Interpretation and academia.

No translation or interpretation exists in isolation- translating a piece of work is not easy and can be prone to subjective errors. Errors creep in through slang, unfamiliar/obsolete/changed words, or simple translators bias.

The same thing happens with interpretation. Errors creep in because it's what you feel is right, or you skip over something because it doesn't make sense.  You may have even misunderstood an important paragraph or term.  This is obvious in English manuals of the time where it is common to misuse/abuse Italian fencing terms- so you struggle a little trying to figure out if he means the Italian term or his bastardised explanation, or somewhere in between.

The Wikteneur has  done a lot to improve this, and it is a step in the direction I want to investigate. But the thing that's missing is an immediate relationship to the original texts. Wouldn't it be nice to highlight bits of the text and then leave comments- describing what you think it means, possibly linking to video explanations. Creating threads on contentious or difficult passages so you can debate with others and try to find out the real meaning?

I've found something that may be useful for this.  It's designed to share lesson notes and create discussions about them- which is pretty much what I want to do, but focused on the original texts as much as possible.  I'm going to test this out with a few people to see how easy it is to understand and if it works for us.

If it really helps cultivate discussion around the manuals and help those who want to get into this aspect of HEMA get started- as well as improving my understanding.  I'd be very happy indeed.

Cage rattled...

I've been wrestling with this for a while.  There's a concrete point where 'misunderstanding', 'different goals'... and all sorts of stuff becomes "taking the piss".  Often these people hide behind the rules- don't hate the player, hate the game type people. For me, the dispute about a venue isn't about the venue- It's about extracting urine, we can all get along if we're honest.

The latest starts with me recognising my abilities and doing that with the appropriate amount of ego. When I say that somebody is a better teacher than me, I'm not putting myself down, it is because they are a better teacher than me. I respect them because they have earned that respect and some of them are the best in the world at what they do. Last week, we had someone being very apologetic while we insisted they went to Dave. That's what we like- 'sorry you're not for me, can you recommend a better teacher?'.

This is the very core of sportsmanship and gentlemanly behaviour, especially in HEMA. You get hit, you acknowledge it. A fair and well placed hit... is fair and well placed.

I've been half-teaching over the past 8 months or so. I stepped back because someone could do it better. I was ok with giving up my part of teaching because of this, I have a few grumbles thanks to lack of warning when things go tits up- but in general I am happy with the situation because of the skills in place.

So, the friction- we've worked hard to be inclusive and have a little place of our own. We have been happy to invite people in, share our knowledge..  shit like that. And a group has started to abuse out hospitality. What was a sparring group started to become a class and took some of our lot... became.

Backstabbing.  That's about the best way to describe it.  There was one 'person' who learnt under my better and when it was time for international competition, he coached opponents. Abused the trust and the kindness of tuition (we actually do this at cost to ourselves) and used that to score cheap points.

I can deal with a lot of differences of opinion. There's even room for libel born from testosterone poisoning and proving your worth by stating that you can wrestle a sad old clown that's twice your age.  (he can, and he'd do a lot of damage to the clown- but that proves nothing) The misunderstanding about the difference between a charity and a bunch of weirdos with swords- that can be explained away. Not cleanly, but close enough.

You turn up, you pay less than cost, borrow swords, and then you coach people to embarrass the person who took time out to teach you?  The explanation for that behaviour is one I 'd love to hear.

Another perspective on the Judging debate.

Yes, I know it's been a long time.  Shit happens, and it's been a lot less shit recently so I am able to concentrate on the fun things.

Thanks to the upturn in my circumstances, I am now in possession of a Canon Powershot SX270 HS.  The HS stands for "high speed" capable of 240 FPS at QCIF  size.  Or 120 FPS at SD/VGA resolutions.  There are limitations, it can only take 30 seconds at any one time, the shutter lag is... inconvenient. And the film speed is so fast that I capture the fluctuations in fluorescent lighting ... I've handed this camera to people and said "it only records 30 seconds at a time. Reset at each exchange"  It's not a complicated instruction to follow, but they still get it wrong. 

TL;DR  I've been watching a lot of videos of slow motion sparring. Those 30 seconds take 2 minutes to play back.

What can I tell you from all those videos I've gone through? 

1. My hanwei is really floppy, but the Danellis have their moments as well.
2. Any good fight has an awful lot of waiting and faffing about before a hit is attempted. Then it's just a flurry of....stuff.
3. The only time anyone can expect to know the difference between a flat and edge hit is if you're  using sharps.
4. The really cool exchanges will be missed because people are human.
5. If you think you can do this reliably without technological help, you're an idiot.

Swing analysis is considered high end for golf tuition.  But that's nothing more than slow mo video and identifying the breaks in body mechanics.  90% of the time you don't need to say a word. Bringing that kind of camera into what we do demonstrates so much more. You can even show the difference in form under several pressure levels.



Under £200 for this functionality? It's a no-brainer.