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schweizercomics · 4 months

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Another museum sword drawing: a pretty ornate German rapier

#rapier #rapiers #historical martial arts #fencing #museum art #museum drawings #sword art

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cuties-in-codices · 1 year

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men in combat

in a manuscript of martial arts, germany, ca. 1530-1540

source: Kraków, Biblioteka Jagiellońska, Ms. Berol. germ. quart. 2020, fol. 30v and 115r

#illuminated manuscript #illumination #historical martial arts #16th century #illustrated manuscript #fechtbuch #body contact

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historicalfightingguide · 1 year

Link

There’s a lot that has happened since then, both in HEMA and historical fencing more widely - different internet with youtube, tiktok, tumblr, more facebook and far less forums but also just generally far greater ease of uploading and downloading not only text and images but also sound and video. A greater interconnectedness on both a global level and within a myriad of different regional overlapping communities, far far far more gear appropriate for safe training in a variety of ways at a variety of intensities with loads of different weapons, better training methodologies being utilized, better rules of conduct being more common etc. etc.

That’s without getting into there being more and more non-HEMA historical fencing folks doing similar work in chinese, persian, japanese, aztec, african and other martial arts which in the end all seems to become an even wider bigger overlapping community from around the world.

With all that said this it’s a quick general overview of the history of HEMA that folks may find interesting.

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

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

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.

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

“How We Learn to Move: A Revolution in the Way We Coach & Practice Sports Skills” by Rob Gray

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).

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

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.

And stay safe

#hema #historical fencing #fencing #hema history #swordfighting #historical martial arts

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arcadiaak · 1 year

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Twice a week I become a cool bitch with a sword

Thanks to @tereceratops for filming me! 💜

#historical european martial arts #hema #long sword #fencing #historical fencing #sword fight #historical martial arts #hema training #sword lady #sword

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felltheadequate · 5 months

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Introduction

Hello all! This blog is going to be for the things I write. As of right now it's all poetry, but I hope to start doing some other things soon.

Everything I post here is entirely my own work. I set a goal to post something every day, but that didn't quite pan out, so I think we're just winging it! Hope you enjoy your stay.

Name: Fell or Kenzie are both fine!

Pronouns: They/it/she/thon, but please feel free to run any neopronouns by me!

Who I am: I'm an agender entity and college student living in the US (unfortunately). Currently unsure about the future of my transition. I am omnisexual and somewhere in the ballpark of demiromantic, but also describe myself as bi/pan and aromantic for simplicity. I consider myself a socialist, leaning towards communist.

Interests: Magic: the Gathering, D&D, and early modern history. I'm very into historical fashion as both an interest and a possible method of gender expression, especially menswear of the 1730s-1810s. I also practice historical martial arts, in which I study how people were taught to fight with various weapons and learn these systems.

I've also taken a liking to Good Omens and Outlander. Wonderful shows, and good ways to pass the time.

About my poetry: I'm a rather new poet. I wrote one poem a few years back that I remember being rather mediocre, and that's pretty much it — that is, until this year! I found some old books of poetry by Whitman and Browning, and decided to try my hand at it.

I'm still finding my niche and style, but things are coming together. Within will be talk of my queerness, political positions, and some reminiscence on history both big and small. I quite enjoy the Scots language and Robert Burns's work, and both feature in my writing.

DNI: Transphobes, TERFS, homophobes, cop apologists, racists, misogynists, and anything related. I'm a queer, socialist, leftist atheist. If you take issue with any of that, I kindly ask that you not waste your time or mine.

#intro post #introduction #queer #nonbinary #socialist #leftist #poet #writer #historical martial arts #swordplay

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tincanwitch · 9 months

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There are many things I love about being a historical fencer, one of them being the juxtaposition of historical ass shit in my daily modern life.

I'm sitting in a coffee shop right now scrolling tumblr on my little laptop, reminding myself that I have to clean my swords later.

Clean. My. Swords.

An activity best performed by the light of the fire while revealing your tragic past to a motley bunch of friends. And I do it while watching Rick and Morty, stoned out of my mind. What a blessed and silly little life I get to live.

#hema #historical fencing #sca #marveling at shit #swords #sword posting #rapier #historical martial arts

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mactiir · 7 months

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in HEMA (aka historical european fencing), much of the sport is done with fencing masks on, so identifying your clubmates during sparring or tourneys is just based on gear. you know, what color their jacket and pants are, what patches they have on it, how is their mask painted. If someone borrows someone else's jacket it's legitimately jarring, like having someone with an entirely different body type and way of moving stealing your friend's face.

Once i read about historical fishermen in the north sea and how they each had a specific hat pattern that their buddies would use to identity them while they were bundled up. It was so much part of their identity that they were often buried wearing those hats. The gear is like your name, a visual identifier of YOU when you do not have a face.

anyway, back when I was buying gear i got my pants in ELECTRIC blue. I figured i was gonna get a black or grey jacket. but HEMA gear is kind of expensive because it's all custom- or handmade, so instead of spending $400 on a new jacket I picked up one secondhand for like 20. Except the only jacket that fit me was bright, SCARLET red. And I already had my expensive, new, custom, BLUE pants. I look like a damn rocket pop or like, a mixed Icee. I was like, shit! I should switch my jacket before i become the rocket pop guy!!!

