Welcome to HROARR’s Training Pages
These pages will be focusing directly at more physical aspects of HEMA, on exercises, fitness and strength training, competition and gear.
You are of course all invited to publish your thoughts here!
Notice
The whole site is currently undergoing some radical changes aiming to improve how useful it is to the HEMA community. Please be patient while the work is completed.
The work is expected to take at least a week of fulltime work. Please consider supporting HROARR via Patreon.
Training News
New Sabre Event
... in one of the old fencing capitals of the world; Prague. This is a thing not to miss, and a chance to experience one of the most beautiul cities in the world, while meeting and training with some fantastic people. Sabreslash 2018
Training videos added
In an attempt at boosting both the training and the making of HEMA training and exercise videos, HROARR from now on will have numerous pages with videos for you to study. You can find them all under the Training section, under Training Videos.
Training videos from the GFFG
The training we do at the Gothenburg Free Fencers Guild is divided according to different areas of focus, like e.g: footwork, body mechanics, weapon mechanics etc. For this we do not always carry weapons, instead stripping away anything but focus on the particular...
Training Articles
Some thoughts on playing the victim
A problem that we commonly encounter in the training and teaching of martial arts in general, is the issue of how the "loser" of the training exercise is supposed to act and behave. Some common issues shine through both in videos explaining the techniques, as well as...
Fighting Successfully – Bridging The Gap Between Technique And Free Play
Did you ever face the situation that you trained a technique over and over, again and again and it just straight out refuses to come out during free play? Then you know the frustration if expectations and results don’t match.
Failing time and time again, because you can’t pull of what you should be able to doesn’t feel nice. It can be devastating and lead the most dedicated of us down a path of frustration. It can be a reason why people quit HEMA altogether.
How to read minds and the value of tournaments
Some month ago a nearby group decided to run a small longsword tournament as part of some local festivities, that also included a separate beginners bracket. As this sounded less threatening than the bigger events, three of our rookies decided to participate. We...
Fighting as a communicative skill
Since the elements described and explained up to now are properly just a beginning and primer from which all combat devices with the sword can be learned, it is necessary that before I derive some devices from them, first I should show in what...
Use of opposite hand and muscle imbalance
Should we use our off hand in order to further our skills as a fighter while also balance our muscle growth?
Making a wooden dummy for swordsmanship practice
The wooden dummies we use for sword practice are to us what the boxing bag is for a boxer. They are a great tool for practising basic techniques such as cuts and thrusts, and improving precision. Construction These wooden dummies consist of a stick that is suspended...
Review: Swordbag Liechtenauer
As much as I love the pioneering aspect of Historical Fencing some aspects of it have, at times, also been a bit frustrating as we have had little actual gear designed specifically for what we do, apart from... weapons, at least until rather late in the modern history...
Review: SPES Dussack Waster
Given how important the dusack has been both in the fencing schools and tournaments, all the way from the very early 1500s up until Napoleon and the late 1700s, as well as on the battle fields as a weapon of war, it is somewhat surprising to see how comparatively...
Free Fencing exercises
In our Meyer staff class we have been forced to develop methods that meet the simple fact that in staff fencing you are actually training with the actual sharp weapon and no protective gear will keep you safe from potentially crippling harm. Consequently we have...
The Art of Control – Fechtschule Manifesto 2
Fencing with the Sword is nothing other than a discipline, wherein your force strives together with your sword  in placement so that one with the other, using care and agility, artfulness, delicacy and manliness, are at need the same both in strikes and in other...
Art of Control (Fechtschule Manifesto) Part 1
"Fencing with the Sword is nothing other than a discipline, wherein your force strives together with your sword in placement so that one with the other, using care and agility, artfulness, delicacy and manlyness, are at need the same both in strikes and in other...
Review: SPES HEMA Jacket – Axel P model
Looking at how the HEMA community looks today it is easy to forget how hard we have been working to get the attention of manufacturers hoping to get proper protective gear for our specific brand of martial arts. Only three years ago things were very different and...
Review: Black Lance 5-finger HEMA Gloves
One of the most elusive pieces of protective gear for HEMA, the Holy Grail if you will, is good protective gloves that offer enough dexterity to not hinder us in our fencing, when we try to apply the techniques that we struggle to learn in the fencing...
