How HEMA Pushed Out White Supremacists (And What BJJ Can Learn)

Speaker 1: Hey everybody, welcome back to Fighting Matters. I am Steve Quan from BJJ Mental Models. I've got Stephen Kesting from Grapple Arts on the line. How's it going, Stephen? Speaker 2: Very well, yourself? Speaker 1: I am also doing okay. All things considered, I mean, putting current events aside. Uh but on the martial arts front, things are going up. Speaker 2: We all know that martial arts is going to be very, very important in a post-apocalyptic setting, so just keep on training, boys and girls. Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, especially weapons-based martial arts, which actually touches on our guest today. We've got Eric Lowe on the line. Eric, how's it going? Speaker 3: Hey, Steve, it's good to be here. Speaker 1: I am glad to have you here. Why don't you give yourself a quick introduction? I and I can set the table here at first. We had been talking about adjacent martial arts, particularly HEMA, and we should probably explain what that means, but how these martial arts have been, there's been an attempt to infiltrate them from groups like far-right neo-Nazis and other extremists. And HEMA's actually, from my understanding, had a pre-good process for pushing that back and fighting that back. We're in a spot now in my martial art, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, where we are also getting infiltrated. And the question becomes, what has worked in the past? How can we prevent, um, you know, far-right militias and hate groups from using our martial art as a platform to grow their own toxic movements? And this ties directly into your background. You and I had exchanged some words based on a recommendation from a guest and a community member, and I really loved the way that you explained the philosophy of of HEMA. But I will shut up now and turn it over to you. Why don't you talk about yourself and kind of your story in the martial arts? Speaker 3: Uh, so I've been doing historical European martial arts for 13 years, um, doing, uh, doing all sorts of, uh, historical, traditional, mostly medieval, uh, weapons, long sword, uh, one-handed swords, all kinds of pole arms. And, uh, in and out of armor. Um, for anybody listening who doesn't know, kind of the basis of historical European martial arts as, uh, as an art is, uh, we have extent fencing manuals from fencing masters all the way back to the late, uh, late 14th century. Uh, and those are technical enough that as long as you're willing to put in the sweat and the work, you can pick up those, uh, pick up those treatises, uh, and actually reconstruct the fighting arts that, uh, that they describe. Um, or at least you can reconstruct them enough to be plausible. Um, we are, you know, we are a contact art. It is important to validate our interpretations through, um, through tournament, you know, through tournament fighting. Um, through the use of sharp swords, not on each other, on inanimate objects, just to make sure that we are, you know, we are weapon arts. We want to make sure that the way we're moving our bodies actually operates the real weapon. Um, and we want to be sure with, uh, with blunt swords and appropriate protective gear that the way we are moving our bodies actually might manage to hit someone who is trying not to be hit and keep us from being hit back. Um, so that's what HEMA is. Uh, I founded and ran a school, uh, called Swordwind Historical Swordsmanship in Charlotte, North Carolina for nine years. Uh, Swordwind is still going strong without me. I now live in Orlando. Um, and I teach at a school called Crossroads, uh, Swords down here. Still doing the same stuff that I've been doing. Uh, I was one of the founding instructors of the Piedmont Historical Fencing League, which was, uh, kind of a, a HEMA, uh, a HEMA community, uh, and tournament circuit that stretched from the Carolinas down to Georgia. Speaker 1: Amazing, amazing. Well, let me ask you then, um, what has been the kind of, I guess, history of infiltration when it comes to HEMA? Because I mean, the difference I guess between Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and something like HEMA is HEMA is by definition historical and European. And there's going to be a lot of people who look at that and they they want to live in a time that was much more historical and European than today. Um, we have talked before about the appeal of martial arts to groups like active clubs and how, um, far-right movements, they use mixed martial arts and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu as kind of an infiltration point to indoctrinate people. And you find these little weird hate groups that are basically like 50% hate group, 50% martial arts gym. And what had been told to me was that HEMA had a huge problem with this, understandable given the specific angle that they come from historically, but also that HEMA had done a very good job pushing back on this. And we find ourselves now in a time where these neo-Nazi freaks are coming to our martial art now, right? Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and MMA. And I'd love to know what has worked to fight these people off and to keep them at bay. I mean, I I presume swords, that's part of it, but we don't use those. Speaker 3: You know, uh, it is frowned upon to, uh, remove potential students with your swords. Speaker 1: Yes. Speaker 3: Let me say a little bit briefly about like, you you use the term history of infiltration. Um, and in a lot of ways, the old lore, uh, you know, kind of the and by HEMA's a very new art. Um, it's hasn't really existed in any cognizable form in the modern era since before the 80s. Uh, and it really took off post 2000. Uh, I mean, this is something that essentially was built, uh, because the internet existed. Um, if you have a text-based martial art that is, uh, relying, you know, originally was reliant on getting, uh, museums and private, uh, collections to cooperate with just sharing the artifacts that they had, that's something that really the internet, uh, made possible. Um, and the really early days of HEMA, before it was even called historical European martial arts, were dominated, uh, by a guy who you can still find on certain corners of the internet or old, uh, TV specials named John Clements, um, who is, um, if not an active neo-Nazi, at least the sort of person that attracts them. Um, and Clements, uh, Clements ran, uh, early HEMA kind of culturally because he happened to luck into having the largest collection of texts. Um, and a lot of the modern HEMA movement, uh, is actually kind of a direct, uh, cultural rejection of the way he ran his school. Um, it was very, uh, the the joke, the modern joke is that, uh, John Clements, uh, Association for Renaissance Martial Arts is kind of the North Korea of HEMA. Um, he would, uh, he would literally kick you out of, uh, the organization if you went to cross-train with another school. Uh, if you competed in an event that he didn't approve of, he would kick you out of that organization. Uh, and