Yes, I have no problem with this nor what the OP said, overall, about what HEMA is.
I just have a problem with him taking a shot at LARPING and implying that the weapons training/fighting of LARPING is all fake. And he took a shot at LARPING in another thread (before this) about fighting with a cane, where I suggested to another guy to try LARPING for his sparring....and he said the skills won't transfer over, so really, I'm not imaging things. I chalk this up to his ignorance of LARPING.
Sorry for taking so long to get back to reply to your comments in this thread and in the other one. I've been pretty busy this week.
Let me clarify my comments and see if we can get more on the same page. I'll also try to address some of your specific questions and concerns along the way.
Firstly, I would certainly never claim that LARPers don't have (or can't develop) genuine skill. It's a sport and anyone who works hard at a sport for long enough is going to develop skills. Some of those skills can potentially even transfer over to related activities if the individual makes the effort to experiment with those other activities and see what elements do and do not carry over. In the case of LARPing, related activities might include real stick fighting, SCA fighting, or HEMA.
What I said in the stick fighting thread was this:
LARPing is a lot of fun and good exercise and even has a bit of overlap with actual stick fighting skills, but there are important differences between LARP sparring and actual stick fighting. Being good at one does not make you good at the other.
You'll see that I stated that LARP sparring had both overlap and important differences with actual stick fighting. (I'll discuss the differences a bit later, possibly in a separate comment if this one gets too long.) I did not say that LARP sparring was fake, just that it was different. I will add that someone who understands the overlaps and differences between different systems of weapon sparring (LARP, SCA, real stick fighting, kendo, modern Olympic fencing, HEMA, etc) could use one as a form of supplemental training for the other. Some people do that. Other people engage in more than one of those activities just to enjoy each for its own sake. However being good at one of those does not automatically make you good at one of the others.
Have you tried both, extensively? I have, and spars this FMA instructor that runs his own school. He always comes to a sparring meet with a bag full of his propylene sparring weapons; but only 1 or 2 people want to play with weapons. With me using his weapons, that he's well used to, it was about 50/50 out of at least 20 exchanges.
My training is 15+ years of Muay Thai mostly + BJJ/MMA but only ~3years of Larping and nothing else formal for weapons. There are many Nerd Larpers that will beat me 70/100 times consecutively; despite my being much more athletic than them. The top 10% will beat me 80-90/100.
For the record, my primary arts currently are also BJJ + Muay Thai/MMA. My weapons background is primarily FMA & SCA, with some other stuff mixed in over the years. HEMA is a relatively new art for me. My group is focusing on Meyer, but I've played a bit with other systems. I did a little bit of LARP sparring (Amtgard) before the pandemic hit. The local Amtgard group just started back up in-person events a few weeks ago, but I haven't found time in the schedule yet to make it back, due to some family responsibilities. Hopefully I'll be able to slot that in sometime in the upcoming months. I don't claim to be a great fighter in any weapon art or combat sport, but thanks to 40+ years of martial arts training I'm generally able to jump in at better than the typical beginner level of sparring.
Larping is a real skill set as it's applying HEMA.
First part yes. LARPing is a real skill set. Second part no. There's nothing particularly historical about the sparring methods. I'm sure there are HEMA practitioners who also LARP and will slip in a historical technique if it works well under that particular skill set, but fundamentally the rules of LARP sparring are not designed or optimized to encourage the body mechanics, tactical approaches, or specific techniques of historical swordsmanship. Or to put it another way, the best training for surviving an historical fight with real swords is not the best preparation for excelling in LARP battles.
You could say much the same thing about modern Olympic fencing. Due to it's status as an long-time Olympic sport, it has a much deeper talent pool than HEMA, LARPing, or the SCA. The average skill and athleticism of serious competitors in the sport is well beyond that of their counterparts in HEMA, LARP, or SCA. That said, the sport has diverged considerably from its origins in actual swordplay. Some of the skills and attributes developed in modern Olympic fencing can still carry over and be very valuable in historical swordplay methods, especially small sword and certain rapier methods. Other aspects of the sport are very far removed from combative application and could lead to very poor outcomes in a real sword fight. None of that is to say that modern Olympic fencing is "fake" or that Olympic fencers don't have skills or even that a HEMA practitioner couldn't get some benefit from cross-training in modern Olympic fencing (so long as they understood which elements are transferable and which are not).
I need to take a break and get some dinner. After that I may have to head to the gym if my training partner doesn't cancel on me. Whenever I get back I can go into some detail on some positive aspects I think can potentially carry over from training in one weapon art or sport to another and other aspects which I think do not carry over. If I have time, I might even add some considerations of the limitations of HEMA tournaments in simulating historical swordplay and possible approaches for mitigating those limitations.
