Why Historical Training Matters
When I first started HEMA Strong, one of my dream ideas/projects was to run a seminar or event based on historical training methods because about once a month someone in the group asks: “How do we set up our physical training like that of a historical knight?”
Why does that matter? Why would we?
I did some initial research to figure out how and why I might do this, and had a few conversations with Arturo Camargo. We talked about his project and some modern analogs to historical training, things like Strongman, Highland Games, and specifically the Swiss living traditions of Steinstossen (rock throwing) and Schwingen/Hosenlupf (folk wrestling).
If you are looking for a good starting point and summary of historical training, please check out Arturo’s article on HROARR: https://hroarr.com/article/take-great-pains-in-your-knightly-practices-a-brief-review-of-medieval-and-renaissance-training-methodologies/
Then, as fate would have it, earlier in 2019 Charles Lin mentioned that he actually wanted to do this since I hadn’t done anything beyond have a few conversations about it. This made me incredibly happy because it was one less thing for me to have on my to do list, and because Charles isn’t a personal trainer, and is thus free from the modern training biases that I know I have. In my opinion, Charles’ “specialty” is doing research, experimentation, and asking questions in order to make the history aspect of HEMA far more accessible to everyone.
I probably would have set this event up like a race or competition with keeping score and recording distances, times, etc. Instead, there were teams, and an open discussion about what each person’s strengths were. In retrospect, I’m glad it was done this way as the team aspect was one of my favorite parts! Go red team!
Read more 