he kicked out enough number two guys that they essentially coalesced a, uh, community around them, um, that said, you know, well, we're not going to be that. Um, that's the really old lore. Um, Clements, uh, in in modern HEMA, um, I mean, the other way in which he is the kind of North Korea of HEMA is that he is irrelevant at the like in in the modern, uh, in the modern community. And so there's this separate, uh, separate effort, like you said, we do see plenty of people who say, oh, look, you know, um, the traditional, the traditional martial arts of white Germany. Uh, that's what I want to do. Um, we see people who look at us, uh, and go, I want to use this to reconstruct Viking, uh, you know, Viking martial arts because I want to be the kind of Viking who is, um, you know, also a skinhead. Um, we there's people, you know, if that's your jam, uh, then HEMA's probably going to appeal to you at one point or another. Um, Speaker 2: Eric, do you think that the HEMA that I'm familiar with is mostly the Western Europe, France, Germany, England, and that's where the manuals seem to come from. But it really does seem that the Viking martial art aspect of it is a less documented, and to my eyes, more attractive to the whole neo-Nazi or white supremacist thing on average. Of course, there there's exceptions. And, uh, it when I think of the local HEMA schools that around me, there there are a couple, there's an awful lot of blue-haired non-binary people in those. So like they've done well. Yeah. But I I I bet there aren't that many blue-haired non-binary people doing, you know, uh, Viking recreation, which is hilarious because Viking was a job title, it wasn't a racial description. And there were brown and black Vikings from the Near East who ended up joining those bands. So you could be a historically correct, I don't know, uh, Syrian Viking. Speaker 3: Sure. Um, I want to touch on the Viking, the blue-haired Viking thing in a sec. Uh, let me correct you a little bit. We at least in the medieval, on the medieval side of things, most of our treatises are, uh, German and Italian. Um, depending on the time period you're looking at, uh, you know, HEMA looks at basically the late 14th century all the way into the early 20th century. Depending on the time period you're at, you may find more or fewer, uh, treatises from this region or another. Um, I do think there is something particularly appealing to the far right on the medieval stuff. Um, I don't know that there's a lot of white supremacists who say, you know what I really want to do is bring back Victorian England. Um, although we have lots of Victorian, uh, fencing manuals. On the blue-haired Viking thing, um, it's funny you should mention that because right next door to Swordwind in Asheville, North Carolina, there is a very successful, um, HEMA school called the Warriors of Ash, um, which is run by practicing, uh, modern Viking pagans. Um, the founders were both, uh, I kid you not, professional leather workers. Uh, and so these guys, uh, would rock up to events in leather HEMA gear that they had made themselves, uh, and they are as white supremacist looking as you could possibly imagine and also very, very Asheville. Uh, so they are incredibly liberal. They are, um, and they are forever turning people away from their school, um, you know, who really are attracted by the idea of, uh, modern Viking pagans who do reconstructed Viking combat and look like they come out of like Vikings the TV show, and then really disappointed to be told, uh, you know, 30% of our, uh, membership is transgender, uh, close to half of them are women, and if you're not okay with that, then you have no place here. Um, and they are really, they're really, really upfront about that. I mean, they've kind of had to be because they get more than their fair share of, um, they're not even attempted infiltrators. I mean, you know, these guys look like someone who would accept your average, uh, white supremacist. And so they are just really, really upfront, uh, with their transgender support patches. Uh, if you go onto their website or any of their socials, they are talking about how, uh, you know, to them, all father means, uh, the father of all. Um, and part of, part of what I think modern HEMA has learned is that how you signal your your school matters a lot. Um, and I think it matters, I mean, the truth is it matters to anybody. You know, there's all sorts of people who will look at your school's website, they'll look at your social posts, and never interact with you at all. Uh, and some of those people are just curious, but a lot of them, I think, are, uh, looking, you know, is this a place that feels like it would be welcoming for someone like me? Whatever someone like me looks like. Uh, if you are a prospective transgender martial artist, maybe this is the first martial art you've ever picked up, you're going to check out that school and see, does this seem like it would be safe for a person like me? Um, if you are a, uh, swastika tattooed neo-Nazi skinhead, you're also going to look at that school and ask, you know, does this look like it would be safe for someone like me? And those people might not ever talk to you, right? They're not going to like hit the contact form, they're not going to, uh, come by for the free class, they're not even going to come by to observe. First, they check you out, you never know about it. And if it, you know, and we've learned that the way you signal to the people who never talk to you matters a lot to the people who even try to come through the door. Speaker 2: My friend and guest on the podcast, Tyson Laron, is this giant mad monster, beard, basically a mohawk, strong man, competitor, uh, built like a brick shithouse. He has what he describes as conservative appearing privilege. He looks exactly the demo, kind of like how you described your friends over at the Warriors of Ash. And he's got for that reason and because of also the force of his convictions, he's got a pride flag hanging among all the other flags along the edge of his gym. So that's like a that's a pretty direct signal that this is a welcoming space. And friends of Steve and mine run schools where they still have vaccination requirements. Not that they think that we're in the middle of the COVID pandemic, but that just automatically is a signal to the people that they don't want training there. Uh, it's it's it's a mechanism to discourage the people who are not going to fit in with their students and probably hold values that are really going to be super divisive in their schools. So those are a couple other signaling devices, uh, that I've seen work. Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. Um, and you you know, I would say, um, you know, I I've had people in Swordwind who lean, uh, very right-wing. We've had a couple of people who were at the, you know, um, at the very least, uh, actively flirting with, uh, with the alt-right. And you you say welcoming. Um, one of the things that mattered to me a lot when I was, you know, when I could say that was my school, um, was if you find value in training here, then you can come here for whatever reason you like. But this is who we are and what we do. And if you don't like that, you know, if if that's a deal breaker for you, then you don't have to come here. Um, and we, uh, I don't I don't want to say deprogrammed, that's that's a little, that's a little grandiose. Um, Speaker 2: Nudged. Speaker 3: But but you know, but holding but holding that line saying like, um, we are not a welcoming school in the sense that we have, we welcome anyone through the door and we don't have any beliefs. We do welcome anyone who comes through the door and we have these beliefs and certain things are just not acceptable to say or do in this space. Um, and if that conflicts with what you believe in your heart of hearts, then you decide whether or not you are okay in this space because we are being very clear that as an institution, we do have beliefs. And some people said, okay, fine, like I will be here and frankly, in my opinion, left much less far right than they came into the door. Speaker 1: Well, we do know that the number one thing that will change people's minds about say the transgender issue is knowing somebody who's actually transgender or having somebody in their family become transgender because it humanizes them. And I've watched in real time as people have changed their minds in Canada about, uh, this brown immigrant issue, right? Brown immigrants, they're coming and they're, you know, what about, uh, Judeo-Christian values? And then they get a brown friend and then that goes silent. Right? It's like, so they familiarity breeds affection as opposed to familiarity breeds contempt. Speaker 3: You know, we we have a fair number of, uh, transgender fencers in HEMA. I think disproportionately so because we've kind of gone out of our way to say, you are welcome here. And every time I hear somebody talking about transgender people competing in, you know, in contact sports, I want to go, don't you don't you know any transgender fighters? Haven't you ever fought a transgender fighter? And, you know, and I I imagine the answer often times is no. But it really does change your opinion on things. Um, or at least it gives you a much different perspective. Speaker 1: I would I would want to ask you here, Eric, something that is interesting about HEMA especially is the symbolism around it. You talked about the importance of signaling and symbols. You know, coming from Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, I find it fascinating that any sort of far-right white supremacist would be interested in BJJ at all, right? I mean, it is the it's it's the wokest, most DEI martial art ever. It's like a Brazilian, Japanese martial art that if you you trace it back far enough, now you're going into Indian and Chinese history. It baffles me that a white supremacist would want to train it. But I I feel like in in your case, especially in HEMA, probably there needs to be an extra push to make sure that you've got symbols up that show what you stand for. Is that correct? Speaker 3: Yes. I mean, uh, so so Stephen mentioned it and I, uh, maybe I should have agreed more, uh, more clearly. You know, having transgender flags, uh, there's a Fighters Against Racism, uh, flag that, uh, kicks around the HEMA community. Um, my school literally sells, uh, patches with a transgender flag, uh, that says, uh, I will fight by your side. You see a lot of, you know, kind of rainbow themed, um, iconography in HEMA schools, you know, Um, and it doesn't need to be the main thing. Uh, your school crest probably doesn't, probably doesn't have that. But it needs to be visible. Um, it's visible on websites, it's visible in, you know, if you're, uh, fortunate enough to have your own space, how do you decorate that? You know, if somebody walks in and they see just a rainbow flag on the wall, that says a lot of stuff right there. Um, if they see the person squared up against them, you know, uh, and three of those people have transgender flags on their fencing jackets, that says something. Um, but you know, uh, I I I realize I've been talking a lot about, uh, kind of, uh, the queer side of this. Um, and I do think we have managed to make an art that is kind of disproportionately queer welcoming, uh, and I'm proud of that. And we did it by trying to be really vociferous about, you know, you are welcome here. Um, we are, uh, you're welcome in our schools, you're welcome in our competitions. Um, but there's another side of that that I think you you touched on, Steve, is just, you know, why does anybody come to a martial art at all? Um, and and particularly if they stick around, you know, I think they, I think we've all had the experiences of somebody who walks into the dojo or walks into the, you know, walks into the salle, and you can tell they have some some idea in their head about what this is going to be. And the ones who stick around are the ones that are willing to, you know, that have gone through a couple of classes, realized, oh, this is work. Um, this may be cool, but it's not what I had in my head. Um, and they're willing to put in work there anyway. Uh, you know, kind of willing to accept the reality of the art when it differs from the fantasy that they had in their head. And yet, I think at least especially in HEMA, we all have that secret little fantasy still lurking around. Uh, you know, if we didn't think swords were cool, we'd be doing something else. We'd be, we'd be rolling BJJ. Um, not that there aren't plenty of HEMA who do that, actually. Um, because it turns out if you want to, Speaker 1: Why not? Speaker 3: Yeah, it turns out if you want to, if you really want to learn how to grapple well with a sword, maybe you should learn how to grapple from people who just know how to grapple. Um, Speaker 1: Shocking. Speaker 3: Um, but the fantasy that you sell in your school, I also think actually has been a big part of, um, our relative success in pushing out the far-right influence in HEMA. Um, because, you know, the way you talk about things in class is also part of that signaling. Um, who you, who you partner with in class. One of the things I was most grateful for early on in Swordwind is, um, one of my first female students took me aside at one point and she said, do you realize you only ever demonstrate techniques with men? And I said, well, I hadn't really thought about it that way, but, you know, like, all of my senior students are men, so who else would I demonstrate with? And she said, okay, I get that. Um, do all of those demos require that level of skill? And sometimes they do, right? I I think we all understand that, um, sometimes to be a good partner, uh, to be a good demo partner, you know, you need to know a certain amount of stuff. That's not true all the time. Um, and so like her challenge to me was really simple, just like, when could you bring a woman up in front of the class just so that other female students see that person, uh, gets to have that position. Uh, that matters. Um, it matters, it matters to