Okay, I have decided not to do a “Best HEMA Videos of 2018” list. The website is simply too young. Also, there were a suprising number of good HEMA videos in the last days of 2018. So with a slight delay, here they are:

Get HEMA Powered by Akademia Szermierzy

If you have watched any HEMA videos ever, you probably know Akademia Szermierzy – the Polish guys who make awesome cinematic AND technical videos on Fiore. Well, this is the introduction of their new project – a series on the main “HEMA Powers”, as they call them, historical, pedagogical and modern key qualities to make you a good fencer. “A perfect fencer” is both a pilot episode and an introduction to a series, which we hopefully will see more of soon.

When HEMA treatises are wrong

Matt Easton makes a good overview of a popular discussion from the last few days of 2018 in this video, as well as giving good examples of how fencers and even fencing masters changed their minds throughout their lives.

AHF present 30 minutes of sparring

I watch sparring videos for relaxation. Or to move my HEMA brain tissue a bit. The British Academy of Historical Fencing end the year with almost 30 straight minutes of sparring footage. With various weapons and at varying intensities. It’s always good to watch sparring footage – both your own and of people from around the world. And it is great of AHF to make it public.

Are Neyman Armadillos the worst gloves in HEMA?

For the price, quite probably. But B&I did not do particularly well with this review. I have handled a prototype of the Armadillos and I know they have serious problems, but the review by the Canadian school of the new 5-fingered gloves by Neyman Fencing would not convince me if I didn’t know already.

They say a lot without showing enough. Especially when you make such big claims – worst gloves in HEMA, worse than Red Dragons (and for what the gloves are intended for, that is true). This video created an especially big HEMA discussion in Facebook, that eventually resulted in a ban for me for a day and a deletion of the thread. HEMA drama – I’ll tell you about it soon.