5 February , 2017 by tyrhaynes

A Novice’s Guide to HEMA: Novel Exercises and Solo Drills for Historical European Martial Arts

Solo Drills, Tools, and Exercises to get your body better prepared and able to have fun and be successful when swinging swords around.

This first video is just a short piece of advice on how to practice effectively which can help with any endeavor you’re starting.

Solo HEMA Drills and Exercises:

Easy to follow drills and this channel has exceedingly good production values.

If this doesn’t get your newbie muscles burning quickly you’re either in great shape or doing it wrong!

This drill gives you something extra to do by forcing you to change directions while swinging your sword. Footwork is my greatest weakness I think so try this or variations of this out.

Sean Franklin does a good job of explaining cutting drills.

Matt Easton has quite a few different solo drills on his site. I like this one and the ones he made when his right hand was injured.

This flow exercise that Devon does has some direction changes and good practice for attacks from the Italian Longsword perspective and looking at your footwork.

Matt Galas is so smooth in his transitions it is a beautiful thing to watch even if you know nothing about historical fencing or HEMA.

Cutting drill useful for Sabre and Singlestick.

Sidesword exercises in the Bolognese/Dardi tradition can also translate well with the early period rapier.

This is an update a few years later from Federico’s Youtube about exercises to do during Italy’s Quarantine that I thought was excellent.

Novel Gear Exercises:

Medicine Balls can build up your explosive “punch-like” force you need for martial arts. There are many types and weights to choose from. The link above goes to my medicine ball which is a middling size and weight and great value for the price.

NSD Power AutoStart Spinner is the “Featured image” for this post. This is an exercising tool utilized heavily by golfers who want to build dense and dexterous forearm muscles just like we do. It is fun and easy to use. It is also used by people to help with carpal tunnel and tendinitis. Below is a “Powerball” model review from a hockey player but the basic concepts apply.

I recommend that you purchase a Kettlebell that is all one piece without any welding or anything that might hide any welding marks to avoid a poorly made model that might break while moving explosively if using a high weight model. You can use a low weight kettlebell that isn’t as high quality if mostly using slow or static movements or exercises.

The Gripmaster Hand Exerciser is useful for building an individual finger, hand, and wrist strength and is another thing you can do maybe at work or while reading. There are many different variations and brands to choose from and I’ve had about a dozen types now and they will break pretty easily with consistent use. Most have a set level of resistance but a few have a resistance that is variable which is useful if you are using this to recover from a hand injury and building back up your strength.

Agility Ladders help with building up your lower legs and possibly might help you become more cognizant of your footwork.

Resistance bars are great for recovery and are designed to help with tennis elbow which can plague a swordsman as well. The brand I linked to rates the resistance by color so be careful picking one that is appropriate for you. They also are very good at improving grip strength. There are a lot of different exercises out there that use these flexbars for different issues so be sure to look up different exercises or invent your own just don’t break your wrist. I made extensive use of my theraband bar during my elbow injury.

Battle Ropes are a lot of fun and help out with building both your arms and your core.

Balance Pads are very good for improving your balance and building your lower leg strength and tone. This indirectly will help your footwork.

Gravity Fitness Stretch Strap is good for helping increase your flexibility and range of motion. If you’re going to be practicing lunges a lot this might be useful for you.

Resistance bands I use every day at work for both my legs and my arms. If you’re going to be sitting in front of a computer you can at least get a bit of exercise.

Forearm Exerciser is great for building strength while binge-watching your favorite show.

Captains of Crush Grippers I have five of these grippers going from various difficulties Trainer to a #2.5 which is what I was working on before I hurt my elbow so now I usually max out on the #1.5 to avoid putting too much stress and limit my reps. Give yourself breaks with this as you can push yourself too far very easily and stop immediately for at least three or four days the moment you feel any pain.

A simple pony spring clip is great for building pinch strength which helps a lot with fencing and weightlifting and can be purchased for under five bucks at your local hardware store.

Broccoli bands or the Iron Mind bands or something similar even just three or four normal rubber bands is great for working your finger extensors and to prevent hand injuries.