women, frankly, I think. Um, and, you know, as a, someone who cares about spreading the art and also as a, like, I don't mean this in a creepy way, but like someone who just likes being around women, um, I want women to feel comfortable in my school and in my lessons. Um, but I think it also matters to, uh, it it matters to the chauvinists. You know, if someone in your class is the sort of person who thinks, uh, a real man wants a woman who's soft and who's compliant and who is kind of everything that a man is not, just bringing up a female student to demo stuff with is a signal that that kind of attitude does not fly in this school. You know, uh, these women are your, these women are your fellow students, they are your training partners, and you're going to respect them as fencers or you should leave. Speaker 1: Let me let me expand on that because you talked about how martial arts is ultimately part of this is we sell a fantasy to people. And many practitioners of quote-unquote modern martial arts will push back hard on that, right? They'll say, fantasy, MMA and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu are effective combative systems. There's no fantasy here. This is proven in the streets and the cage and look, my answer to that has always been, if you really believe that Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is this hyper-realistic combat system or even MMA, right? If you really believe that that is hyper-realistic and there's no fantasy involved, let me tell you, you get me the best MMA fighter in the world and I can find them just a random on the street and give them a pocket knife and I've defeated your entire MMA game, right? It doesn't take much. Martial arts always have an aspect of fantasy that goes alongside it. And that is I think how we we signal to the right people and also how we push back on on the bad people. All of the folks who get their identity really tied up in martial arts and start using it for extremist purposes, for them, there's always an element of fantasy. It's just that for them, that fantasy is like real manly manliness, right? But I I I like your argument about coming to terms with this and using that as part of like how we communicate what our values are and push back on those people and keep them out of here. Speaker 3: Well, and you know, I I one thing I think is really important, uh, as a teacher in general, but also for, um, anybody who's interested in kind of constructing a bullwark against the far right, is answering the question of, okay, so what are like, what vision, what fantasy are you selling? Or if you don't like the term fantasy, right? Like what identity are you selling? Um, what, like, give me something positive about masculinity that I can find at your school. You know, um, I mean, we we've been sort of assuming that we're talking about, um, kind of deliberate far-right infiltration and that does happen. I've seen that happen in like, uh, I've seen that happen in HEMA schools that I know quite well. Um, but there's also, and I I think much more common, just young men who are looking to construct, uh, a version of masculinity that they like resonates with them. Um, who hear a version from, uh, you know, hear a version from some far-right douchebag. Speaker 1: From Jordan Peterson, the least the least manly incarnation of Kermit the Frog ever. But somehow he's busy telling young boys, uh, how to be men. Fuck off. Speaker 3: Right. You know, but like, but it's a fair question. Uh, I don't know that any of them would put it this way, but I think it's a fair question for us as teachers to ask, well, what would you say is a positive version of masculinity that you can learn in this fighting school? You know, um, and I I don't know if that gets talked about enough. Uh, it's all well and good to, uh, make a very welcoming queer space. It's very all well and good to make a very welcoming female space. And I really am proud of like the work that my community has done in that regard. Um, the, um, I'm proud of the track record that like my schools have, but I also like, I am not a queer anybody and I am not a woman as far as I know. Um, and I've found an awful lot of masculine identity in these arts and I think it's like worth really asking yourself, what is that? I mean, you know, because you you you sort of made fun of the idea of like, you know, using BJJ in a in a, I don't know, quote-unquote real fight. Uh, and I make fun of people that think they're going to, you know, get into a bar fight and just rip a sword off the wall or something and like carve up the room in a righteous fury or, you know, whatever. But at the same time, I wouldn't want to learn, uh, a combative art from someone that I didn't think could throw down. Right? Um, if I wanted to learn how to gunfight, I'd want to know that if that person hadn't, you know, successfully been in gunfights, that at least their teachers had been, that they were pulling from lessons that have some kind of track record of success. I don't want to take boxing lessons from someone who can't throw a punch and can't take a punch. Um, right? Like, I wouldn't want to take a BJJ class from someone that can't show me that they can grapple. Uh, and I don't think that there's anything wrong in that. You know, um, I've never killed anybody in a sword fight, but like, uh, but honestly, one of the appeals about HEMA, I think, is that nobody has a living lineage of successfully fighting with real swords anymore. So where do you get that element of authenticity that like, um, the texts we pull from are kind of our substitute for, these guys did it for real. Uh, they were at least successful enough to survive to write things down. Um, that's as good as you're going to like, as real as you're going to get. At least we know that when we're beating each other in the ring with fake swords, uh, you know, we're trying to connect that to the teachings of people that did it for real and their students did it for real. Speaker 2: I would argue that some of the Filipino martial arts still claim in their lineage people who fought with live blades. I mean, Villabreo would be an example. Now, that's two or three generations past in general, but it's not as distant a history as say the HEMA, you know, knights in the battlefield. Speaker 3: You are 100% correct about that, uh, and thank you for like, thank you. I appreciate that. Uh, I have a lot of like, Filipino martial arts actually have like given a, uh, some really valuable contributions to HEMA because sometimes you got to fill in the DNA for the dinosaur with frog DNA. Speaker 1: What specifically? That that's I'm going to derail the conversation a little bit. But what specifically has HEMA stolen or borrowed or I love your frog DNA analogy from the what what have they frog DNA from the Filipino martial arts? And then we'll get back to the topic that Steve wants to discuss. Speaker 3: Okay, so from the Filipino, uh, so footwork in HEMA manuals is often times very, very, very, very kind of fuzzy. Um, not all the time, there are plenty of, you