Hello and welcome to Steel, Steel, and More Steel, the blog designed to teach you the ins and outs of the fencing world. My name is Díana Duplat Castañeda and I have a little backstory as to why I’m doing this blog. When I first started fencing, I was 7 years old. I thought that Olympic fencing was really cool, Don’t get me wrong, but it was nothing like what I envisioned it to be. Movies and video games like The Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Dark Souls franchise have influenced me ever since I can remember. So when I found out about H.E.M.A, I was really excited to learn the ropes of what this historical sport can offer. So now, I’ll be passing on the information I learned to you!
Today we’ll be talking about H.E.M.A, which stands for Historical European Martial Arts. H.E.M.A offers classes on how to weld any type of armament used during the “ye olden days” up to the early to mid 20th century. It’s important to distinguish that while H.E.M.A is a form of fencing, it is nothing like modern day Olympic fencing. In this post, you’ll learn to weld a variety of weapons, and you’ll use discipline, logic, philosophy, and geometry in order to hone your skills and gain a better edge (pun intended) on your opponent. There are 5 words that every beginner should know; Vor, Nach, Indes, Weak, and Strong.
Vor in old german means before, basically you always want to be one step ahead of your opponent at all times. Nach means after, in which even if your opponent makes the first move, you’ll know whether or not to parry or strike when need be. Indes means “meanwhile” or “meantime”, which essentially means that you react to your opponent within the same tempo or action. Despite sounding obvious, Weak and Strong does not entirely refer to strength in the traditional sense, but rather, depending on where and how you strike. Let’s say that the tip of the sword is up against the hilt of your opponent’s sword, you may find that it’s very difficult to free yourself from your opponent’s grasp while they are barely using any strength. This is because instead of wasting stamina and strength they allow the sword do what it was meant to do via gravity.
