Great Gibbly Gibblets! That was a shock!

[Joshua Hintzen]

I was watching TV after my workout this evening, and immediatly went to my stand-by channels, Discovery and History. I switched to History, and started watching a show about medieval swords, thinking to myself "Here we go, lets see what they have to say about 'broadswords' in this one."
As I watched, they showed some clips of people doing some sparring, and it looked good, really good in fact. Rather like the stuff I have seen some senior members of ARMA do in the vids. As the two sparred, they did a close-up shot and I thought to myself, "Was that Mr. Clements? Nah."

To my great surprise, the very next moment, started an interview with none other then John Clements himself, name at the bottom of the screen and everything! To be honest, I think I stopped breathing for about a min. and a half to better listen! I watched, enraptured by the intent of the sparring! It was great!

[CalebChow]

WHY DIDNT U RECORD IT?!!?!?!?

Haha cool find. Hopefully I'll be able to see that sometime soon--good to see that ARMA is on TV now.

[Brent Lambell]

I saw a History Channel show on blades - it covered swords, knives and axes if memory serves - and that was my first exposure to ARMA sparring. It was not long after that that I found the study group here, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Despite the occasional appearance by people like Clements, RMA is sadly underrepresented on the screen. Part of me thinks we need a cheesey Hollywood movie to get some hype about us, but then I realize that would destroy so much of what we have worked for. Quite the conundrum. This was made even more marked by the trailer for Reclaiming the Blade. I, amongst many other ARMA members, was sorely disappointed by the trailer although I still have some hope for the actual production.

[Andrew Peoples]

I found some clips from the episode on Modern Marvels website. Just follow this link and enjoy!

[Benjamin Smith]

It's actually a fairly old re-run. It was done sometime around 2000 if my memory serves me correctly.

[Benjamin Parker]

Part of me thinks we need a cheesey Hollywood movie to get some hype about us, but then I realize that would destroy so much of what we have worked. Quite the conundrum. This was made even more marked by the trailer for Reclaiming the Blade. I, amongst many other ARMA members, was sorely disappointed by the trailer although I still have some hope for the actual production.

What's Reclaiming The Blade?

[Brent Lambell]

Reclaiming the Blade is a movie coming out from Galatia Films, I think I would call it a documentary about the Renaissance Martial Arts reconstruction effort. I know that ARMA is supposed to be featured although many other groups will also be represented including the theatrical fencing community and probably the reenactment crowd as well.

http://www.reclaimingtheblade.com/main/

There is also a trailer on their website, Youtube and similar sites that give you a taste of what they are going to show. The trailer seems to focus largely on the theatrical fencing but we are hopeful that our art of fencing will be given its due share.

[Corey Roberts]

Couldn't they at least get our name right? It's Association FOR Renaissance Martial Arts, not Association of...

One thing I would really like, is for ARMA to get public and widespread recognition as the leading source on historical european combatives, Although I think it is good and important that ARMA remain a small focused and dedicated organization, and not swell to gigantic ponderous size, and become commercialized and watered down. It would be nice if one day in the unknown future, I say "I'm in the ARMA" people would respond, "Oh those guys are like experts on swords or something right?" rather than, "what's that?" And that the name would carry strong authority and weight, not just in a limited community of people who know about RMA but in the wider public sphere.

[CalebChow]

Hahahaha I like how the Modern Marvels site repeats the same few seconds of the spar recording over and over again just to make it last longer!

Still, the few seconds they showed was indeed really awesome.

[John Farthing]

Other notable things about this episode of the History Channel's Modern Marvels, entitled 'Axes, Swords & Knives', is that in addition to the albeit brief interview with John Clememnts and the segments depicting him 'in action' (which have seemingly become History Channel 'stock' footage, having appeared in multiple programs!), the program also includes ARMA consultant and advisor, Swordmaker Paul Champagne! Careful viewers might also recognize the appearance of Jeffrey L. Forgeng who is notable for his translations of the 1.33 MS and Joachim Meyer's 1570 fechtbuch!

[John Farthing]

My apologies for misspelling Mr. Clements surname in the above post. The error was typographical and not realized until the post listed.

As an aside, the program in discussion here, 'Modern Marvels: Axes, Swords & Knives', is available on DVD through the History Channel's web-site.