know, before anyone jumps into the comments, uh, there's a lot of footwork you can pull out of those texts if you read closely enough. Um, but there isn't the kind of, um, living interpretation you can get in something like Filipino martial arts about like, when you take this triangle step, um, what is that for? Well, it's probably for more than one thing, right? Um, one of the things that, uh, I think, uh, so the art I primarily teach these days, uh, is Bolognese fencing from the, uh, city of Bologna, uh, in Italy. Uh, and we share an awful lot of like that triangle step footwork. Uh, what none of our sources talk about that Filipino martial arts do is that when you turn your shoulders, uh, as right, as part of that step, it changes the distance of your torso to the enemy's blade. Right? You can void, depending on how you start that step, you can void their attack literally just by turning your shoulders. And then you bring your own weapon, uh, back into range by finishing the step and your other side come, yeah, and your other side comes through. That's the kind of interpretation that like, okay, can I prove that a 16th century Italian maestro would look at that and say, yes, that's what I meant. I cannot prove that. Um, but I can demonstrate to you that that's the footwork pattern they're looking for. And if I have heard that, uh, from a, from a good Filipino teacher, then I can take that that insight into my interpretation of the, um, the way I do, right? Like the historical, um, what is written down in the historical treatise and go, oh, holy shit, that makes this better. You know, where where would you get that if not from where would you get that if not from somebody's frog DNA? Speaker 1: Well, I think that's an an interesting analogy too because again, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, right? We see the exact same thing is it is a martial art that has traveled the world and borrowed a little bit from everywhere that it came from. And I I think that kind of is a again, applies in the face of what a a lot of far-right like white nationalists might think where they push back against that stuff, but really it is through embracing these differences that we can make all of our arts better. Speaker 3: Well, okay, so you know, like let let me sort let me take that and circle back to, uh, to to where I was before I, uh, before I accidentally explained my Filipino, Speaker 1: Before I interrupted you. Speaker 3: Um, I want you to know, Stephen, I'm struggling mightily not to derail this again into the conversation of how much Filipino martial arts actually came from medieval Spain. Um, which, uh, Speaker 2: Of course it did. Speaker 3: Anybody, Speaker 2: Of course there was cross-pollination there. Speaker 3: There must have been, right? And, you know, and we actually have some, uh, we have one Spanish treatise from the right time period. And an awful lot of it does look very Filipino or maybe it doesn't look Filipino at all. Maybe the Filipino stuff looks Spanish and every Filipino martial artist has had that conversation. Um, anyway, that's what I'm not going down. Um, uh, but back to back to like constructing, like, you know, um, constructing, uh, a meaningful version of the, uh, the the masculine martial artist. Um, one of the things I like to, I used to talk an awful lot about like kind of, um, the historical reality of sword fights, you know, and the bloody like, the the physiology of the wounds and all of that stuff. Um, and I realized that that was, first off, it's kind of fake. I mean, right? Like there is something very try-hard about somebody who's never been in an actual sword fight with real swords going, well, you know, when you bring out a sharp blade, obviously this, that and the other thing will happen because the truth is, I don't fucking know that. Um, and I don't really want to have the experiences that would let me know that. Um, but I do believe certain things, but I do believe there is something like actually very masculine about, um, mastering the mastering your own body. Right? That's something I care a lot about, um, as a martial artist, as a person, frankly, as a geek. Um, you know, I don't know what your demographics look like, but HEMA, at least in the United States, gets an awful lot of people that this is not only their first martial art, it's their first physical activity period. You know, and a lot of people come to it, frankly, not being super comfortable with the fact that they have bodies that are made out of muscles and, God, what do you do with that? I think there's something really cool about teaching somebody, you don't have to think of this as just like some meat suit that the real you is piloting. What if you thought of this body as competent and capable and coordinated and like, you. I think there's something powerful to that, uh, especially for a young man who's like looking for some form of identity. Um, and that is something that can appeal to anybody. And that doesn't really play into kind of like the far-right radicalization playbook. Um, you can be a knowledgeable, like, you can be a knowledgeable person about physical things. That's also really cool. You know, there really is something manly about, uh, someone who just can walk into a wood shed and talk to you about all the nuances of the tools there. And this is why this is shaped this way. And this is, you know, how you use this. And if I were faced with this problem, well, this is what I would reach for off the shelf and explain that in a really deep, knowledgeable way. You know, I mean, we do a sword art. Um, but even if you don't do a sword art, right? Like that tactical depth is there in any useful martial art. And it's just really freaking cool to be able to get that intellectual about something that has to be lived out and experienced like in the flesh. Speaker 2: I think there was a danger or there is a danger that the the right wing, especially the far right wing, had sort of claimed masculinity as theirs. Certainly they they would argue. I mean, the number of times I've been called a soytard, libtard, pansy boy, fucking rainbow hugger, whatever the fuck. It it's pretty high. And it's part of the attempt to capture masculinity and that that means us. And if you want to be masculine, then you also need to whatever, hate immigrants. If you want to be masculine, then you also need to whatever, vote Republican, support Donald Trump. If you want to be masculine, and I think it's really important and the work that HEMA is doing is and, you know, some Jiu-Jitsu schools and some, I'm sure there are boxing and kickboxing places saying, no, hang on. It's not the only way that you can be, you don't have to be a shithead or lack empathy to do to do masculine things. These things are not incompatible. And this idea of using, uh, sort of, we'll call it training in the martial arts as a masculine thing, could mean, for example, that you view yourself as a protector. And that means you go to protests and protect people from being snatched up by vans. And, uh, you know, that I I think we really have to push back on that and figure out different ways to prevent this being monopolized by sort of, I don't know, the psychopathic aspects of the far right. Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, and and frankly, I think like there is something kind of unique, potentially unique about martial arts as an avenue to that because like, uh, you know, at least in all of the arts that like we represent here, we do fight. Right? Like, we get into the ring with somebody else who is trying to win and and and we beat them. You know, or they beat us and but at least like we stay, right? We stay in there. Like these are contact martial arts that have, uh, real competitions, uh, that aren't scripted or anything like that. And I think there is, it is important to offer, uh, a physical outlet like that. You know, and not surrender the idea of, um, not surrender the whole idea of violence. Right? Uh, I don't want to over I don't want to oversell that. I'm very aware that like when we fight in a some sense, we are nerds with fake swords. Um, Speaker 2: Well, maybe you can take a sword. I don't even have that. Speaker 3: You know, can can you get bruised? Can you get hurt? Can you get sweaty? Can you get bashed around? That's that's a pretty good start. Right? You know, when you peel off your gear, like it will be soaked. Your muscles are going to let you know that they were working. Um, and I think there's actually something like really, really attractive, um, to about just like for anyone really, about the idea that I can enter that space and it can not be the domain of, uh, you know, the Brotherhood of the Red Flag. Um, I can, I can fight this person and we can be friends, uh, you know, and we can be friends right after. Um, I am the sort of person that, um, I am the sort of person that a woman will not run away from in her training space. I don't know. I think that's pretty cool. Um, I, uh, you know, one thing that I think that, you know, these are all, we're all kind of modern martial artists, I think, uh, here today. But one thing I think that really old school traditional martial arts do a pretty good job of, um, is transmitting this idea of like, what is violence for? You know, like you brought that up, Stephen, right? Like, um, it's this kind of Karate Kid caricature that like these martial arts are for defending people, but it's not really a caricature. Um, I've stopped talking a lot about like kind of the realities of sword fighting when I teach, and I've started talking a lot more about the social realities of when would somebody have used these arts? And sometimes, uh, that's something that modern people can understand, you know, like, uh, Middle Ages were a violent time and there were plenty of opportunities, uh, for someone to draw a sword in defense of another. And sometimes it's stuff that like, I actually think like kind of deserves to be mocked. Like, um, you can't do HEMA for very long before somebody walks up to you and says, don't you wish that, uh, duels would come back? Like, wouldn't it solve so many problems if we could just challenge somebody to a sword fight, you know, and like work it out. Um, and if you look into, you know, if you do an art that looks into the history of the Middle Ages, like I do, then you also should look into the history of dueling. Um, and I push back on that in kind of a mocking way that what dueling culture really is, is, you know, you said something that I have decided just means I get to hit you. Like, my feelings have been so hurt by whatever you said that I get to force you to show up against your will to like, fight me to the death. And I expect all of society to like, you know, everyone from like your kids to like your customers, you know, your your wife to say, that man's feelings were so hurt that you have to fight him to the death. And that's a really kind of weirdly fragile system. Speaker 2: Not to mention the fact that many of these duels were then or at least trial by combat, which is kind of a variation of the duels, the the combat was then outsourced. Because you'd go and you'd hire or you'd appoint somebody. So it's like, uh, me agreeing to fight Steve, and when Steve shows up, it's Jon Jones in his prime or it's Bob Sapp at 375 pounds in his prime. Because say, in this example, I have more money than Steve. And, uh, although I I I do find the example, Speaker 1: I think we could all afford Bob Sapp right now, Stephen. I think if you wanted to hire Bob Sapp, we could probably all get him. Speaker 2: I said in his prime. In his hyperventilating 375 pounds with abs looking like the Incredible Hulk prime. But, uh, I I I'm sure you've heard of the there was a British man in the early 2000s, I want to say 2002, who had a whole bunch of parking tickets from his British town and he found he found some weird aspect of British law that allowed him to challenge the town magistrate to a duel to the death. But he he he was trying to defend his parking tickets by saying like a duel with Bowie knives or hatchets would be acceptable. And, uh, strangely, the the crown found a way to squash this request. I'm sure he got free drinks for life at the bar for that. Speaker 3: You you know what that reminds me of, um, is, um, the movie got kind of panned in my opinion unfairly, but, um, the, uh, the last duel, uh, the film that came out a couple of years ago, uh, was based on, uh, the actual last duel that, uh, the Crown of France ever ever authorized. Um, and what I don't think really came through in the movie super clearly because this wasn't really the point of the movie, uh, is that it had been so long even in medieval France that someone had had a duel like that, that everyone had kind of forgotten what it was like. Uh, and the reason it was the last duel is because the reality of like, two men just like, you know, two men enter, one man one man leaves, was so horrific to all the onlookers that everyone went, oh, shit, we are never doing that again. Like, this was awful. Like, you know, and it's, Speaker 2: Well, you say the last duel authorized because there's actual black and white footage of I think it was a communist French politician dueling. Yeah, there there is video footage of that. You can find it on YouTube of like, I mean, it was to the first blood. Yeah. Nobody dies. But, um, it just was un-authorized. Speaker 3: Well, that's true. You know, I mean, the whole the whole notion of like dueling to first blood or, uh, you know, in the pistol age of like, you know, everybody gets one shot and then we're done. Um, the whole kind of like neutering of the duel in European history, which is a process that takes, you know, 500 years or so. Um, is I think itself kind of this weird condemnation of that sort of like honor violence culture. You know, like, from a modern perspective, I think there's something really just kind of laughable about the notion that somebody wants to be able to say, I put my life on the line for my convictions, um, you know, and the reality is what happened is both people pointed