What's the "art" part of Historical European Martial Arts?

Allert's slightly spicy take on swords...

I actually don't study La Verdadera Destreza because it's an effective system for winning tournaments (although I believe it can be, and is, in hands more skilled than mine).

I study it because I believe it to be true and beautiful. I believe it holds some important lessons about human nature, decision-making, and self-mastery.

Do you walk up to someone in the park flowing through tai chi postures and say, "tai chi sucks in a real fight, I think you'd be more effective martially if you took up Shaolin wushu"?

"Bruh, you guys are never gonna medal, what's the point?"

No. Because you see and appreciate that the goals of the person who is meditatively practicing tai chi are not the same as yours. You'd be more effective martially if you picked up a glock. You both accept that there's more to what you're doing than just that one element.

We know that tai chi assists in stuff like lowering blood pressure, helping in rehabilitation, getting you out socially, and encouraging thoughtful, reflective engagement with your body and the world around you. We feel the practice of perfecting an art form through careful practice has merit.

Why don't we allow this kind of conversation about swordcraft?

Why do we still have modern masters of swordcraft who drop out and never pick up a sword again once they stop regularly winning tournaments?

I think HEMA - and all similar sword-based sports - will mature once we allow students to have different reasons for studying their form of choice and different successful outcomes. It is important to encourage love in what we do. We must celebrate the study and practice of those forms as purposes unto themselves.

Swordcraft can be gentle. It can be beautiful. It can be an intimate dance. It can be a terrible reckoning. It can be a celebration of the human body and what it can do. It can be a tribute to the past. It can be a tool for unlocking secrets about the self. And yeah, absolutely, it can be a thing you do as a sport to wreck people in tournaments.

Do I want to win tournaments? God, yes, do I ever. But that's not the beginning or the end of what we're doing - is it?

What do you fear will happen the most?

I'm an avid "fight journaller" - by which I mean that I have a lot of notebooks with incredibly strange esoteric ramblings in them which are sometimes recognizably related to swordcraft, but often aren't.

When I fight journal, I focus a lot on goals and motivations. I know intimately what my North Star is, for example, and I hold it very close to my heart all the time. What I don’t do very often is really take a hard look at the shadow cast by that bright light so I can see what shape it is.

When you feel anxious, disappointed, lonely, frustrated, trapped, scared or angry during your journey, what is that shadow trying to tell you? What are the deepest fears you have behind your highest goals? How are they holding you back, and how are you going to take meaningful action to either address them or make peace with them so you can keep moving?

Here's a little bit about my stuff. 

I know that I really fear being disliked. I really fear abandonment. I really fear being misunderstood. I really fear harming others unintentionally. I don't think any of those are very uncommon, honestly, especially for those of us who are neurodivergent. 

One of the things that kept me back from fencing when I started in the SCA was some pretty unfortunate issues in the community at that time. I remember being a second or third-hand witness to interpersonal conflicts of absolutely brutal intensity - sometimes due to a lack of courtesy or honor on the part of one party or another, but often just because of years of critical failures in communication and excessive competitiveness that spiraled out of control. Most of those big personalities are gone, but I'm always a little afraid that it's a problem that might come back one day. 

I know that those fears absolutely impact what I'm confidently able to bring to the field when it's time to fight, and so now they're a problem for my fencing.  

"We're, uh... we're still getting beers later, right?"

Knowing that those are my fears, what can I do to make myself feel a bit more comfortable bringing some competitive spirit to the field while still trying to make sure I'm not contributing to a future problem?

1. Communicate clearly with my fencing partners to make sure we're on the same page about intensity, blow-calling, conventions, calibration, emotional state, etc.

2. Greet people warmly before the tournament and after the tournament so if I need my "game face" on during the proceedings, people understand that there is no personal issue. 

3. Assume the best intentions, work out problems as much as possible in practice time, encourage communication directly between impacted parties and not gossip, and politely but kindly communicate boundaries at appropriate moments. 

4. Appreciate that sometimes tournament experiences are not fun, even if they are rewarding, and not everyone has to go away smiling that day - but if they don't, that doesn't mean I did anything wrong. 

5. Trust that everybody else is also here to have a good fight, and that giving your best fight is a sign of mutual respect and admiration, not spite and aggression.

Maybe this won't solve every problem, but I hope it will help with some.