I like to use my buckler and rotate it back and forth and it is something you can do while watching a movie on your couch without worrying about breaking anything like this gentleman does in the below video with the stick.

Suggestions from Facebook:

Shanee Nishry’s website showcases her exercise regime of about 30 minutes a day of Meÿer Square / Cutting Diagram Longsword drills. Check it out.

Susan Kirk mentioned that Indian Clubs can really help with both strengthening arms and shoulders as well as helping flexibility of wrists, elbows, and shoulders. It is great for both balancing out muscles on the left and right sides as well as improving coordination.

Indian Clubs at Purpleheart Armoury.

Incline Steel Club is on sale and it is nice for doing exercises when inside though I find I use my kettlebells far more.

The nice thing about some sort of short club is that you’re less likely to break any light fixtures when stuck inside!

And it isn’t HEMA but this set of exercises based on Bruce Lee’s Ab workout are good for building your core which is very important when hitting with control and intention.

In Conclusion:

This Sword Carolina video below is actually what got me started on the idea for making this blog post. I hope you enjoyed it and maybe got some ideas on keeping in shape from it.

Here is a playlist that I occasionally remember to update when I find HEMA related exercises that will probably end up being more up to date with new ideas than the once every couple of years between updates here on my blog. This includes many of the videos above in one place.

My other essays:

A Novice’s Guide to HEMA: Websites to Buy Swords and Equipment

A Novice’s Guide to HEMA: Tournaments

A Novice’s Guide to HEMA: Historical European Martial Arts

A Novice’s Guide to HEMA: One Year Anniversary Update Post on Historical European Martial Arts

A Novice’s Guide to HEMA: Novel Exercises and Solo Drills for Historical European Martial Arts

A Novice’s Guide to HEMA: My HEMA Loadout and Wishlist

A Novice’s Guide to HEMA: Cat’s Nine Lives Halloween Tournament

16 December , 2016 by tyrhaynes

A Novice’s Guide to HEMA: Tournament Ready and Training Ready Standards

(Edit) It seems that this topic is unpopular. I approached this topic as someone familiar with patents, copyright, and creating standards.

From that pov I see issues like Combatcon’s equipment recommendations allowing modified lacrosse gloves, no shin protection, and with the only stated requirement of a mask being behind the head protection. I have read a lot of equipment rules for tournaments and they are often vague and ambiguous. Also, looking at equipment on retailer websites there is a dearth of info. Most clubs seem to be very insular using the same stuff they’ve been using from the start rather than a mix of goods. Part of this is a reluctance to lay down good money on something they aren’t sure of or confident in.

I would suggest an approach to making these standards as something like this:

I would test protective gear with a broken feder that has splintered leaving a sharp edge or for standardization sake three or four different thrusting and cutting sharps using a machine with a test dummy with the protective gear in question. This machine would hit the gear with an ever increasing amount of force let’s say start at 100N and go up a 100N each time noting the point when damage begins and the point when the protection is penetrated.

Then I would go through all the different major makers of the gear in question. I would then compare them and plot out the standard deviations and compare that quantized information to qualitative information from actual HEMA experts.

I would then try and measure the typical amount of force used by a trainee during practice using the typical weapons in HEMA and compare that to the piercing point/breaking point/cutting point of the gear. I would then get a set of average strikes from a dozen random tournament contestants. Then I would get the hardest hitters and try and guestimate the maximum force a HEMA defender is likely to ever get hit with and correlate that with the different tested gear.

By combining the quantitative analysis of how the gear handles piercing, blunt, and slashing hits from sharp weapons and maybe even a mace or staff along with broken weapons with expert qualitative advice you can get a rough idea of training quality, tournament ready, and tournament approved gear.

That way you can also rate gear for Longsword, Staff, rapier, arming sword etc. A Longsword training level jacket might be tough enough to be tournament ready for a saber for example.

Once you have those standards than the makers of the gear can then go back and beef up their gear or drop it down a bit to provide a cheaper but still quality product. If a jacket maker could make a safe but minimal product for entry level at a low price point without sacrificing too much quality than they make money and more new people get into HEMA.

