Waking up with sore ears
Published: Tue, 04/03/18
I woke up on Sunday and Monday morning with sore ears. Nothing too serious, just a bit tender at the top of each ear where the lobe meets my head. I could not work out why for a little while then I realised that it was a consequence of participating in a weekend of HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) training hosted by the York School of Defence. Why sore ears? The ears were the only ill effects I did suffer I am pleased to say, I keep as relaxed as possible and move as efficiently as I can when training so the risks of strain and injuries are minimised, for me anyway. I do try and take care of my training partners too. Were we boxing each other’s ears? Grabbing the ears to throw each other on the floor? No, just dragging my fencing mask on and off which pulls my ears down as it goes on and makes them sore. We don’t use protective equipment in Stav training so I don’t wear my mask very often. If I did I would soon get used
to it.
So, did I have fun? Had an introduction to sword and buckler which is an interesting combination. The buckler does provide protection but it is also one more thing to have to manage in a combat situation. Learned some tricky techniques with the Messer, a weapon I was not familiar with seems to be very versatile and would fit well with cudgel/langsax training. After lunch we had a session on 19th century bayonet fighting which was a novelty. It would be a fun thing to do in Stav training though, will have to look at making some bayonet training weapons. There was also a session on half-swording in armour. Luke Ireland, the instructor not only required the use of the mask but put masking tape over the grill and just left a narrow slit to represent the amount of vision you are likely to have if wearing a full face helmet. It does make you work by feel and judgment to compensate for the narrowed field of view.
The Sunday morning started with a fairly light hearted Bartitsu inspired session with James Marwood who is always fun to train with. This concluded with a slightly improbable tournament involving space hoppers amongst other things, I guess you had to be there. Then I did a training session ready for a controlled free play tournament scheduled for the afternoon. I took part, didn’t do particularly well but I don’t think I disgraced myself either. After all I know sod all about fencing and I was just focusing on taking the centre line and looking for openings. I was using a messer which I felt comfortable with but has very little hand protection. It did seem that most of the points won and lost came from contacts with the hands rather than blows or thrusts to the head or body. If I do such a contest again I want something like a cavalry sabre with a basket hilt. The winner used a sabre with a very curved blade with which he could
easily hook around a guard and catch the wrist. It was great fun taking part but it also reinforced my skepticism about the value of sparring and freeplay.
We finished the day with another session with Luke Ireland looking at Fiore’s teaching on the pole axe. Luke had a couple of steel and wood replicas to show and let us get the feel of. Scary weapons which you would not want to train with without armour. For the lesson we used wooden versions. But that stage I was getting a bit tired for full concentration but it is always interesting to see how an unusual weapon might be used. Luke was keen to stress that the basic movements and essential skills were the same with the two handed sword as with the pole axe, so one lesson was effectively the continuation of the other.
So, what do I make of the HEMA scene these days? The York School of Defence is obviously very well organised and well run and has an enthusiastic and young membership. (I must have been the oldest one there by quite a big margin.) The instructors who had been invited know how to manage a class and communicate very effectively so it was all very well done. What does seem to be lacking is an understanding of basic principles and most people can do techniques but don’t really know if it works or not. The part I find amusing is the dependence upon manuals. Everything is there in the old books, all we have to do is interpret the truth. Perhaps the people who wrote and illustrated did know what they were talking about. Or maybe they didn’t, they were just the ones who happened to get published. Either way, you can only interpret a manual if you understand the principles of the subject the manual claims to teach on. This applies as
much to a computer, car, gardening, spirituality or cookery manual as it does to martial arts. Where HEMA is concerned it does mean that to be taken seriously you have to be able to show which text you are training from. It is so much like church where every teaching has to be supported by bible quotations that I can’t help finding it rather funny. On the other hand Stav can’t be taken seriously because we don’t have a sacred manual with pretty pictures in it.
What do I get out of an event like last weekend’s? I do pick up ideas for training methods which can be useful. My dagger/tein training system came out of stuff I learned at Fightcamp for example. I get to see what won’t work for Stav training which saves me the trouble of testing it myself. I have fun training because I like doing martial arts. It is also good for me to train in an environment where I am either not known or not taken seriously by those who do know me. This means that I can test stuff out and know if it works or not. The problem with being an instructor is that you can never be quite sure if something works because it really does or just because you told your students it would. It really is dangerously easy to programme people into believing all kinds of nonsense. Every now and then I need a lab with guinea pigs that are not going to do just what I tell them, that is an environment where I can actually learn
something and I am still learning.
Training opportunities coming up soon where I am teaching, Somerset this coming Saturday and the HEMA Diversity Camp in June where we will go a little bit further than most HEMA training goes in my opinion. Links from the Calendar page http://iceandfire.org/calendar.html
regards
Graham
PS I was able to express some of these views in the interview I did with Frank Docherty the other week, you can listen to it here https://englishmartialarts.podiant.co/e/3617e6f61bff88/