Editorial
Losing Rediscoveries
By John Clements
ARMA Director
In 2022, I had a brief and rather discouraging conversation with a young
“HEMA” practitioner in which I merely asked him, "What makes what it
is you’re doing 'historical'?" I offered this question because he had
labeled it as such to some other onlookers. Yet, everything I observed which
he and a few others were doing that afternoon was focused around the new
incarnation of modern sport competitions. He didn’t know who I was or what
I did, so the question was pretty open ended.
His answer was that it was based upon “sources.” Ignoring this and inquiring
a little further, I asked him how what he did is really any different than
today’s Olympic-style sport fencing, which is also in its own way “historical”
and based on "sources."
He replied that what he was doing was “Medieval.” I then asked why was it
“Medieval,” to which he responded because they use a longsword as well as
sword and buckler. Again, I pressed him by inquiring, what is it you do
with them that’s really all that different from the three weapons of modern
sport fencing? He responded that he trains for "tournaments."
At this point, I said, well other than using two weapons together or a two-handed
weapon then saying it's "Medieval," considering the rules of how you are
going about it, I’m not sure I’m understanding in what way what you’re doing
is any different than the tournaments that make up the entirety of modern
sport fencing. He shrugged and said, “I don’t know, it’s just different.
The weapons are different.”
Now, I couldn't fault the youth for failing to give a coherent and convincing
answer as to why such distinct weapons handle and perform in such significantly
different manners. He wasn’t really cognizant that they rely on such significantly
different approaches and core elements. Other than a vague reference to
"mastercuts," he had no real appreciation for the "sources" he said his
new sport is based upon. Neither did I take issue with his mention of "martial
arts" even though everything that I witnessed was unequivocally and decidedly
being done solely as a “martial sport.” Nor did I even take issue with the
fact that the few historical source teachings he was aware of—and for which
he was using what itself was arguably a modern sporting weapon to perform
—are unquestionably from the Renaissance, not the Medieval era. But that
wasn't what dismayed me.
 As
with so many others, that the term “martial arts” was part of the very
acronym he was using as the label for the "historical European” activity
he was pursuing didn’t seem to occur to him. Why? Because training for
sport with sport gear and sporting rules is not doing the “historical
martial art” that he purports to be practicing. The martial component of
the craft means military skills, or more specifically personal
self-defense for close combat, and whether employed for battlefield,
judicial combat, or private duel, they were for centuries essentially
one and the same. Despite the existence of inter-school fighting
displays, and the prominence of knightly chivalric tournaments,
prize-playings, and friendly recreational bouting as practice, these
martial arts were no more focused on sporting contests than was
classical Japanese bujitsu of that feudal era.
Instead, what he and so many others are now doing is really “neo-sport-fencing,”
just one using earlier weapons styled with a handful of associated techniques
taken from older sources. But just like the modern sport version, what he
and his fellow competitors are doing is artificial, stylized, and doesn’t
qualify as an actual martial art. Its purpose is really not to develop,
or recover, the authentic fighting systems. It’s neither being studied or
conducted as a self-defense method following the original Renaissance-era
—not “Medieval”— source teachings. That what he was practicing for sporting
contest was highly modified, limited, and restricted to what referees could
determine was a scoreable point didn’t seem to occur to him or really enter
his consciousness at all. That wasn't a factor any more than was the tremendous
amount of the essential techniques that are completely ignored in his “martial
art” precisely because they aren't appropriate for safely making easily
visible “points.”
This is the very same mentality that can be found among many modern
sport fencers who happily pursue their athletic foil/epee/saber game
under the delusion that they are doing exactly what “musketeers” and
“gentlemen duelists” once did. If it doesn't work in the tournaments or
isn't allowed under the rules, then no attention is paid to it. That
this sport approach was exactly the reason why earlier teachings were
forgotten and lost never really occurred to them.
 Ironically,
the very reason this young fellow’s activity currently exists and came to
be was because more than three decades ago, people like myself grew sick
and tired of the lack of martial character and historical accuracy within
modern sport fencing (and the costume role-playing of “living history re-enactment”
constructs).
Nobody who's seriously worked to reconstitute these lost fighting
disciplines ever did so for the purpose that they could then just be
twisted into another contrived tournament game. In fact, the motive
behind why there was an entire movement towards the field of historical
fencing studies was to rebuild it as an actual martial art and get away
from both the sportified version and the invented fantasy.
