Here we are again, looking at another collection of brief notes rather than full blog posts. Enjoy these little short shots, like the way you'd enjoy sitting down with a friend having a pleasant and light-hearted conversation over a cup of Joe!
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| Care for a cuppa? |
The Ebb and Flow of Things
There is an ebb and flow regarding most everything in our lives, including even the things about which we are passionate. Obviously, this would also include our HEMA passions. However, I don’t personally see this as being a bad thing, and may, in fact, be something that can reinforce our passions and strengthen our desire to do better and better.
This ebb and flow nature shouldn’t come as any surprise to us if we think about it. After all, it’s difficult to maintain the same high level of interest, enthusiasm, and drive about everything all the time, even the things about which we hold most dear.
Think about it, for a moment: Even if you absolutely love your job, chances are good there are days in which you just don’t want to. You might have a hobby or a favorite pastime that, given the chance to do, you are rather blah about. Even as a parent there are days when making sure the kids are clean, fed, and protected is about all the excitement you can muster; no Super Daddy or Mommy awards that day!
So why should it be any less for HEMA, which is typically time-intensive and is always energy-intensive? Plus, of course, even though we’re safety minded and injuries don’t often happen, there are still times when we have a bad bruise or maybe a knee that’s sore from one too many springing Krumps. It takes an awful lot to keep up a constant, high-intensity level for HEMA.
This all means there are often periods when we are less enthusiastic for the regular training and the intensity our beloved art requires than usual. But I don’t think this is really a bad thing at all. Taking a little time off from anything we love can make us appreciate it all the more when we return.
Maybe you’re a little tired, a little worn out, a little beat up from constant training and you’re not really feeling it. Take off a day, or a week, or a month. Take that time to build your body back up, but also to enjoy some relaxation time while reading a few of your favorite historical sources – after all, doing HEMA is as much researching and studying as it is training and drilling.
Then when you return, you’ll feel refreshed and invigorated, eager to jump back into your art. You might very well have a different perspective and something that’s been vexing you, the way putting aside a problem can sometimes lead to an epiphany regarding how to solve it.
We're Not Doing Everything
We all work really hard to capture the historical features of our art, to make sure everything is historically valid, and do our best job of recapturing these historic martial arts. But, if we're being honest, we have to recognize we're not doing everything about it.
This is especially in reference to the earlier era focus of our club, which temporally speaking is around the late 1300s to the early-mid 1400s. This was a time when the skills we study were still very much a required part of staying alive given the uncertain nature of life in Europe at this time.
Europe had come out of the Black Death some decades before, but there were still vast swathes of the continent in which villages had long ago been abandoned and the fields grown over, swathes in which wild animals and prowling highwaymen held deadly sway. The Hundred Years War was still being intermittently fought, which meant mercenary armies ravaged all over various portions of Europe. Italy -- or more accurately the various city-states such as Florence, Milan, and Venice -- was perpetually at war with itself, so there the mercenary armies were even worse, with life little safer in the cities.
Bottom line is, the arts we now try to recapture were far more violent, intense, and dangerous than what we actually do. Kicks to the knees, groin, and gut were a perfectly reasonable response in certain circumstances, as were various grappling techniques designed to snap bones and destroy joints. Getting into the bind could easily turn into Ringen am Schwert, which could then just as easily turn into a dagger sticking into your eye.
Now, I'm obviously not advocating such a slavish devotion to historical validity that we're smashing out knees or anything; that'd be beyond insane. I'm not saying this is a bad thing at all. I am, however, saying that we should be aware of this and study the full aspect of what they did at that time without actually doing it, mostly because of smashed knees.
And the occasional dagger to the eye. Yeah, that too.
In the following video, Ian LaSpina, a living historical reenactor who focuses on recapturing the armor of a 15th Century knight and runs Knyght Errant, discusses capturing the historical aesthetic when putting together a kit together.
Watch his video before reading further.
After watching the video it got me thinking that this really applies to our work in HEMA, if we can extend the definition of "aesthetic" to include making certain our interpretation of the techniques is as historically accurate as possible.
