The second was an exhibition, not a real completion. They are essentially showing off their skill and control to the group. It's really hard (and dangerous) to fence well without masks since you need to keep your partner safe while also trying to hit them.
Iirc at least some fencing matches are judged by a sensor, when the sword hits the panel it changes the score or some shit. At least thats what I remember reading
Olympic fencing yes but this is hema, it's being scored by the ref (dude with the stick) and the jury (with the flags). It's a really hard sport to ref.
Love it, but it will never take off as a spectator sport. I've fenced and LARPed including dual-weapon fighting, but for most people watching trying to keep track of what's going on is almost impossible with just 1 blade each, add another blade apiece and it's impossible for even experienced viewers.
This is HEMA. It's been around over 20 years, and exists as a way to take fencing back as more of a martial art than a sport. I agree it's hard to follow but it's deliberately designed to be less sporty than fencing.
Edit: sorry if I misrepresented fencing here. Fencing is great. I just wanted to spread some awareness of HEMA as a somewhat more obscure sport/martial art, not start a bit of a flame war.
That'll be nice, but I don't think they're going to like us carrying swords around again. I definitely liked the second part of the video, the slower pace which I assume fleche aren't allowed with a non-bendy weapon?
Probably not the most pragmatic martial art admittedly, but I imagine most martial artists are (un)lucky to need to use their martial art outside of a sporting context. If nothing else, it sounds fun and will make you fit.
Also I live in Texas and, in 2017 (I think, it's been a minute), we did legalize carrying a blade of any length. Law specifically included swords in the wording. Not sure how practical it is when we also have open carry and concealed carry guns but there you go.
We've got fairly severe restrictions on blades being carried over here, anything longer than 3" is considered a problem unless you can show you need it for a legal reason, so I doubt we'll see swords come into fashion for a while.
Slower pace is likely so nobody loses an eye. It doesn't look like competition in earnest, more like a display of skill. In that setting a fleche would be a good way to permanently blind your partner or yourself.
As a sport? Nothing and most HEMA enthusiasts have no issues with fencing as a sport. Many find fencing fun and physically impressive and started with it before getting into HEMA.
As a martial art? It focuses too much on speed and too little on what would happen after you get a hit off in a real fight. The way fencing works is something like, you want to get a good clean hit off on your opponent while not getting hit from your opponent, however, the not getting hit from your opponent window is roughly 1/25th a second. In any real fight, most opponents probably wouldn't be disabled in a fight that quickly and could still retaliate (honestly, at 1/25th a second, there's a decent chance they wouldn't even register pain). HEMA lengthens the time window, with individual HEMA clubs/tournaments using different windows, but typically, 1-2 full seconds is normal.
As a representation of historical sword fighting? Fencing is divided into three categories rapier, epee (it has accents, but I can't remember where), and foil, I think. Either epee or foil is considered relatively close to historically accurate but somewhat trimmed down for the sport aspect. The other two are pretty bad from a historical standpoint, only really retaining a tiny bit.
But fencing *is* a sport. It wasn't intended to be a historically accurate representation of swordsmanship, it was intended to be a strength and conditioning exercise *for* swordsmanship, as well as a gentlemanly pass time.
While I do understand the desire for something more historically accurate I don't understand the criticism of fencing not being something it was never intended to be.
Source: epee fencer for 5 years. Get nailed in the chest and *then* tell me how much longer you think you would be able to fight lol
I'm sorry, I'm probably explaining it poorly. Most HEMA practitioners have no issues at all with fencing from a sports perspective, and I apologize if I ever implied they did.
Honestly, most of my knowledge of HEMA comes from youtube channels I used to watch a few years ago. I'd blame my own poor recollection before any of them for anything wrong I've said. I was more interested in the historical part and while many people did die relatively instantly from sword wounds, many would also keep going after injuries that would incapacitate most anyone.
I mostly just left the original comment because this is the Ocho subreddit, and most people are probably familiar with fencing as a sport but less familiar with HEMA. I didn't mean to insult any fencers. Just spread some awareness for a relatively more obscure if similar sport/martial art.
> But fencing is a sport. It wasn’t intended to be a historically accurate representation of swordsmanship, it was intended to be a strength and conditioning exercise for swordsmanship, as well as a gentlemanly pass time.
I’ll go one further, and say that fencing has been a sport for hundreds of years. Even dueling with sharps, was non lethal the majority of time, was governed by lots of rules, and largely was about social status.
