What is HEMA to you?

Partly as a result of the discussion that ensued after I posted my last blog update, and partly as a result of a presentation I gave in-house to the fellow members of my club, I wanted to devote some space of this blog to a very difficult subject, namely that of deciding what kind of swordsman I want to be. I feel that, if I want to approach any activity with any seriousness, I need to have a clear picture of what it is I am doing, and what it is I hope to achieve. This may sound painfully obvious, but it is a very difficult thing to do, and it is very easy to slip into lazy assumptions and generalizations.

Notice I was, and am, careful to speak in the first person here. This is in fact part of the point I am trying to make. To me, thinking about HEMA, or almost anything really, in universalizing terms of 'this is how it is' or even 'this is how it should be' is a very dangerous path to walk down. I feel it is the main contributor to what has been dubbed HEMA drama. Indeed, I have noted some exceptionally strong, widely varying opinions being voiced about HEMA, about what it is and isn't, how it should or should not develop in the future, both on- and offline. Often, this leads to heated discussion, which all to easily leads to antagonization.

In a way, of course, this can be taken as a good sign; a lot of people clearly care very much about the current state of HEMA, and it's future, which I believe is a good thing. Divisiveness, however, is not, especially in a community as relatively small and young as ours. Moreover, I feel that much of this divisiveness is completely unnecessary, for it seems to be the result of a miscommunication about the basic premises of the discussion. What is happening, I believe, is the following; because some people see HEMA as a more or less cohesive community, they believe that the ideological foundations of this community should be more or less the same throughout as well. The same principles should be guiding all activities within the community, and if an individual, activity or group seemingly deviates from these principles, they are often branded as counterproductive or simply wrong.

I wish to illustrate this by doing something that seems to go directly against what I wrote at the start of this post, namely by making general observations. Let's say that the HEMA community can be roughly divided into three main groups, depending on how they feel HEMA is, or should be. These HEMA straw men may be described as follows:

1. The Academic. This person has a fetish for parchment and goosequills, practicing HEMA purely for the purpose of gaining an understanding of the martial culture of the past. Primary source study is his main, if not only focus, and his sole interest is in reviving the lost arts, attempting to interpret the techniques from the manuscripts as the masters intended them. The Academic feels that modern tournaments are diluting these arts, devolving it into the point-fighting and reckless suicidal anti-technical behavior he despises in modern olympic fencing.
2. The Athlete. This person fights to win, and is willing to employ all means, historical or otherwise, to achieve this goal. The Athlete may or may not study manuscripts, but that is beside the point. He doesn't really care about whether a certain technique is derived from Fiore, Ringeck, Meyer, Monkey Style, or that anime he watched as a kid; if it wins him tournaments, it must be good. Besides, the human body only works in a limited amount of ways, so really, how much difference between martial arts can there really be?
3. The Recreationalist. This person likes swords, and likes swinging them. There's not really much more to it than that. The Recreationalist might have taken up swordfighting because he loves Medieval stuff and Game of Thrones, and felt he needed the exercise. The recreationalist also loves the social aspect of HEMA, the drinking, the talking with people who also like Medieval stuff and Game of Thrones, the bashing people in the face with swords and hugging it out afterwards. He's not that competitive, and it's all in good fun.

By now, you might have felt a surge of indignation at this blatant stereotyping, which you might have guessed is kind of the point. Subtle, no? My point is that often people project one of these stereotypes on to the person they're having an argument with. "He combined elements of Meyer and Vadi in his sparring! Blasphemy! He must be an Athlete, who only cares for the touch and the medal!" "He thinks tournaments may be a bad influence on historical interpretation! He must be one of those stuffy Academics, forever in a book, forever getting his ass kicked in sparring!"

In fact, I think that in all practitioners of HEMA, elements of all three of the above stereotypes exist, in varying degrees of a spectrum. We each, however, have unique priorities and values which we bring to the table, and there should be room for this. For example, I think of myself as largely an Academic: I try to keep my longsword training grounded within a specific timeframe and geographical area, focusing on the big three manuscripts of Ringeck, von Danzig and Döbringer, and atttempt to gain a greater level of understanding what kind of swordplay was practiced by the authors of these manuscripts and their contemporaries at the time. I mostly see my practice as a kind of experimental history, testing hypotheses on the use of techniques through sparring, while trying to keep in mind the limitations of this method and my personal bias. I fight in tournaments, but I largely see these events as laboratories for testing new interpretations, Therefore, I try to limit my use of techniques to what I can conceivably trace back to the sources mentioned above. For instance, I try not to use the Hanging Guard or Hangetort, as I feel that is more of a Meyer-type technique, effective though it may be. This does not mean, however, that I don't try to win, and I very much enjoy it when I do win. Neither does it mean that I think technical proficiency is all that matters; I train my strength and conditioning, because all the technical expertise in the world means nothing if you can't control your own body and move it athletically, powerfully and efficiently. Neither am I a purist when it comes to reconstruction of old systems. I am a firm believer in the use of frog-DNA from other martial arts; If I didn't read up on modern Freestyle wrestling, Lignitzer probably would have remained a mystery to me. Nor does my academic focus mean that I didn't get into swordfighting because I'm a huge geek, because I am. Because come on, swords are just awesome, who am I kidding. Hell, it's the main reason I keep practicing HEMA year after year.

It's quite scary putting all that up for display. It of course doesn't cover the whole picture, partly because the picture changes. I spent quite a bit of time getting the priorities I just set out straight in my head, making them as concrete as possible, while occasionally adjusting them as my perspective changes, as it is wont to do. I feel this is crucial, because first of all, if you don't know as exactly as possible what you're doing, and why you're doing it, you're never going to figure out how to improve it. Second, these priorities are what keeps a discussion on HEMA clear and on-topic. If both participants of the discussion are more informed on the other's context and goals in which they are presenting a certain point, then misunderstandings can hopefully be kept to a minimum.

This is just a small piece of how I think about HEMA, and especially the role of academia within the development of the community. Future posts will expand on that latter point more thoroughly, but for now, I think this will do.