Conversations
with ARMA Director John Clements
PART I, PART II, PART III, PART IV,
PART V, PART VI, PART VII, PART VIII
How
did you get started in all this?
I got started in this at age
14 by taking fencing lessons and dabbling in Asian martial arts, while simultaneously
doing medieval battling with friends and playing wargames and FRPG's. My father
encouraged me because he had done some fencing once or twice in Europe after the war and
then later saw martial arts while in Japan and Okinawa. But for physical reasons he was
unable to pursue any of it. He has made me and my friends a bunch wooden short
swords when I was 12 and signed me up for private fencing lessons two years later. I had always liked history and movies with sword
fights and honestly had been playing at it since kindergarten. I can actually recall as
far back as 1st grade conducting skirmishes in the woods and working out
tactics. I grew up on the east coast of central Florida and we have these plants
called palmetto bushes, their branches grow in blade-like shapes and they made ideal
“swords” for kids to play with. My
neighborhood was also covered with citrus trees. I was constantly taking cheap wall hanger
swords and aluminum slats and hacking at grapefruits and tangerines. In hindsight, it was good practice at aiming my
edge for cutting, they hang right at head and chest level.
Like a lot of people I also did the trash can lid sword and shield thing all the
time. I continued off and on with them
and got interested in kenjutsu in my teens as well as kickboxing, but never seriously and
never formally in them.
How exactly did ARMA or rather, the
original HACA get going?
Hmm, that will take some time to tell.
Starting in the early eighties I felt that the organizations and groups
I’d run across that were doing forms of Medieval or Renaissance combat were lacking
something. I tried to find out about real
historical combat but could only find theatrical stage combat and sport fencing, and
fantasy role-playing, and the ubiquitous SCA-type fighting. (Although, believe it or not,
I did actually enjoy a lot of live-action fantasy role-playing adventures during the late
1980's and early 1990's!). Overall, I just wasn’t intrigued by what I saw, and
neither were my friends. It didn’t
satisfy us. The various reenactment, role-playing, or theatrical approaches weren't
martial or historical enough for my tastes. I met many individuals among them all who I
felt were on the right track on their own, but none of them were pursuing a systematic
approach to using historical sources in an attempt to reconstruct and replicate the old
skills as actual martial arts. There was still too much focus on tournament games or mock
battles rather than to redeveloping the actual skills that were intended to really kill
with real weapons. So, I began to study all I could on arms and armor and
swords....and to fight and train with every type of weapon and person I could. I
eventually discovered the wonderful books by Oakeshott and then a few of the historical
texts. Slowly over time my motivation evolved toward trying to find such an
approach and to promote its worth. It
wasn’t easy to formulate it at first. But
eventually I found legions of folk who had been wishing for the same thing themselves. The
results speak for themselves.
What did that involve?
I struggled and trained alone a lot, but visited dozens of different
groups all around the US. Finally around 1991, I encountered Hank R. and MRL. He got a lot
of inquires by people but very few did he reply to or follow up on. But I think he
recognized some common experience in me. He shared a lot of information and over the next
few years guided me more than he knows. By
’94 I asked him to hand over his, by then defunct HACA, to me to try and run. I was in Orlando then and it was slow going, but
in ‘97 we were on the net and networked with all sorts of folk. A lot of folk were hungry for something like ARMA
(HACA back then) and desperate for genuine info. We blazed the trial for a lot of them by
better defining the subject, bringing the manuals to light, stressing the true nature of
the historical combat and offering examples of how to go about practicing. We were a
role-model for many I know. Others were on
the same path and it simply ignited something that was just under the surface already for
many of them around the US and in Europe.
What about the historical
manuals?
As for those materials, all I could find at first were small snippets
in sport books and Arthur Wise's on personal combat, until I found a copy of Castle and
then works of a few 19th century German researchers. I guess by ’92 I had copies of Talhoffer,
Fiore, Capo Ferro, Di Grassi, Saviolo, Silver, and maybe a few others. That really changed
things. By ’95 or ‘96 we had more than half a dozen historical manuals to guide me
such as Talhoffer's, Fiore's, Marozzo's, Agrippa's, Capo Ferro, Silver, Swetnam, etc.,
and a solid practice system well underway.
Why weren’t you satisfied with the existing effort to
do Medieval or Renaissance combat that you came across?
What particularly bothered me about the swordplay I encountered was
how groups, with sport, LARP, or reenactment, either didn’t take it seriously enough
or had their own bizarre assumptions of how to do it which were unassailable no matter
what flaws you pointed out or what historical evidence you brought to the picture. On top
of this, I was told by many Asian martial arts teachers as well as sport fencing
instructors that Western civilization “had no martial arts”! A few Asian style instructors laughed at me and
asked, “If they existed then where are they”?
