We study HEMA, which is short for “historical European martial arts”, also known as historical fencing. We study textbooks written by medieval and renaissance fencing masters, who wrote their instructions for fighting with the different weapons of the day. These books survive in libraries and museums around the world. We study these books and train the fighting systems as modern martial arts, with modern (safe) training swords and protective gear such as fencing masks and padded gloves. Our area of study will be the 15th and 16th century German longsword. Initially, we will focus on the “common fencing” of the 16th century, to teach important and fundamental swordfighting skills; later, we will progress to the more complicated and sophisticated 15th century longsword fencing according to Johannes Liechtenauer.
