The Problem With HEMA

[@ArmchairViolence]

"Uuuummm, we don't even want HEMA to be more popular, because then a bunch of normies are going to take it over and ruin the beautiful community that we've built! 🤓" You know how it's notoriously difficult to find a club to practice with? And it's always like one of two weapons? You know how most HEMA gear sucks and is super expensive, because very few companies bother making it? You know how a lot of people that love HEMA don't even get to do it because they don't have anyone to practice with and/or can't afford the equipment? Especially if they're interested in a more niche weapon? All of that is happening because HEMA isn't popular enough. Making it more popular ALSO makes life better for the nerds. I know this because I'M a nerd. I want to practice halberd. Do you know how hard that is? It would be easier to build a time machine and learn halberd from someone in the 15th century. Keeping HEMA small doesn't just keep "the normies" away. It keeps EVERYONE away. It prevents all kinds of people from learning your art, and it ensures that HEMA will always be an endangered species teetering on the edge of extinction. Be gatekeepers at your own peril

[@TheSinsOfAvarice97]

I'm gonna be honest I really don't see how blunted long swords and katanas going against each other do anything for hema. I just don't see how that helps or even setting up teams, I just don't think it will ever get to a ufc point. There is a reason in football you have all your teammates. In football as one person you're unnoticeable but as a whole team you become way more valuable it's the same thing with hema you're in full gear you don't have a face to put the fights too. Idk I like the idea as a hema fan I just don't see how it ever catches on with mainstream public it's hard to sell and its hard to advertise for imo.

[@TheSinsOfAvarice97]

Also it's hard to start a hema club I'd say for much more financially aggresive reasons all the tools and gear you need to maintain I would argue is probably more expensive then mma clubs I could be wrong but I feel like they would be more expensive

[@Narguhl]

@@TheSinsOfAvarice97 locations are much easier to find. You don't need a whole lot of equipment to just "start" with HEMA.

[@Narguhl]

I don't see the availability problem. Every German city I lived in had a club. Also there is a school with maybe the best German Helberd trainer just one Autobshn away. Equipment comes cheap and individual from Poland. I don't get the problem :p Also: we need to fence.

[@szepi79]

one question though: if you remove the codexes and invent/adapt new techniques that work in a tournament scenario, why do you want to still call it HEMA, more specificly how will it still be "Historical"? why don't just call it "fencing 2.0" or "meleeing"?

[@methomps01123]

Okay so, I typed out a shorter comment earlier but I felt like a longer explainer was needed. For reference I am competitive in HEMA and have even taken Gold a few times at different tournaments. I think your idea is interesting but ultimately maybe wouldn't go the way you might think it would based off of what you said in the video. In short, I think the real problem with having different weapons fighting each other is that the winner will largely be determined by technology, not skill. In fact I can tell you with pretty good certainty what would win under different rule sets for a hypothetical big mixed weapons tournament scene. Option 1 - All weapons and techniques are allowed and armour is also permitted. What happens? Everyone wears full plate and two weapons dominate, first is any kind of polearm that has a long metal point at 90 degrees to the shaft (this wins about 75% of the time) and the other weapon that wins is a long shafted warhammer that has a piercing point (this wins maybe 25% of the time). Downsides - most of your fighters are dead or seriously injured after the competition, there's a reason that the Bohurt guys don't thrust and limit certain weapons and the reason is that if the actually fought in armour the way you are supposed to against another opponent you would still have a pretty good chance of killing them even with blunted weapons. Option 2 - Armour is allowed but techniques and weapons that would likely cause sever injury are banned. What happens? Congratulations you invented Bohurt. Downsides -it's Bohurt. Option 3 - No armour allowed, but all weapons are permitted. What happens? - Spear/Naginata every time, and I mean literally every time. Two evenly skilled opponents one with a sword and one with a spear, the spear guys wins better than 90% of the time. Downsides - none of the cool swords people like make it to the final. Option 4 - No armour, no polearms, everything else permitted. What happens? - Rapier and dagger mirror match final, almost every time (maybe someone will shake it up and make it to the final with rapier and cape sometimes). Downsides - Rapier tournaments are already a thing. See the problem is that handing one person a longsword and one person a rapier is like taking two two golfers of roughly the same skill and giving one a modern set of clubs and giving the other a set of wood shaft club from 200 years ago. One tool is so hopelessly anachronistic compared to the other that skill won't be the determining factor. We know that this is the case because of *checks notes* hundreds of years of murder. Wanna know the other way I know? People already do shit like this. I was at Icebreaker in Minneapolis this year and they had 4 events; Longsword, Single Stick, Mixed Steel and Mixed synthetic. Mixed steel is most relevant to the question at hand as any safe steel weapon was allowed (no polearms) as were shields below a certain diameter (bucklers basically) and the top four were all rapier and dagger, I fought straight-blade large bell saber myself and while I knocked off some lesser skilled rapiers I didn't have much of a chance when the person holding the rapier was of similar skill level to me. Mixed synthetics was interesting as well, though people took it less seriously it did allow larger shields, that meant that the winning strategy there was some extremely large Viking style round shields (though the rules prevented me from kicking those shields which I think gave them more advantage then they would have otherwise). So yeah, interesting idea, don't see it working cause it just ain't fair enough. Also, I believe that the final test before your can become a proper HEMA guy is to start HEMA related drama on the internet, so... Mazel Tov.

[@frenchgalloglass]

Fully agreed

[@VirtualFechtschule]

Agreed. I have nothing to add to this. :)

[@VirtualFechtschule]

Perhaps only that carefully created matchups between similar weapons from different styles might be fun to fence in and even watch. But then again, even that already happens when people do cross training with other martial arts groups.

[@magnajota4341]

Yep, I don't know how hard it is to understand that

[@Mbgengar]

this is really interesting thanks for sharing- id never have considered it but it makes a lot of sense that the meta on weapons is pretty stale, but i wonder if incorporating techniques from non-hema styles like kali or contemporary knife fighting might still create new innovation?

[@HazardousClim]

FINALLY something up my alley. I do Japanese sword martial arts (kendo and iaido). But we have close ties to the HEMA group in our city. Every year we host an event called “Wandering Warriors” where we get together and fight each other. Rapier versus Longsword, katana versus Spear, people place bets on which fighters they want to see, which weapons they want to see, and we do raffles too. We end up making thousands of dollars. The best part is, at the end of the night, we donate 100% of the funds to charity, usually a local women’s shelter. Because in the end, it doesn’t matter if the long sword can beat the katana. True power doesn’t come from knocking someone down, but lifting them up

[@realdragon]

Ooh I have an idea: Roman legion vs samurai

[@TheMissingno]

There are already competitions that allow mixed weapons, know what happens? Rapier wins. It wins because it's the longest, and it's usually easier to score with. It's not exciting or interesting, it's just a rapier competition where you're allowed to put yourself at a disadvantage if you want, and the final is always two rapiers + whatever random companion weapon. The reason we don't do this a lot in HEMA is because it's goofy and lame, and longsword is cool, so we want to have longsword tournaments. I have been in tournaments that have both longsword and katana, and no one gave a shit any more than they give a shit about regular longsword tournaments. Your comparison of MMA to a mixed weapon bout does not hold water, because in MMA everyone is using the same weapon, their body. They may specialize in using it in a different way, but the same tools are available to everyone, fighters just choose to use certain tools over others. Mixed weapon tournaments as a long term thing will not work, because longer weapons are just objectively better for a 1v1 fencing bout. The tournament will just become a tournament of whatever the longest allowed weapon is, but you can put yourself at a disadvantage if you want. It's not like some big mystery like it was for hand to hand fighting, if I can reach you with my weapon and you can't reach me with yours, I have a clear advantage. The issue with getting people who do different sports like kendo and fencing into one competition is that people who are good at kendo and fencing know what they do isn't sword fighting, and they have no interest in doing anything other than their sport. What ruleset do you use? If you use kendo rules, the kendo player will win; if you use fencing rules, the fencing player will win; if you use HEMA rules, the HEMA player will win. You haven't proven anything. The only people you will get who will agree to do a serious competition like this are people who have not yet bought into their sport and still think it's about sword fighting, IE beginners who suck.

[@binbows2258]

Just bring a halberd

[@Nala15-Artist]

Same happened with the early UFC. They set up a grappling ruleset ... and immediately "neglected' to invite grapplers.

[@Sionnach1601]

Very very sobering points and I would really love to see a response from this channel creator.

[@DavideM1996]

Professional sword fighters will know how to avoid contact with a spear, and the other way around

[@franksibelius8656]

​@@DavideM1996 I know absolutely nothing about HEMA but can't you just repeatedly poke someone with the spear if the spear is longer than the opponents weapon?

[@valygomu]

I mean when ubisoft came up with For Honor, my french hooga boogah brain went all Knights are better than Samurai immidietly

[@Sk0lzky]

And then wardens finestra turned out to completely rest on his arm and his helmet easier to chop, nay, even bite through than Berserker's head lol

[@wesfletcher8603]

Vikings for life!

[@BiggityBoggity8095]

I was a Kensei main

[@ominousblackknight]

Fun fact, warden doesn't use Posta di Finestra, he uses Schlüßel from Meyer. Cheers​@@Sk0lzky

[@itsoracle]

Knights on top Peacekeeper gang

[@methomps01123]

Tournament competitive and occasionally tournament winning HEMA guy here. It's an interesting idea but I see two big problems, one very few other swords arts or weapon arts spar at full speed and finding people to complete is a challenge (though you could overcome it). But maybe the bigger problem is that I and pretty much all HEMA people already know the winner of your hypothetical contest, it's a spear. I pretty much guarantee it'll completely dominate under any ruleset that's similar to what most HEMA tournaments use.

[@anton.chigrinetc.96]

Well, then people would come to say that spears are better than katanas.

[@methomps01123]

@@anton.chigrinetc.96 Well I think I speak for all HEMA people when I say that every argument made against the katana is just made out of intense jealousy and in truth each of us knows that the 10 million fold katana would easily cut through any European weapon and armour put infront of it. But we have to suppress this secret to make people think that that anime isn't realistic.

[@Damesanglante]

This have been debunked many times. Katanas aren't that good. But they sure have good ads. 😆

[@kaoskronostyche9939]

@@methomps01123 I am going to take your ridiculous comment as a joke. Right?

[@GVencislavov]

Longsword fights longsword, as a complaint, is the same as complaining about : 250cc MX bikes racing other 250cc MX bikes. Humans boxing other humans. Horses racing other horses. Olympic re-curve archers competing against other Olympic re-curve archers. Maybe racing horses against goats, and competing archers against riflemen would be an interesting experiment, but not really an even competition.

[@frogman4700]

i don't think most HEMA guys (even competition guys) want HEMA to just become MMA with swords. Codified universal competition rules really strip down a lot of techniques that wouldn't be "meta" in that universal ruleset. Personally i really like the decentralized nature of HEMA competitions because given that every tournament is different you have to train in a way that would cover all of them, making for a more whole martial art overall.

[@newtype6043]

MMA solved their ruleset problem, though. Why can't HEMA? MMA had to create a system of rules to give chance to different martial arts, and they proved it was possible.

[@frogman4700]

@@newtype6043 MMA is a combat sport thats just one possible variation of hand to hand fighting, it is not the be all end all of hand to hand combat. Its a good ruleset with good fighters but its not everything

[@taistelusammakko5088]

I find this notion that hema should center around competition very confusing. I dont want really to study old manuscripts, i dont really want to go to a competition every week, i want to fight with a spear.

