+Prosecna Srbenda well it is a simple answer......he is merely ponting out that it could have been said just as well in 2 minutes as in 8

+Battam My favorite was the Catching Fire video where right in the beginning he said "I know I'm being a bit of a pedant, I know I'm being a bit of a geek..." but kept talking for several minutes.

CarnalKid Yeah, I like it when he loses himself in the topic, its more interesting to watch than when he has it planned.

+Jim Riven Well, at least we know how they competed "unsafely"... it's something.

"How not to do this thing" is in fact very valuable info.

Not as expensive as you think. Cheaper than golf or auto racing. Starts at about 1000 US.

Mage Yeah That's a lot of money to drop on something that won't make you money.

...but not out of the realm of other sports. The real problem is that the most serious sport hema groups don't use it.

Mage Yeah Mmmm. I guess it's partly who's talking about it. While 1000 dollars is a lot of money to me, it might not be that much to someone else.

+Decay I take it you're not a fan of the sca? And that you define functional as nigh perfect top of the line? That's not what the rest of us mean by functional.

It's hard to emulate... *warfare* without killing anyone. Even modern warfare which is less reliant on close quarters combat (though it's still a vital component) and uses technology and skill from range, is still very difficult to emulate well. Realistically emulating the practice of jamming sharpened steel into each other or bashing each other in the head with murderous force...without actually hurting anyone, is never going to be a fully realized quest. I think perhaps the closest thing would probably be HEMA unarmored sparring + training in armored combat according to historical techniques + entering something like Battle of the Nations. Each would help with a slice of the pie, then you'd still have to put them together in your mind. They all have massive gaps, but put together, they can help build a bigger picture. Training in historical armored combat gets the fundamental knowledge and skills, but lacks practical practice and experience because the kind of fighting you have to do in full armor is impossible to fake without seriously damaging somebody. HEMA unarmored combat teaches fighting at speed against an opponent and the application of martial techniques against a real apponent with speed and force, but it doesn't cover the realities of armored combat or of real combat at all so much as a civilian dueling situation. And BotN is heavy on the concussive, loud, violence of actual armored battle and the practical experience of fighting and moving in an evolving situation in armor that you aren't going to get in HEMA, but the actual technical skill level and range of techniques is low and not historically representative due to the nature of the beast demanding a focus on blunt force over things like grappling, sharp piercing weapons, and murderous head strikes. Maybe if you take the positive lessons of each to cover the gaps in the others, you might get as close as humanly possible to the experience of medieval combat. Just a guess on my part. But who's going to do all that? Each one is a discipline and time/resource hogging hobby on its own. Maybe someone rich enough to act like a real medieval knight who could focus on such things as his full-time occupation. Basically, you'd have to *be* the modern equivalent of medieval nobility to actually exlerience what it was like to fight like a medieval person.

I would say that the SCA is pretty close. The minimum armor standards are pretty much a helm, gorget, knee cops, elbow cops, kidney belt, and a cup, and you are good to go. Use rattan sticks with padded tips (if you want to thrust) agree that a certain level of force is required to kill (and then decide if you want to be nice enough not to hit any harder than that), agree not to punch, kick, or grapple, and you pretty much have it right there :)

New York Knights Combat I meant more about actual historical fighting in armor less than full harness.

@@NewYorkKnightsCombat1 , The "not grappling" is my biggest problem. That area is a hugely important and hugely under-represented aspect of armored fighting. As Matt alluded to, in armored combat, the sword basically becomes a sharp, pointy, grappling lever. Everything in the actual historical techniques of armored combat with swords came down to getting the armored oponent on the ground in an advantageous position for you to jam your blade between his protection. Take grappling out of the equation, and can you really consider it even remotely analgous to historical combat?

@@jameswoodard4304 Those organizations and competitions that do not allow grappling usually have three reasons for it (with varying degrees of the focus on each reason) 1. Safety 2. There are trying to simulate a tournament in which grappling was not allowed (such things existed in history). 3. They want to focus on weapon skills. It is sort of like how different combat sports focus on some things and don't allow others, like kicking, grappling, knees, elbows, etc. By taking all that stuff out of boxing, can you really consider it at all like a real unarmed fight?

+J Corbett I think that pulling blows was almost certainly done in most historical practice, though any contact at all with a bare head or face is dangerous - a medium blow to the head can permanently injure someone's brain and the face is very fragile - it doesn't take much at all to pop an eye ball.