their guns in the air and like threw their shots away. Speaker 2: My mother was Swiss and she had, when she went to college, she had German professors. And these German professors were, I guess, came up in the 1930s and quite a few of them had the big, uh, cuts on their cheeks. So this was from German academic dueling, which to your point, was so neutered, it was with sharp swords. Speaker 3: Right. Speaker 2: But I assume you actually did it. Speaker 3: Yeah. Oh, really? Schläger Mensur? Yeah, yeah. Uh, studied abroad in, uh, Germany, managed to convince a Mensur society to, uh, take him on. Um, and and got to, you know, got to do it. Speaker 2: Did he get the all-important scar on the cheek? Speaker 3: Uh, he didn't pack it with ash so that it would, you know, stick around like a sore thumb. But yeah, yeah, he did. Speaker 2: Yeah. But basically, Steve, they they had like goggles and their throats were bandaged and their mouths were covered and their nose was covered because you didn't want to lose your nose. But it just left the cheeks open. And then we weren't allowed to block, we weren't allowed to, you weren't allowed to footwork, you weren't allowed to dodge. And basically, I tried to hit him. Yeah. Yeah. And we're just basically first person to cut the other person on the cheek wins and the odds of dying from this are, well, unless you get an infection, are infinitesimally small. But you might get a wicked ass scar on your, uh, on your cheek. Speaker 3: And then you can say like, you know, I faced a sharp sword. A sharp sword that was is itself specifically designed to not have enough momentum to like really risk the head more than cutting the skin. Um, you know, and it it is like, Speaker 2: As a German, I can say that Germans are fucked. They're they're it's such a German thing to do. Oh my God. Speaker 3: It is interesting though, because it makes me think of how all martial arts do have this almost performative aspect. I mean, yes, there's there's an element of realism. We want this to be real and useful. But at the end of the day, we've also cooked the scenario such that none of us are really at much risk. But yet we can all use this as a a bragging point. Like I trained the authentic art of XYZ. Speaker 1: I totally pulled inverted turtle guard on this guy and I swept him so hard. Yeah. Where are the babes? Um, you know, and I I I think it behooves us to be honest about that the ridiculous parts of what we do. So so that we can recontextualize, well, what is awesome about what we do? You know? Um, because if if we didn't think it was awesome, I don't think we'd still be doing it. But the awesome part of it isn't that like one day I'm going to like be able to break somebody's skull open with the planet. Um, the awesome part of it isn't like, you know, one day somebody's going to break into my condo and I'm going to rip my sword off the wall, which I sharpened by myself and boy are they going to have a bad day. Um, the awesome part of it, I think, is in getting to know your body, uh, and being able to like find out what your body can do. Uh, in being able to like master something that's really like this weird intersection of like the physical and the reflexive and the intellectual. Um, which frankly not something that a lot of nerddom offers otherwise. Um, the, you know, the awesome part of it, I think, is being able to like outfight somebody in a non-lethal way. Um, but get to know like, man, not only did I like outthink that person, but like, I had to actually execute those thoughts with my actual body. You know? Um, and the further you are from 25 and male, like, the more you realize that making your body do the thing is actually a pretty damn cool accomplishment because sometimes your body wants to quit on you and you remember those moments when you push through and you did it anyway. Speaker 2: And your reasons for training can change over time. I mean, every boy wants to start martial arts because he wants to defend himself in the schoolyard or has this vision of walking down the street with his girlfriend and all of a sudden, a guy jumps out of an alley and says, let's fight. And you beat him up. This this can be the initial reason. And presumably, after doing Jiu-Jitsu or MMA for 10 years, your reasons have hopefully changed. Maybe my road to riches is to compete in the UFC. God help you. Or maybe I'd I I really like doing this because it stops me from being a slug at my desk and it means that I watch what I eat or I really like the social component. It's okay for these reasons to change over time. And initially, it's the fantasy, and usually it's a, uh, you know, maybe it's the idea of dressing up. Maybe it's the one you want to go to Renaissance Fair with a sword and walk around. And then eventually you get into, hey, this is kind of cool to like stand and bang a little bit with blood wooden swords. Speaker 3: And you know what? I think also like, to sort bring back something you said, Stephen, like, uh, I think it's really important that we not just like laugh off people's fantasies. Right? Is it a little ridiculous, you know, when like the kid comes into your dojo because they want to be able to like protect their girlfriend against like that dude who jumped out from the bushes? A little bit, yeah, but there's is something admirable about that, right? The basic Speaker 1: It's nothing primal about that. We are wired for that. Speaker 3: Yes. Right? Like, we don't need to like, we can acknowledge that that's very unlikely to happen, that frankly, this is maybe not the best art to like defend yourself in the real world, like, CF the great American art of shooting. Um, but that, but like that impulse is not bad, right? And like we can honor that, uh, and hopefully turn it into something that like really is enduringly positive. Speaker 1: We are hardwired to overweigh rare but dramatic events, right? Like we're, you know, the odds of me walking down the street with my wife and having somebody jump out and go, let's fight, are are pretty low. They're not zero, but they're low. The odds of me getting skin cancer and dying are much higher. Uh, but the the primal nature of like, I'm going to have to fight to preserve my honor or protect my kids or defend my house, which is, you know, variations of that have actually happened. And I've been I've been I've had to be ready to go. I haven't had to actually, to your point, it's, uh, uh, I was, um, back when I was in university, this giant, uh, I was in my apartment, ground floor apartment, and all of a sudden, all hell broke loose outside. So I was had long hair, I was in my underwear, and I grabbed this blunt ceremonial sword off the wall, went outside. And and I was just watching to see what was going on and my upstairs neighbor came down. And that's how I met my upstairs neighbor. He's like, hey, how's it going, dude? And they turned around and scampered away. And then later when he decided to start a punk country band, amazing. He was very, very polite about calling me like, hey, dude, we're going to practice. Is that