Then once the enthusiast gets some practice and wants to go compete they can make the choice of getting gear that is very good and ready for tournament level play or they can go to the max and get gear that is overkill and very high quality meeting the highest standards in the industry because there will now be standards.

(/edit)

So, as a novice I’ve been reading a lot about HEMA and coming from an outside viewpoint it is a bit confusing and a lot of things are ambiguous with a lot of regional variation. This naturally emerges from a bottom up structure run by a number of very individualistic people who can bonk you on the head with steel if they disagree with you!
If my ideas have already been beaten around to death I apologize. I’m sure the elders of the tribe keep seeing the newbies saying the same thing over and over.

Anyway, it occurred to me that a way to both help the merchants who sell and the people who make gear for the HEMA enthusiast and to help people make informed decisions when buying gear it seems obvious to me that there should be set/s of standards for different types of activities for training and tournaments.

When I buy a video game I see a set of minimum requirements and recommended requirements which give me a rough idea what kind of PC I need to have to run the game. They usually err on the side of caution for minimum requirements and overkill for the recommended.

Rather than having a deeply piecemeal and haphazard approach to each tournament having different gear accepted and having the fear that your gear which was good enough for a tournament in Chicago but not accepted in Denver it seems to me that there are many organizations in HEMA and more importantly many Tournament Leagues.

Imagine if you will a swordmaker able to put on his website “Midwest Historical Fencing League Tournament Ready Feder” and\or “HEMA Alliance Tournament Ready Sidesword.”

Another approach is for the manufacturer’s to get together to make a standard. This placates those who prefer to avoid any appearance of an overarching “federation”.

If the dozen or so makers of masks for example made a tournament ready and a tournament recommended standard for HEMA and all followed it than the buyer would know better what they are getting versus relying on Cen 1 and 2 which help but aren’t perfect with most of the other gear lacking even that nebulous quantifiable standard.

Imagine a poor quality gorget NOT being able to have any official HEMA stamp of approval so some new person doesn’t buy it trying to save money and get hurt badly.

The customer (us) could be confident that the gear they are buying is not only good for their league but it is also tested and approved by their HEMA organization. This would make makers of quality equipment have an easier time selling gear as doubt would be removed. Your only choice now is to ask around your club and look up the occasional youtube review, blog, or the handful of reviews at Measure and Weigh.

Also, having standards would make it easier for new makers to enter the market. If a feder needs to be between x length and y length, use m through g quality metal, have x flex, and weigh between c and g weight to be tournament approved than having clear standards would improve the quality of our gear and help the manufacturers know what they need to provide to hit any HEMA requirements.

You could have let’s say the red dragon gloves be “Longsword Training Ready for Prairies Historical Fencing League” which tells the buyer that the gloves are okay for practicing or training but in the long run they will need to get better gear or just skip them to gear that is approved.

A pair of fencing gloves could be “Rapier and Saber Training Ready for HEMAA” and a jacket could be the same letting the buyer know that the jacket isn’t approved or ready for Longsword Training so they don’t hurt themselves through ignorance and are educated about what works for one type of HEMA practice or tournament.

You could even have “Ready” and “Approved” as tiers of quality as well. So, a new Regenyei Feder could be “HEMA Ireland Tournament Approved” while a low end feder that is still solid but not great could get “HEMA Ireland Tournament Ready” while a truly mediocre feder but not a bad or dangerous one could get “HEMA Ireland Training Ready” tag. Take the guesswork out of buying the goods. Take the guesswork for the poor people who have to look through all this gear and be the jerk that tells someone that they can’t participate or even worse feel sorry for them and let them participate in an event in which they get hurt!

Take the guesswork out of buying the goods. Take the guesswork for the poor people working or volunteering at HEMA tournaments who have to look through all this gear and be the jerk that tells someone that they can’t participate or even worse feel sorry for them and let them participate in an event in which they end up hurt!

A way this could really benefit is in gear that we appropriate from other sports like arm or shin protection. If we could go to Adidas and say “your shin protection is great so we would like you to market it as a soccer AND HEMA shinguard.” That way if they did that a soccer player could come across a shin guard and sees the HEMA logo and wonders “What’s that?” and looks us up. If they do that and see it is approved to take sword strikes that puts a lot of confidence that it will take a set of cleats. This would increase attention to HEMA and make it easier to find quality gear.