+scholagladiatoria While I can sort of imagine training for spear and sword, and other similar weapons in medieval times... I always wondered, how did they practice with larger and heavier weapons, like maces, morning stars, warhammers, axes and such? Certainly pulling blows is still important, but the sheer mass would still be very dangerous. And if they used lighter, wooden placeholders, wouldn't that screw with the training, since the weight and feel would be all wrong?

+Sólyom Csaba You don`t have to have opponent to train with a mace or axe. Its not fancing just swinging.

kiba BG I seriously doubt that to be that easy... even if learning the handling of the weapon alone can be done against a dummy, the same can be done with any weapon. Yet people past and present still use live, "coop" training, because combat/competition/whatever isn't just the use of the pointy/sticky/bashy thing you hold in your hand(s).

+Sólyom Csaba I don't think warhammers, axes and maces where heavier weapons than swords, but their focus on percussive damage does indead make them more dangerous for training than blunt swords.

You should get some protective gear, if you fail to pull a blow to the head which can happen even a fairly light blow can cause permanent brain damage its also likely that fingers can be broken in strikes to the hand or worse. Don't spar without the proper protective gear for the safety of both you and your friend its very dangerous.

Thanks, I do appreciate your concern and agree that it is too dangerous to suggest that others train without protective gear. However, I've been training for a decade in traditional Chinese unarmed martial arts where we do much the same, albeit without weapons (still dangerous though. I've had broken ribs and others training have dislocated fingers, suffered concussions, etc). While I am new to practicing with weapons, I feel that my prior experience, along with lots of solo practice, has given me enough awareness to avoid losing control of my body and weapon (You'd be right to point out that my training partner poses more of a risk, though, as he is almost entirely untrained). The reason I bother to explain my position is that the present danger of real injury changes the dynamics of sparring, and while it is too dangerous for beginners or competition, can be a useful tool to refine the technique of both participants. When a double hit means you will suffer a painful strike, you are more likely to utilize the more complex guards and disarms than to just swing faster. This results cleaner technique from both fighters. Again, you are correct that this is dangerous, and I don't think it is wise most people to train that way.

+Marquese Liddle The reason most HEMA practitioners are unwilling to spar without safety gear is simple: no matter how much control you have, with thousands of people doing this worldwide, it is inevitable someone will get hurt. With things that can poke out eyes, this is particularly important. It simply isn't worth losing an eye or the ability to use your hands for a hobby. Accidents happen, nobody is perfect or immune. There are plenty of precedents for this kind of thing happening too. Most re-enactment groups I've seen have fairly strict (if sometimes strange) safety rules, especially with lots of them wearing open faced helmets. Despite this, it's not hard to find accounts of experienced re-enactors getting their faces split open by stray blows. I've personally witnessed somebody running face-first onto a spear that had its butt embedded in the ground just due to simple bad luck. He was very lucky that the spear broke before his face did, but he still needed to be taken off the field by paramedics. Somebody in Germany died when a synthetic waster entered the eye-slit of his helmet. You are welcome to continue training however you wish, but consider what you're risking.

which club in harmbug why not state the name?

+Noah Weisbrod We don't know.

+scholagladiatoria Probably light ash and willow sticks.

***** Typically. Either a full mail shirt with padding underneath or a padded garment with patches of mail where the gaps in the plates would be.

***** linen is frustratingly hard to cut or stab through.

ZarlanTheGreen flexible is the wrong word. I mean that certain spring to them that greatly softens any impact.

+CopernicoTube Padded ends perhaps?

+Josiah Mann Still worring... If the tip of spear solid hit my mask or even my chest, I am probably out, even if is padded.

What I've used for spear fighting is simply poly pipe with a bit of pool noodle stuck on the end. Cheap and reasonably padded and I really don't mind doing unarmoured fighting with them as long as they're not thrown or intentionally stabbed at the face. Doing the same thing for swords and daggers works for fun lighthearted fights too.

+Josiah Mann My worry is about the spear, specifically. Because is not really the hit, but the thrust (I don't know if I am expressing myself correctly, if doesn't, please forgive my bad english). If the tip find my chest, there is all this force pushing me back, even with a soft point. And a spear lunge can generate a lot of power...

+CopernicoTube Yes, that is a huge concern because a spear with no point is still a dangerous weapon. I think it is as Matt says, during training they were very very careful not to kill the other guy.

