Tag: hema

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I’ve scarcely fenced with the students since the groups split a year ago. It was made clear that I was welcome to come train with the student group, but most of the training sessions were the same time as my group was meeting, and anyway my shoulder and elbow issues meant I had to reduce the amount of training I was doing, so I ended up training with my own group.

That changed this week when the student group had a “fancy-dress fechtschule,” and invited the TMHF members to join in.

A fechtschule (which just means “fight school”) is a particular kind of contest where the point is not so much to “win” (although you want to do that too), as it is to display artful fencing. To encourage that the rules call for only head hits to count, and prohibit things like thrusting (too likely kill your opponent), grappling, pommel strikes, etc.

Because only head hits count, it seemed reasonably safe to wear just masks and not full protective gear, enabling a fancy-dress version, which seemed to me like great fun. Many of the women showed up in dresses or gowns of one sort or another (some in heels!). Many of the men wore suits. I wore a coat and tie.

Two people with swords, one wearing a sport coat, the other wearing a fabulous gown, with other people in fancy dress in the background
Me practicing a drill with Autumn. Photo by Matt K The Other Shore Studio

The call for attending was simply to wear “the most formal thing you own that you are willing to fight in.”

After a youth during which I couldn’t imagine “dressing up” any more than absolutely necessary, somewhere along the line I figured out a few things, one of which was that men’s dress clothing is actually more comfortable than casual clothing, because it is altered to fit well, rather than just being “the right size.” These days besides wearing dress clothing whenever it will give me an advantage, I also wear it anytime it seems like fun. (While traveling—on a plane or a train, and while in a station or an airport—you get much better service if you’re wearing a coat and tie than if you’re wearing shorts or sweats.)

There was a great deal of artful fencing.

Two fencers in dress clothes with longswords and a judge behind them with a staff
Me on the right, fencing with Milosh. Photo by Matt K The Other Shore Studio

It has taken most of three years, but I’m finally doing a pretty good job of keeping my arms extended while doing longsword. (Partly I just needed to develop the habit, but I also needed to build strength and endurance in that arms-extended posture.)

It was glorious fun. I even did okay in the contest. (I think Milosh went easy on me.)

I do need more work on fencing artfully.

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For years now, I’ve been trying to figure out (and writing about figuring out) how to exercise in ways that support all the different things I want to do. My latest hobby, HEMA (sword fighting), has seemed like it required more support than most of my other activities, which prompted more (and more different) exercise than I’d been doing before. I’ve worried for a while that I was overdoing it, and I’m now pretty sure that’s been true.

Me in fencing jacket and mask with a longsword

The specific experiment that convinced me was skipping a few HEMA practice sessions. My HEMA club has two-hour practice sessions on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Two weeks ago I just wasn’t feeling it on Tuesday, and then again on Thursday. Each of those two days I skipped practice, but otherwise did my regular workouts—and started feeling more energetic each day. Last week I repeated that. Not only did I continue to feel better, I also was able to step up my regular workouts a bit.

I’ve had two specific issues: a sore elbow and a sore neck.

I’m pretty sure the sore elbow is not HEMA-related, but rather dog-walking related. I think I’ve fixed the issue with how I was handling the dog, but my elbow has been slow to recover—probably because of either how I was handling my longsword, or else how I was exercising to support my longsword training. Having taking a break from longsword training (just going on Sundays, when we’ve been doing rapier training), and having my elbow get much better, even while I continued doing the rest of my exercise regimen, I’m pretty sure it was the actual longsword training that was keeping my elbow from getting better. As I write this, it’s feeling entirely better.

The sore neck, I suspect, is also HEMA-related, I think due to the asymmetrical stance of longsword. (Rapier stance is even more asymmetrical, but I haven’t been doing it as long or as vigorously.) Anyway, after a couple weeks of less training, my neck was, and is, feeling much better.

Of course I’m doing all the regular stuff to enhance recovery: stretching, good diet, trying to get plenty of sleep, etc.

I’m still working toward a plan for exercise. My current thinking is to give up one of Tuesday or Thursday HEMA practice. Then I’ll do four days a week of general exercise focused on support for my HEMA activities: Specifically, I’ve started two different programs of steel club swinging, one 1-handed and the other 2-handed, with a plan to do each of those two days a week. That would add up to 4 days a week. Add to that 2 days a week for HEMA training, and I’d be exercising 6 days a week, with one day of complete rest.

No one day of that should be completely exhausting, so maybe I’ll be able to recover better than I have been.

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In my previous post, I talked about RDL (Romanian dead lift) the exercise. In HEMA practice RDL refers to something else: the writers of three famous glosses of Lichtenauer’s Zettel (a long didactic poem on sword fighting) by Sigmund ain Ringeck, Pseudo-Peter von Danzig, and Jud Lew.

So far, I’m reading a different gloss of the poem (although I’ll probably get to those as well):

Cover of Michael Chidester's "The Long Sword Gloss of GNM Manuscript 3227a"