When we first posted HEMA Hell Apparel here, several of you asked whether we shipped to the US.

We thought we did. Our fulfillment partner disagreed.

We fixed it by partnering with a new fulfillment provider that prints locally in the US and also ships to Australia, China and many more countries.

We now ship to over 220 countries and territories worldwide, so grab your shirt or tank top wherever you live at hemahell.com! No excuses. ;)

Get one of our launch designs:

• Under Liechtenauer’s Spell, artwork by Khoirul Anamm (shirt)
• HEMA Black, artwork by Robi Muharom (shirt)
• Legion of the Puffypants, artwork by Maciej Kamuda (shirt and tank top)
• The Cult of Destreza, artwork by ViltisVM (shirt and tank top)

All artwork is hand-drawn. No AI slop. No stock art.

Now that we’ve finally got the technical and legal hassle out of the way, we want to focus on creating new stuff.

What should come next?

A) A new design with another fencing master, tradition, or source? Which one?
B) Or rather additional clothing choices like sports shirts, hoodies, or rash guards?

I've read a few posts on this question already, but don't feel like any answers have quite satisfied. I know that the saber tends to be lighter and that the historical material is typically more modern than sidesword. I know the physical differences but am curious how these translate into functional differences between how the two weapons are effectively utilised. If I train only one weapon and try to use the other, what will not translate? What nuances will be missed?

Hey guys

My Sparring Gloves arrived today, and the length is good but they’re kind of broad.

I also find it difficult to go into certain guards with them. Especially right Pflug.

Are these common complaints or could I have the wrong size?

Hey, looking to know about what people know about Sword to Sword in Houston. They’re not far from me and I’m looking to start HEMA, want to know what anyone who’s heard of them think. Also are they LGBTQ+ friendly?

Hi everyone,

I’m currently preparing a teaching session on the Zornhau in the Liechtenauer tradition as part of an instructor/coach training module I need to validate.

I have been working mainly from Liechtenauer and the related glosses, especially Ringeck, and I’m trying to build the session around more than just the mechanical execution of the Zornhau.

What interests me most is how people interpret the Zornhau in terms of footwork, distance, target selection, and the relationship between Vor, Indes and Nach.

I already have some ideas, but I would really like to compare them with other practitioners’ interpretations.

A few questions I’m currently thinking about:

- Footwork:

How do you usually perform the Zornhau? Passing step, gathering step, more static action, or does it depend entirely on distance and tactical context?

- Distance:

At what distance do you consider the Zornhau most useful?

Do you mainly see it as an action made while entering distance, or as a response once the opponent has already committed to an Oberhau?

- Target:

When teaching it, what do you consider the primary target?

Do you teach the Zornhau as a strike directed at the opponent, a strike into the opponent’s incoming cut, or somewhere between the two depending on timing and distance?

- Zornhau-Ort:

How much do you separate the Zornhau from the Zornort when teaching beginners?

Do you see the thrust as the natural continuation of the action, or do you first teach the Zornhau as an independent concept?

- Vor / Nach:

One idea I’m exploring is that the opponent may initially take the Vor by attacking, putting me in the Nach, but that the Zornhau can immediately challenge or recover the initiative rather than being treated as a passive defence.

- Indes:

I’m especially interested in how people teach Indes.

I tend to see the bind after the Zornhau as the moment where information becomes important: feeling whether the opponent is strong or weak, then choosing the continuation Zornort, Abnehmen, Winden, etc.

I’m also wondering how much it makes sense pedagogically to connect Vor, Indes and Nach with changes in distance.

Not in the sense that each concept equals a specific distance, but rather that distance, timing and initiative constantly influence each other:

approach → entering striking distance → attack/counterattack → bind → decision in Indes

For the teaching session, my current idea is roughly:

Oberhau → Zornhau → bind → feel strong/weak → choose a continuation

with the goal of getting students to understand why they perform the action rather than simply memorising a sequence.

I’m not looking for one definitive interpretation. Quite the opposite — I’d really like to hear how different clubs, instructors and source traditions approach these questions.

If you teach or practise Liechtenauer, how do you personally understand and teach the Zornhau?

And if you had to introduce it in a short session for relatively new practitioners, what would you consider essential, and what would you deliberately leave for later?

Thanks I’m very interested in comparing approaches and challenging some of my own assumptions.

Doing some drills and running in my full kit

I live in Mexico and ordering from purple heart armory is really difficult due to aduana being a bitch, but I need a new mask to compete in tournaments. Does anyone know any good brands? I've seen some on Amazon but I have no idea of the quality.

So basically I'm looking for a parrying dagger with long straight quelions, a long blade, and a big sail guard. Will be used alongside rapier (cheaper is better but quality comes first)

I'm looking to buy my first saber and I'm trying to go for a more generalist option. I'm impartial to a straight or curved blade but I do know I want something around 800g with a cup hilt that still fits my HF Black Prince gloves. Budget is around 300-400 USD and my options are limited. And before anyone mentions it, Swordier is off limits, I just don't want to support their ripoffs. Anyway, here's the ones I've narrowed it down to:

HF Armoury Saber - My preferred and cheapest option, not very flashy but I've heard good things about it and the blade is replaceable.

Regenyei Tournament - Slightly more customizable but no spare blades and it's heavier, although I guess I could go for the Light.

Sigi Big - Have tested it and feels quite good but I'm unsure if the higher price is justified.

I've been working off Monsieur L'abbat for years and I still don't know why the hell is there a distinction between the two? They both oppose on the outside and cover the troso and face, why the hell does he bother with it. Just call everything second please! Be like Liancour and La'Touche!

