Hello all,

About a year ago I took my obsession to swords to a new level. I found a group in my area that actually teaches me how to really use swords and other weapons. They use the teachings of masters from corresponding time periods and we use steel trainers - not that rattan SCA stuff. It's awesome. I enjoy my collection so much more now.

I suspect that a good deal of you probably already study Western Martial Arts. I wish I could have started this years ago. I decided to start this thread in hopes of getting more people into the WMA community. I would like to get together a collection of what we all study and where, so that anyone else who wants to do something like this can join us.

If you study any western martial arts then please respond with some information. I have an example format below for what I've done, but feel free to change it or add to it as you see fit.

I study mostly with Tattershall school of Defense, but we intermingle a lot with La Fratellanza and the Phoenix Society of Historical Swordsmanship.

What I have studied so far:
Italian Longsword of Fiore dei Liberi.
Some influence form other italian and german masters.
One of my instructors has a website: learningfiore.org

Italian Sword and buckler/cut and thrust
Our main source is Marozzo, but there are plenty of other sources that get used
The Order of the seven hearts has some good stuff on their website.

Italian rapier
We mainly use William E. Wilson's translation of Capoferro's "the Art and Practice"
You can get Wilson's translation for free here. http://mac9.ucc.nau.edu/manuscripts/CapoFerro-GRAUF.pdf

I would someday like to learn more about the following:
I:33 -sword and buckler
Anything with polearms, which Fiore covers, but I'll take about anything.
French-Indian war style long knife and tomahawk style fighting. Dwight C McLemore has a book out on this (which I own) and it's great. We'll get to it with Tattershall or Fratellanza eventually...
Baritsu


Who else wants to share? The more the better!

Hi Eric

Good idea on the thread - I'd also be interested to know what other people are using.

We are lucky enough to have an instructor (Colin) who has studied most of the older manuals as well as Renaissance. A couple of us are also experienced Eastern Martial artists. School is Order of the Boar based here in good old New Zealand.

Unarmed - Fiore with some old school jujitsu thrown in, in particular on how to fall. Bob Charrette's book covered balance taking for unarmed and dagger well.
Dagger - largely Fiore
Sword and Buckler - I.33
Longsword - Fiore with a small amount of German system as well. Have done both armored and unarmored drills and techniques


We've yet to start polearm but it will be Fiore and Le Jeu de la Hache

The school is quite small: not more than 6 or 7 regulars at the moment. Hoping to fix that! Callum and Colin (our instructors) run workshops to try and attract the wider reenactment community which seem to go over well

regards

mike

Hello,

My group as a whole studies the Liechtenauer tradition, but I first studied under Bob Charron's interpretations of Fiore dei Liberi ;) I dabble in both styles :D

So far we have studied Longsword, pole axe and are just now getting involved with wrestling and dagger. We start off doing the Blossfechten techniques, but we have been stepping up into the harnishfechten techniques as more people in my group are putting together armour.

We as a group not only study the fighting techniques, but we also do armouring and living history. Our year in the group is 1415, during the hundred years war and we plan on participating in 2015 for the 600th anniversary of the battle of Agincourt :D

We get together twice a week to make armour and crafts, then train. I really enjoy how we have combined living history with HEMA, makes you get a better sense of what they would have gone through back then with the equipment of the time.

Here is our website - http://www.kcsword.com/

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Demonstrating Pole axe techniques

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We did a medieval lecture at Kstate last year. Demonstrated some fighting a discussed the battle of Agincourt [ Download ]

I'm really surprised that especially in the USA exists groups which are do not fight but lives also like in the 15th century. :cool: I really thought that such groups are rather in Germany common.

I learned at first fencing and later fighting with the longsword in some sport clubs. Often we had interpret and used the methods and techniques by Johannes Liechtenauer (German school of fenching).
Since some years I'm not more active in this sport (no sportclub in the region, I have now a family and so on). But we intent to become a member in a medieval group to live the ancient live. :)


BTW.: What means HEMA?

Well, we have two schools down here; HEFT and Stoccata. The former teaches mostly Liechtenauer (and argues that Fiore is part of that greater tradition), the latter's core curriculum is English.
I should state before I list them that whilst I have a penchant for Italian systems, I take a sort of Jeet Kune Do philosophy to my learning. Study, read, and practice what's on offer then remove redundancies and modify the result to suit you.

What I'm learning:
- Single sword (Silver).
- Longsword (German/Italian).
- Bartitsu.
- Horse riding.

What I'd like to learn:
- Armoured and by extension anti-armour.
- Polearms, polearms everywhere! Spears, Lance, pikes, halberd, partizan, bill, glaive, long staff, quarter staff, all the polearms! :lol:
- Sword and Buckler (I.33 to Renaissance) and by extension shields in general.
- Dagger and grappling (Italian/German).
- Wrestling (e.g.catch-as-catch-can, older systems and styles too. Not the sport codified versions either).
- Pre-Queensberry pugilsm.
- Different single sword systems (dussack etc.).
- Mounted combat.
- Montante and by extension Destreza and Esgrima Común. Iberia in general.

So yeah, just a small list...

Eric

I have been a member of ARMA for 12 years and I study longsword, sword & buckler, and dagger.
The sword & buckler of I.33 is currently my main focus.

Ran Pleasant
ARMA DFW

I study German Unarmored (Blossfechten) Longsword. I teach at Redlands Fencing Center, in Oklahoma City, OK USA.

Here's a short video of a student and myself fencing, to give you an example of what some of the techniques look like when used in free-play:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QbP8a7ComE (i'm the guy in white pants)

I also do modern Sport Fencing and am an A-rated epee-ist.