WMA Schools

[Sean_Gallaty]

After stumbling on ARMA quite accidentally while doing research to prove a point on a game forum, I did some looking around and found a few other WMA schools appearing to deliver a similar curriculum.

Specifically the SES and WAEMMA

http://www.swordschool.com/en/index.html
http://www.aemma.org/

My questions from this are :

Q: WMA seems to have more questions than answers. So much material is missing or incomplete that this is very much a nascent stage, where the duty is to reconstruct through rigorous practical application and rediscover the art. That being the case, is it premature to have other enterprises studying the same material? Would the greater cause be served better by cooperation and coordination?

Q: what distinguishes ARMA from AEMMA and SAS and other schools?

Q: All of these schools are (to me) novel, and all have a similar founding period, in the mid 90's. Why the sudden (but welcome) upsurge in interest in WMA?

Q: How long do we believe it should take to reconstruct and refine WMA?

Thanks for sharing your knowledge with me.

[Stacy Clifford]

Quick lunchtime answers:

1. There is some cooperation going on, but we are working with ancient texts in antiquated languages, and different brains approach the tasks of translation and interpretation differently when given the same material. Insight very often comes from comparing the different sets of results, so even the people we vehemently disagree with can provide us with a few grains of food for thought.

2. ARMA is larger and has more resources and academic contacts than any other group of its kind, our members exercise a self-policing ethos in our dealings with other groups, and I believe we do a more thorough job of applying the scientific method and Occam's Razor to the task of interpretation than anybody else out there.

3. The internet came along in the mid '90s to connect all us lonely sword nuts to one another and allow us to start pooling our resources. <img src="/forum/images/icons/grin.gif" alt="" />

4. We have made a lot of progress already, but it will never be complete. There will always be arguments over translation and interpretation, forgotten social conventions, lost tidbits of technology, and little tips and tricks that the old fighters never wrote down to keep us from making a perfect reconstruction.

[M Wallgren]

Q: WMA seems to have more questions than answers. So much material is missing or incomplete that this is very much a nascent stage, where the duty is to reconstruct through rigorous practical application and rediscover the art. That being the case, is it premature to have other enterprises studying the same material? Would the greater cause be served better by cooperation and coordination?

Of course there is, and My group and other ARMA Groups in Sweden have good relations with different groups around the world both ARMA and others. I personally think that the variation in organision is a good thing, it makes the Art develop in different ways and give the whole RMA community a greater knowlage. This because different group will get different favourite weapons and variated Idéas on how to interpret the manuals on these arms. But as I think you notised there is some difficultys between the groups and that is sad. But that is what you get if you take a bunch of fighters and have them try to Talk instead of sparr!! <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />

Q: what distinguishes ARMA from AEMMA and SAS and other schools?

Different colours on the shirts!! No, seriously. I´m not sure. I know that Jeanrys Independent Gang in New Orleans do the their trainig mostly the same way as ARMA. I know that the way of training differ a bit between ARMA Sweden and a Group here in Sweden called ROST, but we use the same manuals. Whe have a loose organisation here of swordsmen in Gothenburg, Kalmar and Malmö who as far as I know mostly train Longsword but after the same manuals as ARMA Sweden do. (My apologys if that statment was not correct all you guys in GB. K and M. Ledsen om jag missuppfattat nått grabbar.) But they seem to train in the same way as we do, maybe a little less sparring. (Again sorry if I have missunderstood you guys...) AEMMA I know to little about to say how they differ or not from the ARMA way.

Q: All of these schools are (to me) novel, and all have a similar founding period, in the mid 90's. Why the sudden (but welcome) upsurge in interest in WMA?

Ah, my oppinion is that it is a combination of many things. A upsurge of LARPs, History interesst, Reenactment guilds mixed with a good portion of MAists wanting to find "new"
things. Most of us here in Sweden are MA folk but with a teenage filled with RPG and Historic Novels and Fantasy set in europeanish Medival settings.

Q: How long do we believe it should take to reconstruct and refine WMA?

Forever!! That´s the cool thing with it!!



Thank you for the interesst in what we try to accomplish!!!


Martin

[Sean_Gallaty]

Martin, I think you and I have the same interest in Ringen, from what I read. It's a practical no-nonsense honestly martial style without any adulteration or unfortunate mysticism. It's daunting that so much material is missing, but there's plenty to learn from and fill in the gaps.

I agree wholeheartedly about the value of going from style to style. I took TKD at the same time I studied okinawan karate even though they had completely foreign ideologies. As a specific example, I think I learned more from the differences between those styles than I learned from either individually.

I think one of the most important lessons of all is that the doctrines we are reading are very much a complex compilation of masters who travelled and fought with and sampled many different styles and many different masters.

Above all be humble, right? I'm not advocating being a whimp, I'm saying noone learns anything by holding onto stuff that doesn't work.