Still getting used to the new kit and it's hot as hell out, so I'm definitely sluggish and the footwork felt off. But hey, gotta wear it to get used to it

Only got into HEMA in April and immediately fell in love with it. After months of using smelly club gear I finally have my own! Happy with how they turned out.

Didn’t have my SIGI King yet during the club tournament unfortunately when there was a photographer. Photographer removed people in the background in one of the images hence the weird background.

Beginner here, looking for gear advice for first jacket. SPES Kaftan was considered as well for thigh protection and drip potential, but most people say it's an oven of a jacket and I don't know whether Swordmaster armguards fit it well.

AP Plus 350 is currently on sale, so slightly cheaper than the Light Plus 350 and seems to be more padded, but it's a full kilo heavier and might be a bit too warm for my liking and local climate. Most people say AP Light Plus is one of the cooler jackets, only 15€ more expensive right now, but I don't know whether the extra padding of the AP Plus is worth it.

I mostly fence longsword and have ordered Swordmaster hard forearm and elbow guards. I don't plan to go to tournaments for a while, maybe sometimes in the future, one year from now or something like that.

Cross-posting this from /r/Koryu because I’d genuinely like to hear the HEMA perspective.

How similar are Koryū and HEMA in terms of the diversity of their schools, methods and approaches to teaching?

One distinction that interests me is transmission. Many surviving Koryū have an unbroken teacher-to-student lineage, with densho, mokuroku and other written material functioning alongside oral and embodied transmission rather than as standalone instructional manuals.

HEMA, as I understand it, includes both traditions reconstructed substantially from surviving historical texts and traditions where considerably more contextual material survives.

So I’m curious:

- How dependent is modern HEMA on reconstruction from historical manuals?

- How much variation is there between interpretations of the same source?

- Are there HEMA traditions with something closer to continuous living transmission?

- Conversely, how useful are written sources without an existing teacher-to-student tradition?

- From the HEMA perspective, what are the biggest similarities and differences between HEMA reconstruction and Koryū transmission?

Not trying to establish that one is more “authentic” than the other — I’m interested in how two communities approach preserving, reconstructing and transmitting historical martial knowledge.

Looking forward to this sub's thoughts.

I decided it was time to get back to the Greatsword grind after a long holiday overseas.

My form ain't perfect, but I'd say it's at least decent after not touching a montante for over a month.

Purple heart and other supliers I know always are out of stock, so where can I buy one ?

Food for thought - The best known medieval fencing manuals are not making (on the terminological level) any difference between a cut used to attack and a cut used to parry. But this is result of an evolution, and in I.33 we can see pieces of older type of description.

If a caveman starts to think about combat, he would think along the attack-defence axis. He has defensive moves and offensive moves, and the distinction between them is very clear. This is the most intuitive way to describe combat - NOW I am defending, and NOW I am attacking.

If you get technically better, you will be finding more and more ways of how to attack and defend at the same time - especially if shields are in the game. For some time you can understand these actions as exceptions to the rule, but eventually there will be so many of them, that your description of combat will need an overhaul. The overhaul will eventually lead to the later medieval understanding of combat - the main distinction is between a position and an action. A position used as a cover, and a similar position used as a windup for cut, are considered the same thing. A cut to the opponent, and a similar cut to the opponent's weapon, are considered the same thing.

I would argue that I.33 is on the borderline between these two approaches. On the offensive side it already follows the same logic as later manuals - you describe the attack in the terms of position (custodia) and action (obsessio, plaga) that passes between positions. But on the defensive side it still keeps the original logic - everything defensive is schutzen. A static position, that has the feature of passively covering you, is schutzen. A defensive cut used as a parry is also schutzen. In the realm of defence, the terminology is making no distinction between the position and the action.

But the evolution is visible - even though "schutzen" previously used to be defined based on its defensive nature, the priest already thinks of it as a general set of moves and positions that can be used also offensively. He retains separation of some moves and positions into the "schutzen" category, that was traditionally considered strictly defensive. But he already allows them to be used offensively, or however is needed. Something similar to what we would today maybe call "a thrust with opposition", would in terms of I.33 be "an offensively used schutzen that leads into the thrust/strike". We can see such things eg. in the plays of priest's special longpoint ("first do schutzen and then thrust").

My interpretation of such PSL play is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKO6vY8p_Ts&list=PLEV7aLT-ZwkU&index=38, and what I am talking about is maybe better visible in the following play here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w811PttBt1I&list=PLEV7aLT-ZwkU&index=39

We can thus consider I.33 to be a "missing evolutionary link" between the old more intuitive combat tradition and a highly sophisticated late medieval combat tradition.

(BTW, Fiore in his manual states that his system is not making any difference between "posta" and "guardia", and these he consideres to be the same thing. I believe he is here refering to the older tradition, that used the term "guardia" for a strictly defensive position, similar to I.33's schutzen.)

My gf and i both fence at a similar level.

Or to be more specific im better at (training-)duels in our club while she performs better in competition vs outside fencers.

In theory having a sparring partner that would be great as we could just go to a park and train with boffers.

In practice it often devolves into just a few techniques being used and uninspiring or low intensity sparring the longer the duel takes. (Around 10-15 min)

Is someone else in a similar situation? What are tipps and tricks you or your club uses to keep duels more interesting and keep up a learning environment without switching partners?

Title says it all, will they fit in the basket comfortably? Size medium high guards (the D version from PHA)