term for all forms of warfare. Specifically this guy (niddar Singh) practices the Sikh collection of punjabi styles which late. Formed gatka when the British came.

Rajasthan and south India have their own styles as do the naga people.

 

From the video's I have seen of Niddar Singh I am impressed, If he is running the training at your grandparents temple its not something I personally would pass up without trying. Wasn't there a thread on him a while back on MAP?

 

this dude with Pat and Maul Mornie?

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmimBi5ELaE"]Meeting of Masters, Pat O'Malley, Maul Mornie, Nidar Singh Nihang - YouTube[/ame]

 

Yeah he is also quite involved in academia, doing museum stuff on North Indian warfare.

 

I think the BBc has done articles about him. I watched a whole bunch of his stuff last year maybe. Interesting stuff.

and here it is:

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-15480741

 

I'm not sure how much is true and how much is advertising but I would love to see the historical interpretations.

 

Dude! I hate you Zaad! I hate you so much right now words can not described. Don't you dare pass up the opportunity to take up Singh class! I've had his YouTube channel on my favorites for a while. It looks very interesting. My envy and jealousy will take on human form and find you if you pass up a chance to try it.

 

On a side note sounds like the guy that is doing the Hema here is going to the dynamo cup in Moscow, I guess it's a really tough hema tournament.
Moscow - Best fighters from Russia, Dynamo Cup 20…: http://youtu.be/BGwhu0OHU4s

 

The Russian stuff is not really HEMA in the strictest sense. The format (bohurt) is apparently historical, but none of the techniques are deliberately drawn from historical sources. The most effective techniques are disallowed (thrusting, for example) for safety reasons. That being said, those guys are tough and skilled at what they do. It is still incredibly dangerous, with broken fingers and the like not being considered "real" injuries. People lose fingertips, get beaten into unconsciousness and end up in hospital with some regularity. I posted a participant's account of BoTN here before.

I would guess there are some HEMA guys doing it, but they are separate (if vaguely related) disciplines.

Best regards,

-Mark

 

Yup! The manuals range from the 1300's to the early modern period. A lot of changes in martial practices occured over that period!

Now the fundamentals are the same: there are only 8 basic angles to cut on, thrusts either come ascending, descending or straight from either left or right, etc. For example, Fiore wrote his manual in 1410. It is remarkably complete, showing techniques for a variety of weapons and contexts. He even shows how to fight with your sword still in its scabbard in case you are ambushed. It is a "knightly" manual in every sense of the word. Salvator Fabris wrote for the rapier a full two hundred years later, which is a weapon that didn't even exist in Fiore's time.

The heyday of the German school was the mid 1400's and was primarily recorded as a duelling art in the manuals. It is at that point concerned with judicial duels and shows a lot of very lethal techniques with a variety of weapons (longsword, messer, sword & buckler) and unarmed combat. They assume the audience would be an experienced martial artist. Forward to 1570, and you have the last of the great German treatises, written by Joachim Meyer. He wrote it assuming the reader had less martial knowledge and wrote it specifically as an instructional manual. The messer had been replaced by the dussack and he added the "rappier" aka sidesword. The longsword and dussack sections contain more tournament-appropriate techniques, and it mentions that it is forbidden for Germans to thrust each other. He still does show some thrusts in there though. He then goes on to detail the thrust-heavy rappier, a foreign weapon which he folded into ethnic German martial practice.

So you can see that there can be a huge amount of change in a short period of time. No school can expertly cover the entire gamut of European martial practice without a lot of specialized instructors. Generally they practice a one or two areas. For example, my school does medieval German martial arts (longsword, messer, Ringen, sword & buckler) and modern military combatives (KAPAP and MBC). While I own a rapier, I have no time to devote to it. I haven't held the damn thing in months, let alone trained with it. I've taken exactly ONE Polish sabre class, and have never put on a suit of armour, not even a shirt of maille. Armoured combat is its own thing too.

-Mark