HEMA is OK

A funny thing happened to me on the way to being where I am with historical fencing:  I realized that the literature stuff I studied in school was actually relevant - both to thinking about history, and to thinking about fencing. Here is how. Literary Theory Part of my life path involved getting a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy. Before that, though, I wanted to be a fiction writer. The main reason I never did pursue the literature path was - if I’m honest - I found a lot of it boring. I liked reading fine, but I didn’t enjoy writing - at least not writing fiction. I was engaged by some of the ideas in literary theory, though.  Literary theory doesn’t seem at first like it’s all that relevant to historical fencing, but I think it is actually pretty relevant. Literary theory, as a field, came into existence because of theoretical problems around how to interpret and understand books, stories, and other bits of text. Historical fencers working to understand and interpret the text of fen

I've been thinking lately about HEMA goals and interests. Ultimately, the goal of any hobby is just to have fun.  But what makes fencing fun? What brings people in the door at a fencing club the first time? What makes them stay? And what can we learn about the community from thinking about this? Early Interests and Goals Here is a sample list of some of the reasons I've seen people start fencing: Swords and fencing are cool - "I wanna learn to do that!!"; B lowing off stress through athletics / fencing is a fun workout; Competition is fun; Having a community of people one sees a few times per week; potentially making friends in that community; Wanting to learn a martial art; Having a hobby that involves a long progression of skill / high "skill ceiling"; "Character development" - learning to do something difficult (often found along with wanting a hobby with a long progression of skill); Wanting to engage with history (and sometimes engage with a p