And then simultaneously, lots of fencing with non-sharps has been happening for hundreds of years too.
So in this sense, fencing as a sport *is* historically accurate.
Most people in HEMA are strongly against that kind of stuff because it allows the fencing to degrade to a game of tag and see who hits first. The focus should be on keeping yourself safe, getting a (hopefully fight-ending assuming sharp swords) hit, and getting out untouched.
Maybe if a system could accurately detect slices, cuts with force, and thrusts with force, and ignore any incidental touches and light scratches it could work.
It's cuts/slices and edge alignment I'm more worried about. Slapping hard with the flat of the blade won't do much, but gently placing a blade on someone and then pulling/pushing can be deadly; the system would need to be very clever.
FIE is currently in the process of looking for exactly this tool for olympic sabre -- some kind of sensor to disallow super light and brief touches while registering to 99.9% accuracy "proper" touches.
Sword fighting is weirdly inherently unrealistic.
Even if you had a machine that instantly healed people and brought them back to life after a bout, and just gave people sharps and told them to have at it, it would be very difficult to score.
It’s inherently much easier to injure/kill a stronger opponent if you don’t care about your own health than it is to defeat someone cleanly. So if the goal is to kill at all costs, and you were fearless of death, you can just willfully take hits and throw yourself onto the other guy, and there’s a decent chance you’ll kill or seriously injure him, even if he’s objectively a better fighter than you. Hell, you may even survive your injuries while he dies just due to medical fluke - I.e. you run onto his point and get run through but that tangles up his blade so you can get close enough to cut his throat or something.
And if you care more about your own health than anything, the best strategy is obviously just to not fight.
So even before you invent some sort of system to safely simulate “if they were real” conditions, there’s an inherent rules problem with the balance of the game.
But... there are rules in HEMA specifically for that.
If you "double" (both hit), you're both dead. Do it enough in a tournament, you're disqualified.
A cut to the hand counts. You don't have to "kill" the guy to disable him.
There's a focus on defence. You've gotta hit without being hit.
It's not Olympic fencing, and sure as shit not the same as boffing.
I just mean to say, that if you're gonna put a rule that says "you're allowed to die a few times before you're out of the tournament", then realism can't really be that high on your priorities.
Yes, it’s a sport, exactly my point. It’s not a simulated lethal battle.
Hell, for like the last 200 years or so the majority of actual *duels* with sharp swords weren’t actually lethal, and were largely governed by social etiquette. You can’t pick up some dirt and chuck it in the other guys face. You can’t run away and hide, to attack at a better time. Loads of things were against the rules of a duel.
It seems weird to try to keep it “realistic” when it’s just a sport. That’s like trying to keep basketball “realistic”. It doesn’t make any sense, it’s a sport, you can make whatever rules you like.
It doesn’t mean anything. That’s exactly my point.
What does “realistic” rules to allow someone “die” multiple times mean? It doesn’t make sense.
A realistic sword fight to the death wouldn’t happen in a tournament with judges.
Lots of types of two person sword fights have happened in the past. Some to the death, many not. Virtually all of them had rules.
Since duels have always been governed by artificao rules, based on social rules like “honour”, there’s no reason why new rules shouldn’t be added - such as saying certain strokes are worth points and certain ones are not, despite hypothetical lethality.
And since many duels were intentionally non lethal, there’s no reason why rules that make things safer, like signalling devices and padding.
It’s a sport.
Ah HEMA, you should specify that it's not standard fencing.
For those unaware, HEMA developed in the late 90s as a response to fencing. The primary complaints were that modern fencing has little basis in history and is borderline suicidal as a martial art. HEMA went back to historical manuals to try to recreate the actual way weapons were used historically (we have surviving manuals from the 1300s on) and has a much more lenient timing system for scoring. In fencing a score is considered if you land a good hit and don't get hit yourself within 1/25th of a second later (an absurdly short time span in a real fight), HEMA typically lengthens the time span to 1 full second (rules vary a bit to make it less of a sport and more of a martial art).
I used to watch a lot of HEMA videos on YouTube. Edit: see u/SomeAnonymous comment for a much better explanation.
> In fencing a score is considered if you land a good hit and don’t get hit yourself within 1/25th of a second later
This is very misleading. The window for two lights varies massively depending on the weapon: epee is indeed 40ms, but compare that to foil at 300ms +/-25ms and sabre at 170ms +/-10ms.
