At my club, we practice a mixture of Fiore and Liechtenauer traditions with a slight emphasis on Liechtenauer. As I progressed through the program and achieved my apprentice rank, I needed to pick a treatise for independent study in order to move to the rank of scholar. I decided to go with Joachim Meyer for a number of reasons: The other scholars in my school had not chosen him He is a major influencer on modern HEMA I like the look of his book A few of the more advanced people in my class gave me grief about Meyer being … Continue reading Joachim Meyer, the flawed master

Just a quick post to share a site that lets you create custom 3D printed sword handles – https://powerful-sands-30060.herokuapp.com. Once you enter the measurements and taper of your tang, the site outputs a file that you can take to a 3D printer (provided the printer can make objects that large). You could also send the files to one of the many online printing services if you don’t have access to a printer. Thought I would share, took quite a bit of online searching to find this so I wanted to do my small part to raise awareness of a cool … Continue reading Site for making 3D Printed sword handles

Harnischfechten is an important, yet under-represented part of HEMA. I suspect this is due to the high startup costs associated with getting a full set of functional armor. Still, many of the primary HEMA sources spend a fair amount of time discussing armored combat. If we want to study the breadth of HEMA, then we need to look at armored fighting. When I started researching the subject, I was surprised by the lack of content for people starting out online. Simple google searches turn up mostly costume or decretive armor. I posted a question to reddit and got some interesting … Continue reading Harnischfechten

In a prior post, I mentioned that my school was going to attempt to host our own tournament. After crunching the numbers, we have ultimately decided not to go forward (at least for this year) due to the potential financial burden and logistical strain on a small school. I did want to pass along what I found in case it helps anyone else out there looking to put on a HEMA tournament. The spreadsheet below (I will attach it) calculates costs when the fields are updated and provides an estimate of total costs outside of catering and lodging. My expectation … Continue reading Hosting a HEMA Tournament – Lessons Learned and Costs

There is no shortage of online HEMA articles regarding gloves. Pros and cons of mitten versus fingered, hard shell versus leather, and even steel versus modern materials. I have tried Red Dragons, SPES Heavies, and Koning Gloves (my favorite) and have to say that while the finger and hand placement is certainly a big deal, I find myself struggling more with wrist mobility. If I use forearm protection, the cuffs of most gloves drastically decrease my ability to fight effectively, especially with one handed swords. If I don’t use forearm protection, I get a large number of painful bruises. I … Continue reading Wrist Mobility > Glove Mobility