And by having each league and each member of the HEMA Alliance make decisions on gear approval it might help move regional products into the global market while protecting each leagues autonomy. Say you’re a jacket manufacturer with great quality and fair price but you’re in X country and you want to get some exposure you could send a jacket to each league you’re interested in for them to test it out. If you have a good product not only are you going to get your jacket listed by that league or group as approved you could have them review the gear and word of mouth means a lot. If an instructor says “this jacket is amazing” how many students who respect them might think about picking up that jacket that wouldn’t otherwise look for a foreign made and formerly unknown product?

Say you’re a jacket manufacturer with great quality and fair price but you’re in X country and you want to get some exposure you could send a jacket to a couple of leagues you’re interested in for them to test it out. If you have a good product not only are you going to get your jacket listed by that league or group as approved you could have them review the gear online and word of mouth is a very powerful tool. If an instructor says “this jacket is amazing” how many students who respect them might think about picking up that jacket that wouldn’t otherwise look for a foreign made and formerly unknown product? We get better gear and more choices in that gear and the merchant sells more. Win-win in my book.

It also might be useful to have a model or version number on gear. Say a 800N Jacket type Y v2 2015 by X. That way if there happens to be a bad version or model than the league and the manufacturer can alert its customers about it and there can be a caveat and it is clear what type of jacket is being discussed for those manufacturers who make more than one type of the same product.

By having a version history and easy tracking of how that product has performed we can take a more scientific approach to safety and quality control. I know that the Konig Gloves have gone through different permutations so it would be nice if for example a tag said version 4 2016 just in case there was a safety issue with one version anyone who had the glove could just take a look and see if they needed to worry.

Check out my other blog posts in this series with more to come:

A Novice’s Guide to HEMA: Websites to Buy Swords and Equipment

A Novice’s Guide to HEMA: Tournaments

A Novice’s Guide to HEMA: Historical European Martial Arts

3 December , 2016 by tyrhaynes

A Novice’s Guide to HEMA: Websites to Buy Swords and Equipment

Websites that sell equipment are listed below by continent and by the nation. If you’re a merchant, maker, or smith please make a comment below so I can add you to the list and if you have a specialty I would be happy to notate it next to your site.

My original post A Novice’s Guide to HEMA: Historical European Martial Arts kept on growing so I decided to break it up into smaller more focused posts such as this one. In the year since I started, I’ve updated things further with a One Year Anniversary Update Post.

A Novice’s Guide to HEMA: Tournaments has some advice for buying equipment appropriate for tournament bouts along with the actual requirements that each of the tournaments has for sword and equipment quality. As always your best bet is to ask questions either to instructors or clubmates or on the WMA Reddit or HEMA Forums for the suitability of a given retailer or manufacturer.

This blog post is now listed here and at the Reddit Online HEMA Resources (r/HEMA) page which has an excellent collection of links for the HEMA and WMA enthusiast.

Aidan Blake’s HEMA blog has several great google docs to use as a resource when looking at buying gear: HEMA Protective Gear Research and HEMA Training Weapon Research.

If you’re into medieval garb Aidan also has a Document for that as well.

For sabres, this Collection of Saber Measurements may help you out in deciding what kind of sabre you want to get and what options you might have available depending on the style of sabre you want to practice and compete with.

Jerry Berg’s work in progress for HEMA Sabres.

For sideswords, I found this on the Giovanni Dall’Agocchie Facebook group page: Sidesword Trainers.

From the Rapierists group here is a list of makers.

When buying your gear you’re going to want to look at whether you’re getting it for self-practice, training with mates at various levels of intensity, the type of weapon you’re training with, and/or if you’re planning to eventually go to a tournament with that weapon.

The approved protective gear you will need for longsword will need to have sterner protections than that of other blossfechten weapon types such as rapier or sabre then singlestick with unarmed Ringen, glima, or pugilism needing the least.

For a look at my gear and books check out: A Novice’s Guide to HEMA: My HEMA Loadout and Wishlist.