I think the part that is most applicable to our HEMA interpretation is when he discussed being cognizant of the modern bias we will all naturally have. Again, we can't fully dispense with it, but if we are aware of it then we can minimize it to the greatest extent possible. If we enter into interpretation already knowing we're going to perceive things a certain way, ways not intended by the original Master, then we're more likely to avoid making a modern adaptation of historical techniques and just calling them valid.
I am intentionally not going to go into a great amount of detail on this particular subject because it's going to be a part of the next blog entry, but it's such a cool idea I wanted to at least mention it here.
I was recently reading an article about how to be a success, and this idea of intentionally developing a "beginner's mind." This is, according to the article, a concept from Zen Buddhism that encourages one to always see the world in a new light so we can avoid the problem of coming "up with old answers to difficult problems."
This is, to my mind, such a valuable mindset when it comes to HEMA. It's so easy to get stuck in a rut of always having done the same thing the same way, even though it's never felt quite right or seemed to really work. Yet, because that's the way we were taught or what we were told is right that's the way we've always done it. But having a beginner's mind always us to escape the limits of our own paradigm for a moment, and in so doing open ourselves up to something truly wonderful and new.
Europe had come out of the Black Death some decades before, but there were still vast swathes of the continent in which villages had long ago been abandoned and the fields grown over, swathes in which wild animals and prowling highwaymen held deadly sway. The Hundred Years War was still being intermittently fought, which meant mercenary armies ravaged all over various portions of Europe. Italy -- or more accurately the various city-states such as Florence, Milan, and Venice -- was perpetually at war with itself, so there the mercenary armies were even worse, with life little safer in the cities.
Bottom line is, the arts we now try to recapture were far more violent, intense, and dangerous than what we actually do. Kicks to the knees, groin, and gut were a perfectly reasonable response in certain circumstances, as were various grappling techniques designed to snap bones and destroy joints. Getting into the bind could easily turn into Ringen am Schwert, which could then just as easily turn into a dagger sticking into your eye.
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| Thaaaaaaat's gonna hurt! |
Now, I'm obviously not advocating such a slavish devotion to historical validity that we're smashing out knees or anything; that'd be beyond insane. I'm not saying this is a bad thing at all. I am, however, saying that we should be aware of this and study the full aspect of what they did at that time without actually doing it, mostly because of smashed knees.
And the occasional dagger to the eye. Yeah, that too.
The Aesthetic of History
In the following video, Ian LaSpina, a living historical reenactor who focuses on recapturing the armor of a 15th Century knight and runs Knyght Errant, discusses capturing the historical aesthetic when putting together a kit together.
Watch his video before reading further.
After watching the video it got me thinking that this really applies to our work in HEMA, if we can extend the definition of "aesthetic" to include making certain our interpretation of the techniques is as historically accurate as possible.
I think the part that is most applicable to our HEMA interpretation is when he discussed being cognizant of the modern bias we will all naturally have. Again, we can't fully dispense with it, but if we are aware of it then we can minimize it to the greatest extent possible. If we enter into interpretation already knowing we're going to perceive things a certain way, ways not intended by the original Master, then we're more likely to avoid making a modern adaptation of historical techniques and just calling them valid.
The Beginner's Mind
I am intentionally not going to go into a great amount of detail on this particular subject because it's going to be a part of the next blog entry, but it's such a cool idea I wanted to at least mention it here.
I was recently reading an article about how to be a success, and this idea of intentionally developing a "beginner's mind." This is, according to the article, a concept from Zen Buddhism that encourages one to always see the world in a new light so we can avoid the problem of coming "up with old answers to difficult problems."
This is, to my mind, such a valuable mindset when it comes to HEMA. It's so easy to get stuck in a rut of always having done the same thing the same way, even though it's never felt quite right or seemed to really work. Yet, because that's the way we were taught or what we were told is right that's the way we've always done it. But having a beginner's mind always us to escape the limits of our own paradigm for a moment, and in so doing open ourselves up to something truly wonderful and new.
⚔
OK, friends, I hope you enjoyed the third in our series of Short Shots.
Stay loose and train hard!
-- Scott
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