Long story short, not only am I now the rocket pop guy, the color scheme has bled into my entire wardrobe. Every-fucking-thing I own is red and blue. I look like a french revolutionary. I look like a founding father in a school play. I have become a northern fisherman in my stripey hat. Now, even if I DO get a new jacket, I feel like I GOTTA buy it in red, yk? Otherwise they won't recognize me. Maybe I won't recognize me. I'm the rocket pop guy!!!

#Hema #historical fencing #historical european martial arts #Fencing #longsword fencing #western martial arts

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kultofathena · 11 months

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#Kult of Athena #KultOfAthena #Meme Monday #HEMA #Historical European Martial Arts #LARP #Live Action Role Play #sword #swords #sword fighting

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mockingnerd · 11 months

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Another one for the HEMA folks, or SCA or LARP or other collections of capital letters! It is available here if you are inclined to wear clothes or stick things on other things

If my clubmates would stop saying banger things like this I would be able to stop drawing piles of weapons and twisty banners. But for now it's a pretty fun challenge for my art so I'll allow it

#my art #hema #historical european martial arts #sca #larp #swords #longsword #rapier #halberd #sword and buckler #sabre #saber #smallsword #sidesword #love language #historical fencing #swordfighting

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ilysetration · 6 months

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secret's out

#artists on tumblr #supernote #HEMA #historical european martial arts

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city-of-ladies · 2 months

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Edith Garrud - The suffragette that knew martial arts

The first British female teacher of jujutsu, Edith Garrud (1872-1971) taught the suffragettes to protect themselves.

A passion for martial arts

Edith Margaret Williams was born in Bath in 1872 and started her career as a physical instructor for girls. She shared this passion for physical culture with her husband, William Garrud, a wrestling and boxing instructor.

They came in contact with Edward Barton-Wright who had spent three years in Japan, and studied judo and jujutsu. He elaborated his self-defense techniques known as “bartitsu” and opened his club in London in 1899.

The Bartitsu Club was notably opened to women. Edith was thus able to train alongside her husband. By 1908, Edith and William became jujutsu instructors themselves with William in charge of the men’s class and Edith teaching the women and children.

Jujutsu specializes in speed, precision and the use of soft, flowing movements to deal with aggression rather than using just brute strength. The couple showcased their skills through demonstrations. In one of them, Edith defeated a male aggressor played by her husband. The sight of this 4ft-11inch (150cm) woman effortlessly throwing a much taller man greatly impressed the audience.

In 1907, Edith starred in a short film Jujutsu down the footpads in which an innocent lady overpowers two ruffians.

Vote for women

Edith took an interest in the cause of women’s suffrage. In 1909, she was invited by the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) to give a demonstration in the presence of Emeline Pankhurst and other leading figures of the movement. As William was ill, Edith demonstrated alone and invited members of the audience to test her skills. This included subjecting a skeptical police officer to a powerful shoulder throw.

In 1910, Edith also wrote a series of essays, advocating for the growing community of female martial artists and how self-defense could free women by giving them the means to protect themselves:

“You constantly read in the papers reports of dastardly attacks on helpless women by thieves and ruffians. A woman who knows jujutsu, even though she may not be physically strong, even though she may not have even an umbrella or parasol, is not helpless. I know many women personally who have tried the tricks I shall explain to you and come out on top. They have brought great burly cowards nearly twice their size to their feet and made them howl for mercy.”

The bodyguards

The suffragettes faced dangerous and violent situations. This was especially the case on Friday 18th November 1910. 300 WSPU members marched on the House of Parliament and faced police officers armed with batons. Women were subjected to six hours of beatings and arrests and there were widespread reports of sexual abuses.

Emeline Pankhurst thus asked Edith to train a group of women that would be known within the WSPU as the Bodyguard. Led by Gertrude Harding, they acted as agitators, disruptors and decoys.

Edith trained them in hand-to-hand combat and the use of homemade concealed weapons such as wooden India clubs and the fashioning of cardboard body armor. The suffragettes took advantage of their opponent's surprise and exploited their weaknesses.

They for instance struck directly at a police officer’s helmet to knock it from his head. Policemen were held accountable for the loss of uniform items and had to pay for their replacement. They cut the suspenders so that the policeman had to hold back his pants, blinded the police with a charge of umbrellas etc.

When told by a policeman that she was making an “obstruction” during a demonstration near the House of Commons, Edith pretended to drop her handkerchief, threw the policeman over her shoulder and disappeared into the crowd.

In prison, suffragettes went on hunger strikes and were subjected to force-feeding. The “Cat and Mouse Act” of 1913 allowed hunger-striking prisoners to be released and then re-incarcerated as soon as they had recovered their health. The Bodyguard thus protected and hid those women.

Edith for instance hid militant suffragettes in her dojo, telling the police not to disturb her lessons and leave her property.

A quiet retirement

Edith’s contributions to the suffragist movement ended with the beginning of the First World War. Little is known of her life afterward.

She and her husband would run the Golden Square dojo until their retirement in 1925 and retired to a quieter life. William passed away in 1960. In an interview in 1965, Edith said that her recipe for a long, happy and healthy life was:

“Self-discipline. Of course, I had to be extremely disciplined to succeed at jujutsu and hold my own with men […] but it is the mind which really has control, not only of your muscles and your limbs and how you use them, but also your thoughts, your whole attitude to life and other people.”

She died in 1971. A plaque on the building that had been her home can be seen today: “Edith Garrud 1872–1971. The suffragette who knew jiu-jitsu lived here”.