+James Sarvan There is armoured fighting, but it's quite difficult to do it since armour is expensive and you can't really do it with any other weapon than the longsword because you can't fight full contact with a warhammer. (although i did see some spear fencing but they held back in force) Groupfighting isn't striclty speaking HEMA because the sources usually don't describe them, they are more done just for fun. Also spear and shield is typically early period were armour was limited to gambeson and mail. Fighting against gambeson and mail isn't all that different to fighting unarmoured.

+James Sarvan also i find it more fun to be able to strike at opponents with a sword instead of half-swording (what you would do with a sword against armour)

+James Sarvan Beside the high costs for plate armour, which was already mentioned, there is also the savety-aspect to consider. It might sound paradox, but armored combat would be much more dangerous, due to completely different techniques. Techniques like halfswording, murder-strokes or similar, which are strictly forbidden in HEMA-contests, by the way, because they are specifically designed to kill opponents in armour. Imagine e.g. two guys, made heavier and clumsier by 30 kilogram of steel, both moving and one of them manages to get the tip of his sword into the visor of his partner. Would you be sure to stop early enough, so that your partner keeps both his eyes? As to the question of more fun... why should it be more fun? With armour you might be able to hit your sparring-partner full force, but why? That would be bashing without purpose. But what makes HEMA so interesting is that it combines elegance of movements (at least it should ;-)) with quick wits and strategy. There are so many varieties to attack, to feint, to parry, to counterattack... It's like dancing and playing chess at the same time.

Very true, I should have emphasised on that. On the subject of bashing in full force, it's not like fencing but if you want to replicate "fighting" i believe you need to attack with full force. Seeing how gambeson protects you so well from cuts... So in that case a system like in the SCA is quite good, where you fight as if unarmoured but in armour and where grappling is forbidden (And I believe thrusts too but I'm not sure) thus minimising the danger of armour. Although these restrictions reduce the realism.

Gloin79 I have to admit, I actually had to look up the term SCA ;-) Now I watched a few videos and it looks like fun. But I think you are right. You have restrictions that reduce the risk, but also reduce the realism. In terms of realism I think HEMA might be closer. Since it simulated unarmored combat, striking full force would be unnecessarry and even a disadvantage in a fight. Which would be more fun... I don't know. It's probably a question of personal preference and - as you pointed out before - financial commitment.

With a name like your's I am not surprised at all about that!

MegaRaven, your name is spelt wrong! (Revan is your profile pic)

+Das Moep You really don't. I own both bascinets and sallets and the vision is terrible compared to a fencing mask or no head protection. You lose both vertical and horizontal fields of vision.

+scholagladiatoria yes, I understood that you meant "compared to fencing masks" - that's out of discussion. All I wanted to say is that it sounds like one's nearly blind when he's wearung a helmet. I know that you didn't mean it that way ;-)

+Das Moep In battle they would lift the visor when about to engage in melee. That's for vision, because that faceplate is mostly about arrows, and not meant to be really fought in. Earlier helmets which don't have visors have better visibility are often more open around the eyes. We can't remove visors for safety reasons, and our eyes are probably the most vulnerable and precious things, so just leaving that open isn't really an option. Vision through a pig face bascinet is terrible. Not terrible compared to fencing masks, terrible compared to anything.

+Ashes42g I have looked up some pigface bascinet helmets and they seem to have as much space around the eyes as some crusader helmets without visor. I made some experiences with crusader helmets, you need to get used to it but you can stand your ground. I don't know if it's enough for having an overview of your situation in battle, but on the other side I wouldn't lift my visor while I'm standing in the first row. And I guess the faceplate is for general face protection, not "mostly for arrows". It's really common that somebody is stabbing towards your face.

I find that "I won't get hit" is not an acceptable substitute for good armor.

New York Knights Combat neither do I. It was a joke

Git gud.

***** Sometimes things happen so fast that you wouldn't realise that you are mortally injured.

Every now and then, me and a friend will practice some taijutsu/kenjutsu as part of our ninjutsu training. We don't use padding, but we also don't use wooden bokken. It doesn't injure when controlled, but polypropylene can be very heavy.

