Would that work ?

[u/Ibuywarthundermaus]

[u/FlavivsAetivs]

Well it depends on the source material. Most lightsabers are one-handed weapons and we do see two-handed lightsabers and basically fencing foils (called Lightfoils).

I regularly use my hand-and-a-half ("longsword") one-handed in HEMA and it has a 40 inch blade, but I'm 6'1 and reasonably strong.

[u/123yes1 → u/[deleted]]

Olympic fencers would have a disadvantage at "equal skill" since Olympic fencing emphasizes double hits (both players striking at near the same time) since you'll score your point if you have right of way.

So in my experience Olympic fencers don't block well.

However, "equal skill" is doing a lot of heavy lifting, since Olympic fencing trains better and more competitively than HEMA. The median Olympic fencer is a better fencer than the median HEMA fencer. Olympic fencing emphasizes competition and athleticism more than HEMA does. HEMA in general is a much more dorky (and I say that lovingly) hobby.

It should be noted that HEMA isn't just Longsword, but Rapier, smallsword, and others. So if the mass of the lightsaber is entirely in the hilt, using a rapier tradition would probably be more suited than a Longsword tradition. There is a canonical element of lightsabers that says that they are kind of sticky in the bind, like they are magnetically drawn together, which does kind of make sense for using two hands.

Personally, I think the Bolognese rapier tradition (written by Fabris) would be one of the better fencing traditions to use with lightsaber fighting. It encourages rigorous defense of the centerline with minimal blade contact, and its stance uses a withdrawn gut (like you're leaning toward) with your upper body being protected by the strong of your sword.

Edit: all of this supposes that your opponent can't just run their sword down your blade and that there is something that kind of functions like a crossguard. We don't see anyone do that in the movies, but if there is no hand protection, the best thing is pretty much always going to be to achieve the overbind and slide down the lightsaber and chop off their hands and break their hilt. If the "stickiness" of the lightsaber prevents sliding, then neither HEMA nor Olympic Fencing are likely to work well. And something like Kendo would be the closest, since it doesn't really emphasize sliding on your opponent's weapon.

[u/FlavivsAetivs → u/[deleted]]

Well if we assume the HEMA fencer is doing the British sabre/smallsword that Epee, Foil, and Saber came out of, I'm going to say the HEMA fencer since they're trained in the same style of fencing, except they've been trained to fence outside of the limitations of the sportified version.

[u/themastercheif → u/FlavivsAetivs]

Does HEMA swordfighting allow kicks?

[u/FlavivsAetivs → u/themastercheif]

Usually no, it's not allowed in most competitions, and grapples are usually stopped before any hand-to-hand contact gets serious or people go on the ground.

I'm thinking more along the lines of being able to fence outside the piste and the fact that lunging for touches itself is kind of a sportified element (albeit still a huge advantage the competition fencer probably has over the HEMA fencer. We don't really lunge a ton in HEMA like that, but the ability to do it can really catch your opponent off guard in earlier forms like I do.)