Traditional fencing teachers also told me (and some continue to do so
to the present day) that the modern form was the pinnacle of the art and had
“evolved” over the crude and clumsy methods of the past. I found book after book after book by traditional
and sporty fencers that ridiculed Medieval and Renaissance fighting or weapons and were
just wrong about it. I rejected all this. And
as I watched sword fights in movies and TV, which were inspiring, nonetheless always
seemed inane to me. There were so many things that were just silly, that defied physics,
or ran contrary to how the weapons obviously, obviously could be used, plus it constantly
looked fake, people just acted so differently than what my friends and I had learned from
our sword fighting and fencing. So, I began
my quest to find out about the real thing.
Was there any single inspiration
or was it a combination of things?
I’m pretty sure Hank Reinhardt
and a few of his friends felt it was Ewart Oakeshott in his Archaeology of Weapons
who originally inspired the ARMA approach (i. e., HACA).
You can read Oakeshott’s statement in his 1960, Archaeology of
Weapons: “If we carefully read and correctly interpret what we are told in the
Sagas about sword-fighting, and co-relate that with the archaeological evidence plus
–and this is the essential –a practical knowledge of the “feel” of the
swords themselves, we may arrive at some reasonable conclusions as to how it was
done.” (p. 158) He was referring more to heroic Norse literature when he wrote this
but it applies even more so to the many surviving fencing treatises from several
centuries. Oakeshott’s great insight was stressing the “essential”
importance of experience in handling real weapons (antique or accurate reproductions). Together, the combination of historical
information and scholarly research with hands-on practice is indeed the key to this
subject, and that’s what ARMA tries to do.
What was the motivation for doing all this?
A major goal of my
effort has been to help others avoid some of the mistakes, the wasted effort, and the
trial and error that I had to go through in learning about it. If by experience and guidance I can help novice
students reduce some of the duplication of effort and working blind on Medieval and
Renaissance fencing, it will greatly improve how they spend their energy gaining
knowledge. Personally, I feel very proud when
I see people’s eyes open wide in amazement when we show them the richness of the
historical methods. The feeling you get in revealing things that they’ve never seen
of their own heritage before is really good.
Medieval
and Renaissance martial arts as a field of study is still misunderstood, isn’t it?
The term martial art is still too
much associated with exclusively meaning “Asian fighting arts” and people still
think of Medieval and Renaissance fencing as what they see in TV and movies. It’s
consternating when you tell someone you do research in Medieval & Renaissance martial
arts studies, they look at you funny and say, “Like at the Renaissance faire?”
and when you say no, then they usually say, “Oh, you mean the SCA?”, and we
again have to say no.
So what drives you to spend so much time
and energy on these activities and on ARMA, it isn’t escapism or athletic
competition?
No, definitely not those two,
although you do get plenty of friendly competing in free-play. I would have to answer that I have long had an
ambition to help others appreciate this subject and to develop their own natural ability. I’ve always wanted to learn about it myself
and now I want to help other people get the information. A great part of my efforts have
gone into uncovering and revealing our heritage and in the process, dispelling myths and
misconceptions. Helping others avoid the wasted effort and loss of time I endured wading
through nonsense in my early years makes it all worth it. If I can improve the process of
learning about Renaissance martial arts for others, I think its fair to say I have
contributed a tremendous deal. Which is very
fulfilling, as I’ve always intended to make a difference.
That’s
sounds very altruistic, but is there a darker side to it?
Call it
altruistic or not, I don’t care. I can
remember back as a teenager being told things about Medieval and Renaissance arms and
combat by fencing coaches and Asian martial arts teachers that were absolute garbage, and
at the time I suspected as much. But, they
“knew better” and dismissed my questioning as the ignorance of youth. My friends and I use to go and convince different
people from various fencing and weapon arts to spar with us using our simple foam Medieval
swords, and when they did we’d tear them up…as kids we did this! --knowing next
to nothing except that shields and swords were hard to defeat and that there really was
something to European long-swords. So, as I
got older and wiser it was much harder to respect the same kind people making nonsense
comments about methods of fighting they truly had little understanding of. This includes many so-called “classical
fencers” as well as respected Asian stylists. As Joseph Swetnam said in his 1617, Schoole of the Noble and
Worthy Science of Defence: “Some there are which take delight to talke of the
arte of defence, and yet have no insight nor judgment therein”. Thus, I’m determined to provide
today’s youth with the information on Medieval and Renaissance arms to avoid the same
experience with such arrogant know-it-alls. I
look at where I’ve gotten to and what skills I’ve learned on my own and I know
others can do the same if they devote the effort and don't let anyone put them down for
trying.