+Thiago Monteiro When I first went to Japan I had the idea that Ninja's were some kind of elite fighting force. Having been there and read things about them....I came to realize diffrently. Samurai ruling class were very big on weapon control (still very big in Japan. Civilian owned weapons are scare). Ninja's didn't run around with swords strapped all over them, in fact not many even had a sword unless it was stolen from a dead samurai. Most of their weapons like the Kusarigama were converted farm tools...and ninja's were...peasant farmers....they used the same tools they farmed with and conducted night attacks against oppressive masters. Nothing like hiding your weapons in plain sight. The real "ninjutsu" training dealt mostly with their stalking, patience and physical endurance to carry out assassinations. The best word to describe a sword battle between a ninja and a samurai would be "dead ninja". Their modern equivalent is probably a sniper. Patient, willing to starve, freeze, burn and suck it up for one shot to take a target down. If caught by conventional forces he's toast.

+Decay Well, Kenjutsu was very much a thing, that is just the Japanese word for swordsmanship. Whether or not ninjutsu was a thing or not is another matter, but Kenjutsu is obviously real, they had swords so of course they had swordsmanship. He never mentioned ninjatos, he could have been training with uchigatanas or wakizatshis. Also, this whole "ninjas are super mega shadow warriors" thing was started by the Japanese, not mall ninjas, and ninjatos were invented by movies, because curved sword props are more expensive than straight sword props. He is still probably a huge weeb, though, why would you train in a kimono? The idea of training in a kimono is because that was the every day wear during feudal Japan, and ninjas were spies so they had to blend in, but kimonos are not the every day wear today, so if you really wanted to follow the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law you would train in jeans and a t-shirt.

yeah, the thing is that in a military force you had to take the trainings more seriously, what I mean is that the medieval soldiers probably were training with steel swords all the time, and with light armor. I don't think they trained with a cape and a wooden stick (the equivalent of Ninjutsu's training with katana). After all, shinobis did not wear katanas, as some of above said, they had some farming tools to take care of assasinations. Overall we can say shinobis weren't real soldiers. So we can guess medieval european soldiers practiced a similar training to that of samurais, exercicing the body, practicing cuts, and then sparring with partners. Anyway who know if they really weared steel in the sparring sessions... I guess not.

Arnau De Castro Sistach I imagine soldiers trained in whatever armor they intend to go to battle in, in order get the most accurate simulation, also for conditioning.

+elgostine Actually we train in a really slippery hall with a shiny wooden dancefloor covered in dust and most of us use flat-soled slippery shoes. I own medieval shoes and there is no notable difference. In any case, the floor is modern and unrealistic to most historical fencing surfaces.

Have you tried looking up the SCA? It's not exactly HEMA, but if you like this kind of thing you could find a lot to like there, and a lot of HEMA does translate. And the SCA is much, much bigger than the HEMA community.

+Conotrant Wooden weapons can be made to balance like steel ones by adding a lead insert at the pommel end, or through other ways.

+WeretigerX high-end HEMA gear isnt much cheaper to be fair.

+Rami sabreur Assuming we're talking fully armored plate harness folks, they pretty much could just stand there and take an arbitrarily large amount of sword strikes, so they depended on the armor quite a bit. Not avoiding a light hit/graze in favor of putting your sword through someone was done quite a bit. What you end up with are attempts at thrusts into weak points, deflections of said thrusts, and a lot of grappling. Halbschwert hold for a sword is pretty easy to google. When you bring dedicated anti armor weapons into the equation, you see more parries, but the general fight has a slower feel anyway, mostly because a quick but light blow won't do anything, so there's little point in it. And slower blows give you more time to cross distance, so you once again see a lot of grappling. Once grappling starts, both combatants try to either seriously mess each other up with joint locks, or try to draw a dagger and plunge it into a gap. In general, taking slices on armor won't even faze you, taking chops may (may) bruise you or break a bone in extreme cases (e.g. Gregor Clegane decides he doesn't like you and lets you know it), normal thrusts slide off completely, Halfsword thrusts have enough precision to hit gaps, and enough power to get through them.

It does change depending on the weapons and type if armor used. If you in mail and fighting someone with a sword your going to be cautious but probably not as cautious against someone with a mace or warhammer. With plate swords pretty much go out the window except for a few techniques. When fighting armor it seems like it was more common to use blunt force like a mace or the murder stroke with the hilt of a longsword or to use a small acute tipped weapon to go into the gaps of the plates. A weapon that I find underrated against armor is something like a rondel dagger. It's very pointy and controllable. It can also be used in conjunction with a mace. Armor was awesome it took the advent of firearms to make it obsolete and even then that took some time. However it was not the coat of invincibility so you trained to exploit and cover it's weaknesses. It certainly wouldn't of been two men smacking swords against each other. It would have had a purpose to it and there were a lot of techniques designed around the system. It can even change based on whether or not your on horse back. Another thing to look at is that whoever is in said armor could be quite worth quite the ransom so maybe I don't kill him. Maybe I disable him and ransom him back to his Lord or family and make myself a rich man. Hopefully that gives some insight and sorry about any errors I'm typing this on my phone.