We also saw that the "classical fencing" movement was almost as ignorant
and dismissive of martial art skills, reducing it all down to just “swordplay
dueling." We sought to revive the lost combat teachings of the “chivalric
art of defense,” reconstruct the wisdom that made up that “noble and worthy
science,” and recover the rich diversity of fighting techniques and weaponry
that the “Doctrine of Arms” had once consisted of. We wanted it to include
all of the arms and armor and the unarmed combat techniques that the authentic
source teachings contained. This did not mean either inventing a new sport
or reducing all these rediscoveries down to competitive point-scoring.
 Some
25 years ago we were starving for access to the authentic fight books and
desperate for reliable translations of their content. We worked hard to
interpret and reconstruct their legitimate techniques and forgotten wisdom.
We struggled to find accurate reproduction swords and training blades. Now
we are awash in the original source material and have the nearly best equipment
ever. But what are today’s youth seemingly trying to do with all this recovered
martial heritage now? What skills are they concerned about? Far too many
are saying they don’t care how it was done in the past, they don’t care
how real weapons actually perform, they don’t care about the reality of
fighting in earnest. All they want to know is how a few bozos are going
to judge their “scored points” in a sport competition! They look at the
sources and essentially say, “We can’t do that, so why pay attention to
it? The rules don’t permit it so why bother to study it in depth? We're
not allowed to do certain things with weapons, so we'll use versions that
let us do the other things better.”
Never mind that the very reason they are here doing this now is because
after decades of nonsense and ignorance, groups of enthusiasts finally
said enough with the sport and the role-play and the choreographed
routines. We want the real thing from the genuine source teachings. We
want the real skills as they were once practiced from the original
teachings of the actual historical masters. We want the historical
European martial art.
In my youth, just as in my fight school decades later and within the ARMA
as a whole, when we wanted to spar we simply sparred. Sparring was a means
not an end. It was a way for learning and practicing the Art, not the sole
object in itself. We would agree on mutually compatible equipment, permissible
targets, and allowable force for safe actions. We didn’t need a third party
to intervene to tell us when we hit or got hit.
It was the same way historically, whether in the fight school or the
public displays, knightly armored tournaments, feats of arms, and prize
playings. And it certainly wasn’t that way when training for judicial
combats or private duels. It wasn’t contrived, regulated, or refereed.
And above all, it wasn’t commercialized, homogenized, and sportified.
It’s no coincidence that when the regulated sport of fencing came about
in the late 19th century, it ceased in being a fighting art of mastering
weaponry along with knowledge of unarmed fighting. Yet, sadly, this is where
things have largely gone today with this subject, even before fully recovering
and reconstructing the vast depth of material within Renaissance fight books.
 There’s
no denying that historically there was a recreational component to this
subject. The same has been true for almost every combative employed by fighting
men throughout history. But such did not exist by itself in a vacuum. Rather,
it existed only as a part of earnest training to deal with real violence.
The Art itself certainly wasn’t preserved by tournaments and display fighting,
nor can it be restored by it today either.
The reality that they were founded upon, informed by, and continually guided
by is gone, and in its place imaginary constructs have been put up not for
purposes of exploring history, heritage, and camaraderie through martial
prowess, but to fill the need by some for winning laurels —and by others
turning it into a commercial enterprise. All the subtleties and nuances
of skill required to wound while avoiding being wounded in un-armored fighting,
all the finesse and leveraging, all the controlled action as well as the
application of force, is neglected in favor of the abstract idea of mere
‘scoring.’
As I’ve expressed many times in the past: Sparring is a just one tool for
learning the larger Art. Focusing on competitive contests to the detriment
of deeper practice in larger concepts and broader techniques is like mistaking
the paint brush for the image it puts on the canvas. Inventing a modern
version of something that you then call "traditional" even as you ignore
the rebuilding of the historical is hardly a virtuous achievement. That’s
not preserving, that’s discarding; that’s not resurrecting, that’s inventing.
That the young fellow I recently conversed with, so representative of his
generation, is oblivious to the magnitude of the self-defence skill set
found within the larger martial art he believes he follows is deeply saddening.
His admission to me that "We don't really bother with what the tournaments
don't allow” said it all. Perhaps he may want to start referring to his
activity as SHEMA — “Seems like historical European martial arts?” But,
all I can say is, I know what the mission and focus of the ARMA is, and
I know it is a far more noble pursuit.
The ARMA: Real World Skills
from Real World History
4-2024
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