[@Cronalixz]

@@taistelusammakko5088 Maybe it's an ego problem with you then, competition is where you get to truly implement and develop on what you practiced. You just want to fight with a spear, well thats what competition is for. If you're preoccupied with the winning or losing aspect too much, that's more on you

[@TristanBehrens]

A couple issues that I'd like to hear your opinions on, Jake: 1: Scoring a simulated duel sounds really hard. There are so many variables that effect how much damage an attack would do such as power, target, edge alignment, that it's hard to quantify score without actually just using the weapons. If all touches count as a kill for unarmoured duels you end up with olympic fencing (the sword-fighting equivalent of TKD point fighting). Is it just points or do you have outright 'kills'? If you don't have kills then it's not a realistic representation as someone could tally up more smaller points that could somehow be treated as greater than a thrust through the heart and vitals. How is this implemented. 2: Armour - You could just have unarmoured duels but i would guess most people would want to see armour implemented just for the cool factor. There are so many variations in the level of armour. The weapons used against armour work against armour and so to use something that would behave remotely similarly (weight and balance wise) to a historical mace/Warhammer/poleaxe/halberd and even some axes etc. would actually just result in a load of athlete deaths. Currently modern armoured fighting consists of clobbering each other with heavy blunt sword shaped bars until one of you submits. Not entirely historically accurate. Even if the rules were modified so that gaps were targeted many techniques revolve around the weapons being functional weapons (being pointy enough to pierce mail which would take some force/sharp enough to cut straps to expose vital areas) and then we're back to athlete deaths yada yada yada. 3. Different weapons are specialized for different things. Contrary to what the weebs would have you believe a katana is not capable of cleaving through steel plate and the point is not specialized for trusting into mail. It would take a FAR greater amount of force than a needle pointed Longsword or rondel dagger to thrust into the gaps to actually cause damage and therefore if the aim is accuracy they can't be scored the same way. If they aren't, however, then people will clearly say that it's unfair and biased as the katana couldn't score the same for an equal force thrust into the mailed armpit for example. 4: How do you treat limb shots? An attack to the limbs could easily disable or partially disable that limb. How do you know which? How do you implement that? If it's purely a points advantage then that's not realistic as say one fighter who has both arms 'injured' gets a strike that is considered a kill, perhaps they could not have made such a strike in reality if their arms were injured. How do you implement that? There are partial solutions to many of these problems but I'm interested to hear what you think the best way forward would be? If the goal is to make a realistic simulation of historical armed fighting the whole thing is an utter logistical nightmare.

[@Narguhl]

Best comment. Thank you.

[@ArmchairViolence]

1. There's about a million way that it COULD be scored, but the rule set will have to try and strike a balance between entertainment and "realism." And it would largely depend on whether you're doing armored or unarmored fighting. Armored fighting would likely score based on knockdowns and 'critical' strikes (strikes where a real weapon might get past the armor, like a really hard spike shot or a dagger in a gap). Unarmored bouts would probably be scored based on the weapon used, the target zone, and possibly the kind of strike used. Stabbing a sword into someone's chest would be a bajillion points. Hitting a staff on someone's arm would be waaaay less. You could end matches with a "kill," but I don't think it's strictly necessary because getting an immediate kill shot could be because of luck. Awarding a ton of points and continuing the bout might actually give you a more accurate results as to how the 'average' fight between those two people would play out. But the specifics of each rule set can be negotiated. It will just have to be a compromise between the various concerns. 2. My understanding is that, historically, clobbering an armored opponent until you got them to the ground often WAS the goal. If you just get a blunt, training weapon into an armor gap and shove we can simply award you points for it without killing anyone. We can simply say that you did everything right and likely WOULD have pierced the mail, had it been real. We can award points for special other strikes, too. Did you knock your opponent down and slam the spike on the back of your warhammer into his visor? Well, your warhammer is actually rubber, but a real one might have punched into your opponent's face, so we're obviously giving you points for that. 3. Different weapons can score different points. For example, a strike from a staff only matters if there's momentum behind it. Or only specific weapons can score when they're put in the gaps between armor. Or maybe certain types of armor can only be scored on by certain weapons. Could it end up as a confusing system of match ups? Sure! But that's kind of the fun of it! Style match ups are cool! 4. Perhaps, in any other fight they would have gotten that kill shot before their arms were injured. Should the person who got the arm shots win because his strikes were first, or should the other guy win because his strike was lethal? How do you account for random luck? Ultimately, we can't predict the effects of injuries. The only thing we CAN do is have a points system to replace it. There's going to be a sports element to this. And if we want it to be "perfectly realistic" then we can't ever compete or spar or practice the art in any way, because we live in a completely different historical context. We either accept that not everything can be perfectly realistic, or we should just never practice any martial arts ever again. There's plenty of other solutions to these problems, but these are just a few off the top of my head. I'm sure that a committee of experts could come up with much better specifics.

[@TristanBehrens]

@@ArmchairViolence Alright, fair enough, I think the point of calling it an average fight between the two people as a way to get past scoring issues is a good work around. 2) My only point (at first glance as I'm busy) is that my understanding of most HEMA (which i do not practice but am interested in) is that for blunt force weapons, absolutely, clobbering the hell out of your opponent until they went down was the aim, but for things like swords the aim was to jam it into gaps and often in order to do so they would close and wrestle (as swords tend to make terrible blunt force weapons). But yes, that can be worked around

[@Narguhl]

@@ArmchairViolence Your understanding of clobbered down an armoured opponent is mostly wrong or oversimplified forgetting that this is one of the possibilities but not the only one. It's like reducing kickboxing to breaking the opponents thigh. Also a real hardened steel helmet is not punctured by a warhammer. The effect on the carrier with a rubber head is almost the same.

[@Priapos93]

@@ArmchairViolence The nerds will have a lot to argue about, so coming up with a scoring system will constitute a win for everyone

[@Rancorous_Redwood]

Yeah, a "Oh look, the spear wins" tornament is really going to make it more compelling to the masses. The real problems are that it is a lot harder for the general public to follow a sword fight than two sweaty nearly naked men punching each other in the head. I am someone who swings a sword around several times a week, and I need slow mo replays to understand hits in polish sabre bouts. Additionally, the safety gear and armor makes it hard to see and relate to an individual fighter, as well as taking away any of the erotic overtones that MMA has. Also, who is not a nerd and thinks sword fighting is cool? Drop a hint that you're re-reading your favorite fantasy series after class, it's guaranteed someone jumps in to talk about it. We didn't sword fight because we want to be Mike Tyson and be rich and famous, we sword fight because we want to be Rand El Thor and win a fight against the dark one.

[@davidegaruti2582]

Yeah , swordfighting exists currently , it's safe and has been done for a long time : it's fencing ... Fencing is an olympic sport and the tecnique is solved ... I think a sort of solution could be to mimic chess : in chess the white has an advantage because it moves first , So chess matches are done on the best of three basis ... So maybe having a longsword vs spear match then be mirrored could potentially be intresting ... But yeah the fighting sport crow is trying to get into weapon fighting , and they don't get it simply ... Out of the three weapon types : top heavy ( clubs and axes ) , long and thrusting , and bottom heavy ( slashing swords ) Clubs are way more likely to cause concussions than one year of american football by day and boxing at night , Spears and rapiers dominate cutting swords in terms of dueling , if you count a hit to mean "game over" If you don't then idk how you determine somenthing to be over ... That and really even target shooting is a performative art : the objective of target shooting is to accurately shoot the target , because with a gun that is what matters ... If you tried to turn it into a combat sport it ends up being boring really

[@Nala15-Artist]

@@davidegaruti2582 Uninformed doesn't even begin to describe your comment.

[@davidegaruti2582]

​@@Nala15-Artistenlighten me , what did i miss out on ?

[@lel1433]

@@davidegaruti2582 It just needs to be marketed better, the neckbeards of reddit and on the forums, need to be dispelled with real macho men as the representatives. Ah and your first line about fencing being "sword fighting" is surface level thinking, HEMA is an actual martial that is meant for actual combat - ie to to kill and subdue. This aspect of lethality coupled with technicality and nuance is what people love about MMA.

[@newtype6043]

​@@lel1433 Aikido people also used to say all kind of outlandish claim. Ever seen an Aikido guy winning in MMA? Me neither. If the best HEMA practiionner fights the best fencer, who would win? Why are you so confident the HEMA guy would? What if HEMA was the Aikido of swordfighting, ever thought about that?

[@micaiahelliott8821]

I think he overestimates us. We can’t even get together for our own grand championship, let alone bring in a bunch of other arts and styles

[@osborne9255]

For me the big stopper was when the sportier I got, the less respectful of the weapon I got, as in technical I always tried to act like it was a sharp. The sporting side needed me to rid myself of that and aim to score any kind of a hit I could. Which I couldn't do because I'd trained to take less risks and keep secure. And yes, the times I sat alone in the park after receiving eight positive rsvp's finally did me in. So he's possibly correct in calculating the lack of appeal our group had.

[@tarquiniussuperbus21]

Nice, idea was done already. Works only with real weapons and was called gladiatorial combat with real dead people. Punching and strangeling each other is ironically way safer then weapons combat.

[@David-wq3dq]

problem with having different weapons fight one another is almost all weapons have their context in which they are superior, that and any spear weapon will solo stomp every other type of non projectile weapon

[@wildrangeringreen]

that is, unless you use a sword (a sword is sharp, otherwise, it's a shitty bar-mace). The bite you get in the bind changes that situation dramatically (as far as feeling what the spear is doing and being able to subjugate it). Something you'll never learn if you don't bring sharps out every once in a while. Trials we've done have informed us that the ratio of success to loss goes for the sword from around 2:8 with a blunt, to around 7:3 with a sharp in single combat (we considered it a win if the swordsman could subjugate the spear and get more than half the spear haft towards the spearman (for safety reasons)). Not saying there isn't a reach advantage there with a spear, but they really aren't fantastic until you get a group of people together, all using spears to cover virtually all lines of attack.

[@hoodedcrow28]

The Romans had different gladiators fighting each other with different weapons. So it's historical proof that you can balance it and the spear wasn't superior.

[@heirihunziker]

The main challenge for a weapon-based mixed styles competitive platform is 1.) rules and 2.) gear In HEMA, the gear has been largely established and is constantly improving so by and large, HEMA practitioners already have all the gear needed. However, people from other arts (Kendo, Eskrima etc) would have to buy a whole other set of gear and that is a steep entry point for most people's budgets. Then there's the ruleset. Even within HEMA, people can't come to a clear consensus about which set of rules are ideal and the rules vary from tournament to tournament, in some cases considerably. Imagine how difficult it would be to create a ruleset that will A) not be too restrictive as to prevent the "my art is too deadly for this..." excuses and B) not favour one art too strongly compared to other arts. Maybe we should start with friendly exhibition style matchups where no one "loses face" (hugely important especially in East Asian cultures) and the goal is to experiment and have fun. Otherwise, you'll have entire traditions never coming to play, at all.

[@Ianmar1]

The kit (and limited time) is what keeps me from asking after free sparring with the local HEMA group. It is easy enough for me to drop by other kendo clubs, so I am not desperate to get additional fights in and I am not so good that I cannot find someone to beat me up. The added barrier of HEMA gear always makes the decision to keep grinding my fundamentals the obvious one.

[@TheSinsOfAvarice97]

Skallagrim has luscious hair and beard i will die on this hill

[@kaoskronostyche9939]

My hair and beard is far, FAR better than his ... but I don't have a Utoob channel ...

[@gehlesen559]

Let me join you. I brought cookies.

[@matthewfullerton1416]

I would argue that professional fighters are the biggest nerds on the planet! Not only do they spend years of their life dedicated to perfecting the absolute best possible style for them, borrowing from dozens of different martial arts, spend hundreds of hours making sure they're feet are pointing in the exact right direction to throw a punch, subject themselves to the most rigorous and painful peer review system I've ever seen and they then go on to RISK THE BONE STRUCTURE OF THEIR FACE to prove they were right for doing so. HEMA's problem isn't that it's too nerdy, it's that it isn't nerdy enough

[@realdragon]

But imagine different groups bashing each other and in history different groups have been bashing each other. Imagine how popular would be fight vikings vs knights, spartans vs romans etc. If you want to make it historically accurate then that's fine but it can be so interesting. Gladiators had different types of fighters for a reason

[@PastaKraut]

Ah yes, turn everything into waterd down drama is the way to go! As some have already mentioned in the comments, the HEMA community is one of the most accepting and friendly combat sport communities out there. People are really respectful of eachother and there is no(or little) us vs them mentality. We are all nerds that decided to get more fit and fight with swords. I understand that some would want to go more MMA style, but to me, it seems the general consensus is a big nope. I personally would hate to have a bro community of insults and "my master is better than your master" or similar crap. Well, at least not if it's serious. I mean, we all know Bolognese is the superior school to all others :P

[@SirPlusOfCamelot]

Personally I would love a bit more spice and drama surrounding HEMA. That way it's like a real sword duel, you know?