I'm in memphis presently, are there any sparring partners closer than murfreesboro? Not that this is undoable if we did some weekends but I'd ideally like to spar at least twice a week with someone better than I am =)


- nox

[Mike Chidester]

T oanswer #4, many of the problems ARMA has with the WMA community in general is that a lot of groups want to believe that they've "arrived" somewhere, and that their understanding of some aspect of the art is perfect. This means that when flaws in their system become apparent, they refuse to change or even acknowledge them.

One of the things that makes ARMA arguably the most successful organization in the community is that we always try to keep in mind the fact that our knowledge is limited at best and even if something appears to work today, we may translate something tomorrow that either sdhows we're completely wrong, or shows that there's a much simpler way of doing the same thing.

The day we decide we've gotten everything "figured out" is the day that ARMA ceases to be the leading RMA organization in the community.

Also, keep in mind that Leichtenhauer spent his entire life seeking out and developing this art, and applying it in battle. But even centuries later other masters were finding ways to improve upon his technique. Is it really likely that we, without battlefield experience and with only a decade or so of experience (at best), are going to unlock everything they found out over the course of centuries? Maybe in a hundred years.

[Sean_Gallaty]

That's a very encouraging response. Really I couldn't have hoped for a better answer.

[JeanryChandler]

I'm not an ARMA member but heres my opinion as WMA student outside of all the major groups....

Q: WMA seems to have more questions than answers. So much material is missing or incomplete that this is very much a nascent stage, where the duty is to reconstruct through rigorous practical application and rediscover the art. That being the case, is it premature to have other enterprises studying the same material? Would the greater cause be served better by cooperation and coordination?

I agree with Stacy and Martin that multiple approaches seem to actually have a beneficial effect. Translating and interpreting these manuals is an IMMENSE task, in which an amazing amount of work has been done. A certain amount of competition between individual experts and the various schools has probably played a helpful role in intensifying this and keeping mistakes from going unchallenged. That said, ego and even misunderstandings have played a sometimes negative role.

Q: what distinguishes ARMA from AEMMA and SAS and other schools?

One major differnce which I think is in favor of ARMA is that they do more sparring, wheras AEMMA and Schola St George and others concentrate more on drill like Eastern Martial Arts. ARMA also uses padded weapons for full force, full contact sparring, which many of the other groups do not do, to their detriment IMHO.

Q: All of these schools are (to me) novel, and all have a similar founding period, in the mid 90's. Why the sudden (but welcome) upsurge in interest in WMA?

I agree with Stacy that the internet helped. I think the translation of some of the fechtbuchs into English and / or modern German, and the publication of Sydney Anglo's Martial Arts in Rennaisance Europe had a major impact, as did the increasingly sophisticated Sword Typology invented by Ewart Oakeshot, which seemed to demand further exploration of medieval fencing technique for academic purposes in undestanding the function of the weapons. This brought a certain level of academic legitmacy to the study of knightly era martial arts which wasn't there before.

Q: How long do we believe it should take to reconstruct and refine WMA?

How long have you got?

Jeanry

[Randall Pleasant]

Q: what distinguishes ARMA from AEMMA and SAS and other schools?

The single best answer that I can given to this question is that ARMA, unlike all of the other organizations that I know about, is a pure martial arts organization. Role playing, renactment, dress up, and sports competition are not goals of ARMA. ARMA's primary goal is resurrecting and recreating a legitimate craft of European fighting skills in a manner that is historically valid and martially sound (quoted from the: About ARMA page).

Note the two standards of ARMA: historically valid &amp; martially sound. The first standard, historically valid, is share by many other groups. This standard means that interpretations of a technique must match the text of the historical manuals. In other words, we must perform the technique according to the instructions given by the masters. The second standard, martial sound, is <u>not</u> shared by most other groups. This standard means that an interpretation of a technique must also work when when the technique is applied with force and intent in sparring with an adversary who is doing their best to make the technique fail. The second standard is a check on the first. If the interpretation fails in sparring then it is concluded that the interpretation is wrong even though it appears to match the instructions of the master. In other words, in performing the technique according to the interpretation we were not really doing what the master instructed - it's back to the drawing board.

[SzabolcsWaldmann]

Hello guys,

as you may know i am the pres of the hungarian Order of the Sword. We can thank ARMA a lot, fo the resources provided on the page and all the great posts in this forum AND the books of Mr. Clements are very important foundations of our training material. i guess, we are quite alike. We even use the same padded weapons! I guess, one of the main differences is that we ecslusivelly use steel blunts for the training maches and technics, and no wasters.

You ask if there is any cooperation with other groups? One tries. We do what we can, yet there are still groups out there who attack us in open forums for not using the sword edges in blocking! The other groups, like SAGA in hungary, who already invited Mr. Clements last year and with which we invited him together this year, are friendly in their aproach. I never met a group which is using the same method than ARMA and which was not friendly.

And to thelast point, when the resurrection will be finished: I guess, even the old fencer masters simply started somewhere. What if the next great master is to be born, and it won't be a resurrection anymore, but a creation process?


