#historical combat

[gollancz]

Update: Cryptid Author returns and once more attempts stabbing. (Miles is filming new episodes of Writing Fighting!)

[we-are-knight]

He even did my favourite trick with the spinning jump!! ⚔️

It was a knitted sweater and greatsword kind of day. (Watch with sound for the full vibe)

[armthearmour]

I spent a fantastic weekend fighting with the Chimera Company at Ye'H.A.W. hosted by Rocket City HEMA. Expect more images and videos from the event as they surface over the next several days!

[theworldofwars]

A Mark IV Tank crossing a pit on the Testing Ground, Tank Corps Central Stores, September 1917.

[athelind]

Please, do NOT apologize for this! It's fascinating, and exactly the kind of detailed response I needed!

Amusingly, I stumbled upon the "you'd need to take advantage of the momentum of this thing and keep it moving" back when I was a teenager fucking around with homemade quarterstaves. I had no idea that it was a legitimate combat technique.

Seriously, thank you. And please feel free to do more deep dives into historical weapons and techniques; I LOVE this kind of thing.

Hey do the kids of today know about the vast overlap between flails and greatswords

[the-hanged-mans-ghost]

Consider this as your annual reminder to 10000% join your local SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) if you're into the middle ages (Anywhere in the world, you don't *just* have to do vikings/norse/europe, it's just pretty common to lmao), crafting, sword fighting(or any other type of fighting, they've got lots!), sewing, cooking, art, dressing up in cool period accurate(or even just semi accurate, I've heard a lot of places aren't *SUPER* picky as long as you make an effort to dress appropriate for the period)!!!

My sister and I joined our local chapter about 6 months ago and it's amazing so far! We jsut went to our first actual event (a 6 hour drive away bc we live in the middle of nowhere) outside of monthly meetings and it was so friggin fun!

We learned how to make (Finnish/Lithuanian/Latvian/Estonian) spiral ornaments for clothing or decoration(the square looking thing below), learned how to make a silver ring from some fine silver wire, learned how to make a 12 strand braid with wrapped ends, and made a few friends while we were there! I've also learned how to use a lucet fork (honestly kinda like a loomband bracelet but with string lmao), a tablet weaving loom, and I'll be learning how to weave wire to make necklaces, how to brew mead, and a few traditional recipes from the other members, too!

So if any of that sounds fun or interesting, consider joining! Our group meets once a month on the third Thursday, but your local group might be different, I linked the website for the sca down below this, so definitely contact them and jump down this rabbit hole, I promise it's worth it!

This metal square thing is a spiral ornament! It's sewn onto clothes, aprons, bags, anything you'd like!

This is my first by-myself tablet weaving! It's a pattern found in the oseberg viking mounds(not sure if 'hat's 'mounds' is the right word but I've seen it used so oop-), creative liberties taken with the yellow border and the colors obv.

https://www.sca.org/about/kingdoms/

SCA's main website(which can be a little confusing to navigate at first), and the link to find your kingdom(so you can find your group easier, but def check out the other parts of the website too, it's got great info!)! You should be able to find your kingdom and local group by clicking the area that your state/area fall under! I know it says there's a fee, but I don't think it's mandatory right away (it wasn't for our group), and if you have troubles paying it, talk to the group and explain your situation, thy might have funds to pay for you instead! (our group has mentioned several times that they have the funds to pay for our memberships of we decide this is something we'd like to do long term!)

[okaydrawboy]

This is the final result of some sketching over the past two weeks, what do we think?

Josh Dale from FalseEdgeHema, check out his yt tt and ig

[kv-actual]

Oh fuck yeah, buddy got a video of me doing Messer with the only guy in my pool actually doing German/Lecküchner Messer

[m3dieval]

Buhurt!

Sword and shield, Mexico vs USA at the 2024 IMCF World Championship. Photos by Snapping Fire Dragon Photography.