[@VelmiVelkiZrut]

Oh boy, I love bad takes on HEMA by people who don't do HEMA and we definitely need more of them. Snark out of the way, I'm bored so I'll actually engage with this. To start with the first and foremost issue, there is a difference between what makes a good spectator sport and what makes a good sport full stop. Your preoccupation is with increasing the spectator value of HEMA; that exists, and it's called stage combat. But all of the proposed changes that you put forward, especially mixed weapons, make it inherently worse as a competitive sport - the core focus there is to level the playing field as much as possible and reduce variables as much as possible to make it a competition of skill between fencers, not of more or less optimized equipment. Mixed weapon events exist; they suck, they’re not ranked in the world ranking systems for a reason, and they’re really just rapier events where some people voluntarily nerf themselves by not using a rapier. The same issue in a slightly different light pops up with regards to the “just make an armed version of UFC1.” Questions of rules and conventions scuttle that almost before it starts. In unarmed fighting, the level of simulationism and abstraction between sport, combat sport and “real martial art tm” is reduced; a punch in the face is a punch in the face, and if I knock you out or choke you out that’s a fairly objective measure. With armed arts, you hit layers of abstraction that requires more complex rulesets to puzzle them out. It isn’t as simple as kicking down the door of your local Kendo dojo and challenging the star Kendoka to a fight; you have to make sure the match you’re having is both of you actually playing the same game, and depending on how that game is designed one of you is more likely to win by simple virtue of the game mapping on to their training, equipment and preferences better. You’re also laboring under the misapprehension that making a sport more fun for spectators to watch is going to attract more people to actually doing the thing. I don’t think that’s correct; the most popular spectator sport here is hockey, and no one beyond a tiny minority actually plays it. Too many barriers to entry, too high gear costs, too high alpha costs to starting your own team/club/practice…all of which maps on to fencing as well. And to top it all off we come right back around to the simple fact that the stuff that makes a sport fun to watch doesn’t make it fun to play. If I only cared about how badass I think I look, I wouldn’t be fencing. I’d get a starter set of sport-optimized HMB armor and go mutually concuss each other with other walking tin cans until inevitably some coked-up Russian snaps my knee when the marshal isn’t looking. TL;DR making something into a spectator sport makes it worse as a competitive activity, MMA and HEMA aren't really comparable, and the way to actually grow the community is to grow the competitive scene (which is still in diapers most places) instead of obsessing about how to increase visual appeal.

[@alafosca5724]

I was wondering if I had to write down my response as briefly as I could, but yours already shared the core principles that I wanted to defend. I like his energy and his idea isn't necessarily a bad one, however he really hasn't dug deep enough to get valid points across lol Also, the way he approaches this without really looking into the matter and calling stereotypes is disgusting. He should meet Anton Kohutovič or Arto Fama or some other of the hot blooded artists out there who know their stuff and have been tested by steel.

[@ShinFahima]

I think this guy gets it. Only read half, but it feels like he knows what's up.

[@ShinFahima]

@@HeartlessKnave Brøh. This is like the nerdiest martial art out there. You ain't got time to do some nerdy stuff like READ? I don't know if you're nerdy enough to succeed in HEMA. smh

[@LaurelCityHistoricalFencing]

You put my thoughts out there, with more eloquence and less insults, so I’ll just say I agree

[@rbranham8062]

🤣

[@jc-kj8yc]

One of the most entertaining HEMA videos ever filmed is Lindybeige handing spears to a bunch of longsword nerds, letting them fight spear vs longsword and putting the most snarky commentary over it. It's a masterpiece and he definitely should do commentary on HEMA UFC 1

[@hamstermk4]

I remember that video. There was another one Lindybeige put up of his college "Arthurian Club" who had practiced spear and shield in a line fight for a while. They showed a level of competence in a group fight the Hema spear fighters did not have.

[@realdragon]

@@hamstermk4 Do you remember what video was called?

[@hamstermk4]

@@realdragon kzbin.info/www/bejne/f6nQZ6aOmpaHj6c

[@Canal_Marte]

Only HEMA guys would agree to fight, the other ones their honor doesn't allow them to fight.

[@jaketheasianguy3307]

Especially JSA guys because of their lineage reputation. A representative of the style losing to a random guy from another style will be a big embarrassment, especially when most koryu JSA styles now days claimed that they are the surviving lineage of functional and practical fighting of old time.

[@pieguymcduck8600]

He just showed kendo guys doing it, and I’ve seen those same people fight kali fighters as well. Even if most of them don’t agree, we don’t need most of them.

[@ArmchairViolence]

@@pieguymcduck8600 Exactly! The UFC had the exact same problem, but you only really need 1 very legit guy from each art. You just have to pay them enough money to make it worth their time.

[@marcusianhuber]

We in the Buhurt community are ready to fight you.

[@daniel-zh9nj6yn6y]

@@pieguymcduck8600 I think that those are from Weaponism, it's usually the same people in all the videos.

[@buzdygan5488]

9 minutes to say "hema should become bohurt"

[@jeice13]

Well it could still base victory on unarmed lethality while allowing a wider variety of weapon matchups. Bohurt on the other hand seems to be based on reaching a would be winning position for an actual armoured fight

[@jeice13]

Unarmored lethality*

[@emarsk77]

Unpopular opinion: so-called "HEMA" tournaments aren't historical martial arts, they are a modern sport with historical(-ish) weapons. Not something I'm interested in. I like my historical fencing nerdy and academic, thank you very much. The treatises and the historical context are fascinating to me, so why should I renounce to that? I don't care if the "general public" isn't interested, I am.

[@dt534]

13th century Italian longsword manuscript? Would love to see that

[@ArmchairViolence]

Ya'll asked for more HEMA content. Be careful what you wish for!

[@bewarethegreyghost]

Nice Garand Thumb turn around!

[@frenchgalloglass]

Alright, so as much as I agree that we should make hema more popular, I still disagree with most of what you said. First I can't help but cringe very hard at all your comparisons with gladiators (which have literally nothing in common with the average hema blossfechten or even with bohurt) I also don't agree with your idea of mixed weapon fights. Mixed weapons only works when the 2 weapons are from the same period and if the match up is kinda even. 15 century longsword vs 15 century sword and buckler, why not? But seeing 15 century longsword vs 19th century sabre makes zero sense. Sorry for being a history nerd. Also, you keep using mma as an example of "different styles" facing each other, but you forget the hundreds of examples of fighting sports that are popular and where 2 people are using the same style. Like boxing for example. You could lay off the comments on how nerdy hema is. I understand that you're American and they have a strong jock culture of bullying nerds over there, but hema being nerdy isn't a problem, on the contrary. All things nerdy have widely increased in popularity during the last 2 decades, from super heroes to video games etc etc. Look at the success of game of thrones or the witcher for example. Being nerdy no longer makes people run away. "hema fights and modern fencing fights are boring to watch". Well maybe for you and your friends, but not for everyone. And I include both hema and MOF here while being against hema turning into MOF. These are fun to watch. Hema isn't watched a lot because it's not advertised and not popular, but modern fencing competitions are watched by lots of people worldwide. HEMA vs other systems. Hummm besides something like hema vs kenjutsu (which you mentioned by saying "longsword vs katana"), how exactly would that work? Rapier vs ju jitsu? Longsword vs karate? Let's be realistic. You mention a tournament that would involve hema, kendo, Olympic fencing and other sports all together and sorry but that can't work, for obvious reasons that I don't think need explaining. The weapons, rules and goals of these different activities are way to different to ever make that possible or coherent. Which leads me to another very thing you say throughout the whole video: showing hema is "better" or "deadlier" than other disciplines... I don't even know what to say but this is just plain wrong. Hema techniques are efficient and deadly in their specific context. Modern fencing techniques are efficient in their specific context, kendo techniques, bohurt techniques, etc etc. Comparing things that are so different don't make sense. Anyway, rant over, feel free to disagree with my disagreements :)

[@kez_the_reaper2657]

@@frenchgalloglass I disagree with your disagreements but I will say your comment is well written and is a very valid argument I am not a HEMA practitioner. So will not fully understand I train for the sport of MMA here in England and I love the fact that my sport is well represented in the modern world and wish there was an equivalent for weapons combat I do agree that the goals of Hema, kendo, kung fu weaponry ect. is way different but so is say boxing wrestling and bjj but seeing them clash and eventually blend into modern MMA is absolutely Fascinating to me and I think if weapon arts followed suit it would be absolutely perfect to watch and maybe learn to complete in There would be flaws like say weapons designed to be used in a group. But that would be like watching team MMA where submission grappling massively falls behind in usefulness (side note are you as jealous as those guys as I am, wish I was crazy enough to get into that) And it doesn't mean HEMA itself goes away that would be like any style of ju-jistu going away because MMA is a thing its not gonna happen Can't speak for Jake's specific use of the word for the word nerd but I take it a different way than you do, for me I'm a combat sports nerd meaning I love combat sports and learn way more detail than most people, the same way my wife is a ice skating nerd because she can explain the key parts to the belaro Also video's on your Channel are really cool 😊 In short I would love to see a weapons based combat sport involving hema and this video hits a lot of key points that prevents that

[@davidweihe6052]

What about full armored jousting, as Tobias Capewell moved to the UK to do? Also, Basil Rathbone and Errol Flynn or Tyrone Power had some decent rapier vs rapier combats. The only problem is that the Russians are supposedly the best in the world, and it will be years before they can be invited, even to play the "heels".

[@umartdagnir]

There are plenty of mixed weapon tournaments, but they are usually: local, for beginners, and are fought with plastic weapons - for safety reasons, since longswords can break sabres and rapiers quite easily. Plus you won't be able to fit a longsword-rated glove into a rapier hilt.

[@wildrangeringreen]

since when can steel cut through steel of similar properties? I'll wait... and if you have a full basket or a large, complex hilt, you don't need a "longsword glove" (lol). If you have a less protective hilt, that's still ok. You also don't need a "longsword glove" to use longswords... you just can't be stupid and put your hands out there to be hit all the time (that's a problem that's largely created by the over-reliance on PPE in HEMA) Next up, where to find 350N rated clown-shoes... lol

[@superiorhema]

Lol awesome video! Definitely got me thinking of what things it could like in the future. However one of the issues people have with the sportification is that it will most likely become Olympic fencing, but with other weapons. That is how it's practiced at some places. And that's a likely outcome because that's already happened. Olympic fencing was the culmination of sword combat to the main stream. It would be cool to see it go the combat sports route like the UFC. There's some places in china that have that already. But it is difficult to have rules for bladed weapons. Either you're always stopping the fight, or your just treating the swords as clubs. Both don't give the widest contexts of fighting with blades, and HEMA clubs have been spending decades trying to make rulesets that make it fighting, but keep swords lethal.

[@bigmoz9900]

its almost like olympic fencing is the natural result of centuries of sport fencing development and any kind of tourney fencing is going to head toward that equilibrium

[@richardmcallister460]

And many good points were made today! I knew Deadliest Warrior was a canoe full of horse hockey, and yet I watched it anyway. If UFC 1: Hack N Slash Edition was announced, I'd be on a plane to see it live waving my rapier-and-dagger poms poms the whole way.

[@vincentdolente7053]

Give me 1 good point that was made in this video.

[@indeswma4904]

Aside from generally disagreeing that sport HEMA will solve any issues, mismatched weapons would be like no weight divisions in MMA. It would make for a fun promotional show but would serve the audience and not the practitioners.

[@binbows2258]

Audience retention is the most important metric, and at the end of the day it should be more about fun than being angry because you lost in some fake sword match

[@boon9329]

There was something that was kinda getting close to what you're talking about but a little more cheesy. I think it was called Unified Weapons Master or something like that. It had high tech Halo-esque armor with sensors in it that measured trauma and the few matches I saw had different martial arts paired against each other and mismatched weapons sometimes. It never got off of the ground, but you can find a few episodes on youtube....and in the episode I saw the HEMA guys pretty much destroyed the other guys which were some type of Kung Fu if I remember right.

