Re: Recreational Sportification Ruins Historical Combat

[Michael Kelly]

So I just read this article and as I've never seen any such 'sport' in action I'm curious, by what rules are they governing their 'matches'?

I'm not asking because I have any interest in partaking of such an activity, but I'd like to know where my disagreement with such a sport would lay. As a point of example I will use the Dog Brothers 'Gathering's'... On the surface I like the idea of their meathod of testing their skills. However, as I watch videos of their matches I find much to dislike. Most seem to lose focus of the stick as their primary weapon and the duels turn into grappling matches with sticks. I also always think to myself when I see someone take a clean strike to the head when the charge into grappling range, 'that would have ended the fight...'. It seems the reules of the Gathering matches go against exactly what the group attempts to achieve in realism and gives a false sense of what a fight would really be.

Now as for the sporting ARMA/HEMA matches, if they were conducted in a manner of 'a killing strike wins' perhaps that would be one thing, However, it sounds like there is some sort of point system. Is this accurate? Even under the idea that 'killing strike wins' it would require the disregarding of lesser strikes that would potentially be debilitating in real life; as well I can see some other stupidities filtering in.

No matter what, I can't see this as a good idea, but before I solidify my stance against such an idea, I'd like to be sure of the rules...

[Vincent Le Chevalier]

Hi Michael,

There is no universal ruleset in the HEMA world, as such it's not a unified sport as kendo or boxing can be. There are widespread ideas but you can find tournaments with a great variety of rules.

Most often

• Matches are played to a certain number of points or to a certain time limit
• Matches stop when blows connect (sort of like in sport fencing as opposed to boxing or indeed Dog Brothers)
• The 'afterblow' is allowed: when you have been hit you have a certain time or a certain number of actions to try to hit back. This has been found to improve the martial spirit as you cannot immediately relax after a hit and you don't give up after being hit
• Double hits are penalized. The exact way is highly dependent on the tournament
• Some degree of grappling is allowed, but not so much that it becomes a wrestling match

In some tournaments you can score more points when the judges estimate that your technique was clearer or had qualities beyond the fact that you have hit.

The sporting element introduces some distortion, of course, as any training does. Not necessarily more than other forms. The key point is that, so far, people use tournaments to try to get better at their martial arts, and the rules are often modified to provide a better environment. How long this will last, though, is anyone's guess, but even if pure sporting groups started to form, it wouldn't impede the progress of others so much. There are already a lot of martial sports and yet there is not shortage of people wanting to study martial arts, so I guess it will be OK

Regards,

[Ben Martin]

[quote="Michael Kelly"]
Now as for the sporting ARMA/HEMA matches, if they were conducted in a manner of 'a killing strike wins' perhaps that would be one thing, However, it sounds like there is some sort of point system. Is this accurate? Even under the idea that 'killing strike wins' it would require the disregarding of lesser strikes that would potentially be debilitating in real life; as well I can see some other stupidities filtering in.

No matter what, I can't see this as a good idea, but before I solidify my stance against such an idea, I'd like to be sure of the rules...
[/quote]
Many agree with your initial impression.

Others are proponents of the argument that without some form of 'crucible' within which to test oneself, a practitioner could not be certain that (s)he would really be capable of applying the art in a time of stress. Thus a competitive/sportive component of training is highly valuable, as long as there is recognition of its limitations.

That debate has been going for quite a while:
http://www.swordforum.com/forums/showth ... ting-rules

http://www.swordforum.com/forums/showth ... Double-Hit

http://www.swordforum.com/forums/showth ... u-in-bouts

http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic ... tournament

http://www.newyorklongsword.com/articles/WMAB.pdf