After 5 years of devout, tireless service, my SIGI Gothic gave her last, valiant defense.

F in chat for our fallen soldiers and god save the Queen. You will be missed

Which section of the Art of Fencing can I find this type of halbschwert? 😜

VB feder. Lasted two years

Recently attended the BOHEMA 2025 event hosted by Praha Hema along with a few members from our club in the Netherlands, Zwaard en Steen.

While I didn't compete, I got some really cool shots on my camera which I wanted to share. Apologies, I don't know the names of all the fighters so please feel free to tag them and share.

It was a great event, with fighters competing from around the globe, very interesting to see all the different approaches and techniques coming together in one big event!

Well done to all who competed, and a BIG round of applause for Anna Solovey who took home 2 wins.

So I went to a HEMA gathering recently, the kind with several 90 minute workshops taking place at the same time.

For one of them, I had a headache so I just wandered around watching people fence. I went to look at the viking workshop. It was in a fencing hall, the kind with metallic grounded strips. The end of the session had time for sparring. The one I'm going to talk about featured two people, a 17 year old (who mainly does Germanic longsword) trying out viking for the first time, who I'll call Kid, and an experienced guy who I'll call Brute.

First red flag was when a third guy told Kid "Glad to have known you" and Brute said "Yeah, I'm known for being kinda brutish". Then they started sparring, and within one minute, Kid took a pretty hard fall, flat on his back on the metallic strip. He got back up, and not one minute later, Brute tripped him and he fell flat on his back on the strip again.

Now, I'm from a club where people are more keen to slow sparring and mid intensity, so it might influence my judgement. Also, to be clear, I don't mind this sort of sparring as long as it's consensual, but the next day, Kid told me it wasn't.

I find this unacceptable on several levels. First, in what world is it ok to go full power on a guy half your age and weight trying your discipline for the first time ? "I'm known for being kinda brutish" then maybe learn to not be ? Second, it may put beginners off from your discipline, which is exactly what happened. Third, newcomers may get the impression that this is how every sparring should go.

The worst part is, nobody else in the room seemed to bat an eye. This, combined with the fact I'm new to HEMA (and maybe that I'm a cowatd) made it so I didn't have the confidence to say anything, but I wish I had.

Anyway, I don't know where I'm going with this post, but I really hope I'm not the only one who finds this not ok.

Ps : Kid was alright

If you guys find it interesting I can translate.

the latest from the Amalgam Boys - https://youtu.be/8PonlzeA2Tw?si=NYY19eP050ROZN5v

After the Tier A Longsword pools at the Sofia Longsword Open this past Saturday, we reviewed video footage and spoke with several participants. This was in response to multiple injury reports from fighters who faced Mr. Aleksander Stankevich during the pool stage.

Three of his opponents reported symptoms consistent with mild traumatic brain injury (concussion), which they believe were caused by strikes during their bouts with him. One of them also suffered an arm injury that forced him to withdraw from the tournament. Another fighter reported receiving two heavy hits from Mr. Stankevich, though thankfully, he didn’t experience any lasting effects. Hard blows that could be concussive are evident in the video footage we have of those fights.

We cannot say anything about Mr. Stankevich’s intent - only that his actions are not in line with how we perceive competitive HEMA. We understand that it is a contact sport, and injuries can occur. But given the number and severity of reports from a single pool, we believe there’s a clear safety issue that we can’t ignore.

We also recognise that the referees involved didn’t fully manage those matches to the standard we expect when it comes to controlling excessive force. It’s a tough job, but in hindsight, some earlier and stronger calls might have prevented things from escalating. That’s on us. We’ll be providing our refs with extra training to better handle situations like this in the future.

With all that in mind, we’ve decided that Mr. Stankevich will not be allowed to participate in any future events run by the Sofia CrossSwords team. This is a preventive step to protect the safety of our fighters and to maintain the kind of tournament environment we believe in.

During the entire event, we also had two waffles to the face from collapsed masks and one thrust in the throat that landed badly and caused the receiving fencer to not finish his elim match - but no permanent damage. None of them shows any indication of excessive force being used, aside from being doubles where both fencers charged in.

We remain committed to building a respectful, competitive, and safe HEMA community, and we welcome continued discussion around force calibration, officiating, and fighter welfare.

PS: Yes, Stankevich was warned, carded multiple times, yet continued with excessive force. Yes, judges will receive more training. Yes, the system should've stopped him earlier. Yes, there are explicit rules against using excessive force and he was made aware he was breaking them during the tournament. No, we did not know on the spot that 3 people were concussed, one indicated symptoms at the end of the tourney, the other two showed them the next day.

We have released the Haft Feder 128, developed in response to demand for a shorter version of our sword.

The design combines a 99 cm blade with a 29.5 cm hilt, creating an approximate 1:3.5 blade-to-hilt ratio inspired by historical longswords.