[@Angelarski]

And it was an absolutely stupid experiment with bad weapon simulators, no finger gloves and people just going in in close distance and flailing around.

[@boon9329]

@@Angelarski It was terrible for sure, and obviously not made by people who know anything about combat, not arguing that at all, lol. It was the closest thing I've seen to what he's proposing though.

[@Angelarski]

@@boon9329 yep, pretty close. That's why I wanted to point out how bad it ended up.

[@jsrhedgehog9981]

5:00 I did it all 4 years of high school, loved it, and STILL agree.

[@gw1357]

I was gearing up to mock and contradict you... But you're exactly right. I would watch a UWC. Here's the thing though. I'm HIGHLY skeptical that you can make a weapons-based competition (combining rules and equipment) that was both compelling to the audience and safe for the competitors. People don't like Olympic fencing and kendo in large part because the rules and equipment needed to "sportify" the activity (to make it safe for the competitors) make the action dull to the audience. By comparison, hand-to-hand combat is very easy to sportify because there's really only so much danger a person can be in even in the most no-holds-barred rule set. HEMA will EXPLODE in popularity when robotics (see Westworld), medicine (see various Star Trek episodes), or virtual reality (see Matrix) advances to the point where it can be practiced at full speed violence.

[@Narguhl]

Interesting thought.

[@MicahWarren-h3r]

3:37 As others have said, I don’t know if it’s a great idea to have different weapons fight each other because in most cases you’re going to end up with a meta setup simply based on physics. But what about different styles of say longsword that originate in different parts of Europe? German is seemingly far more popular than anything else, but there are other styles from other places as well as different styles of German. My club specifically does Fiore who’s an Italian, and it is a very different style with different positions and cuts as well as specific techniques. Also I sympathize with those who worry that a lot of the art would be lost if it becomes more sport like in a similar way to fencing or kendo. In a lot of ways they just aren’t representing fighting with swords. I think the rules would have to be very careful to not count flat hits or extremely light taps to count and other things of a similar nature. But I think it can be done pretty well and it would definitely help popularize it

[@MicahWarren-h3r]

I think it would also be good to point out that at least with my club, there’s some beef with German styles. Fiore loves grappling and he teaches that first to get you to treat your hands and feet as tools and weapons in addition to the sword, while broadly German styles seem to almost exclusively use the sword, trying to get hits with the blade when it would probably be easier to use your offhand to grapple. Also vomtag looks dumb and posta di Donna is cooler

[@kukuruyo5994]

I don't do Hema so i don't have an opinion on either side whatsoever; BUT (shan shan) i've been in a long list of hobbies that were once niche and became mainstream, and i can tell you, a niche hobby becoming popular will, absolutely, no doubts about it, 100%, fuck up the hobby for everyone involved, turning it into something with no relationship with what current fans enjoy. Most people in once-niche hobbies today regret having tried to make it popular and the most prevalent idea is to try as hard as you can for the hobby to remain a "nerd" thing. So if you don't care about the hobby transforming into a shadow of it's former self because you prefer the new form, fine i guess. But be aware that's what will happen.

[@ArmchairViolence]

The people that are bothered by an increase in popularity are typically the nerds. Who you're likely not hearing from are the original niche members that put in an effort to MAKE it more popular, and are currently enjoying it. And the reason you don't hear from them is because they have no reason to complain lol There are 100% going to be HEMA people that won't enjoy an increase in popularity. And there are 100% going to be those that will enjoy it. Which side is more important is for the HEMA community to hash out.

[@kukuruyo5994]

@@ArmchairViolence Me and a huge lot of people also worked to make our hobbies more popular and we didn't realize how much negatively that would affect them until it was too late. I know very few long standing fans in these hobbies who are happy with their states now, and many of them also had similar "why you worry it's ok right now" mentalities when it was only starting out to ramp up. As i said i don't do hema so i don't have a dog in this fight. Just wanted to make you aware by experience that becoming mainstream will most likely change the hobby in radical and negative ways that legacy fans probably won't enjoy, so it's wise to not make the call based on how the hobby is NOW, and better try to look at how the hobby would be once that popularity comes.

[@ArmchairViolence]

​@@kukuruyo5994 That's fair, but I'm one of the people that likes the sportive aspect. The HEMA nerds can cry about it lmao😎

[@Narguhl]

Did someone say "gatekeeping"?

[@HeartlessKnave]

@@Narguhl yeah, the typical "people need to enjoy the things I enjoy the way I enjoy them or they can fuck off, especially if they don't think it's perfect as it is now" mentality.

[@ryanbarclay7939]

Yo. HEMA vs FMA. Sooo many people would watch. Mostly me. I would watch.

[@jaketheasianguy3307]

FMA guys would be at disadvantage most of the time because HEMA guys would just pick a long weapon, while FMA stuck with their machetes

[@ryanbarclay7939]

@@jaketheasianguy3307 good point. Maybe match them with weapons of similar length? You could still bill it as an east vs west type deal, lots of that sweet tribalistic pay per view money.

[@indigard2747]

@@ryanbarclay7939 Even with similar length weapons , it will be still unfair. FMA use machetes that have a very poor hand guard while HEMA guys will chose to fight with pirate cutlass or german messer which has superior hand guard.

[@SwordAndWaistcoat]

Imma put this out there but the thing that HEMA needs to be more popular is money. MMA is big because the UFC started as a televised event with a marketing budget, HEMA less so because most of the major videos are filmed on a phone and edited in windows movie maker. Or I guess more to the point what HEMA needs is skilled professionals who can package it in a way that's interesting to the general public, which money can buy. Though having a marketing budget and being aired on major TV networks wouldn't hurt. The problem with HEMA is it needs people who can film and edit videos in a way that makes them a compelling narrative, it needs marketing people who can promote events, and it needs skilled interviewers who can present HEMAists as compelling personalities. And if it can't get those through community members volunteering it needs to be able to pay to hire people. Oddly enough your own video is pretty compelling proof of this in a weird way. You use a katana vs longsword fight as an example of something that would get a lot of interest, yet the biggest videos on the topic a hypothetical discussions, but there are scores of videos of longsword vs katana sparring video on KZbin and have been for over a decade, yet none of them get anywhere near the interest because it's just two randos with poor production values, while the two discussion videos you mention are huge because they were made by a professional gaming KZbinr and a reactionary propagandist, both of whom know how to make and promote videos. Hell even the epee vs kendo video by weaponism demonstrates this because it does a lot of things right, it has music and cool little visual effects, it's edited well, you get little interviews with the fighters to get to know them and see how much fun they're having, and as a result it's incredibly successful, especially for a non-english video. But that requires having people and equipment that can film and edit the videos, as well as a place that you can reliably film at a time when you can get all the fighters together, all of which requires access to resources (I know because I tried to do something similar, though obviously unsuccessfully). Likewise the footage you showed of compelling fights were from Battle of the Nations, which is being backed by Russian Oligarch money. Just having the money to properly film, promote and stream. And not to be rude, but all of your ideas are things that have been discussed and tried in the HEMA community for literal decades, and have been failing for that long as well. What HEMA needs are people with the skills to film and edit fights into a compelling package, and PR people who can tell the general public why it's hilarious that Huttonists are winning all the tournaments against "living lineages" that are basically swordy krav maga. Not novelty mixed weapon bouts, larping internet arguments or pretending that the history aspect isn't compelling when properly marketed.

[@SwordAndWaistcoat]

Also I appreciate the irony of complaining that HEMAists can't communicate whist utterly failing to be concise, there is no need to point that out.

[@ArmchairViolence]

Yeah, I'm fully aware it's largely a production quality issue. The point was to galvanize enough support that organizations are willing to put up actual money to attract other arts and put on a good show

[@1x1_southcoast83]

MMA has such a massive following for the same reasons that boxing used to. The fighters are ACTUALLY FIGHTING. The loser is often physically unable to continue due to being KO, injured or submits. That adds a level of intensity that simply cannot be matched by other sports. HEMA and Kendo necessarily use armour to protect the fighters (otherwise they would frequently die), but that just makes it a bloodless, faceless technical contest. The “full contact” MMA style knight duels where the fighters bash each other unconscious while wearing armour are equally boring as there is very little actual HEMA techniques. I don’t think it’s possible to make weapons combat compete with the popularity of MMA without making it an actual gladiator match.

[@leemastro9904]

The facial hair comment was hilarious. The videos you put to illustrate long sword vs katana were topped by Cerberus Arms’, which I watched, and it was good. I could have saved the viewers of Deadliest Warrior three seasons’ worth of time by just telling them Spartans and Spetznatz would win, as could anyone who actually knew who they were. Finally, you are correct about fights with different weapons. As a teenager, every weekend my friends and I would have team battles in the woods near our neighborhood, and we would use wooden weapons, each coated with different colors of chalk to see who did what to who. Sword vs staff vs chucks, with various types of each one, as well as padded arrows would be used at full force (we wore pads, with cups, eye protection, protective gloves, etc). Eventually we added bb guns, paintball, and finally real weapons. We only stopped that when I almost had a finger severed, and my opponent his eye during a fight with real swords.Up to that point we had destroyed over a dozen swords, as they would bend, break, or get so nicked up they were useless. Looking back, I know how absolutely insane and dangerous it was, but God it was so much fun. Besides, isn’t that what us guys do, engaging in ridiculously dangerous, but fun stuff? By the way, Kayla is gorgeous. If you haven’t asked her out, you should (unless she’s taken, or you are related. This is only the second video of yours I watched, after the Defense Lab/Keysi one, so I have no idea who she is).

[@ArmchairViolence]

Fighting with real swords is one of those things part of me wants to do, even though I'm aware of how bad of a decision it is! Lol Kaylen is already my girlfriend!

[@alLEDP]

The other thing is: does HEMA WANT to be the next ufc?

[@jaketheasianguy3307]

Probably not. Most of the community is too "civilized" to do another Gracie challenge but with swords. The real objective is to make "European swordsmanship" to be star of this UFC, not necessarily HEMA itself

[@ArmchairViolence]

@@jaketheasianguy3307 Yeah, that's been my experience. The nerds don't want to do something like this because they would have to modify their "pure, historical techniques" in order to improve their strategies and win against different styles. Combat sports are about constant progression, and the history nerds are about making sure they keep their perfectly preserved style forever. That's why the combat sport people must overthrow the nerds to establish Cool Kid Supremacy!

[@jaketheasianguy3307]

@@ArmchairViolence I'm pretty sure the guys who want to preserve old historical techniques over everything else are dying out really fast. Russ Mitchell, a very wise HEMA instructor, talked about HEMA is dead because the new generation trained their fighting method based on live pressure of competitions and experienced instructors instead of looking at and experimenting with treaties. They have no need for historical context for their techniques anymore because their context is the single opponent with a weapon standing in front of them kzbin.info/www/bejne/e5fdXmx7f7OEeKM Personally I think it also created the problem of people making the whole thing looking like Olympic fencing, again. Just look at Antoni Olbrychski, one of the top longsword fencer, and he fought really recklessly for points instead of keeping himself "alive", which is the whole point of HEMA when comparing to other combat sports. Not saying he's bad. He's a super talented athletes but I don't really like his style

[@ArmchairViolence]

@@jaketheasianguy3307 I did actually see that video! I think it's definitely moving in that direction, but the history nerds are nowhere near dead. But I like the direction it's moving, and put out this video to encourage it to go there lol There can be elements of sports that are "unrealistic," but that's usually because of the ruleset, and not just the fact that it IS a sport. You can easily alter the rules to discourage any silly behavior. Plus, not everything is as silly as it seems. I recall an anecdote of French fencers challenging the English to sword duels. The French were usually better, but the English tended to win because they would initiate a suicidal charge that the Frenchman was often unprepared for. This anecdote is typically told in order to remind people that untrained fencers do NOT fight like experienced fencers, and that you have to be ready for crazy people. However, it also shows that suicidal charges are legitimate tactics with a historical basis lol

[@binbows2258]

@@ArmchairViolence In my opinion, HEMA should be more about fun and coming up with new creative styles to beat your opponent than preserving old (and sometimes useless) technique

[@Priapos93]

I came into this sure you were going to say they needed to do underground swordfights to the death, but your idea's good too!