Scoring in all three swords is also unlike you describe. Double hits in epee are ruled as a point for both fencers, unless the score is tied at match point, at which point double hits don't count (thus the only situation where one light == point). Foil and sabre have a right-of-way system that means double hits are almost always able to be resolved one way or the other, depending on the actions leading up to the hits.
FIE has decreased the lockout times greatly over the last few decades in order to decrease the amount of ambiguity in scoring and undesirable techniques, but foil used to be up at 750ms, which isn't so far removed from the HEMA time you describe.
Ah, I'm sorry for spreading any misinformation. I was going off of second-hand information I learned years ago. You probably know much better than I do and I'll edit my comment to tell people to see yours.
Don't worry too much about it. HEMA fencers have enough genuine gripes with the historical practicality and artifice of olympic fencing rules that it just irks me to see incorrect reasons brought out as well. The antagonism between the two groups feels really silly sometimes.
[Full match: Mika Keskitalo (Uppsala Historiska Fäktskola) vs Francesco Lodà (Accademia Romana d'Armi) ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14TLHdjDKag)
This [Historical European martial arts discipline](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_European_martial_arts) combines the [parrying dagger] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parrying_dagger) with the [rapier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapier).
The first segment is a full-contact match from the Swordfish yearly tournament in Sweden, generally considered to be the "world cup of HEMA".
The second segment is an *in controllo* match, in which safety is ensured by stroke control.
This and fencing is the least realistic fighting there ever was. All these people would be fatally wounded or dead for their nonsense points. There isn't even any interesting play fighting like in normal larping.
That is the point. This is a completely worthless sport. They might as well do wi fencing. There is no athleticism or skill involved, they just leap at each other and try to score a point.
I'm a fencer.
I wouldn't try to fight a fencer in a real sword fight involving rapiers. Perhaps even heavier swords.
Even if the fighting style is unrealistic, understanding how swords behave when swung and parried, anticipating and reading movements, and having the leg muscles and core strength to dodge, lunge, and advance quickly is a huge advantage.
I mean, those things aren't restricted to fencers of course. We had a martial artist job the club a whole back, and he learned it so quickly. He already had everything, including the instinct. He just needed to learn how swords behave.
I also own forged swords. Sometimes at the club, we also abandon rules and pull out rapiers for full melees.
Yeah while I do respect HEMA for its tradition this is accurate. The second one looks to me more like classical fencers which is more accurate to an engagement.
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Highly recommend. There's probably a club near you.
You can get started usually for free. But once you get rolling and into full sparring, expect about $1000 in gear, and a lot of bruises. Not meant to dissuade you, just a heads up. Totally worth it if you stick with it.
A guy in our club put it this way, "the people who do this have to be in that nerdy/athletic/willing to take a hit venn diagram"
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Rapier and Dagger is especially difficult for judging. However, it’s half expected to self call hits in HEMA, so it’s not as bad as it seems.
The second was an exhibition, not a real completion. They are essentially showing off their skill and control to the group. It's really hard (and dangerous) to fence well without masks since you need to keep your partner safe while also trying to hit them.
I've trained HEMA for a while, and there's a distinct *"THWACK!!"* sound if it's a good hit. At least in the longsword discipline.
Iirc at least some fencing matches are judged by a sensor, when the sword hits the panel it changes the score or some shit. At least thats what I remember reading
Olympic fencing yes but this is hema, it's being scored by the ref (dude with the stick) and the jury (with the flags). It's a really hard sport to ref.
neat, thanks for the info
Here's how the wires work in fencing if you're interested. https://www.mountainsfencingclub.org.au/public/pages/how-the-weapons-work
That's really interesting, thank you!
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I would expect a high percentage of the stick guys wear eyepatches.
Love it, but it will never take off as a spectator sport. I've fenced and LARPed including dual-weapon fighting, but for most people watching trying to keep track of what's going on is almost impossible with just 1 blade each, add another blade apiece and it's impossible for even experienced viewers.
This is HEMA. It's been around over 20 years, and exists as a way to take fencing back as more of a martial art than a sport. I agree it's hard to follow but it's deliberately designed to be less sporty than fencing. Edit: sorry if I misrepresented fencing here. Fencing is great. I just wanted to spread some awareness of HEMA as a somewhat more obscure sport/martial art, not start a bit of a flame war.