***** Grappling every time is hell of an exaggeration. Pretty much all armor fighting manuals show some way to disable an opponent well before he enters into that range one way or another - Mordschlag, stab in the face or palm and pommel strike are all well documented. Granted, you may want to stab through the visor a few times to make sure the guy's dead, but still. There's even a record of full-plate duel where one guy got a slice in through his opponents' back of the knee, destroying tendons and then just kept his distance. The opponent died of blood loss, and yes, they fought with swords. So, grappling is certainly more likely to happen, but far from a sure thing. Modern reconstructions see it far more often because, well, things that get through armor and hurt the opponent will get through the armor and hurt your friend. No way to test them even remotely safely.

+luca dazi Ciao Luca, I cannot find the one which mentions bucklers specifically right now, but here are some others that mention the use of sticks and (in my opinion) are probably stick and buckler practice, as pretty much all the fencing references at this time in England seem to be about sword and buckler practice (though they could be quarterstaff in some cases) - fioredeiliberi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1294

+scholagladiatoria Thanks! Actually, there are quite a lot of references from XIII and XIV cen. in southern Italy bas-relieves which show priests fighting with wooden maces and bucklers. It's intriguing how written references can also be found in England!

+luca dazi I also have a few images from Anglo/French/Flemish/Burgundian sources of sticks/clubs being used with shields and bucklers.

+HebaruSan Really only comes into play in one scene that I recall. Kylo Ren is in a bind with Fin - I believe against a tree - and he levers the crossguard into Fin to burn his shoulder/upper bicep/pectoral. Don't recall the scene perfectly. Fin scampers off to the side and Kylo Ren just watches as his opponent turns his back to him. I geeked out over the lightsaber crossguard but really it just wasn't important at all. Still like the movie overall - just some pacing issues that made some scenes feel like they dragged on too long.

Underutilized.

While armor does have a slight limit in mobility, it isn't enough to seriously limit your fighting abilities, and the same goes with weight. That being said, your unarmored opponent (in this case) can only hit you with certain weapons, and even then in only a few select areas to do anything at all. You on the other hand can hit them wherever you like however you like and they will suffer a grave injury or death.

+Tommi Haapanen This is a good question and has a long answer. The short versions is - we don't know exactly, but probably a mixture of 'unarmored' and 'armoured' techniques.

+bluetea1400 Everything you say makes sense, but there's just no evidence of that as a practice for unarmed fencing. In contrary, we know that they practiced and competed in clothes, without armour.

+scholagladiatoria Do we have any examples of tournament rules were fully armored combatants were striking at each other as opposed to using grappling and other anti armor techniques? I know it's a step away from sparing but often you practice how you intend to compete.

+bluetea1400 granted, I rarely practice in full harness. Most of the time we use practice weapons, no armor other then a padded jacket and a fencing mask and save the armor for tournament.

+AnotherBoringWeek Yes, shields are weapons, not armour.

Armor would mean something you wear rather than something you hold. Helmets breastplates that sort of thing.

Just dodge.

Nick Dzink I got that reference

+100dfrost Correction that was Metatron, sorry.

seems like a lot of recreation groups do that. I've seen spear and chain mail fencing.

+CottonPanzer Yes, but not many, due to the expense of armour and the difficulty practicing armoured techniques without injuring each other.

+CottonPanzer Yeah. HMB (Historical Medieval Battle) and IMCF (international Medieval Combat Federation). Pretty similar formats, but bit of political differences and HMB tends to bit bit more brutal.

+Martin Murd Not a good comparison to HEMA at all I'm afraid - they specifically only use attacks that are safe for the armour they are using. They do not use armoured fighting techniques as shown in the historical treatises.

+SubjectHazard It's pretty damn hard to recreate battlefield fighting without injuring anyone, because the whole point was to kill your opponent at almost any cost. Eye gouging, hits to the nuts, cheap shots, ganging up on people, just pushing a fucker down and kicking them in the head until they die. All those are things you would do on a battlefield, because it's a matter of life or death, but you can't have those in a recreation.