[@aidenlewis5705]

Mixed weapon tournaments will just inevitably end up mostly being rapier and dagger tournaments or spear tournaments. Even though saber is my favorite weapon I would never choose it in a mixed weapon format since a rapier or a spear is just better. Mixed weapon fight can be fun, I don’t mind nerfing myself by using a saber in a mixed weapon fight since they are just for fun but if they become the main format then yeah I’m going to pick up the objectively better weapons. Comparing HEMA to MMA isn’t really fair, in an MMA fight everyone has the same tools at their disposal, the difference is how you use them. In a fencing match between someone who does longsword and someone who does spear, these are 2 different tools and it’s not really a good representation of skill. In an MMA match between a grappler and striker both fighters probably have arms and legs they just use them differently from one another.

[@GrizzlyHansen]

You have a point, I love BJJ and practice it, but lord I cannot watch a full match unless I am specifically studying it to improve an aspect of my game. Like oh, this guy is great at leg locks, maybe I'll watch him, but I watched the heck out of the Ultimate Fighter, because "I just wanna bang!"

[@IlBarbafluff]

It finally happened, you did get Matt Easton to reply to your video :D. And a very interesting exchange.

[@GrizzlyHansen]

Hey, you watch English Martial Arts, I've been watching him for years! Good to see someone else who enjoys his videos. His videos got me into Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Boxing. Hema is kinda like if people tried to recreate 19th-century pugilism, I think some people would find it interesting, but no one cares.

[@mikelundun]

There is a bare knuckle fight circuit (bkfc) that is going pretty gangbusters at the moment.

[@jc-kj8yc]

HELL! YES! Someone call Doug Marcaida and tell him that Matt Easton called his sister a bitch! I'd buy a ppv for this fight immediately!

[@anton.chigrinetc.96]

I mean, what is so bad in being gladiators by the manuscripts? I mean, surprise-surprise, those manuscripts are the reason HEMA exists, and we learn by them. The only question here being whether they are an end or means to an end. And we clearly want the latter.

[@niklasw.1297]

I think there were a few crucial points overlooked. 1: Olympic Fencing isn't HEMA, Battle of the Ages isn't HEMA and most importantly - everything not European isn't HEMA. I know this sounds really petty but you can't really have a 'Katana vs Longsword' HEMA Tournament, because Kendo rules and therefore Katana fighting works under different rules. 2: While you can have people punching each other with fists, you can't have people cutting each other with swords (So no Gladiators). That means you need safety- Weapons&Gear AND fighters calling their hits. How is an audience supposed to keep up with that? It's the same problem Olympic Fencing had (Olympic Foils have sensors now), and people falling asleep watching it. 3: Different weapon mashups are inherently unfair. It worked with Gladiators because they mashed up Armour as well as Weapons and nobody cared if a Gladiator got cut. You cant mashup safety gear. That and the Rapier is the superior Duelling Weapon. The damn thing got invented to be a Duelling Weapon (I guess some noble used it as personal defence but same situation). Anything that isn't a Rapier has a massive disadvantage. If you want to see Knight looking dudes bashing other Knight looking dudes watch Battle Of The Ages or something, even if that has little to do with HEMA. I would be 100% onboard with bringing back Roman Gladiators but right now, people just don't want to cut each other and understandably so.

[@MyBodyIsReggie1]

how did boxing vs boxing become so popular then?

[@Cowboy_Foradalei]

I didn't understand your point. The title is "The Problem With HEMA", but you didn't pointed any problem with HEMA. You just said that HEMA is not so popular, but there are lots of unpopular martial arts across the world, some you even don't know, and this is perfectly fine. A martial art doesn't need to be popular, if their practictioners enjoy it there is no problem at all.

[@heresjonny666]

Oh man. 1. 13th century Italian longsword isn't a thing. Longswords as we commonly see them didn't really exist in the 1200s, and our oldest treatise is around 1350 - that's sword and buckler. Yes I am one of those nerds. 2. The reason mixed weapon competitions aren't really a thing is because they are one-dimensional and boring. Longer weapon vs shorter weapon is the longer weapon keeping range, and the shorter weapon trying to get closer. That's it. Most of the time the longer weapon achieves its objective. You would have spears winning all the time, everyone would move to spear, it'd go back to matched weapon sets. 3. We're totally willing to beat up other martial arts systems, but most other weapons-based systems haven't caught up to the whole 'you can actually wear protection and hit each other with steel weapons and spar, y'know?' Not to mention there are plenty of sparring videos out there of longsword vs katana etc. Look at the comments and it's just a bunch of kenjutsu guys complaining that the kenjutsu fighter looks like he's doing longsword with a katana instead of reenacting samurai anime...Because this is essentially what any given two handed sword fight is going to look like. 4. The Aussies tried to make the all weapons systems vs all weapons systems show, called Unified Weapon Master. It was shit and overly reliant upon electronic halo suits. (And yes, the HEMA guys did always win.) 5. The idea of making HEMA full of egos and 'we can beat everyone up' mindset sounds like it'd be awful. 6. I think people don't really take HEMA seriously because most of it has very little relevance to the modern day. All the other martial arts that got fame essentially promised the ability to defend yourself / live out your kung fu power fantasy 'in tha streetz'. BJJ just went ahead and proved it definitively. No one carries a sword around for self defence, and even if they did they probably aren't going to come across someone else with a sword to live out their Highlander fantasy. Most HEMA instructors / groups aren't willing to sell people using the most accessible aspect 'we can teach you dagger defence' because of the false confidence that can ensue, either. 7. Another reason it doesn't get taken seriously is because it gets mixed up with LARP, re-enactment, Bohurt/BOTN/ACL (as you showed in your very first clip, in fact) and these all have their own problems that put people off them. The thing is, though. HEMA is definitely growing. My group constantly has an influx of new people, and we're definitely not one of the hyper-competitive sports-focused groups. It just takes time. Maybe we will get our moment in the spotlight, like BJJ did with UFC 1. But otherwise it'll just be a slow and steady rise in popularity for people who are interested in that sort of thing.

[@ArmchairViolence]

1. Ha! You fell into my nerd trap! Get wedgied, nerd! lol 2. I think there is plenty of diversity among pole weapons to still be interesting. I'd watch halberd vs Naginata. 3. Yeah, you have to organize a good enough tournament to get an unquestionably high level katana guy. Either a world class Kenjutsu guy or an olympic Kendo person. Something like that. Then, when the style collapses, it will obviously be the fault of the style and not of that individual guy. 4. I actually had someone else mention Unified Weapons Master! I'm just gonna copy and paste what I said about it. "They did try it, but they really only tested unarmored combat. And I believe they measured wins based on the force of the blows instead of how that weapon actually works. For example, whether I hit someone with the blade of my sword or the pommel literally wouldn't matter. Only the force of the hit. Plus, their giant sensor laden armor made fighters look more uniform, taking away some of the uniqueness that gets people into a tribal mindset. And the ref would stop the action every time a point was scored, which made it seem a lot more "points based" and therefore less cool. I think UWM was a decent idea, but I think it can be greatly improved upon." 5. It's annoying, but that's pretty much what high-level combat sports people are like lol 6. I think people will be interested in it even if they don't need it for self defense. You know how many street fights I've been in? Zero. You know how many I'm GOING to be in? Probably zero. I still love MMA though! 7. It's true. But the best way to differentiate yourself from the weird stuff is to A) be way more competitive and B) get popular enough so people actually remember the correct name of your art lol I think it will continue to get more popular for a while. However, I want it to be REALLY popular, and I don't know if that can happen in its current configuration.

[@heresjonny666]

@@ArmchairViolence 1. Curses, you laid irresistable bait 2. Maybe, but I can almost guarantee these matches would just turn into who can poke at who the most effectively. It'd be spear. You could put armored fighting in, but then you lose the thing entirely, because the techniques you use when someone is in armour are designed to get around the armour, not hit it. People try to do this to some degree already but it's incredibly lethargic for safety reasons. Go look at an armoured HEMA sword tournament and you'll see exactly what I mean. The problem is compounded when you get into things like pollax, because even if you use a 'safe' rubber head, you will still concuss people if you go at it full tournament tilt. You either have an inherently dangerous weapon, or you have a weapon that no longer handles, and is therefore no longer representative of the thing you're trying to represent. Unarmoured is the focus because it's way more explosive, dynamic, and interesting and allows for higher intensity. Besides, people already do the 'clout them on their armoured heads until they fall over thing' in the form of ACL/Bohurt/BOTN, and that's arguably even SMALLER than HEMA. 3. No high level kenjutsu guy is going to come and risk his name in a flashy tournament, because the overwhelming majority of kenjutsu schools do not spar or compete. You'd need to create a revival in kenjutsu being practiced with sparring and pressure, while still dilineating itself from kendo. It's the same problem as my point 6 - swords are so irrelevant to modern life that people are only really interested them for historical, or fantasy reasons. Kenjutsu has become a 'self improvement' martial art because no one needs to stake their life on a sword duel anymore. 4. Yes, I saw that after posting. I don't think the problem was the suit (though it didn't help) it's just that there aren't that many strong non-HEMA weapons systems that will compete, and the martial artist ego is a real big thing, which holds people back from even trying. Also weapon safety issues as mentioned before. It was actually a great way of showing that your idea doesn't really pan out. Because in order to be competitive you need a way to score. How do you score an MMA match? Who isn't knocked out, submitted, or hit a bunch more than the other guy at the end of the fight. Because the competitors can see their techniques through to the end. This isn't so with weapons - you need to judge what a hit is going to do. Do we just let any touch count as a kill? Then you just get olympic fencing sword-tag. Do we have impact force rules? Who judges the impact? Is it based on the sound it makes? How do you compensate for a more top-heavy weapon making it easier to give a convincing hit? How do you judge whether the target area would kill someone, maim them, disable them, or just cause a recoverable flesh wound that you can fight through? The only way you can make it fair across multiple weapon sets and martial traditions is an electronic scoring system, enter UWM, and exit UWM from all its problems. 5. Right, but if that's the cost of HEMA getting big, I don't think I want HEMA to get big honestly. It's bad enough to have egos with fists and submissions, now put weapons in peoples' hands and it gets REAL bad. 6. Well this is why it's a power fantasy. 99% of the people doing a martial art will never have a fight in their lives outside a competition / ring, past maybe a little pushing session after some drinks and a clash of egos. But it's the PROMISE of being able to beat people up if you need to that sells it, whether that is an accurate claim or not. 7. HEMA has a pretty distinctive look. We even have the meme of 'HEMA black' which refers to how our jackets and protective gear are overwhelmingly black. Fencing masks, with thick jackets, strategically placed plastic armour on bony bits, and heavy plastic gloves. None of those other things I mentioned look anything like this, and yet here we are still getting mixed up with them... I don't think it can necessarily get big in ANY configuration. Weapons arts are difficult to do competitively with realism because of the safety aspects. We're mostly fortunate that longswords and smaller are just about the right authenticty : safety balance to allow us to fight them competitively. Most other weapons are too stiff, or heavy hitting to go at it full tilt. Believe me, you're not the first person to come along and claim to know how to 'fix' HEMA. People rehash the same ideas again and again, and we bring up the same examples again and again of when it was tried and why that doesn't work. Still, it's good that normal martial artists are making HEMA videos. This is one of the ways we'll get HEMA into the mainstream. Sheer parasitism.

[@Ianmar1]

Which protective kit? Which scoring system? MMA can go for realistic knock outs and submissions in hard sparring and probably be good to train the next day, we cannot exactly cut eachother up.

[@alanaubryknight]

came over to this from Matt Easton's link at Scholagladioria, and man, glad I did. You are hilarious dude-know its part of the show but good points and kept me laughing at the same time while nodding agreement-that was the plan all along wasn't it?!!! Subbed. Kudos

[@Flamewolf14]

Great idea I would love to see it

[@davefletch3063]

You forgot the millionaire backing and media marketing of said event. But you are right, a mixed weapons competition would be friggin awesome

[@kitgoodyear9270]

I like your idea, it was well explained. You would have to break some things into categories. Polearm weapons have an overbearing advantage to longsword for example. But I agree with you. I'd like to see HEMA become more recognised and popular than it is.

