Gents having recently gotten into western martial arts I was excited to see all the grappling shown in manuals. I used to wrestle freestyle for state and was good to see most of the techniques easily recongizable. I guess the human body did not change much in history ;)

After surfing youtube though one thing have found bizarre though is the development of this side of the art lacking somewhat. All the weapon sparring demos, martial groups, re-enactments either

1. Don't show grappling at all.
2. Attempt it but its quite poor. They appear to be self taught without formal instruction and emulate moves without the sense of balance, common sense, or true leverage. Like an aikido demonstration where the throwee helps the thrower a little too much :)

This seems strange to me since of the entire medieval fight they are trying to recreate, grappling is one part that can be taught exactly as it was, since it is still a living sport. Enrol at a local club and you can be executing techniques as authentically as a hoplite, legionnaire or knight in no time. Why is no one taking advantage of this?

Of all the videos I have seen showing what I assume to be great skills with blades/armour etc I have not seen a single solid grappler yet.

Two grown (perhaps slightly overweight) men wrestling with plate armor and hitting a hardwood or concrete floor a terminal velocity is probably not what most people had in mind when joining a weapons based martial art group.

You'd also be hard pressed to find a hema group where all people have a set of plate armor lying around. It looks like most people (and groups) focus on unarmored fighting.


EDIT: As far as I know there is no formal HEMA training so if a teacher knows something about wrestling and grappling it's because he has prior experience.

If people want to learn to grapple, there are plenty of good ways to learn: judo, BJJ, and more. Aikido is potentially very useful for armed MA, if you can find good aikido.

You'll find 3 things at a good grappling school: skilled instructors, mats, and students in grappling friendly clothing. In principle, you should be able to find HEMA instructors skilled in grappling. However, good grapplers tend to be specialists. This is common in martial arts. The quality of grappling instruction in predominantly striking MA tends to be poor. To see the same in HEMA is to be expected.

Other things present real difficulty. Armour and weapons are not mat-friendly, and they're not necessarily friendly to the human body. Armoured grappling will chew up mats quickly! So, either train on something like grass, or potentially a sand pit or sawdust pit. Even then, landing on the cross of a sword can be bad for you. It's harder to have good safe training facilities for HEMA grappling, compared to traditional grappling MA, and HEMA grappling is significantly more dangerous.

Finally, there's the question of training time and student interest and capability. Students sign up for HEMA to swing swords. Many students will see time spent on grappling as wasted. Grappling is also much more strength and fitness intensive - need to do a lot of strength and conditioning and flexibility work. Many HEMA students will see such as a waste of time. Many HEMA students are in no condition physically to successfully do intensive grappling training.

This triad of instruction, risk, and students is why we see so little good grappling in HEMA. HEMA competition rulesets also contribute.

But it can be done. Some people who do armed grappling:
Tuchux. E.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s56IVr0fgLc
Dog Brothers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD-YBWkvrGk

Wrestling does seem to be underrepresented in HEMA, but some people are doing it (although most not in full harness). I would like to plug my former teacher Jessica Finley's book Medieval Wrestling. She came from a Judo background, but the book is pure German Ringen.

If you get a chance to take a class with her, I recommend it. She's great.

There are marshal groups that allow punching, grappling, "decapitation" (pulling off someone's helmet) and a host of other techniques, but not many people (myself included) are willing to subject themselves to full contact fighting.

Good points Timo, I had forgotten like a military style, more focus on the weapon , taking it or retaining it. As you say resistance training is the big one purely from a grappling standpoint.

It's hard to generalize accurately when talking about Aikido because the style changed radically after WWII. I can't say how effective Aikido would be for armored grappling; I suppose one of the variables is, "How armored?" I think Aikido's main value to armored grappling would be in avoiding the attack and countering it.

It has been more years than I care to count since I practiced Aikido but any element of compliance in the Aikido style I was familiar with was to allow the "receiver" of the technique to do so without sustaining serious injury otherwise there would soon be no one practicing the art.