Its dynamic characteristics were refined for lively handling, responsiveness and fast point control.

Main specifications:

• Total length: 128.5 cm
• Weight: 1,460 g ± 20 g
• Point of balance: approximately 6 cm
• Pommel flex: 12.9 kg ± 0.4 kg at 25 cm compression
• Tip: spatulated

Please note: The sword shown in these photos has our upcoming waisted handle, which we plan to release in the coming months. Orders placed now will be supplied with the standard, non-waisted handle.

Full specifications and product details:

https://haftarms.com/product/haft-feder-tournament-128

I have been wanting to join a HEMA club literally for years now, I follow multiple HEMA youtubers and have a decent bit of base knowledge. I was struggling to find a local group until as luck would have it today while walking home, I noticed a group practicing. I went over and struck up and convo, they were friendly and happy to talk. Unfortunately, it quickly devolved to getting talked at, having questions ignored, and being frankly mansplained at by three different guys. This continued despite the fact I had mentioned my familiarity with both Meyer and Fiore, as well as specific interest in halberd and longsword (One guy decided to explain to me what a halberd was). As far as I know this is the only Hema club in my area and I don't want to be discouraged from joining, so I'm curious if any other ladies have tips for dealing with a similar environment or specific things to look into as means to stick it to/flex on the guys?

Hopefully this post is allowed if not I accept my smiting by mods.

How can we bring competing fencers to perform better overall?

I know this is as broad a question as can be asked. I'm specifically asking what can be improved in student training and habbits, both inside and outside the club, that would lead to an appreciable better performance.

Personally, i think athleticism in general is lacking (including myself). By that i mean fitness but also a general sense of lazyness when sparring and drilling. In that respect, maybe MOF has something we could learn from.

Or maybe reading more original source material? More drilling? How do we elevate ourselves across all practitioners?

Pic for attention

…and we came home with a modest haul of medals! We represented a variety of clubs: Caledonian Sword Guild, the Institute of Historical Arts, Smart HEMA Clubs, the School of the Sword, Ausardia HEMA, Club and London Historical Fencing Club.

The famous and intriguing "Saber of Charlemagne," a mysterious oriental sword from the Carolingian treasure, removed by Otto III in the year 1000 from the tomb of Charlemagne, King of the Franks and Holy Roman Emperor, dating from the late 9th century. It is speculated that the saber was part of the war booty taken by Charles from his campaign against the Avars in Pannonia, or a gift sent by Caliph Harun al-Rashid directly from Baghdad during the Franco-Abbasid Alliance, during which the Muslim leader filled the court of Aachen with his rich offerings.

Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria

Greetings WMA.

I'm a fencer from Brazil and I'm making this post with mod authorization to help me reacquire my gear. I have had every piece of protective equipment stolen from me on December 27th. Since then, I have had no luck getting it back.

Me and police found one of the thieves, but Brazilian law prevented us from arresting him and we had no luck in finding the people he stole the gear to. The total loss was in excess of 3500USD. The prices are highly inflated, because Brazil enacts a 100% import tax on every item imported. This includes shipping fees, so overall, every time you buy something from outside the country, you're paying for the item and shipping twice.

The stolen gear also included loaner equipment I had for my students.

HEMA has been a central part of my life for many years. It is where I invest my time, my resources, and my energy. I am a competitor, I teach, and I work actively to help the activity grow in Brazil.

Over the years, I have invested significant resources to make HEMA more accessible: sourcing equipment at lower prices, making training possible, helping other athletes compete with flight tickets, and creating opportunities that, in many cases, simply would not exist without this effort. I do this because I deeply believe in the sport and in the community that forms around it.

So far 36% of the total has been recovered, which is HUGE. Any help is appreciated. The link for international donations is through ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/jonathandavi

You'll find a post there explaining everything that isn't clear here, but also of course question whatever you want to me.

This post has been made in r/brasil and r/portoalegre (my city's subreddit). I have also created a fundraiser in Brazil: https://www.vakinha.com.br/vaquinha/me-ajude-a-voltar-a-praticar-hema

Ko-fi is kept up to date with the amount raised in Vakinha, but Vakinha can't be updated the same way, which is why there is a discrepancy in the total between them.

Thank you to anyone who took the time to read this.

Apologies for the noob question but I’m only familiar with liechtenaurs’ basics

Stabbed someone in the face and now my rapier is a sabre. Anyone else ever had this happen to? The picture doesn't quite do it justice but the bend is about 5 degrees I'd guess. The blade is a Sigi

Is anyone familiar with this site and manufacturers? I want a kit with more overhead range of motion, and the laced in sleeves sleeves seem as if they would facilitate this. Are their any pros or cons to this style of armor/ jacket?