Based on what? You already said that you don't study HEMA. How would you know if what you're doing is historically accurate or not? Maybe it is but maybe it isn't
Are you assuming that the two are mutually exclusive?
You seem to be the only one who thinks this.
I've been in the community for decades, since it was just as often called WMA as it was HEMA. For the most part we don't care.
When I practice Judo, for some reason, I use japanese terminology for techniques and equipment, despite the fact that I don't speak japanese or have any need for it in my normal life.
Seems more focuses based, some are for learning some are for fun. and some are in the middile. (i use fun to mean entertaiment, as somehing can be really bad but still entertaining) You can probbly get more fun out of something if your job doesnt hang in the balance honestly. (none of this is to mean you cant learn in a fun based one or have fun in a learning based one)
Reenactings whole thing is living hisotry and giving accurate portrayals of life and material culture for the peroid. Well, as accurate as you can get.
I've not said one is better than the other, nor have I one is "right" -- both have valid roles. If you want to role-play a fictional sort of Middle Ages/Rennaisance era world, or just bash at each other in costumes with variously replicated and safed weapons -- cool!! Have at it. Even if you want to incorporate magic or really Live Action Role Play it... Have a ball! If you want to study the existing manuals and treatices and other references and try to replicate the fighting techniques of historical dueling or battle weaponry, that's great too. Maybe I can try another comparison... I enjoy woodworking and cabinetry. Some folks do it with traditional methods, like spring pole lathes, hand powered tools, block and jack planes, etc. Others use the latest table saws, routers, and electric lathes. Both approaches can produce equivalent products like chairs or tables. Neither is better -- and both are fun.I disagree.
He said, "rather than something we just dream up from our imagination", lol this is kind of underhanded....around 6 on scale of 0-10.
"Second, we want to develop actual functional skill", this is blatantly 9/10, daayum; basically implying that LARPERs have no "actual functional skill".
"So if we are studying a sword art then we would want to be able to effectively defend ourselves with a sword if we were attacked by an opponent who was also wielding a sword." ....I mean c'mon, how else would I interpret this? 9/10 on the underhanded meter
LARPING's main goal is to cut, stab, or club the other guy into a make-believe death; no different than HEMA's sparring with fake weapons.
So now you're talking about FORMS, just like Kung-Fu forms vs. Street/Prison Boxing Mike Tyson before he was formally trained by D'Amata. Tyson was around 14 w/no training, just lots of fights & robberies. How would the average Kung-Fu 14 y/o strip mall Kung-Fu dojo kid fare against him?
Similar w/myself; I have no formal training, just lots of LARPING. I bet I'll beat a lot of HEMA people at the 3 year training level.
Short answer would be, "OK"; we can also hard stop after losing an arm should we spar.
As an aside, one of my instructors, Billy Blanks, often referred to people's gi as a "costume".
Billy Blanks gets it.
The taebo dude?
The Tae-Bo dude. I remember when he came up with that name. It was originally called Karobics, but someone stole the name on him. When he came up with Tae-bo I told him it was the dumbest name I ever heard and wouldn't market well. (shows you what I know about anything)
Just to throw this out there... you're going on and on telling us what Tony feels and thinks. Why are you in charge of how Tony feels?
gpseymour wrote: "That you can use a weapon or implement doesn't mean you're using it in an historically accurate way, which is what Tony was referring to as accuracy. "
Nope. For whatever reason you just decided to believe that.
He's trying to explain why he-and-or-others might do HEMA.
Are you sure about that?
I've said similar things about TMAs vs sport arts. When I read this, I think it's about priorities. The priority for HEMA is historical accuracy. That doesn't mean that HEMA prohibits imagination. It simply means that, where there is a conflict between imagination and historical accuracy, HEMA will lean to the latter.
It means that for HEMA, developing that skill is a requirement to be considered HEMA. For LARPing, it's not a requirement. That does not mean that you cannot develop skill with LARP, or that certain LARP organizations don't develop functional skill. Just that you can still call what you do LARPing even if you don't develop that skill/train to develop the skill, while the same is not true for HEMA.