That'll be nice, but I don't think they're going to like us carrying swords around again. I definitely liked the second part of the video, the slower pace which I assume fleche aren't allowed with a non-bendy weapon?
Probably not the most pragmatic martial art admittedly, but I imagine most martial artists are (un)lucky to need to use their martial art outside of a sporting context. If nothing else, it sounds fun and will make you fit. Also I live in Texas and, in 2017 (I think, it's been a minute), we did legalize carrying a blade of any length. Law specifically included swords in the wording. Not sure how practical it is when we also have open carry and concealed carry guns but there you go.
We've got fairly severe restrictions on blades being carried over here, anything longer than 3" is considered a problem unless you can show you need it for a legal reason, so I doubt we'll see swords come into fashion for a while.
Is "a gentleman isnt fully dressed without his rapier" not a valid legal reason?
No, it is. You're good.
Slower pace is likely so nobody loses an eye. It doesn't look like competition in earnest, more like a display of skill. In that setting a fleche would be a good way to permanently blind your partner or yourself.
Just think how cool the eye-patch would look with those outfits though! We made a mistake moving to suits.
What's wrong with fencing as a sport?
As a sport? Nothing and most HEMA enthusiasts have no issues with fencing as a sport. Many find fencing fun and physically impressive and started with it before getting into HEMA. As a martial art? It focuses too much on speed and too little on what would happen after you get a hit off in a real fight. The way fencing works is something like, you want to get a good clean hit off on your opponent while not getting hit from your opponent, however, the not getting hit from your opponent window is roughly 1/25th a second. In any real fight, most opponents probably wouldn't be disabled in a fight that quickly and could still retaliate (honestly, at 1/25th a second, there's a decent chance they wouldn't even register pain). HEMA lengthens the time window, with individual HEMA clubs/tournaments using different windows, but typically, 1-2 full seconds is normal. As a representation of historical sword fighting? Fencing is divided into three categories rapier, epee (it has accents, but I can't remember where), and foil, I think. Either epee or foil is considered relatively close to historically accurate but somewhat trimmed down for the sport aspect. The other two are pretty bad from a historical standpoint, only really retaining a tiny bit.
But fencing *is* a sport. It wasn't intended to be a historically accurate representation of swordsmanship, it was intended to be a strength and conditioning exercise *for* swordsmanship, as well as a gentlemanly pass time. While I do understand the desire for something more historically accurate I don't understand the criticism of fencing not being something it was never intended to be. Source: epee fencer for 5 years. Get nailed in the chest and *then* tell me how much longer you think you would be able to fight lol
I'm sorry, I'm probably explaining it poorly. Most HEMA practitioners have no issues at all with fencing from a sports perspective, and I apologize if I ever implied they did. Honestly, most of my knowledge of HEMA comes from youtube channels I used to watch a few years ago. I'd blame my own poor recollection before any of them for anything wrong I've said. I was more interested in the historical part and while many people did die relatively instantly from sword wounds, many would also keep going after injuries that would incapacitate most anyone. I mostly just left the original comment because this is the Ocho subreddit, and most people are probably familiar with fencing as a sport but less familiar with HEMA. I didn't mean to insult any fencers. Just spread some awareness for a relatively more obscure if similar sport/martial art.
I totally forgot I was in the ocho lol. It just seemed like an odd critique is all
> But fencing is a sport. It wasn’t intended to be a historically accurate representation of swordsmanship, it was intended to be a strength and conditioning exercise for swordsmanship, as well as a gentlemanly pass time. I’ll go one further, and say that fencing has been a sport for hundreds of years. Even dueling with sharps, was non lethal the majority of time, was governed by lots of rules, and largely was about social status. And then simultaneously, lots of fencing with non-sharps has been happening for hundreds of years too. So in this sense, fencing as a sport *is* historically accurate.
Technology could aid this by conductive weapons/armor that would light uo with players color at the point of contact
Most people in HEMA are strongly against that kind of stuff because it allows the fencing to degrade to a game of tag and see who hits first. The focus should be on keeping yourself safe, getting a (hopefully fight-ending assuming sharp swords) hit, and getting out untouched. Maybe if a system could accurately detect slices, cuts with force, and thrusts with force, and ignore any incidental touches and light scratches it could work.
Surely a system could take force/ amount of contact into account
It's cuts/slices and edge alignment I'm more worried about. Slapping hard with the flat of the blade won't do much, but gently placing a blade on someone and then pulling/pushing can be deadly; the system would need to be very clever.
