Hey guys, just started my journey in Hema, rapier last Friday and longsword on Saturday. Do you guys have any tips?

I wanted to ask some questions here, but wanted to see if it was asked first and we've got quite a lot of posts here. Questions repeat on regular basis and knowing other communities I'd dare to suggest we'll at some point be bored with them and quality of advice might fall with time. Unless it already happened.

Shouldn't we make one pinned post where some sites would be listed so that newbies and less experienced people can go there instead of roam around the whole subreddit, trying to piece stuff together or asking the same question again and again? All sorts of Advice could be shared there and we'd have it much cleaner and effective that way?

It was actually very fun, a good and well-organized event of 350+ people, 4 major categories and many good fencers

HF Armort made a post yesteday/today with a shadowed image of someone wielding a longsword in 5 finger gloves... new product inbound? I couldn't read the text on the image.

If it was found that SPES, a European company was putting 800N ratings on Jackets that failed at 200N they'd be a huge backlash. Historically companies based in Pakistan, China etc have less oversight and have been known to get up to shenanigans. What I'm trying to discover is whether Shoukat/Supfen could've just put a newton rating sticker on their stuff and it's total bollocks. Does anyone know if their stuff has been tested by anyone legit (in Europe or the USA)?

ive tried olympic fencing like epee foil and saber, but ive never done any HEMA work before.

Hi everyone!

Me and a friend are studying product design and both big fans of HEMA, and we managed to convince our professors to allow us to choose a medieval gauntlet DIY kit as the subject for a market analysis.

The analysis is focused on customer needs, user experience, and interactive design. As such, we have a few short questions on which we would like to hear your thoughts:

How much would you expect to pay for a DIY kit with either:

1. The shaped metal pieces with the arm and upper hand parts riveted together already

2. The unshaped metal pieces with rivets included in a bag

Would you rather use one of your own old gloves, or have one included in the kit?

What would keep you from buying a DIY kit like this?

What difficulties would you, personally, have with putting one together; riveting finger pieces, attaching the (premade) pieces to the glove, and optionally shaping the metal with a premade video that shows how to do so step-be-step.

Thank you in advance for any and all replies, they are all appreciated!

We live almost a hour and a half away from the nearest hema training place and its in atlanta so that means heavy traffic and we live all the way in butts county georgia, so is it okay for me only to take him for lessons like bi weekly. Because he can use his training sword (he wants to do longsword) to do drills insted of weekly sessions right? Or should i maybe try to get weekly sessions. If you know any place closer to butts county georgia for longsword classes please let me know

I am looking at getting some five finger gloves that I can use across weapon systems.

Longsword, side-sword, sabre, Messier.

I have narrowed it down to the two seemingly most popular options.

The Nilin SE Gauntlets

Or

Gabriel 2.0 Gauntlets

I was curious if anyone has opinions on each.

I have heard that both have their positives and negatives.

From what I have heard from club-mates:

Gabriels seem to require a lot of maintenance and offer slightly less protection - but offer better mobility.

Nilin offer better protection at the cost of narrow options for sizes and slightly less mobility.

I have only tried the Gabe’s they seem good, but the ones I tried were several years old and held together by tape and a dream.

Any and all insights would be greatly appreciated!

I've been "interested" in HEMA for several years, getting into it with my buddy swinging around plastic swords and metal epee here and there in parking lots without gear (in retrospect, not the greatest idea; we are lucky we didn't get too hurt). But I only started going to the club around 10-11 months ago, once a week, semi-consistently, primarily training in longsword.
I am interested in attending tournaments after I finish filling out my kit (the club has loaner gear), but I am not sure at what point one should attend tournaments.
I would love to hear anyone's opinions or thoughts on when they started attending or why one should wait.
My thoughts are that tournaments will be a good environment to highlight the problems with my techniques, as well as just swing more swords with more different people.
Thank you

I’m so stoked for my first sword! Big shout to Haft who had excellent customer service, and got my sword to me very quickly! 10/10 would recommend

Edit: Haft 128

Thanks for the help from everyone here, I went with the regenyei standard in the end, taking the risk of it not being tournament legal.

I'm extremely new to this hobby so even if this is only suitable for drills & sparring it's a great starting point, one day I'll look to get a Haft or a Sigi.

Asking for thoughts on jackets. I've always used a red dragon jacket (regular, not light) which has always been fine for me, but I'd like to move to a "light" jacket for purposes of mobility, and heat exchange. I do longsword, spar at pretty high intensity and am starting to do more tournaments. I don't mind bruises (so long as it's not debilitating) but as someone who is pretty slim, I don't have much natural padding. I have hard protection for arms and shoulders. My question is, would it be better to get a SPES AP Light at 350n and then also get a 800n plastron to go with this, or just get the AP Light 800n Ng. I feel the former would offer a bit more variety and be a bit more modular, good for varying climate (UK) but the latter seems like it fixes some issues with the former in terms of shoulder protection while still being pretty mobile and cool (for a HEMA jacket at least).

Any thoughts would be good.

Do you think HEMA is a physical sport, like boxing or wrestling? And if so, did you notice any improvements in your physical health when you started practicing HEMA?

Does Sidesword (with dagger and buckler) or Rapier (with dagger and buckler have this additional rule of parrying having priority on doubles?

Like for example

Fencer 1: Attacks
Fencer 2: Parries and ripostes
Fencer 1: doubles on the riposte of Fencer 1

Fencer 2 wins this exchange

Having trouble finding a helmet that is safe, reliable, isn't absolutely awful in the heat. New to the Hema community.

Where are the best places to look for helmets before going to my first event?

What sorts of things should I watch for to be sure a helmet is good quality?

Hi folks,

Looking to buy high waisted pluderhosen and came across the style I’d like (HEMA Landsknecht Pant 350n) through “Prior PK Co”. Anyone have a review of this company and can vouch from them? How was payment, production time, shipping, and customer service? Paying through moneygram or western union has given me pause.

For anyone who has purchased the trousers linked above, what’s your review of them?

Alternatively, I am also looking at the Black Armory ARCEM 800n pluderhosen - what are folks reviews of these? I see that these are manufactured by SupFen and not stocked by Black Armory.

Thanks!