A mentality of fear – and its importance to fighting
"If you want to learn how to fight properly and effectively with the long sword, so that you may, without gloves and without all armour, guard your hands and your entire body against all kinds of weapons, against sword, against spear, against halberd, against long...
Review: Where’s my fighting trousers?
"A telegram? Oh, dear. It seems someone has been "biting me"...? Fetch me my trousers at once! No, not those. Those are my time travel trousers. No, those are my tea trousers... That's it! Those ones. My fighting trousers! Ah, yeah!" When it comes to equipment HEMA...
Meyer freeflow exercises
To begin with, just for clarification, this is not a typical article per se, but rather a text sorted under the Meyer Research Project, thus a more reasoning and speculative piece of text, posted for the sake of discussion and sharing of ideas concerning Meyer's...
The Wreath or the Cash? On Tournament fighting
"Ey fåår Fächtare Krantz förn ändas Manlige Strijden. The Fighter shall not receive the wreath until the manly battle is ended (according to the rules)." -2 Tim 2:5. I sincerely consider tournament fighting to be vital to our efforts in recreating the...
Rope drill for HEMA.
<span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span> This is a very interesting exercise. The exercise is based on a boxing drill and can be expanded upon in...
Footwork exercises by Ilkka
I found these exercises interesting and will be adding some of this to what we already do in our training sessions
Review: Arms & Armor Fechterspiel Sword
Swordsmith: Arms & Armor Arms & Armor have been making swords for practice and sparring since the late 80’s which makes them a very old player in the HEMA field indeed. According to themselves, they felt that they originally had a hard time building a...
Doing what we are told or what we are taught?
Here's an old but still always relevant question for us HEMA practitioners to ask ourselves: When we read the old fencing treatises, should we only practice what we are told to do in the treatises or should we try to continue with the next step of playing with it and...
The tools for the job
To understand the body mechanics involved in a technique we not only have to train our bodies so we are strong and agile enough, we also need to use tools that work together with our bodies in the appropriate manner. This may seem obvious but is really not and it can...
Hands-on Preview: Pavel Moc Fechtschwert
HEMA has gone through a lot of progressive development in the last decade. The community is growing rapidly and bouts, tournaments and other forms of sportive sparring have become a standard part of practicing Kunst des Fechtens. The demand for weapons suitable both...
Review: The Dave Rawlings/Knightshop Synthetic longsword – Pro-Line Extreme
Few HEMA-related products have caused as much debate as the Dave Rawlings/Knightshop range of Synthetic Swords. This comes quite natural as they were developed in close collaboration with the HEMA community, and the way we practice differ quite a lot inbetween clubs....
Review: Zugadore poly sparring sword by Revival.us.
This waster came seemingly out of nowhere onto the market, at a time were we are seeing very quick changes and developments in the line of sparring swords available for HEMA fencers. Its sleek lines and, for a Liechtenauer-fencer, odd-sounding name has raised a bit of...
Review: Norrlands waster by Plastsmeden
The best longsword nylon wasters I have tried thus far were hand made by Pentti of GHFS. Unfortunately he no longer produces these, so they are near impossible to come by. However, the little known "Norrlandswastern" is the next in line and it offers quite unique...
Review: Synthetic Longsword Type II by Purpleheart Armoury
This hand-made Synthetic Longsword II is actually a bit of an old Rolls Royce or a Bentley. The quality of the build and components is excellent and it is based on a design of wooden wasters that have been proven from more than ten years of use. It is very sturdy and...
Review: Synthetic Longsword Waster by Pentti of GHFS
I consider myself very fortunate having had the chance to follow the development and having been able to practice with the infamous Pentti nylon wasters, which in my experience is amongst the finest nylon sword simulators, if not the finest; due to a very simple...
Review: Scimitars Fencing Shoes
Finding good, suitable equipment for Hema is a problem we all wrestle with and there are few products aiming to fulfill our particular needs. I have been looking at shoes for handball, basketball, land hockey, boxing, wrestling, budo and regular sneakers, but none of...
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