Typical tournaments look at having a 3 weapon mask with back of the head protection, a heavy jacket or gambeson for longsword or lighter one for other weapons, heavy gloves for longsword like Spes Clamshells, Koning, Sparring Gloves, and Neyman to name a few or for lighter weapons the Red Dragons are popular or various padded leather gloves, some sort of hard or padded elbow protection, hard knee protection, groin for men, plastron for women, and a gorget or throat protector. I would highly recommend shin and forearm protection regardless of weapon but some tournaments don’t require them.

Commonly for practice steel longswords/feders, you will see approval based on the maker such as Regenyei, Danelli, Castille Armoury, Darkwood Armory, Ensifer, Chlebowski, Albion, Arms and Armor, SGT Blades, Black Horse, and Pavel Moc.

For steel rapier and sabre Danelli is highly regarded and in America, Darkwood Armory and Castille Armoury are probably most popular of the high-end market with Del Tin and Arms And Armor. Hanwei has a approval as an okay entry level but as of writing this the longsword/feders are not considered safe for tournament level intensity.

Synthetics tend to be dominated by Purpleheart Armoury in America and Black Fencer in Europe for the higher end and the Red Dragon/Hema Shop Rawlings in the UK as bargain weapons. For singlestick in the states, most people get Purplehearts leather baskets or make their own SCA style.

I honestly don’t know much about harness fighting though if you want to learn more I highly recommend checking out Pursuing the Knightly Arts Youtube Channel or the Knyght Errant Youtube Channel.

This site is an Amazon affiliate site that can help you find HEMA Gear on Amazon and I believe in the future other sites and in your country if possible HEMA4U.

A popular website for buying sharp swords and various re-enactor gear that ships all over the world is Kult of Athena.

Shoes are an ever reoccurring topic in HEMA with most people using wrestling shoes, running shoes, Olympic fencing shoes, or leather low profile designs to match historical sources with varying degrees of accuracy.

Europe:

UK and Ireland:

Danelli Armouries (Beautiful swords with long wait list)

James G Elmslie Custom Replicas

Feestspada Armoury

Tod’s Stuff

Old Shillelagh

Hematees (Hema shirts) Facebook Page

Easton Antique Arms Ltd

Germany:

Trainingsschwerter

Allstar International

Sword Experts

VB Sword Shop

Die Seelenschmie (Swords)

Spain:

Black Fencer One of the three major synthetic trainer manufacturers.

The Time Seller

Grant Esgrima

Arcensis

Costumbres Medievales

Geasoles (historical HEMA influenced shoes)

High Hill Pants (Fancy hema fencing pants)

Hungary:

PBT Historical Fencing

Regenyei (Swords!)

Viktor Berbekucz (Swords)

Austria:

Swordbag

France:

Black Armoury (Full selection of feders and gear)

Faits d’Armes

Le Colporteur de l’histoire (Jackets, masks, rawlings, and regenyei’s)

South Fencing

Sport 7

Gael Fabre (Swordsmith)

Italy:

Gajardoni (Lajalo) (Air Masks and fine quality jackets and breeches. Ships internationally) Disclosure: I am a customer.

Negrini

Del Tin (Tin Ancient Weapon)

Thokk WeaponMaster Gauntlets (indiegogo)

Sweden:

Saint Mark (Koning Gloves)

Denmark:

Gladius

Finland:

Miekkailutarvike

Netherlands:

Zwaard En Volk

Pro Gauntlet (HEMA Gauntlet in Alpha Stage of Production)

Russia:

Hema Fencing

FoxTail Equipment

Kvetun (large selection of hema weapons and protective gear) In the USA contact kvetun.sales.usa@gmail.com for USD prices.

Slovenia:

Krsticic Swords

Slovakia:

Sigi Forge (Feders and Bucklers) email: sigi@sigiswords.com and website.

North America:

Canada:

Darksword Armory

Dark Age Creations

SGT Blades

USA:

HEMA Supplies (We currently import Regenyei Armoury swords and Sparring Gloves.)

Arms n Armor

Albion Swords

Nihonzashi Where you can find Gekken Longswords for effective lower gear fencing.