[@jamesdenapoli7543]

I completely agree!! THE WORLD NEEDS THIS!!!✊️ I've got a beast song called Steel Commanders by Sabaton (my inner metal head/ war history nerd) in my brain housing group right now, and I can EASILY envision exactly what you mean!!!🤩🤜⚔️🤛 Bravo Sir👏

[@hamstermk4]

Didn't "Unified Weapons Master" try this? As I recall the conclusion reached was blows to the head with a long weapon tend to win out against fancy crap with short weapons. Any way my jam for weapon combat videos is the KZbin channel "Tussels".

[@ArmchairViolence]

They did try it, but they really only tested unarmored combat. And I believe they measured wins based on the force of the blows instead of how that weapon actually works. For example, whether I hit someone with the blade of my sword or the pommel literally wouldn't matter. Only the force of the hit. Plus, their giant sensor laden armor made fighters look more uniform, taking away some of the uniqueness that gets people into a tribal mindset. And the ref would stop the action every time a point was scored, which made it seem a lot more "points based" and therefore less cool. I think UWM was a decent idea, but I think it can be greatly improved upon.

[@AGuy-s5v]

Yeah, I made a comment that spears would dominate. So my idea was to make spears the "anything goes" weapon category and to allow concepts like maximimum allowed length the be a discriminating factor. Yet no one seems to understand the importance of a reach advantage coming from the spear.

[@ArmchairViolence]

@@AGuy-s5v I don't think spears would dominate quite as much as you think. Sure, reach matters, but only to a certain extent. would you use a 25 foot pike in that tournament? Probably not. Because there is a trade-off being reach and ease of use. Spears and pikes dominate when they are in a formation, because you don't have to maneuver them as much. In single combat, they're not quite as overpowered. Plus, there are plenty of other weapons with a very similar reach. Halberd, poleax, glaive, billhook, warhammer, etc. I think there's plenty of pole weapons to have enough diversity in the contests. Now, would pole weapons generally beat things like swords or daggers? Yeah, probably, which is why shorter weapons can be carried as secondary weapons. Which is how they were typically historically used, anyway. Spears probabky won't dominate. Pole weapons might dominate, but that's a broad category, so it's not really a problem. And shorter weapons would still see use as secondary weapons.

[@AGuy-s5v]

@@ArmchairViolence Here's where we agree. I keep using the term "spear" for longer weapons, so I suppose there's a bit of miscommunication. But yes, longer weapons have a notable advantage. I'll still point you to *"Lindybeige"* youtube channel on the test and data around spears vs swords. Reach weapons aren't overpowered, but neither are the guys in the open weight categories at 375 lbs. They just have an incredible advantage.

[@heresjonny666]

@@ArmchairViolence I can tell you from experience that the longer weapon that is designed for man-to-man fighting (IE the spear, not the pike which is a formation weapon) has an obscene advantage. It's not like unarmed martial arts where you can fight your way in, weather a couple of blows and keep the pressure on against a taller, longer guy. If you get stabbed on your way in it counts as a death. You are in range to be attacked for a long time before you are in range to attack.

[@duff325]

"To be popular, HEMA must not be HEMA". Hot take, huh?! But yeah, he used the word "nerd" so we have to agree I guess

[@Swordsman_HEMMA]

HEMA instructor here (primarily a dagger instructor, also a student of Muay Thai and BJJ) You make some good points, but I disagree with you overall. You're right, stupid arguments like "HuTtON iS bAd, StuDy anGElO iNSTeaD" are detrimental to the sport. Fighting is fighting. We don't need to be so granular. But I *do* want to watch Longsword vs Longsword, because I want to know who the best modern Longsword fighter is, just like I might want to know who the best kickboxer or submission grappler is. Is there room to include mixed weapon competitions? Sure! Just like there's room for MMA. Pitting style against style is always interesting, but that doesn't detract from the excitement of seeing people compete to see who the best is in their respective styles. And most of us like the nerdy shit. History is interesting. I feel like saying it's bad for the hobby is like saying that because you don't like it, it needs to be removed. If you don't like it, that's fine. It's not for everyone, but it doesn't have to be. You can be an excellent HEMA fighter without ever reading a single treatises these days, it's optional. But for a ton of us, that's a big part of the appeal. Lastly, don't compare us to BoN or Buhurt. They're their own thing. We're our own thing. It's fine. There's some overlap, but it's not the same, and it's fine. They're allowed to be their thing. No one has to be better. It's a big world of medieval martial arts and there's room for everyone. I'm down for dojo-storming other weapon arts, though. That seems fun.

[@FedericoMalagutti]

Damn, very cool video! You are so right! XD The problem with cross weapon sparring is that there’s basically a way to 90% predict which weapon wins. Like in actual gladiators battles actually, where every gladiator “class” has its counter. So to make a fight fair for the fighters you have to have roughly the same weapon. But in terms of audience, you are perfectly right. And yes, definitely we are nerds Ahahahahahah!

[@artistpenguin5890]

Damn, I do want HEMA and Kobudo to become more popular. I want to have full or medium-contact sparring with sickles, nunchaku and sais versus spears or axes, dammit!!!

[@kampfbagel3149]

I would like to plead for a long sword vs. Brazilian jiujitsu fight ;)

[@FalseEdgeHEMA]

Working on it

[@Shokkur]

So what you're saying is, Street Fighter would be cool? Agreed. That's what I always hoped MMA would be.

[@KeyserSoze23]

If they go with a UFC 1 format at some point the separate styles would mesh into something new, like how modern MMA can be considered its own martial art at this point as all MMA fighters train striking with wrestling/submissions now. So it'd be far from "historical" at that point but could be quite interesting.

[@SirKanti1]

This video is worse than the time I was stabbed, and not hema stabbed, I mean stabbed stabbed.

[@elioamedeo]

Very funny video 😂 I'm a HEMA practitioner. You have a really good point about the division. By the way, I'm personally all about the research, I hate tournaments 😆 I have to disagree with you on the mixed weapons though. Different weapons give different physical properties and advantages/disadvantages to your body, that's why it must be rapier vs rapier, to give both fighters equal ground. Otherwise it would be like pitting heavyweight vs lightweight in boxing. The "grappler vs striker" equivalent in HEMA would be different styles of rapier, but I can understand why no one would be interested in that, apart from us HEMA nerds. Ultimately in unarmed martial arts you have equal ground, both fighters have arms and legs. Anyway you will find that there are mixed weapons categories in tournaments, they're just not as important as same weapon matches. Think about it, if HEMA was all about mixed weapons it would be entertainment, not combat. Would you expect olympic fencing to feature foil vs sabre? 😅 The weapons UFC idea is sweet though 😁

[@Kiterum]

There's an extra problem which is purely pragmatic. If you use offensive techniques with offensive weaponry, people get seriously injured. That leads to concessions to safety, for example, no thrusting (in period armour), no strikes to the back of legs, no strikes to the back of the neck, etc. Different schools needs to make different safety concessions based on the style, and once you remove the more dangerous techniques from competition most styles look sort of the same.

[@daikilvirtav8469]

At first I kinda agreed with this video, after reading your responses to some of the comments I completely agree. I really hope hema can evolve into something more interesting than it is today. Competitions where you interrupt fights after every single hit really aren't that fun to watch.

[@Narguhl]

Your Videos were all Buhurt/BoN stuff. The opposite of historical actions. It's fun though. They are people in a fantasy rule set in fantasy armor with unrealistic amounts of padding where all actions working against armor are forbidden. It is fun. It is hard. You need skill and fitness. But it hast nothing to do with historical Buhurt (which was done on horses). HEMA (when searched for on youtube) is more the simulation of unarmored combat with weapons (Bloßfechten). Also there are different longsword styles. Not "longsword vs longsword". But "Classical Liechtenauer" vs "Joachim Meyer" vs "Italian stuffs"... "Fiore"... (And the difference can be huge) But that's nerd stuff. And also more nerd words for "focusing on: -thrusts -cuts -swings -timing like focusing on counters/reacting ("Nach") or pressure fighting ("Vor") or working in the bind while the blades are in contact [This is pretty simplified. I know my dear HEMA nerds] Just like "Grabbler" vs "Striker" is nerd stuff. The casual audience does not see or even know what McGregor or Khabib where. You have to be invested in the sport to see this. (Also compared to 30 years ago everyone is a lot of everything. There is no boxer without wrestling and BJJ skillz in Pro MMA. There is no Wrestler withoutt boxing knownledge in Pro MMA. The times of Dan Severn are over for a reason. You don't need to know who Art Jimmerson is to see this.) Saying "Longsword vs Longsword" is boring is like saying "unarmed 4oz Gloves vs unarmed 4oz Glove" is boring. I don't care which Gloves or fists win. I think the problem is not the "not mixing of weapons" (which would pretty fast remove 95% of the options). The problem is more of a adverrtisement nature.

[@kez_the_reaper2657]

Yeah I agree with this We have boxing historians with a vast knowledge of the sport dating back hundreds of years, but we still have the sport today with interesting styles of boxing even people with no interest in boxing can enjoy. Although in my opinion the sport does not promote itself enough anymore. Bjj has the same we still have the nerds preserving the art, I even got to train with a Japanese ju-jistu practitioner earlier this year but modern sport bjj has changed drastically through the years I would watch the shit out of a weapons based UFC one

[@thebobbytytesvarrietyhour4168]

Thank you so much for making this video. This is a great conversation to start and I appreciate you putting out a potentially controversial opinion. I have several thoughts to share, but I primarily fence in the SCA so that is going to color everything else I have to say. First of all, I think this video is not so much about "fixing" HEMA as it is about making it commercially viable. I think there is merit to making it wider spread and adding more incentive to truly pressure test, but that also comes with some meta-gaming that would be impossible to ignore. The UFC works partly because there is almost no practical difference between a normal cage match and a unarmed fight to the death. But because of the nature of sharp force trauma, I think any ruleset would be fundamentally flawed. Secondly, while I think the idea of mixed weapon competition is a really good idea with a lot of merit, I think you would quickly see certain types of swords and styles dominate and reduce the interest as the sport progresses. Unlike MMA, where everyone in the same weight division has access to the same tools, I think longer weapons are going to have a very strong advantage unless the rules are skewed to try to balance the field. All this being said, if this tournament was announced tomorrow, I would try my best to get a slot to compete and watch the heck out of it if I couldn't. Even if I was just complaining about it the whole time.

[@ArmchairViolence]

Everyone else would also watch it while complaining! The beauty of it is that it will get everyone so passionate about it that they'll watch it lol My secret motivation is that I WANT all the fighters to converge on the same weapon and skillset, only with slightly different strategies. Just like MMA has done. Then we will have practically solved the question of "what weapon/style is best for a 1-on-1 duel?" Once people start converging on a weapon, then you start loosening the rules on weapons so that each fighter is able to modify their weapon. Then we can start improving on historical designs to optimize them for 1-on-1 duels! That's what I really want. Endless optimization! And it all starts by getting HEMA to challenge other arts! 😈Muahahaha!

[@thebobbytytesvarrietyhour4168]

​@@ArmchairViolence So what would you say is the immediate next step to try to make this a reality? Is it connecting with corporate sponsors, honing in on how this would actually be run (i.e. rules and equipment), or some third step?

[@Mishalex]

Stop harshing my vibe. I think HEMA is EXACTLY where it should be as a nerdy, historical combat society that nobody REALLY cares about that much (including hardcore HEMA nerds). Who doesn't love the pretentiousness of discussions about which historical manuscript is superior as far as accurately reflecting combat forms of the past?! THAT'S where it's really at. I like HEMA as the hipsters of combat sports. That's what makes it appealing to me. If it was popular? Waaaaaaaay too mainstream, bro.😎 Seriously, though. I love Deadliest Warrior precisely for how ridiculous it is. If it became an actual full-fledged sport? I'd MUCH rather watch football, basketball, or soccer.

[@HeartlessKnave]

The reason why MMA will always be more popular is likely the Dunning-Kruger effect of people thinking they can do it too. Ie "if I trained 8+ hours a day I could do that" or "if I didn't have" such and such problem, a REAL job/career, injury, etc. "I could complete in MMA." Whereas with HEMA most either don't think they can or think it's stupid and gay. Also without the maiming, death, and lions eating criminals. It's not very gladiatorial, so not as interesting as MMA which does have blood and life debilitating injuries, AND A CAGE! (sadly no lions 🦁 though).

