Original Post: 25 Feb 2014
The views expressed herein are those of the author and not necessarily the views of Esfinges.
By Anna Stępień
So I was asked to write an entry for the Esfinges blog, since apparently “there is too little known about the HEMA scene in central Europe.” Although I might provoke the anger of my brothers and sisters, let me dismount my unicorn, pour myself a nice glass of fern flower tincture, and tell you a little about the mythical creatures – the Poles.
Polish HEMA people can be divided into two categories. If you were lucky enough to meet one of us during some event, you have most probably met the representatives of this particular category. We usually call them Witchers (I hope most of you at least played The Witcher, and maybe some of you actually read Andrzej Sapkowski’s novels). Their main goal is to master techniques which require roundhouse kicks, flying kicks, or quadruple somersaults, even if such things were never mentioned in any treatise (Treatise? Never heard of such a thing. / I was raised by wolves. I was too busy hunting to survive, didn’t have the time to even learn how to read.). They can use their swords as spears and toss them at their enemies. They never lose, they are just kind enough to let you win. They don’t like using bucklers or shields, because a true badass is able to take a hit, if ever, to the head or chest like a boss. They are also not very fond of pole arms – being too far away from the enemy makes it impossible to bite through their arteries.
Typical Witcher attacks the enemies even if they are asleep
They dream of time machines that could take them back to the Middle Ages (poor things don’t know they would’ve probably ended up as peasants growing turnips). Some dream of a zombie apocalypse, when they could cut through zombie hordes like mowers.
Witchers simply love tournaments! Some of them never take their gambesons off and sleep in their fencing masks. The most hard core ones, however, do not participate in tournaments, because they don’t like the requirement to use protective gear (If the folks from the treatises did not use them, why should I?).
They claim to be able to cut anything with anything and if they don’t, it’s because the weapon was not sharp enough or the target was not right.
But let’s leave those uncouth brutes aside and make place for the ever elusive… Well, they are so mysterious that they don’t even have a collective name. Let me call them the Spirited. They live in mud huts in the desert (did you know we have deserts in Poland?), sleep on beds of nails, and feed off solar energy.
A Spirited in an unusual situation – preparing for a sparring, but never forgetting to pray to the gods beforehand.
The Spirited know every treatise by heart and would recite them even if you woke them in the middle of the night. They treat their weapons as parts of their bodies and claim to be able to grow them from their limbs. Even though they seem to live an ascetic life they know how to use Facebook and constantly post their deep thoughts there. For them HEMA is the centre of their lives – it is a tool which helps them find God/meaning of life/link with the nature/their sanity. Those know-alls drop their enlightened ideas on the Polish HEMA community like bombs. Once they decided it would’ve been a marvellous idea to introduce katas to HEMA and there was absolutely no way to reason with them. Some other time, our dear Spirited came up with a new idea for a tournament in which contestants would be awarded points for executing choreographed patterns (damned katas strike again). So don’t be surprised if you hear there is Dancing with the Swords going on in Poland.
They too dream of time machines which would allow them to meet their masters, but they would prefer golden thrones and a gazillion of faithful devotees.
The Spirited are not very fond of tournaments. They claim they distort the technique and move the entire community away from the true meaning of HEMA, whatever that could be. The truth is, however, that they always get their arses kicked and can’t deal with that.
Though you would never see them cut anything with a sharp weapon, they upload videos of weird people cutting weird targets with weird weapons on Facebook.
Are we really that different? I think Poland is not the only place of such a tug of war between the supporters of HEMA as a combat sport and HEMA as martial arts. It takes place on numerous forums, social networks, and disputes during HEMA events all over the world. You read or hear many arguments for one option or the other. Some say that tournaments are the only (legal) way to test our skills and techniques described by Medieval and Renaissance masters. But we all know that the number of techniques used by tournaments participants is limited and there are other issues – like physical and mental preparation, strategy, speed, stamina, etc. – that matter equally, and if you want to be a good fighter, reading and reproducing techniques found in treatises is not enough. And let’s not kid ourselves, a good part of contestants are more focused on winning rather than fighting according to treatises. It is true that by doing so we make it impossible to be able to use complex techniques and moves, and end up drawing only an ounce of the art. It is also undeniable that if we focus on running up the hills, doing almost nothing but sparring, and not devoting our time to read at least one treatise, we cannot say we reproduce HEMA.
So what appears from all the above? Who is right – the Witchers or the Spirited? I can’t give you a straight answer for there is none. It is for each of you to decide. Whatever floats your sword, mate. The key is to be happy and proud of what you’re doing and not to be too serious about HEMA, even if you are a lucky bastard and earn your living as a HEMA coach/fighter, and I hate you for that.
Read original: http://esfinges1.wix.com/e/apps/blog/my-life-in-the-land-of-krakens