Most annoying people in HEMA?

[Mitlov]

Maybe I'm just a stupid sport fencer who doesn't get it, but what the hell is wrong with someone making money from teaching HEMA? Plenty of people make money from teaching traditional East Asian martial arts...

The wrong part is, that most "instructors" use their "clients" as guinea pigs and adjust their "interpretation" over time. Imagine you get a tutor for your child and they "teach" them math but some 2 weeks into the tuition, the collage kid tutor says: "Listen, what I tought you some time ago is not completely correct so we'll have to revisit that topic. I just learned a few new things the other day myself after i looked deeper into hat one problem we couldn't solve." Now, that wouldn't fly with you, right?

There is nothing wrong with instruction as long as you are honest about it and don't charge for it.

I think a science tutor deserves to be paid for tutoring regardless of whether they're tutoring in a well-established field of science or a new-and-rapidly-evolving field of science. You're paying them for their attention and effort and time.

[SeanH]

Agreed. You must have an impressive trust fund, Sven, to be able to think of teaching and researching HEMA full time without bothering about any revenue from your students.

[Reinier]

Yes - I would prefer a teacher who comes back to a topic with new information when he gets that, rather than one who would swipe the new information under the carpet just to appear to have been right all along.

[Phil C]

"Listen, what I tought you some time ago is not completely correct so we'll have to revisit that topic. I just learned a few new things the other day myself after i looked deeper into hat one problem we couldn't solve." Now, that wouldn't fly with you, right?

As a Psychotherapist I say almost exactly that to my clients roughly once a week, my Supervisors and colleagues say it to me too. To do otherwise is considered bad practice and irresponsible ethically.

I have no problem with it at all, and would rather expect it in a martial arts context too to the point I'd be rather supicious if someone was teaching exactly the same thing over the years without any changes.

[The Salmon Lord]

I reserve my contempt for sports fencers and taekwando practitioners.

BD

Okay, I have to ask, since I've repeatedly mentioned my taekwondo background in discussions with you in the past week (on this forum and fencing.net)...is this a dig at me or is taekwondo something that regularly comes up on HEMA forums?

If Mr Dummy criticised two things I did I'd be sure to keep on doing them.

[Joeli]

Fiore Furlan. He seems to be a complete git with an inconplete manuscript.
Of course there are irking contemporaries too, but they are mostly from teh Internet, so don't really count as people.

[admin]

For the record, I agree completely with the right to make money from teaching or providing any other kind of service. To suggest otherwise is just either jealousy or dickish.

Now, how about people who always complain about how tournaments are run, but never try to help run one?

[Cutlery Penguin]

Ooh, boohoo! I'm just spelling out what EVERYBODY thinks about at least one certain HEMA individual.

Nice. You're one classy guy. Name names or shut the f*ck up coward.

You haven' t been around much in forums, have you?

Lol! I really hope that's a pathetic attempt at an informed insult. Because if not it shows you for the ignorant tosser you really are.

[admin]

For the record, 'Sven' can no longer reply. Not specifically for what he said above, for but being 100% consistently a massive twat since joining here.

So I guess we can add 'Sven' to the list here, though I doubt any of you will hear of him again.

[Cutlery Penguin]

For the record, 'Sven' can no longer reply. Not specifically for what he said above, for but being 100% consistently a massive twat since joining here.

So I guess we can add 'Sven' to the list here, though I doubt any of you will hear of him again.

Bravo!

[Lyceum]

I kind of agree; on the other hand I figured he was being ironic and following some sort of in joke I wasn't privy too. I mean nobody in their right mind could hold forth thusly on Fiore, for example.

[Cutlery Penguin]

Okay, I have to ask, since I've repeatedly mentioned my taekwondo background in discussions with you in the past week (on this forum and fencing.net)...is this a dig at me or is taekwondo something that regularly comes up on HEMA forums?

It certainly looks like a dig to me. If I were you I'd have that in my signature faster than you can blink. The fact that you have progressed to subtle digs means you have been accepted.

I'll leave it up to you to decide if that is a good or a bad thing.

[JimC]

Umm... What are you talking about? Posta di Donna is shown in a variety of different ways, including at least two that correspond to 'vom tag'. What on earth is 'fancy' about Fiore guards? Nearly all of them can be found also in German, French and English sources....