[daguerreotyping]

Hand-tinted stereoscopic daguerreotype of a young British army officer, photographed by Thomas Richard Williams c. 1855

[allgremlinart]

I dont like how I can see a lot of people still conflating nakedness/bare skin/their subjective assessment of what constitutes "simple" clothing with a lack of cultural worth, diversity, and complexity.....

[transamus]

insane how across botw/totk there's only like. Two actual good boss fights that really utilize the combat system

[clannfearrunt]

Do you think a ceiling fan that’s been running nonstop for literal years would have much dust buildup on top I need to know for lightbulb changing purposes

[we-are-knight]

So, I can't afford full plate harness.

BUT...

I can afford, steadily, to equip plastic harness simulators.

So I guess I'm investing in this for the time being, to get some experience in harness without a plate harness.

Knight is in fact going to do some true knightly combat, soon.

[historicalfightingguide]

"Fighting is one of the most unpredictable, chaotic sports on the planet yet you have coaches that think the tire drill is effective because they saw it in a Rocky movie. A lot of gyms outside of the ones producing good to great competitors treat fighting like it is a closed sport when in reality, the best knowledge I have gained for my training and coaching has come from basketball drilling & conditioning methods and not methods I’ve received from coaches who focus exclusively on combat sports because many combat sports have almost no extensive theory or pedagogy and treats fighting like a multiple-choice exam. The way many participants view combat sports is entirely wrong because they completely undervalue how much environmental factors play a large role in one’s fighting ability regardless of how they look on the pads or in the gym. Even at the highest level of fighting, you’ll have athletes get paid to fight under a certain ruleset such as in a cage, and never train once inside a cage throughout their whole fight camp leaving them at a tremendous disadvantage that will get exposed even if there is early success prepping in that manner."

Extra relevant for historical fighting where we should be extra careful about context or environmental factors, and with the diversity of rulesets and training areas we could learn a lot by both participating in it all whenever we can, and from picking up ideas from other sports that happen in a variety of competition spaces, or dances from various different social contexts etc.

For anyone who hasn’t yet seen the following links:

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Some advice on how to start studying the sources generally can be found in these older posts

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Remember to check out  A Guide to Starting a Liberation Martial Arts Gym as it may help with your own club/gym/dojo/school culture and approach.Check out their curriculum too.

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Fear is the Mind Killer: How to Build a Training Culture that Fosters Strength and Resilience by   Kajetan Sadowski   may be relevant as well.

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“How We Learn to Move: A Revolution in the Way We Coach & Practice Sports Skills”  by Rob Gray  as well as this post that goes over the basics of his constraints lead, ecological approach.

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Another useful book to check out is  The Theory and Practice of Historical European Martial Arts (while about HEMA, a lot of it is applicable to other historical martial arts clubs dealing with research and recreation of old fighting systems).

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Trauma informed coaching and why it matters

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Look at the previous posts in relation to running and cardio to learn how that relates to historical fencing.

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Why having a systematic approach to training can be beneficial

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Why we may not want one attack 10 000 times, nor 10 000 attacks done once, but a third option.

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How consent and opting in function and why it matters.

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More on tactics in fencing

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Open vs closed skills

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The three primary factors to safety within historical fencing

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Worth checking out are this blogs tags on pedagogy and teaching for other related useful posts.

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And if you train any weapon based form of historical fencing check out the ‘HEMA game archive’ where you can find a plethora of different drills, focused sparring and game options to use for effective, useful and fun training.

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Check out the cool hemabookshelf facsimile project.

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For more on how to use youtube content for learning historical fencing I suggest checking out these older posts on the concept of video study of sparring and tournament footage.

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Consider getting some patches of this sort or these cool rashguards to show support for good causes or a t-shirt like to send a good message while at training.

[violet-moonstone]

I love seeing female characters who fight...but I'm always wary when writers and/or fans begin to act like fighting is the only way a woman can be strong or hold power.

Also annoying when most of the more feminine characters are either bad or powerless (or at the very least perceived that way).

Femininity itself is not the issue. The problem is when gender binaries (and their associated behaviours) are forced onto people.