Southcoastswords (Blackfencer Synthetics in USA)

SPES Historical Fencing Gear (USA)

Leon Paul (USA)

Absolute Force

Baltimore Knife and Sword

Wild Geese Fencing (Steel Swords)

Horsebows (Archery and Masks)

Blade Fencing Equipment (fencingnewyork.com)

Freelance Academy Press (Books!)

Woodenswords: Purpleheart Armoury (Pentii Synthetics and Ensifer Feders)

South Coast Swords

Wasson Artistry Fine Armor

That Guy’s (Beautiful looking Gorgets)

Destroyer Modz (Gorget and Mask Mods)

Winter Tree Crafts (Gorget)

Valiant Armoury

Black Horse Blades

Castille Armory

Alchem (Swords Wholesaler)

Benjamin Arms (Swords)

Zen Warrior Armory (SCA and Fencing)

Arms & Armor (Swords)

Swordsman’s Shop (smallsword)

Rockwell Classical Fencing (Foil, Saber, and Epee)

Triplette Competition Arms (Sports Fencing)

Hanwei (Swords)

Darkwood Armory

Piranha Gear (Fencing Gloves and Gorget)

CAS Iberia

New Stirling Arms (Wooden Wasters)

Little Raven (Wooden Wasters)

Sword Equip (HEMA Gear and swords by Szymon Chlebowski)

Therion Arms (Export and Import Globally Weapons and Armor)

Armstreet (a multinational garb and armor seller)

Revival (Medieval Garb and HEMA Gear)

Swords of Might HEMA Gear

Asia:

China:

Wukusi

Australia:

Miscellaneous:

HEMA Leather Crafts on Facebook (gorget, baldrics, and belts)

HEMA Professional Market on Facebook

USA HEMA Marketplace on Facebook

HEMA Marketplace on Facebook

Cavalier Attitude (The Rapier Bag)

Wild Armoury (Armor)

Lukas Maestlegoer Swordmaker

FEESTSPADA (custom made swords and daggers)

A Novice’s Guide to HEMA blog series:

A Novice’s Guide to HEMA: Websites to Buy Swords and Equipment

A Novice’s Guide to HEMA: Tournaments

A Novice’s Guide to HEMA: Historical European Martial Arts

A Novice’s Guide to HEMA: One Year Anniversary Update Post on Historical European Martial Arts

A Novice’s Guide to HEMA: Novel Exercises and Solo Drills for Historical European Martial Arts

A Novice’s Guide to HEMA: My HEMA Loadout and Wishlist

A Novice’s Guide to HEMA: Cat’s Nine Lives Halloween Tournament

1 December , 2016 by tyrhaynes

A Novice’s Guide to HEMA: Tournaments

This is a work in progress built from my original A Novice’s Guide to HEMA: Historical European Martial Arts post that I decided to spin off into its own page as the Guide is far larger now than I had initially intended and has become a little unwieldy like a Montante in the hands of a five-year-old.

As a novice, I have decided to try my best to make these guides to help people learn more about HEMA who don’t have the time or inclination to search and research for hours on the web and to try and distill what I’ve read into something easy to understand. Often things get lost in translation when dealing with topics outside of your understanding and experience. The experts know everything basic so will often use shorthand or gloss over things that you as the newbie have no clue about leading to misunderstandings and frustration.

If you would like me to add your Tournament just add a comment below.

If you’re going to run a tournament or help out a great new tool added in July 2018 a few years after I wrote this article was made by Sean Franklin allowing easy access to your performance data as a fencer so you can see how you did during an event. I still don’t know even most of the people I’ve fenced with and what the scores were because when you’re bouncing between an assault and then judging and then filming or lunch it really does become a blur. Check it out here: HEMA Scorecard.

Another great website to check out if you’re interested in tournament rules is Swiss HEMA’s Rules Survey.

Some tournaments require tips on your blades of leather and tape or blunts. The Arnold Classic uses white tape in order to help judges see thrusts against the ubiquitous black jackets and gear.

