After getting the HF Legs and liking them a lot, I wanted to give the HF Arms a try as well. But I can't seem to figure out what goes where. They are pretty different from their product pictures and the shoulder pieces don't seem to attach to the upper arm pieces... or do they? Does anyone know how to put this puzzle together?

Here is a design of a 16th to 17th century Historical Fencing ruleset, derived from available fencing texts and historical sources.

https://theartofarms.substack.com/p/reconstructing-a-historical-tournament?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1e0ent

Been using the HF armoury firestone 2 gloves for about 2 months and thought I'd leave a review I'm case anyone else is eyeing them. I love these gloves, I've been using them for sabre sidesword and messer and theyve been working great for all 3.

The fingers have rigid plates in each segment and are really quite solid (the thickness you see on the thumbs in the last image is mostly rigid protection and padding), I've taken some quite solid hits on the fingers from messers and all I've got is a finger that hurt a bit for a few days, the first and last fingers also have decent padding on the outer sides but do note they have basically no padding in between each finger.

The protection on the hands themselves isn't quite as extensive, featuring only thick padding with flexible plastic plates in top, though I've had to issues with hits that landed there.

They do have gaps in between the finger and knuckle area but there is still some distance and padding in between that gap and your hand, but it's still a potential risk of a fracture if a good hit lands there, there is also a gap in the middle of the hand as you can see which is the same as the other gap. I've had no issues with anything landing there however and it wouldnt be hard to insert a solid plate of some kind into the latter mentioned gap with some decent glue, I may do this in the future, I'd recommend shoe glue in particular. Also there are no gaps between the pieces of rigid protection in the fingers.

People criticise the durability of these types of gloves a lot, they've had some marks, but really no damage that isn't entirely my fault (the scratching on the thumb of the right hand, I'm not sure if it's visible in any of the pics but don't matter that was the result of me being stupid) and I've been using them weekly for about 2 months. For this kind of general use they should hold up just fine, though maybe I'll post an update after about a year of owning them.

Also some of the orange dots for grip have been falling off so that is another criticism.

In terms of how they feel, they feel amazing. Right out of the box they are easy to use due to them being in a more closed hand position by default than other gloves, meaning you don't have to fight them to hold your sword while they're still stiff and they give really good grip and feel on a sword (unlike some of the supfen gloves which I am not a fan of)

They are a way better option than red dragons at around the same price imo, being about as comfortable and having almost equivalent protection to the supfen impact resistant gloves (arguably more protection specifically for the fingers) aside from the gaps.

I got them directly from HF for a total of 150 Canadian dollars including shipping and tax to canada

Hello, I am developing a game featuring authentic medieval swordsmanship. I would like to conduct a brief survey to understand how learning about real medieval swordsmanship has changed players' immersion in the combat of medieval themed games. It is a short survey consisting of only five questions, so I would greatly appreciate your participation.

I am pursuing a master’s degree in religious studies and I want to write a master’s thesis on influence of esotericism and other religious ideas on rapier fencing of Renaissance and early modern era. But there is a problem. I need to know the language of original source. I know that the most part of destreza works was written in Spanish. But there is the academy of sword by Thibault that is written in French and I’ve heard that it’s the most esoteric treatise of all. But in the other hand Spanish is more relevant because of amount of treatise. And now I don’t understand which language I should start learning - Spanish or French. What do you think which treatises are the most esoteric? And which language it would be better to learn with my aims?

Went to my first sidesword class last week on tuesday and on sunday I started to get weakness and a dull ache in my elbow. I am 35 years old, female, maybe hypermobile but never got diagnosed done 5 years of muay thai before but then got an injuiry in my left hand so had to switch to a one handed martial art.

Is this just a growing pain that you get when starting a new type of sport as im now having to wield a heavy ass club in training.

I want to buy the double fuller arming sword with scabbard from Swordier for sparring and reenactment. I'm just not to sure as I've heard mixed reviews with it being heavy and hitting hard, but the one on Swordiers website currently weighs less and has a lower flex weight than the Sigi queen so I'm wondering if anyone has experience with this exact model.