[@pyronicdesign]

LMAO my hand literally went to the arrow buttons when you faked the Manscaped ad. my brain went "nope, skip skip skip!"

[@johnl2648]

Do it Thunderdome style and have a rack of weapons at ringside and have the competitors do rock-paper-scissors to see who gets first pick and second pick of the weapons. Maybe if a competitor is disarmed but not yet KO-ed they can run to the rack to get another weapon lol

[@HolySeraph777]

I feel like such a sucker for coming into the comments, but I'd like to pose what I see as the biggest issue separating the schools of thought likening Mixed HEMA to MMA: Lethality. Most weapons arts rely on simulated lethality, essentially points systems, to determine the victor, or in the case of some of the armored bouts you showed physical exhaustion and submission not unlike BJJ. The problem with mixing these I think lies in how to let everyone simulate lethality properly while still making it enjoyable. You'd probably have to rely on electronic scoring like fencing, but then spear would probably always win, and if they didn't rapier would. Either that or there'd have to be some super smash bros crap where the basket sword sword guy gets to say "Well mine is meant to be on a boat or whatever." and now the wushu guy is on a pirate ship. So much of weapon development was context based and it could be a really long time before a competent, fair, entertaining ruleset is developed to make the art not devolve into mirror matches. I hope it grows in popularity, I really do, but I just can't see it happening in a way that looks cool.

[@ondrasvoboda4512]

Yea... kinda... the problem is that there is much more context behind HEMA weapons than theres behind unarmed fighting. Som things are for fighting in armor, some are for EDC, some are for war, some are for killing people, some are for drawing first blood to win a duel... What you are suggesting wouldn't make HEMA popular (ofc it would help a bit) but mostly it would just go all in on one aspect of it. This is far less true for other martial arts, because there just isnt as many variables. So in a way, yes, this would be really cool and could make a bit of HEMA very popular, but at the same time most of it is nerdy and you can't fix that while keeping the thing the same.

[@jaketheasianguy3307]

Yes. What we need to promote is not HEMA but only the dueling aspect of it. Better yet, promote it as ""European swordsmanship" instead of HEMA

[@ArmchairViolence]

@@jaketheasianguy3307 Or just "European Weaponry" so people don't think it's all longsword and saber (even though it practically is lmao).

[@vincentdolente7053]

@@ArmchairViolence or just call it hema? And not assume things purely on personal Bias?

[@badart3204]

The problem is that weapons based combat for duels always devolves into the fencing poke the other guy first looking goofy or the armoires bash the other guy faster than he bashed you for points. It just doesn’t lend itself well to spectatorship

[@jaketheasianguy3307]

Agreed. The hardest thing to come up with is the ruleset. HEMA tried it best to stop people from going full suicidal for points and prevent an unified ruleset to avoid exploitation but it's still not enough

[@SurmaSampo]

It needs appropriate win conditions.

[@binbows2258]

@@SurmaSampo I think the win conditions should be whoever gets a lethal hit on their opponent first. basically whoever hits the opponent with the sharp side of the sword first wins, but if they both get hit in under 1-2 seconds it counts as a tie

[@St1cKnGoJuGgAlO]

I feel personally attacked about my stack of old fencing manuals lol

[@historyandsabre]

As a sabre guy, you really got me with the Hutton/Angelo part. Nice video!

[@Wolf-Wolfman]

Indeed! Go team Hutton!

[@historyandsabre]

@@Wolf-Wolfman Sure, although I am more on the Angelo side hehe.

[@Wolf-Wolfman]

@@historyandsabre fair enough. If you find yourself in London with your kit, you would be welcome to drop into scholagladiatoria and do some friendly sparring against us Hutton folks.

[@historyandsabre]

@@Wolf-Wolfman That would be nice! ✌️

[@m.g.5440]

I don't think HEMA wants to be popular. We never did. The beauty of it is all the stuff that makes it unpopular--academic history, non-standardization, paying attention to historical sources etc. If it became the "popular" appealing version you are describing, it would be something, but it would not be HEMA anymore.

[@MasoTrumoi]

Genuine question: why should any HEMA practitioners care about any of this? Like, no one gets into HEMA for fame or fortune, and that's one of the things that attracted me to it. It's cooperative, collaborative, and very personal. I never feel like a club is upselling me or have to listen to grown men throw playground insults. There's community drama but I've never personally tuned into it. For weapon vs weapon, I love those too, and agree tournaments having open divisions and exhibition matches of different weapons facing each other. Weaponism is a channel that does a lot of Asian vs Western weapon videos, and I dream of a big expo event of a very skilled kenjutsu/kendo fighter against a higher level HEMA fighter(s). That all being said, how is it any different from other martial art tournaments? Is a boxing tournament less legitimate because everyone is using boxing against each other? Last thing "all your problems with each other are SO NERDY" ...yeah, HEMA is for nerds. Who gives a shit? We're the ones doing the work because we're a bunch of dorks who like swords and armour despite their lack of use in any context nowadays besides hobby and sport. It's fun. That's why I'm here. I watch your channel because YOUR videos are so nerdy. You titled this the Problem with HEMA but I didn't hear any problems that are unique to it. I do want more variance in weapon match ups, I do want less petty drama, but the traits that you describe are why I'm doing this. I'm not super competitive, and I like the scholarly aspect of HEMA. I do not care how many people watch the videos or how much money the tournaments make. I'm not an entrepreneur and I'm not interested in martial arts fame. I just want to practice swordsmanship safely and as close to the older styles as possible. Why is any of that a problem?

[@boon9329]

It's not a problem, but one of the biggest pluses for everyone in the community based on what he's proposing would be more people being interested brings in more money which leads to it being more financially viable as an option for gear makers, instructors, merchants, etc. That would help out everyone including the people that don't really care about what he's proposing . Imagine if there were enough demand that people who are nerds and happy about it could make studying treatises and running a school their full time gig so you get more people translating, interpreting, and sharing that knowledge. Imagine if there was a robust enough gear supply chain that you could go online right now and get a new Sigi feder to your door in a bout a week and probably for less money than they are now instead of having to wait 9 month, or having enough people working on gear that you get a Pro Gauntlet that doesn't need repairs every month and doesn't take 4 years to ship, lol...that kind of stuff.

[@MasoTrumoi]

I'm not convinced personally that expansion and enterprise lead to better conditions. That comes off as the most basic of optimistic capitalistic dogma. You know how you get a sigi feder on demand in a week? It's by someone being exploited in another country with lax labour laws. An international standardized and profit-driven organization becomes corrupt quickly. Decentralized organization leads to more respect and less exploitation. As for people being a fencing master being their gig, it's a lovely thought, but why do we have this mentality that one's passion must be something to support them? When you make your life depend on the school reaching out, you prioritize the school appealing to as broad a sensibility as possible and to make it focused on obtaining people's money. Look, I don't want to come off as elitist, I want to be a professional writer so believe me when I say I get wanting to pursue a passion. But it's more that this kind of thinking is just mired in the concept that running everything as a business leads to good outcomes for the character and value of the thing. And honestly, I can't buy into that. There's nothing wrong with a small dedicated community driven by interest and passion over profit. No amount of cheaper and faster feders will ever change that for me.

[@boon9329]

@@MasoTrumoi I totally agree with you that you would see labor exploits and mass produced gear companies pop up. I was giving exaggerated examples of course, but a bigger demand also makes it possible for smaller passionate groups like Sigi or something similar to expand what they're doing, share sword making the right way with a bigger group, and keep that passion going without compromising the way they do things. It's definitely a double edged sword in that regard though. I also agree that it would be amazing if people were allowed to pursue their passions without it being tied to making a living, but most people aren't fortunate enough to be in a position to make that happen due to the state of the world in general really. It's something we definitely should be working towards but it involves changing the world which is a slow process. Changing HEMA a bit to make it a viable way for someone passionate about it to make their living now is still a great thing for the individual and all the people they would share their passion with, and it's a consolation prize worthy of working towards until the world can be changed. This one is very close to my heart because I recently left the normal corporate 9-5 world to be a full time knife/sword maker and have more time with my family.

[@MasoTrumoi]

Valid friend, I wish you well for your career and perhaps I'll have the chance to buy one of your works sometime in the future! I'm not against making it viable, and not against making it popular. Just against the mentality that view count, profitability of major exhibition, and turning HEMA tournaments into modern Gladiator matches is a good path forward for the movement. I hope that as the movement grows, we can preserve the scholarly and community aspect over a colder, for-profit evolution.

[@nowamajormotionpictureeven3797]

Duels would be far more interesting to watch if they were made up of relay teams with a height/weight cap. You could choose to have 7 smaller men or women on your team or 5 giants for instance. Only incapacitating points count and they would result in elimination. The survivor can choose to continue to fight or swap (but they can't rejoin). Large group combat has to involve shields, a limited supply of projectiles, taking and holding ground (king of the hill or capture the flag) and a shift change system akin to hockey. Actually, group combat could just be traditional full contact lacrosse (with armour, no head shots and a submission rule) and it would be rather entertaining to watch.

[@HansTalhoffer269]

the 500 year old manuals are the WHOLE point. And there are enough people who are interested. They may be nerds but so what. The goal of HEMA was never to entertain the masses. For people who only want combat sports and entertainment that's what Buhurt is for.

[@benjaminhaupais6470]

The point about HEMA is to stay true to the text : do as you should to win as it said as well as fail as it said. It's nerd stuff : you must not mix nor fix the text. More, some HEMA are leisure, some are social activity, some are extrem sport, some are about actual violence : some moves will work in one case and not the other, so no comparaison possible. BUT when actual modern gladiators (buhurt, M1, competitor inside HEMA) will drop the historical aspect (that they can't fundamentaly do : if they want wins they'll need innovations, compromises and mixing) and just have at each other with glee without false pretenses of authenticity, they'll shine just as you said. Historical experimentation and modern competition are parallels : both are fine but can't touch.

[@troo_6656]

Ok.... Like I don't see the problem. It's a hobby. I don't quite care if people find it interesting or popular, I like both research and practice. Why should I care if it becomes popular sport?

[@HierophanticRose]

What you say has been attempted multiple times, there is not a big community in Kendo that will do it outside of their field, same with Fencing and other styles. A lot of those videos stand out because they are usually one of the few cases of those events. Weaponism is also a channel that has those types of content, and many people have attempted before. There is just not enough reciprocity.

[@Ianmar1]

Most kendoka are either athletes or martial *artists*, most fencers are athletes, I am afraid that we are not producing fighters. I think that reciprocity is not so much the issue however, kendo has a long standing tradition of mixed sparring called isshu-jiai. A bigger issue is kit mismatch: kendo armor only really protects kendo strikes with bamboo simulators, and similar for fencing.

