I Never Cared Much for Swords. Then I Had to Fight with One

The thing about martial arts is that they work: if you do them properly, you're going to kill someone (or be killed). Every group that does stuff with swords, therefore, has to sacrifice something to ensure that everyone can have fun again next week.

In HEMA, it's the aesthetic that's sacrificed: we (I'm one of them) wear gear that makes us look like modern riot police, but the weapons are (at the very least) historically weighted, and the techniques are from historical fencing manuals. There's a lot of arguing over the interpretation of medieval manuscripts in the community.

Re-enactment groups wear historical clothing, so they have to reduce the scope of their combat: they typically disallow strikes to the head, for example.

The Society for Creative Anachronism dispense with everything but the aesthetic of history, and consequently have the most fun.

Maybe in the future you could have no sacrifices by fighting a android that is programmed not to hit strongly enough to inflict harm, and is too tough to be "killed" itself even in regular armor...

Or by being part of the brain upload simulation and unable to die.

That would be equivalent to only being able to play chess against a computer, so plenty of people would be left unsatisfied. That said, I like the direction you’re going.

Since we’re going the science fiction route of letting imagination run wild, perhaps the solution could lay in the sword itself. Picture something superficially indistinguishable from the real thing made from an equivalent to nanobots which remain tight and hard against each other but immediately let go and “shatter” when struck against something else. You could bang and clash swords in fierce battle, but as soon as you would deal a severe blow against your opponent your weapon would break and deal no real damage (but still count as a win). That could be intensely satisfying and lead to great moments.

Nah, that's pure fiction...

More generally, someone who plays with swords is more likely to die by a sword than any random person. Therefore, maybe better to stay away from them.

Yeah and someone who swims at the beach is more likely to drown than any random person.

There's an old Soviet proverb.

Those who don't know how to swim don't drown.

As with any physical activity, a person who plays with swords every week likely significantly reduces their all-cause mortality compared to spending that time sedentary. So if that's your jam and gets you active, enjoy it.

I suppose the average person in Soviet Russia didn't go sailing that much.

Of course some people participate in multiple groups. It's more expensive: modern HEMA gear isn't cheap, period-accurate armor & clothing isn't cheap, getting both is thus a lot of added expense.

Keep going, please.

Olympic fencing obviously sacrifices something, but as a layman I'd have trouble describing it.

Kendo uses wooden swords, does it sacrifice anything else? Would practitioners be proficient in HEMA and vice versa?

Another widely practiced sword art is stage combat. Obviously it has a different focus, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone well trained in stage combat could perform well against the average poorly trained swordsman.

Kendo and Fencing are both sports. For starters a shinai is way lighter than a real sword, even an iaito is usually lighter than a real sword. The "meta" then evolves around a might faster and lighter style.

Slicing with a katana is also very technical, if you've ever watched tameshigiri being able to properly cut is much more than just scoring a point. Kendo tries to simulate that in its subjective judging parameters, but having your attacks properly cut will be a different technique than sport Kendo.

In real life warfare knowing how to not get your weapon jammed in an opponent is important for survival but is very hard to practice in modern day life...

Edit: as an analogue: if you learn boxing or muay thai, first you learn how to hit a bag properly. Then you spend 10-100x longer figuring out how to execute those techniques in an actual fight. Then you watch a master like Canelo or Tawanchai work their beautiful art and feel depressed

Olympic fencing has very well-defined rules, and so is a poor reflection of actual combat. You can lose a point in fencing just because it wasn't your turn to attack.

Kendo is highly ritualised, and therefore has the same problems. The shinai (bamboo swords) also behave very differently to actual swords.

I forgot to mention bohurt/buhurt, which, as far as I can tell, is just Eastern European chaps donning plate armour and giving each other concussions with pollaxes.

All of these things are inherently social activities. The fact that you're up against another human being is what makes it fun.

It will still be a social activity! Nothing here forces lonely 1-1 battles, it's just that you'll only be able to fight full force with a selected android subgroup from the other side if it's some historic battle reenactment

> that is programmed not to hit strongly enough to inflict harm

The difference between an attack that is hard to defend and an attack that will hurt if it succeeds is very slim.

... for a human

A robot has more strength and reaction to stop / reroute a successful attack

Kendo is "simplified" fencing and point scoring.

Kenjutsu is the older Japanese martial art of fighting with a sword and has a wider selection of techniques, but isn't a sport. Some of the schools do spar, and the end result doesn't look quite like kendo.

I think the biggest difference between HEMA and modern (sparring) kenjutsu is the weapons they practice with, their weight, shape, length and style of use -- matching the random path of history in each region.

Just googled it. Buhurt looks pretty close to what I imagine the Melee was like at a medieval tournament.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-07-10/mediev...

It's a tough sensory problem.

In the world of non-weapons (which I'm more familiar with), say a kick needs to go into the space my body was occupying a moment ago, or avoiding it is not realistic.

A hypothetical future robot may. Right now, anything with the strength to wave a heavy stick is a threat to be around.

There is also the madness that is armoured MMA or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Medieval_Combat_... . They don't seem to sacrifice much, apart from points and sharp edges. But they seem to have a fair few concussions and broken bones, as a result. If you have never seen it, have a look on YouTube. It's pretty mad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq4vADoT9pQ

HEMA is great but I always find myself wondering what it would be like if there was no tennis and Federer, Nadal and Djokovic were all born into HEMA - like what would combat look like if we put weapons into the hands of the greatest 1vs1 athletes of all time.

HEMA is about recreating what's described in the historical manuscripts, which is almost always 1v1 stuff. Examples here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91IIARM5lVs