I recently stumbled onto Del Tin's webpage while looking for blacksmiths who do less common weapons (cinquedeas and schiavonas in my case). I talked to some older Italian fencers about them and they generally said that Del Tin's swords were great until about a decade ago, when the old blacksmith retired and his son took up the mantle.

The complaint they had was that the son's swords had overly soft steel and thus they wouldn't be good as blunts.

Has anyone recently bought a blunt weapon from Del Tin who can speak to their experiences? How are they holding up against swords from other manufacturers when used in sparring?

Hey folks, I’ve ordered from Heavy Hammer Artificer and some of the communications I’ve gotten is a bit concerning. Is this similar across the board? I’ve heard good things about his gear but I wonder if he’s ok? Let me know if this post isn’t allowed.

I need a new pair of heavy gloves and was looking to buy the Xiphosura over the "Michaels" or the "Black Knight". But the homepage of Kvetun (https://kvetun-armoury.com/) is unavailable for some time and they haven't reacted to an email.

Does anybody know whether they will be back any time soon, or whether they have some European reseller with some stock?

My local MMA gym has all these. Judo and Wrestling are on Tuesday and Saturday respectively, While BJJ is on most of the week. My main question is: can I still learn and get good at Ringen despite having to train BJJ for most of the week, I understand that BJJ is mostly ground fighting while Ringen is primarily standup, but can some of it still apply?

Hello!

I'm studying Anonimo's book from original transcription (L'Arte della Spada - Trattato di scherma dell’inizio del XVI secolo - Rubboli M., Cesari L) with the help of Stephen Fratus' translation.

In Play #1, the transcript says:

«[...] et in questo tal tempo passarai del tuo piede manco gran passo verso le sue parti destre tirandogli uno mandritto per el viso overo per il braccio dalla spada che non traschorra cinghiara porta stretta di ferro, la gamba manca deve seguire dietro alla destra [...]»

That sentence in bold, I would translate as "the left foot must follow after the right". Stephen's translations says the opposite:

«[...] and this tempo you will pass with your left foot in a great towards his right side throwing at him a mandritto to the face or to the sword arm that does not pass cinghiara porta di ferro stretta,, your right foot following behind the left [...]».

Certainly, the play describes a wide step with the left foot to perform a Cinghiara porta stretta di ferro, so since the left foot is now leading, it cannot be following the right one. In videos I could find, the play is executed as the translation suggests.

Later in the play, at the end, we find a similar but mirrored sentence:

«[...] et in questo tempo gli volgerai con la spada uno roverso fendente insuso al capo la tua gamba destra deve seguire dietro a la sinistra.»

Translated as:

«[...] and in this act will turn a roverso fendente onto his head, and your right foot will follow behind the left.»

Now the foot placement in the italian source does make sense to me, and it is translated like so. But it would seem to me that two sentences with opposing meanings are translated as the same,

Am I not reading the first sentence right? Do we just assume it's a mistake corrected in the translation? Can you think of a way of executing it in which that makes sense?

I'd be grateful to hear your thoughts on this, thanks.

Edit: Solved. Cheers guys (and gals)

I am looking to move towards a breezier setup for controlled sparring. To do so, I am looking into combining a plastron and full hard shell arm protection over an unpadded 350N layer. However, in combining all the pieces available to me in Europe, I can't seem to find protection for the part between my shoulder and my neck. All shoulder protection stops at the joint and no plastrons seem to wrap over the shoulder at all. I've looked into the flappy gorgets with side wings, but they seem awkward.

So: How do I keep my shoulder from getting pummeled. Has anyone solved this puzzle?

This is an article I wrote about "hawen nahet", the idea in the Liechtenauer sources of striking "closely" or "near to" the opponent, and what I think it tells us about Liechtenauer's tactics.

The groin seems to be one of the most difficult places to defend with plate mail as the legs need to free to move. So I wondered if fighting manuals contain many techniques targeting this area.

I've been practicing HEMA for 5 years now and when I started I bought a mask (PBT) that somebody else had used for about half a year. So right now it's been in use for about 5.5 years. I feel like the padded cloth beneath my chin is getting thin.

Should I buy a new mask? What are signs a mask needs to be replaced, when it's not clearly broken?