What have been some of your influences and
inspirations in all this?
Well, there was no one single
person who was instrumental. My father
encouraged my interest at a very young age, and I had always liked history. I will say I had as much inspiration from fiction
stories of Conan or Arthurian tales as I did old movies.
Eventually though, I found inspiration in the career of Bruce Lee and the
Life of Musashi. Then later, the works of
Oakeshott had a profound impact on how I viewed swords and swordfighting. Finally, my efforts were also influenced by the
knowledge and experience of Hank Reinhardt and then by what I have learned of the lives of
real historical masters such as Fiore, Talhoffer, and George Silver.
Is there anyone you have relied on for assistance in your
research or those who’s knowledge you admire?
Oh sure, numerous people over the
years. So many come to mind if I name only a few I’m sure to exclude some without
meaning too. Let’s see, obviously those
having been the most helpful recently with ARMA/HACA have been people like Dr. Anglo, my
German buds Johan Heim and Clause Drexler, my pisanos Marko Rubolli and Luca Porzio,
British colleagues Rob Lovett and Matt Easton, Milo Thurston, and especially Bart W. in
Krakow. Also Steve Hick, David Lindholm, Tom Leoni, Keith Meyer, Paul Champaign, Hank
Reinhardt, plus assorted ARMA members. We’ve
also get frequent assistance from several individuals in Europe who wish to remain
anonymous. As to those who’s research or interpretation work I admire, well
along with most of the names above, clearly Ewart Oakeshott’s work, especially his
Archaeology of Weapons, and
John Waller and Keith Ducklin. And coming to
mind among our community, I would also add people like Mark Hillyard, Stephen Hand, Ian
Johnson, and various work of C. J. Amberger, Stefan Deike, Bob Charron and Christian
Tobler, and maybe a few others I can’t recall at the moment.
Tell us something about your emphasis on weapon sparring?
I stressed this in my books and
much of our online material is devoted to it. Fencing
at the time of the Middle Ages and Renaissance essentially meant fighting skills, and
these were about real fighting with real weapons. To
learn and practice these skills required exercises and one form of exercise was
mock-fighting or “play”. There were
various degrees of doing this play fighting but it was never the goal itself; it
didn’t represent the art, it was just a tool of preparation. But the modern fencing view is more or less that
the “play” form (as a scoring game) is the end-all be-all of the craft. Of course, counting a few
“veneys” between classmates is occasionally good fun.
What about objections to the word
“sparring” in this activity?
I
call it a tempest in a teapot. I believe it
was the sport fencing master and gold medal Olympian Charles Selberg who in 1976 first
used the word sparring in reference to fencing practice. From what we’ve found, the
term sparring comes from the German, “sparren”, which meant “to play”
and actually originates with the ancient Greek “sparphais”. Interestingly, wooden sticks were called
“spars” and the word may even be related to the phrase “to spare”, as
in to withhold or show mercy. By the 17th
century, sparring was used in regard to cock-fighting where the birds would be allowed to
practice slashing one another with their talons. It
later was applied to pugilism and kick-boxing, and from there, to martial arts weaponry
practice. But, what do we call mock-combat training within Medieval and Renaissance
fencing study now if not sparring or free-play? We
know the English called it different things, playing-loose or “loose play”,
playing a “veney” (hits or bouts), etc. If
you can’t use simple terms like “spar”, how do you justify using any terms
like “train”, “practice”, “work-out”, “block”,
“hit”, and so on? Make sense?
How is this historical role of mock-fighting reflected in
what ARMA does?
Very
closely we hope. That’s our intention.
Look at it this way: In understanding the historical role of mock combat, as it existed in
the period, it can be reasonably stated the purpose was not to “recreate”
combats or “pretend” to be kill or be killed, but to exercise. Free-play was a way of performing (within reason)
those actions and techniques that could be safely practiced against another fighter as
preparation for real encounters. Doing so
could also be good sport, and in some instances certainly take on the characteristics of a
sport, that is, with rules and guidelines to prevent injury, make contests
“fair”, or put up a good showing in public.
Today, modern students of Medieval and Renaissance fencing conduct their free-play
or weapon sparring for similar reasons. As a tool of learning, the primary goal of
free-play should be to exercise those elements and principles that teach the practitioner,
as much as is possible, the realistic handling of his weapon in a simulated adversarial
context. (They certainly didn’t go around practicing with foam padded sticks back
then –but then we don’t go around hacking live bodies today either!).
That’s
a good place to end for now.
To comment on this or any
other portion of the
conversation interview series send an email to theARMA@comcast.net |