Given that tournaments often require or appreciate help during the events it can be really useful to take the time to understand how to judge and familiarize yourself with the tournament rules so you can perform better as you’ll optimize your fencing strategies to the tournament environment. If you’re creating a tournament it can be useful to decide how you’re going to set up your judges and how much power you’ll be giving them. Martin Fabian wrote an interesting article about how less can be more here: 2 IS MORE THAN 4 – ON THE STATE OF JUDGING IN HEMA COMPETITIONS.

Tournaments are a chance to test your mettle against opponents from outside your club. This is very important in order to avoid and detect weaknesses that might have developed unnoticed by the fellow fencers you practice with and to become exposed to different styles and ways of fencing.

A new site called HEMA Ratings has setup rankings and scores for over a thousand fighters from all over the world with different weapons including Longsword, rapier, sabre, singlestick, sword and buckler, and sidesword. So, after you compete at your first acceptable tournament you can watch your score and rank change as you become a better fighter and get more experience fighting new people.

Afterblow (HEMA Competition News) is starting in 2017 and will have a whole slew of useful information about Tournaments which will be something to look forward to next year.

This HEMA Alliance Events Page just soft-launched which is wonderful.

It is also worth knowing that there are Leagues of HEMA which can make going to multiple tournaments in a region have a new dimension of complexity.

Historical Fencing Event Notification Page on Facebook is another resource.

Tournaments are different in that the rules are more formal than bouts at your club or with friends and each one will have different equipment requirements depending on the type of bout from Longsword to Ringen. This is important to keep in mind as swords and gear preferred or allowed at one tournament may be forbidden at another. So make sure you consider this when you are making your expensive choices on gear. These requirements may also hint at the quality or lack of quality of different equipment.

They may also have different rules in adjudicating a bout so it would be wise before a tournament to have some practice bouts using those rules in the weeks proceeding a tournament. This applies even if you are not planning to go as it is good to be flexible in your fighting. Different rules may encourage different optimized behavior by a fencer. If the tournament penalizes heavily double hits than you will want to prepare for that while sports fencing often encourages unhealthy defensive habits because of the rules of engagement.

An article worth reading If You Practice HEMA, You Should Be Competing in Tournaments.

General takeaways applicable to many tournaments for equipment needed for Longsword are a Fencing Mask with back of the head protection, Gorget, Padded Fencing Jacket, Heavy HEMA Gloves, Arm and Elbow Protection, Knee and Shin Protection, shoes, and a cup for men. Some require a plastron and padded breaches as well.

In Europe, many tournaments provide the weapons to be used while in the Americas that is rarer except for events that are outside of the most common weapons like longsword and rapier. Providing tournament weapons can be a great way for a smith to advertise their feders or blades.

There also must be no bare skin shown when Fencing with weapons and some state overtly that if they can see skin if you raise your arms then that is unacceptable. I would recommend skipping the basic mask and go to CEN 2 at the very start as there really isn’t that much of a price difference and it makes a big deal for durability and longevity. Vasaslaget explicitly states CEN 2 or 1600N at least as a requirement to compete and forbids hockey gear.

Feders from Ensifer, Regenyei, Danelli Armouries, Comfort Fencing, Darkwood, Chlebowski, Pavel Moc, SGT Blades, Mac Arms, and Castille are usually accepted. For some other manufacturers only certain models are allowed but in general feders with rolled, ‘nail like’, or widened tips with well-rounded cross guards are accepted. I would also recommend models with rounded pommels because some have wickedly dangerous styles.

Few tournaments allow Hanwei or Red Dragon Feders. Many don’t allow Darksword Armory as well.

Check out A Novice’s Guide to HEMA: Websites to Buy Swords and Equipment to see where and what websites you can look at to buy your gear.

Very importantly make sure you have safe and appropriate luggage/bags to carry your goods for your method of travel. Don’t skimp on a cheap and poorly made bag if flying or taking a bus and it can be useful to think of how to secure your gear if it is going to be out of your sight.

If you enjoy watching bouts in older tournaments check out HEMA LiveStream Series on Facebook. It hasn’t been updated in a while but is worth checking out.

I really recommend this conversation about competing in tournaments I found over at Schola Gladiatora.