HEMA News Agency

 from Blackbelt website:

The Return of Western Sword Fighting

Few realize that modern boxing has its roots in the fighting systems of medieval Europe. In fact, the tradition of holding matches on a raised, roped-off platform evolved from the medieval method for publicly testing fencing students, an event known as “playing one’s prize.” A reminder of this ancient rite still survives in the term “prize fighter.”

Of course, medieval fencing bore little resemblance to the modern sport. Students trained in a variety of weapons, including the sword, spear, polearm, dagger and mace, along with a form of unarmed combat called ringen. The medieval warrior practiced a system of combat that took into account all the ranges, weapons and armor styles he was likely to encounter.

No unbroken medieval fighting tradition exists today, but many organizations are painstakingly reconstructing these arts from historical combat manuals written by the great “Masters of Defence,” such as Fiore dei Liberi, Johannes Liechtenauer and Hans Talhoffer. In the historical European martial arts community, these manuscripts are signposts to recovering the lost skills of the western warrior...

 The whole documentary can be found here:

part1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpEC38sL3iU&feature=related

part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Hy_A9vjp_s&feature=related

The documentary is in German but is well worth watching even for non German speakers.

 Dom Diogo Gomes de Figueyredo's work on the use of the Montante, the two-handed sword native to Spain and Portugal, is now available in English translation. This is a relatively short work dated to the 1650's, but represents almost half of the currently known material for this weapon from these two countries.

 The lecture also presents exercises and a call to action on sharing of ideas regarding fitness within the community.

 "The Western Martial Arts Coalition (WMAC), in association with the Historical European Martial Arts   Alliance, is pleased to announce our first annual Open International Gathering!

This Gathering will be held in Houston, Texas, U.S.A. from March 19th -21st, 2010. Instructors from across North America and Europe will be offering workshops, lectures, and presentations on a wide variety of Western Martial Arts! Topics will include German and Italian Longsword, Sword and Buckler, Basket Hilted Broadsword, Rapier, Montante, Dagger, Grappling, Langes Messer, Bartitsu, and more! (Yes, we have a few surprises in the works!)

In addition to the workshops and lectures, the Gathering intends to host North America’s largest WMA / HEMA Open Longsword Tournament! There will be two Longsword Tournaments, one each featuring Modified Shinai and Nylon Longswords. Furthermore, there may be a Dussack or Rapier Tournament as well, pending interest. You can place your vote when registering for the Gathering. The rules for the Tournaments will be announced in January, 2010."

In the words of acting President Jacob Norwood:

It is my honor and pleasure to announce the official launch of the HEMA Alliance.

The HEMA Alliance is service organization for the Historical European Martial Arts community. As an incorporated 501(c)3 educational non-profit, the Alliance functions across many lines: co-op, educator, event organizer, community forum, and more. The Alliance's organization exists to form a stable core for the propagation of resources and the benefit of independent HEMA groups across the global community.

The fencing master of the Swedish king Charles XII, Didrik von Porat, published a fencing manual called "Palaestra Svecana" in 1693. The manual includes 19 illustrations said to picture Charles XII fencing. The manual can be found here:http://www.hroarr.com/manuals/sabre-cutlass-broadsword-rapier/Porath-Diederich-Palaestra-Svecana-1693.pdf , a scan with higher resolution is forthcoming.

 This program will work in the following way:

There will be a JdP instructor that will regularly provide exercises for the group to work with, in form of text, images, and video, to help them understand what is necessary. From that on, the group will have a very close following of it's development by the instructor, answering questions and most important, from time to time the group will be required to record videos of exercises executed the best they can for instructor's review. This level of interaction will help maintain the quality of the technical development of the group.

 http://www.wmacoalition.com

The Western Martial Arts Coalition (WMAC) is a pan-American coalition of martial artists and researchers dedicated to the study of traditional European, American, and related fighting arts and martial traditions. WMAC has members in the Canada, Mexico, and the United States. In addition, WMAC has close ties with HEMAC, the European-based coalition with similar goals. WMAC has four sets of goals: Martial, Research, Outreach, and Community.

Visit:www.ghfs.se/swordfish 

Registration is on a first come first serve basis, you have to register AND pay in order to reserve a place in the classes you wish to attend. It is of course perfectly possible to come to Swordfish and just spar and socialize, without attending classes.