[@demonderpz7937]

Real life For Honor would be legendary

[@matthewhumphreys8316]

The thing that attracts me to Hema is the prospect of learning actual armed combat, including actual swordfighting. I fear that trying to gain mass appeal the way you suggest might make something that no longer teaches actual armed combat. It might end up like Olympic fencing, which I am not interested in. For example, no rulset can accurately reflect armed combat while staying safe, particularly since people will always play to those rules, and so I think something that is very useful in Hema is to use different rulesets. But in something like UFC, people will want a single ruleset. And again, people will play to those rules and not realize that this is different from actual combat. Because sparring, even in tournaments, does'nt quite accurately recreate armed fights. What they do is help train someone to fight. But that is only one example. Sport fencing and Buhurt both seem like attempts to popularize armed combat, but they both don't teach actual armed combat. And if we made an armed UFC, many people wouldn't relize how different it is from reality. And if we make a new popular combat sport that isn't accurate, then what is the point? The whole point of Hema is to focus on realism and history. We don't want to give people a more popular version of LARP or Buhurt. Anyways, there are other logistical concerns. You mentioned mixed weapons fights, and those can be fun, but If people can choose whether or not to wear armor, everyone is going to wear full plate armor, because that is almost always going to win, although you could have armored and unarmored divisions. They are also almost always going to use polearms. In fights involving swords and polearms, people with polearms are almost going to win most of the time, because polearms have inherent advantages. In fights involving various types of swords, rapierist are going to win most of the time, particularly with rapier and dagger. Maces, warhammers, and battleaxes aren't really praced much in Hema because of a lack of sources on them, but in a fight between them and swords or polearms, they will tend to lose, assuming the parameters in the following sentence. Now, those last few scenarios assume a 1v1 unarmored fight in an open space without large shields, and if you changed those parameters things would be different, but other weapons would then be favored. Different weapons were designed for different contexts, and so mixed weapons fights, while cool and informative, aren't really fair, and that is a problem from a competitive point of view. I do think it could be a good idea to have different teams and uniforms, to give people someone to root for. Another problem is that, for example, if a Hema guy challenges an Olympic fencer to a fight, both people are going to want to use their own rulesets, which will favor them. Even though the Hema ruleset, whichever one they use, is going to be more realistic, the Olympic fencer won't want to use it because it will put him at a disadvantage. If they decide on one of their rulesets, and the guy used to the other ruleset loses, then they will blame the loss on the ruleset. It is going to be hard to get people of different armed combat backgrounds to agree on one set of rules. I think the Hema approach is the best and most realistic, but a lot of people aren't going to agree. This problem also extends to the sparring weapons and somewhat to to the safety equipments. A Kendoka will want to use a shinai, even if I believe a steel or synthetic Hema style equivalent is better, although this won't have as much effect on the outcome of the fight as the ruleset. So it is going to be hard to agree on a ruleset when challenging people of different martial backgrounds. Also, we go back to the previous point, where different weapons are meant for different contexts. Whatever parameters you are using will favor certain weapons. So if you challenge people from like Kendo or kenjutsu or FMA etc, you will run into the issues of using mixed weapons, because the weapons were developed for different contexts and changing the parameters of the fight will favor different weapons. I think it would be best to just let everyone know that they need to use Hema style rulesets and equipment, but then a lot of people from other backgrounds won't want to do it. But if you don't do that, then there are all sorts of problems. Something that could help satisfy both the sportive types and the more martial-intellectual-focused types is to have some people try to form an armed UFC that is not too far from real life, (hopefull that can be limited somewhat), and with different weapon and armor classes, classes for varying numbers of combatants, and perhaps with teams, like the Olympics or Buhurt, but the people doing this armed UFC thing made it clear to outsiders and newcomers that this is different from actual armed combat, and referred them to regular old Hema to learn that. Anyways, I think that armed martial arts are more abstract than unarmed martial arts, and this leads to various problems. I could see Jousting becoming a lot more mainstream, however, although the big problem with that is it is really expensive and time-consuming.

[@Rudolfucius]

Well thats a Wall of Text first that's not "butthurt" thats "Béhourd", you english tong user. "Maces, warhammers, and battleaxes" Well those are tools that are easy to use, no need to be a rocket scientist to use a hammer or an axe. Those were good against armored enemies... thats why they are not used nowadays because of safety concerns. Knives and swords are good against non-armored humans. We can find some treaties and books because at the time only the wealthy were able to read and got enough money to carry a sword. And they were allowed to "duel"

[@HeartlessKnave]

Got a publisher lined up for that or are you self publishing?

[@Pudgels]

Why should it be the most popular combat sport in the world? Hema people don’t armour up and wail on each other with axes. That is Bohurt. HEMA doesn’t have one singular issue that can be fixed. It has multiple issues that ultimately can’t. First off a lot of people who have no clue or foundation for what they are doing can start up a group. They don’t have a clue on how to coach people. They don’t base anything they do around establishing fundamentals and basics. There is no standardized training or safety regulations. A lot of clubs don’t focus on athletic ability or physical literacy of attendees. For the most part a ton of groups spar poorly and have really unhealthy practice culture. It attracts a lot of people who cannot interact in meaningful and respectful ways with others. Notably recluses, who have really messed up reasons for learning it In the first place. In the worst groups, they are mostly made up of people who quit/ get kicked out of legit sports. Why? Tons of em have horrible, antagonistic personalities and cannot self regulate. A lot of groups are safe harbours for predators and sexual violence. Questionable persons end up in positions of leadership and are shielded from accountability of any form. A substantial amount of the material people use to base their curricula from and profess about is pure bullshido. The stuff that isn’t is taken way out of context and ends up in the realm of bullshido because people don’t have reference point to pull from. The gate keeping is the least of its issues. Its not palatable or refined enough to be a sport and It’s mostly a massive mess.

[@KittSpiken]

Isn't what makes fencing boring that it's basically point karate. It's a contest of deadly weapons without blood. It's sterile. Boxing isn't obviously asymmetrical, but people still watch boxers fight boxers. It isn't as dominate as it was in it's golden age, but still draws large crowds with big purses. HEMA as terminology leans towards the more academic minded hobbyist. You look for that, you're gonna get the rented out ballrooms. There are young promotions getting better views than dozens and with better production than the stabilization from your supportive brother-in-law's iPhone 11.

[@smashonlamez]

Weaponism is a good channel (not a HEMA channel) to see mixed match ups like spear vs katana, katana vs karate and a whole bunch of other weapons in a HEMA-esque style format for anyone whos interested in seeing different weapon practitioners spar each other. I stumbled onto it accidently and it stimulates my dumb monkey brain the way i like it. There's actually quite a bit of channels that do this weapon vs weapon thing, but a lot of the ones I found are in japanese or korean so they're never recommended to me. Also, these usually aren't HEMA channels themselves though, and are all normally small collabs. These channels also seem to approach it to more of a sport point base thing as opposed to a full on fight. Perhaps something similar to that would garner interest from viewers, like if we see some point based system for different style match ups of HEMA practitioners. I'm a total noob at this and from quickly scrolling through comments it looks like a lot of the HEMA practitioners don't think it's feasible or don't want to give the people what they want lol It be really cool if a HEMA practitioner took into their own hands to test their weapon against another weapon type and if they just started challenging other practitioners to test their skill, regardless of historical accuracy. Even if it means that one practitioner may be at a disadvantage or if its not their typical ruleset, it could still be informative and interesting to watch. Who knows, it my help to evolve the sport. I know that sounds a little weird at first, but does anyone remember how Changpuek (White elephant), took muay thai around the world and challenged every martial art he could. He faced them using their rules, using his rules, at their home, at his home, and basically said "who want that smoke?" to the entire martial arts community. He demonstrated the obvious need for leg kick defense and in some ways helped to spark the idea of upping your own game by learning/adapting to other styles. So who knows maybe there's a HEMA white elephant out there somewhere. Anyways, I digress, good job as always.

[@ArmchairViolence]

Imagine where Muay Thai would be without people like Changpuek. We probably would have never heard about it!

[@landonlawson2676]

One thing I do to get MMA friends interested in HEMA is bring up different moves and philosophies that can also help them in their MMA journey. I don't bring up martial arts manuals unless they ask because they're not interested. For instance, I used a few wrestling moves that I learned from HEMA when sparring a friend. When they asked where I learned it, I told them HEMA, something they most likely never heard of. I then explained why wrestling was useful, even when you have weapons, such as wrestling an armored opponent down so that I could then reach for my dagger and stab them in the exposed parts of my opponent's armor as I'm pinning them to the ground.

[@LadyNari773]

another reason that hema is not as popular as mma/boxing kickboxing is that there is no blood. and -usually- no injuries. No-one gets knocked out, noone gets messed up and has an unrecognizable face at the end. watching a technical match between skilled swordfighters wearing safety gear is just not as exciting to most people as watching two people beat each other up and at the end there is blood everywhere and someone is laying on the ground unconscious. even mma matches that are bloodless with no knockouts will have the fans booing at the fighters. the people come for the gratuitous violence, the blood, and seeing someone get knocked out. the only way that weapon fighting could have the same mass appeal is if people were bleeding everywhere and dying.

[@justinvillar7008]

I'm a Filipino Martial Arts practitioner and our traditional style is for combat, and FMA still applicable today because it corporates other disciplines and part of our discipline is cross train and corporate other martial arts with our arts that makes FMA practitioners diverse from one another because each FMA turn out to have their own fighting styles and tactics.

[@KilicArslanBahadur]

"Ye" in ye oulde whatever is actually read just as regular "the". The 'y' as far as I remember was a botch ligature of th (or maybe a botched callback to thorn letter/rune), I guess you can google that if you're interested

[@guyfawkes5012]

Normally I seldom give likes to videos, but I just discovered you (after being tased haha) and every video I watched was a banger. Rational & evidence based videos about a broad scope of topics (coincidentally all niche interests of mine) presented in an entertaining way... you might be my favorite youtuber now :D also major props to your acquired expertise in fields ranging from engineering to biology. It's actually inspiring :)

[@thewatcher170]

New subscriber love the channel can you do a vid on jkd and its different iterations? Thanks in advance.

[@williamb4601]

Yeah I like the idea of a fencing/sword fighting unlimited. Also for the love of god, make the competitors not just both wear black they should at least have some bold identifying color. Somethint that I think would be necessary to prevent gaming the weapon is demonstating it is a functional equivalent of a sharp weapon. So instead of a weigh ins the day before a fight the fencers might "check in" their weapons and demonstrate test cuts a thrust to tatmi mats or something. Also a variation could be fully armoured fighting where to win you have to bring the blunted tip of a dagger to the "weak" points in your opponents armour and points can be scored similar to MMA or boxing.

[@jaketheasianguy3307]

I mean, in this day and age, I'm doubt there would be anyone in HEMA community even dare to make moves like the Gracie did back then. Everyone is all about respecting each other, no winner or loser, all styles are equal.... So just go around and start another Gracie challenge but with swords is like asking people to stop taking you seriously. Most people from other styles would just outright refused and close the door on your face (looking at you, JSA guys) because they don't want to risk their lineage reputation on a duel with outsiders. The challenger's own community would straight up turn his back on him for breaking the respect rules. At worst, the challenger's fate would end up like John Clement, the guy that everyone in the community hate and faded into nothingess through time A less aggressive plan to attract new people would be like those Akademia Szermierzy or folks, make a compilation of techniques from the manuscripts, make them as flashy and cinematic as possible, or straight up made them into short movies.

[@pieguymcduck8600]

People already do what you suggested all the time and a lot of the people in UFC 1 WERE heavily criticized for entertaining the challenge from “outsiders”. We don’t need most people, we need like a few from each style and I’d definitely wager there being that many ready and waiting to compete with whoever.

[@jaketheasianguy3307]

@@pieguymcduck8600 I remember he already covered an argument that the loser of a fight usually made in an old video, "oh he does not represent our styles, a master of our style would have done it better, we have no affiliation with this guy". So basically a random guy from HEMA won a fight against another random guy who represented nothing because his schools turned their back on him and said he's not using their styles, what does this accomplished ?

[@ArmchairViolence]

@@jaketheasianguy3307 It could accomplish something because casual audiences aren't stupid. If you knew nothing about martial arts, and you saw a tournament in which a HEMA guy with a butt-ton of tournament wins went up against a Kendo guy with an olympic medal, you know they're legit. Obviously, if one of them loses, their entire community will turn their back on that guy and PRETEND that he never mattered to that art at all. But the only people that would believe that are the people that already drank the koolaid. New people are going to see it as the lie that it obviously is, and they're going to gravitate towards whichever art won the fight. The goal is to cut through the BS that martial arts tell each other and actually boil it down to a test that casual audiences will actually believe AND be entertained by. All of the dirty tricks of martial arts couldn't stop MMA or BJJ from becoming popular. They won't stop HEMA either.

[@matanuywild2726]

@@ArmchairViolence true. the art of a Figth is something that shoul be no longer lookt in isolations. with or without weapons. that would be awsome. but people are mostly going to compare the art styles against each other when what they truly should do is a tornament for most weapons and look for the strongest figther and not the best art. like unarmd fighting they have many similar moves anyway. and if one comunity would do something like mix weapon tournament that would be awsome.

[@Narguhl]

Instead of challenging "other styles" these people can go to the Swordfish and win the tournament if there style is so superior. Or any other HEMA tournament.