This:


Is not this:


or these:




Even if they are used for similar purposes in similar ways. People standing in lower vom tag are not in a Fiore guard. I am not suggesting that Meyer doesn't have a version of Vom Tag that is very similar to Posta di Donna, but that many Fiorists stand in lower vom tag.

[admin]

Though the example you have shown from Getty on the bottom left there is essentially a 'low vom tag'.

Bear in mind that the image from 'Von Danzig' at the top there is showing a weird angle, not perpendicular as Getty is showing. You may argue that the left hand is pushed further back and out in Fiore's version, but even by my standards this is splitting hairs somewhat.

Of course you can also find mezza porta di ferro, denti di cinghiaro, tutta porta di ferro, posta longa, posta di donna la soprana etc in German sources.

[Lyceum]

And no doubt similar ish postae in the Japanese sources too. I think all of us were pleasantly surprised when the that video detailing a tentative re-construction of the Chinese longsword went around a few years ago because we recognised quite a bit.

Body mechanics are going to be similar everywhere. You need much more than static pictures...

[SeanH]

Based on the images in the manuscripts, my view of donna is that the body should be turned to the side (deceiving by hiding/partially hiding the hands), rather than facing almost forwards as in the vom tag stance. So I agree with Jim about many people standing in vom tag when they think they're in PdD.

[Steve Reich]

Goddammit! I insist on being on that list, and I want to be named by name rather than lumped in with some group. I'm annoying enough that I don't need or want reinforcements!

Also, add people whose opinions are wrong.

Steve

[Motley]

Based on the images in the manuscripts, my view of donna is that the body should be turned to the side (deceiving by hiding/partially hiding the hands), rather than facing almost forwards as in the vom tag stance. So I agree with Jim about many people standing in vom tag when they think they're in PdD.

Yeah to me there is a lot more torso twist in Posta di Donna than in most representations I have seen of vom tag. The left shoulder is quite twisted round, I think that this changes the mechanic a bit.

In the pictures Jim linked the sword looks as though it is just pointing backward over the shoulder, while in all(*) of Fiore's Posta di Donna the point is 'almost' pointing forwards due to the torso twist. This allows the whole lift over the head thing to thrust etc.

To my mind this creates a difference in practice, there are a lot of Fiore people who do just hold the sword over the shoulder while facing the opponent straight on and call it Posta di Donna. To me this is blatantly incorrect (and annoys me to bring it back on topic! ) Now I am not pointing at any one here, in fact iirc Matt is one of the people I have seen doing it more how I would like to think I do it. What surprises me though is how few people that practice Fiore seem to actually try to look like how it is shown in the images. They don't 'get' it or give it long enough to try it and so dismiss it.

Anyway this is mostly off topic here but would make a good discussion in the Fiore section should any one care enough

(*) apart from to my immediate recollection the 'sword that is not a sword' in the PD, but one swallow does not make a spring.

[John H]

There was an almost funny thread on the ARMA site a while ago on ‘LVT’/Donna and letting it touch the shoulder. Apparently the answer is to hold I just above the shoulder and do not let it touch. This topic has some almost hilarious history IMO.

Frankly I don’t give a krap and if it pisses you off that I rest my blade on my shoulder then good. If you let it get to you in the fight, I’ll keep doing it just to throw you off. Fights are a good portion physiological and if you get that worked up about it, then you are doing something far more ‘wrong’ than anyone else.

[Motley]

Though the example you have shown from Getty on the bottom left there is essentially a 'low vom tag'.

Bear in mind that the image from 'Von Danzig' at the top there is showing a weird angle, not perpendicular as Getty is showing. You may argue that the left hand is pushed further back and out in Fiore's version, but even by my standards this is splitting hairs somewhat.

Of course you can also find mezza porta di ferro, denti di cinghiaro, tutta porta di ferro, posta longa, posta di donna la soprana etc in German sources.

Matt, I must admit I am somewhat confused, I though you were in the do what the manuscript say's camp

To me these distinctions are quite important even if small. If we just say "oh yeah Posta di Donna is Vom Tag" then where do we stop? Throw in a Masterhau cos Fiore missed it(*)? I find that once I started trying to do it as exactly as I could then I started to notice other things that clicked together. If I had not done that then I would never have made some realisations that I did. Oh course I may be just inventing sh!t

(*) did I just straw man or slippery slope?