okay? Yes, it's okay. So it it it set the tone. You got to set the tone. Speaker 3: Well, you know, you know, uh, I, um, one of my, uh, one of my students, uh, at Swordwind, uh, like kept an old beater sword in his truck. Um, he actually did have to pull it out of the gas station once. A guy came up and said, you know, like, hey, man, I'm going to rob you. And, uh, my my my friend and student reached into the behind his seat and he pulled out, uh, he pulled out his truck sword and said, you sure about that? You know, and the guy just went, no, no, never mind. Speaker 1: We're good. Yes, I'm not. Speaker 3: Look, anyone can pull a gun out on you, right? But that's not that's not a sign that this person is really well trained and ready to go. If someone pulls a sword out on you, you know that a tremendous amount of planning and prep went into this specific moment, right? Like they were they've been waiting for 20 years for this to happen. So you better treat those people very carefully. Speaker 1: Yeah. And, um, we can laugh about how awesome moments like that are, I think, without making them like the core reason that we do what we do. You know, something else that, uh, on the on the another reason I stopped, um, kind of, I didn't think about it as glorifying violence in the way that I taught, but that that the truth is that's what I was doing. Um, is because I also, um, have taught people that have like, you know, been in real knife fights, um, and unfortunately, uh, trusted me enough to come up afterwards and say like, hey, man, like, I've literally almost died. Like, at the, you know, at at the end of a blade. Uh, that's not why I'm here. And I went, oh, okay. All right. Uh, heard. Um, you know, you you you mentioned, uh, people's, you know, why people stick around changing. Um, one of the things that has become really important to me, uh, is just this sense of like, well, there's this tradition, which like is kind of fallen into my lap. Uh, you know, and almost like kind of a Japanese Ryu kind of way. I feel like, all right, well, it'd be a shame if this died out again. You know? Um, I am only half European. Um, right? You know, in a lot of ways, these aren't my arts, but they've fallen into my care to some degree, right? Like some portion of it. Uh, this tradition has landed in my lap. And I just want to honor the tradition, man, right? Like, I don't want to say that the arts of Italy are, you know, like, better than the arts of the Philippines or better than the arts of China, but like, this is the one that's in my hands. And I just want to, I just want to preserve that. Um, my very first student told me on his very first lesson, uh, hey, just so you know, I'm here for the competition. Like, uh, I'm interested in the historical stuff, but like only as a means to get into competition. Like, I want to fight. Uh, he is now the head instructor of Swordwind. Um, and like, and all he talks about now is, man, I just want to find better ways to teach people. And I that's that's that's really cool growth, I think. You know, he does still compete, uh, and and does so very well. Um, but there there's there's a legacy aspect to martial arts that I think is really appealing and also does not need to be surrendered to the far right. Um, you know, like, the alternatives we have are not on the one hand like, white European culture is like the Ur-culture or it's trash, you know, and like no one ever needs to talk about no one should ever mention it. Like, that's something I feel really strongly, particularly like as a a European martial artist that like, there's real cultural artifacts here that are worth preserving, um, and that you don't have to be like, a white supremacist about it. But you can still preserve the thing. The thing is worth preserving. Speaker 1: Awesome. Well, great talk, man. I appreciate it. Any closing thoughts, Eric? Anything you wanted to get into that we didn't talk about here yet? Speaker 3: Man, you know, looking back on it, I realized like, um, I don't know that I said enough good things about the women in HEMA. Um, who, uh, still as women do on the internet and kind of in all masculine spaces, like do still face their share of shit. Um, but man, it is so important, um, to the like, to the culture of the art that it that women keep showing up, that women keep being, uh, keep being welcomed, um, by the the right kind of, uh, teachers and fellow students. Um, and I know that's not hard, uh, sorry, I know that is hard. I know that's not easy. Um, and that really is, I think, a fight worth a fight worth having. Um, just being the kind of school that a any kind of woman will look at and go, I think I would I I'd feel safe there. I would roll with those guys. I would put my body in their hands and let them hit me with a like three-foot long steel bar. If you can crack that, then you've done really good stuff in your culture for everyone. Speaker 1: That's a great way to close this off. Let's talk about the gym again. If people want to train with you, how do they go about doing that? Speaker 3: Uh, yeah, find us, uh, in Orlando, Florida at Crossroads Swords, uh, dot com. Um, if you are looking into, uh, if you're not in Orlando and you are looking into HEMA, uh, and aren't really sure where to start, uh, then you need to Google the HEMA Alliance Club Finder, uh, which is a, uh, global database of HEMA schools, uh, there are HEMA schools in places that you would not expect. Um, so check that out. Uh, that's a great resource that the HEMA Alliance provides, uh, and find out where the closest sword school is, uh, to you. Speaker 1: Amazing, man. Well, thanks so much for doing this. This was a really enlightening conversation. It's always interesting to to hear how other martial arts have tried to solve for this problem and where the commonalities are. But the the big thing I I'm hearing out of this that I think is a common thread is that there's value to these processes and to these practices. And we can we can embrace the good side of this, while still at the same time pushing back on the bad side. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. I I've seen the same kind of thing as as you have where a lot of people will reject things like masculinity whole cloth because it is over the last 10 years especially so associated with awful stuff. But I think that when we push that away, then we seed that territory. And as, you know, Stephen, we've talked about this before, right? In martial arts, you never want to seed the territory. You want to claim the territory. And I I think it's important that we stay in those battlegrounds so that we can make a stronger argument for what good masculinity looks like in sports. Speaker 3: 100%, man. Thank you so much for having me. Uh, I really appreciate the opportunity to just talk with people, uh, from other arts. Meet, uh, it's great to meet you guys. Thanks for, thanks for the conversation. Speaker 1: You as well. Amazing. Thanks all. Thanks, Stephen, and thanks to the listeners too. We'll talk to you in the next one. See you then.