It should come as no surprise to any of us that your words convey a message. After all, that’s why we do the speaking for the communication. However, it may be a little more surprising what message is actually being conveyed when you choose a …
Some thoughts about sparring and etiquette
Pretty much every HEMA club will engage in some kind of sparring or free play, and every club will have some form of etiquette that governs how people behave and how they handle situations that arise while sparring. It is very easy to get used to …
Motivation in a martial arts club
Motivation can be quite a difficult topic, and yet it is one of the most important things to understand if you want to run a happy, healthy, and successful club. Having had the experience of attending a variety of different martial arts and sports …
Carrots and sticks, rewards and punishments
This is going to be a short article today, with some thoughts about the role of rewards and punishments during martial arts training. Films and TV series often show some kind of punishments in the dojo or training hall, and yet, this is rarely the …
Working on good habits rather than excessive detail
Good habits can be a powerful foundation for the practice of any martial art. Good habits are a pretty good basis for life in general, and I’m sure no one would disagree with that! And yet, when learning martial arts, it can be tempting to dive ever …
Working on good habits rather than excessive detailRead More
Understanding Vor, Nach, and Indes – part 3: working in the bind
The concepts of Vor, Nach, and Indes are integral to the art of fencing according to Liechtenauer. The words and concepts can be interpreted in many different ways, and I have gone through many iterations over the last several years of practice and …
Understanding Vor, Nach, and Indes – part 3: working in the bindRead More
Understanding Vor, Nach, and Indes – part 2: tactics
The concepts of Vor, Nach, and Indes are integral to the art of fencing according to Liechtenauer. The words and concepts can be interpreted in many different ways, and I have gone through many iterations over the last several years of practice and …
Understanding Vor, Nach, and Indes – part 2: tacticsRead More
Understanding Vor, Nach, and Indes – part 1: definitions
The concepts of Vor, Nach, and Indes are integral to the art of fencing according to Liechtenauer. The words and concepts can be interpreted in many different ways, and I have gone through many iterations over the last several years of practice and …
Understanding Vor, Nach, and Indes – part 1: definitionsRead More
Protective equipment vs. concussions in sword fighting
This is a guest article by Martin Höppner. Originally, Martin posted this as a YouTube video, and I asked if I could host the transcript on my website to help preserve the message for posterity and for more easy reference and access in the future. He …
Protective equipment vs. concussions in sword fightingRead More
Finding motivation to return to teaching HEMA this year
How many instructors are struggling to find motivation to return to running a HEMA club this year? 2020 was truly brutal, across the globe, in so many ways; many clubs in many countries have been forced to close during local and national lockdowns, …
Finding motivation to return to teaching HEMA this yearRead More
Patience and martial arts
It is a well-known statement that patience is a virtue, and it is also quite commonly understood that there is a strong relationship between martial arts and patience. Of course, the practice of martial arts is supposed to help improve your tolerance …
Some thoughts about rights and responsibilities
A few days ago, it was Bonfire Night in the UK, which means lots of people setting off fireworks. Where I live, it meant people setting off fireworks from mid-afternoon until late evening, making it really quite difficult for me to concentrate on …
Curating an online community
When we create a Facebook group, or a subreddit on Reddit, or a channel on Discord, or whatever, we are creating an online community. Once we have an online community, we must curate it, by which I mean we need to maintain it and keep it healthy …
How did people practise sparring before the invention of fencing masks?
How did people practise their fencing and sparring before fencing masks were invented? This was a question asked a couple of weeks ago in a thread on Reddit, and I think it’s an excellent question well worth considering. If we didn’t have modern …
How did people practise sparring before the invention of fencing masks?Read More
An introduction to Indian clubs
I recently finished making a new video course about working with Indian clubs, because I want to share this activity with people. Mainly, I would like to be able to give my own students some resources that I think they would find useful - and since I …
Why use original and foreign terminology when studying HEMA?
Why do we use the original and potentially foreign terminology when studying HEMA, instead of translating everything into English? This was a question asked through a video on YouTube a couple of weeks ago, and I would like to propose an …
Why use original and foreign terminology when studying HEMA?Read More
An interview with Katja Poppenhaeger about studying HEMA: the messer
The messer is an interesting HEMA discipline to study. There is quite an active and vibrant community of people who practise it regularly, and I would like to interview some of these instructors to help show some of the different approaches to study …
An interview with Katja Poppenhaeger about studying HEMA: the messerRead More
An interview with Jess Finley about studying HEMA: the messer
The messer is an interesting HEMA discipline to study. There is quite an active and vibrant community of people who practise it regularly, and I would like to interview some of these instructors to help show some of the different approaches to study …
An interview with Jess Finley about studying HEMA: the messerRead More
An interview with Oskar ter Mors about studying HEMA: the messer
The messer is an interesting HEMA discipline to study. There is quite an active and vibrant community of people who practise it regularly, and I would like to interview some of these instructors to help show some of the different approaches to study …
An interview with Oskar ter Mors about studying HEMA: the messerRead More
An interview with Robert Brooks about studying HEMA: the messer
The messer is an interesting HEMA discipline to study. There is quite an active and vibrant community of people who practise it regularly, and I would like to interview some of these instructors to help show some of the different approaches to study …
An interview with Robert Brooks about studying HEMA: the messerRead More