The Feast
Hello. It’s been a while since I’ve posted. Do you care? Probably not. Neither do I. So we’re something of a team, you can comfort yourself with the knowledge that you’ll never be alone. Though that might be a horror. Unclear.
Regardless, I do occasionally find some interest in thinking about training or tournament ideas. Most of what I’m posting could be used for either, though with the rising tide of banality in HEMA, training exercises might be where these ideas have the best chance to shine.
In the tradition of far too much preamble before a recipe on a cooking blog, and if you’re unfamiliar with that phenomenon, you should be cooking more; Here’s mine.
With Thanksgiving around the corner, I like to think about connectedness and family. That’s a lie. I don’t think about Thanksgiving at all until I have to put on nice clothes and drive an hour to see people, but here we are. Every year in the U.S. we gather to give thanks to those around us who helped shape our lives and made us into the goblins we are today. In that Spirit this exersise is about connection and, well, violence.
Alright, that’s about all I can manage. With that in mind:
BEHOLD!
The Feast!
The idea behind this is simple but difficult. You may assign any point value to any target you like. I suggest a longer time limit than our typical two minutes, as the approach to this is slower and more deliberate.
Fencers start out of measure.
No points are awarded for any attack made without a bind.
What does this mean? It means any simple attack, cut, thrust, or slice, that happens without blade control does not count.
“But wait!” you yell. “That’s my whole game!”
Yes, everyone knows that. Most people’s game is high-speed rock-paper-scissors. And you’re very impressive, and we’re all very proud. However, for a moment, consider whether that game would be fun to play with sharps. Maybe at this point you’d rather do that than read any more of my writing, and honestly I’d get it. Most people don’t want to die, though, so let’s play a game where blade control is the goal.
From here, I think you can guess how it’s judged: only attacks thrusts, cuts, or slices, that go from blade → body → blade cleanly count.
This means you can either punish doubles by deducting points or just ignore them as non-scoring actions, depending on your preferred flavor.
Afterblows are neither rewarded nor punished, since their very existence means you did not control the blade.
Noodling Will Not Save You
“Noodling” is garbage and will not be counted.
If you don’t know what noodling is, let me explain. Say Person 1 attacks, gets a bind, thrusts, and with the line closed, starts to withdraw. Meanwhile, Person 2 does not parry but instead counterattacks and flops their sword around until it happens to hit an arm or head with no alignment, no intention, no structure. Just a wet noodle looking flail.
That person should be banned from HEMA, but instead they’ll just get no points. And they should be shamed.
Enjoy the Feast. And if nothing else, maybe this will make you think twice before relying entirely on high speed nonsense to carry a match. Blade control exists for a reason. It’s harder. It’s slower. And it’s better.
Have fun and prove it with iron.