Szab

[Randall Pleasant]

Jeanry wrote:
One major differnce which I think is in favor of ARMA is that they do more sparring, wheras ... others concentrate more on drill like Eastern Martial Arts.

Jeanry

I can assure you that drilling is indeed major part of the ARMA experience. <img src="/forum/images/icons/tongue.gif" alt="" /> Drilling in the ARMA DFW study group is one of the primary activities that sorts out those who want to study martial arts from those who rather move down the hill to the SCA and the role playing groups.

[JeanryChandler]

Jeanry

I can assure you that drilling is indeed major part of the ARMA experience. Drilling in the ARMA DFW study group is one of the primary activities that sorts out those who want to study martial arts from those who rather move down the hill to the SCA and the role playing groups.

Of course,

I certainly didn't mean to suggest anything to the contrary. All of the major WMA groups do a lot of drill. I was only pointing out that some of the other WMA groups seem to do very little sparring, while ARMA at least does include padded weapons &amp; full contact, full speed free play as part of their study as well as wasters and real swords (blunts and sharps).

Regarding ARMA training, I only know what I have seen personally I when hosted a major ARMA event last year, which was a day and a half of drill and classes with a couple of hours of sparring at the end.


Jeanry

[Rabbe J.O. Laine]

Hi,

Q: WMA seems to have more questions than answers. So much material is missing or incomplete that this is very much a nascent stage, where the duty is to reconstruct through rigorous practical application and rediscover the art. That being the case, is it premature to have other enterprises studying the same material? Would the greater cause be served better by cooperation and coordination?

I don't know how it is in the USA, but at least most of the HEMA groups of Europe co-operate and share their research with each other quite freely.

Q: what distinguishes ARMA from AEMMA and SAS and other schools?

Hard to say without generalising heavily, but mostly it is differences in the systems studied, and some differences in the mindset the studies are conducted with. I don't know what this stuff about others not studying HEMA as a martial art or not doing freeplay or not seeking to hone their interpretions is, but I can assure you that with most groups it is utter rot.

There is one larger difference between ARMA and some other groups, though - many ARMA study groups seem to combine material from different sources quite freely, while many (most?) others prefer to work with a single text or system at a time in order to develop a deeper understanding of the system in question. I am strictly in the latter school of thought myself, but that really is another discussion entirely...

Q: All of these schools are (to me) novel, and all have a similar founding period, in the mid 90's. Why the sudden (but welcome) upsurge in interest in WMA?

The Internet did play quite a large role in the popularising of HEMA, but on the other hand, there were numerous groups and individuals studying these arts decades earlier as well.

Q: How long do we believe it should take to reconstruct and refine WMA?

It'd propably help if you could narrow your question down a bit. There are still living traditions of HEMA that obviously don't need recreating, and though our recreations may never quite match the systems of old, that does not mean we should not try; it is quite possible to create a perfectly valid system of fencing by diligent study of a historical treatise, but that does take time (years, or decades) and constant questioning and refining of one's interpretion of the text, as well as study of both the text in question and its cultural context.

Best wishes
Rabbe

Edited to add: Please note that I'm not a member of ARMA, so what I say might not quite reflect ARMA's stance on the matter.

[David_Knight]

You'll also hear members of other groups applying modern sport fencing terms to historical techniques, making suppositions based solely on living Asian lineages ("they do X and Y in Kali, so the Europeans must have done X and Y, too"), and using Asian terminology (i.e. referring to drills as "katas", which drives me into a berserker rage <img src="/forum/images/icons/mad.gif" alt="" />).

[Bill Welch]

"There are still living traditions of HEMA that obviously don't need recreating, and though our recreations may never quite match the systems of old"

what living traditions are you talking about? I may be out of line, but I am fairly certain (and I may be incorrect, that is why I ask <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" /> ) that the ties to "living tradition" are sporterized at best.

[Rabbe J.O. Laine]

You'll also hear members of other groups applying modern sport fencing terms to historical techniques, making suppositions based solely on living Asian lineages ("they do X and Y in Kali, so the Europeans must have done X and Y, too"), and using Asian terminology (i.e. referring to drills as "katas", which drives me into a berserker rage ).

I must admit I've never seen a group of any note try to directly apply the teachings of sport or Oriental fencing to HEMA (which doesn't mean it may not happen, of course, but if it does, it's a quite new phenomenon for me).

Besides, it's not like absolutely historically correct terminology gets used all the time on these forums either... <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />

"There are still living traditions of HEMA that obviously don't need recreating, and though our recreations may never quite match the systems of old"

what living traditions are you talking about? I may be out of line, but I am fairly certain (and I may be incorrect, that is why I ask ) that the ties to "living tradition" are sporterized at best.

Yes, some certainly are, and some aren't. There are still lineages of classical fencing, and military sabre, for example, that have remained quite "martial" to this day.

And in any case, combat sports seem to have played a part in European martial training, historically as well, so at least I'd be quite hesitant to go with the current trend of immediately discounting a system simply because it's been somewhat "sportised".

Best wishes
Rabbe