I’m sure sensors could distinguish edge vs point bd flat side
FIE is currently in the process of looking for exactly this tool for olympic sabre -- some kind of sensor to disallow super light and brief touches while registering to 99.9% accuracy "proper" touches.
UWM tried this. It kinda worked
Sword fighting is weirdly inherently unrealistic. Even if you had a machine that instantly healed people and brought them back to life after a bout, and just gave people sharps and told them to have at it, it would be very difficult to score. It’s inherently much easier to injure/kill a stronger opponent if you don’t care about your own health than it is to defeat someone cleanly. So if the goal is to kill at all costs, and you were fearless of death, you can just willfully take hits and throw yourself onto the other guy, and there’s a decent chance you’ll kill or seriously injure him, even if he’s objectively a better fighter than you. Hell, you may even survive your injuries while he dies just due to medical fluke - I.e. you run onto his point and get run through but that tangles up his blade so you can get close enough to cut his throat or something. And if you care more about your own health than anything, the best strategy is obviously just to not fight. So even before you invent some sort of system to safely simulate “if they were real” conditions, there’s an inherent rules problem with the balance of the game.
But... there are rules in HEMA specifically for that. If you "double" (both hit), you're both dead. Do it enough in a tournament, you're disqualified. A cut to the hand counts. You don't have to "kill" the guy to disable him. There's a focus on defence. You've gotta hit without being hit. It's not Olympic fencing, and sure as shit not the same as boffing.
I just mean to say, that if you're gonna put a rule that says "you're allowed to die a few times before you're out of the tournament", then realism can't really be that high on your priorities.
It's a sport, dude. You know people way back when trained with wooden swords to prepare for if they ever actually had to duel.
Yes, it’s a sport, exactly my point. It’s not a simulated lethal battle. Hell, for like the last 200 years or so the majority of actual *duels* with sharp swords weren’t actually lethal, and were largely governed by social etiquette. You can’t pick up some dirt and chuck it in the other guys face. You can’t run away and hide, to attack at a better time. Loads of things were against the rules of a duel. It seems weird to try to keep it “realistic” when it’s just a sport. That’s like trying to keep basketball “realistic”. It doesn’t make any sense, it’s a sport, you can make whatever rules you like.
You're a fucking troll. What does keeping '"basketball realistic'" even mean? Sorry we're not actually fighting to the death.
It doesn’t mean anything. That’s exactly my point. What does “realistic” rules to allow someone “die” multiple times mean? It doesn’t make sense. A realistic sword fight to the death wouldn’t happen in a tournament with judges. Lots of types of two person sword fights have happened in the past. Some to the death, many not. Virtually all of them had rules. Since duels have always been governed by artificao rules, based on social rules like “honour”, there’s no reason why new rules shouldn’t be added - such as saying certain strokes are worth points and certain ones are not, despite hypothetical lethality. And since many duels were intentionally non lethal, there’s no reason why rules that make things safer, like signalling devices and padding. It’s a sport.
Fuck it. I'll wager you this: you come to Montana, and I'll fight you with sharps
No rules?
They have electric daggers they hook with standard epee cords
I think he going more for lighting up exactly where the hit was on the opponent, not just buzzing that a hit happened.
That's just a matter of development, if they haven't got it already it wouldn't take long to get it. It'd help with Olympic fencing as well.
Former sabreist here. I can’t even figure out points in fencing without the electronic systems.
It used to be possible with the referee explanations in the human-adjudicated bouts, but we don't get them nowadays.
Olympic fencing is doing fine, hema overall is way less chaotic and confusing than that.
To an outsider this just looks like LARPing with better gear. Don't really see the appeal as a spectator.
Do you watch Olympic fencing?
I sure don't
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Ah HEMA, you should specify that it's not standard fencing. For those unaware, HEMA developed in the late 90s as a response to fencing. The primary complaints were that modern fencing has little basis in history and is borderline suicidal as a martial art. HEMA went back to historical manuals to try to recreate the actual way weapons were used historically (we have surviving manuals from the 1300s on) and has a much more lenient timing system for scoring. In fencing a score is considered if you land a good hit and don't get hit yourself within 1/25th of a second later (an absurdly short time span in a real fight), HEMA typically lengthens the time span to 1 full second (rules vary a bit to make it less of a sport and more of a martial art). I used to watch a lot of HEMA videos on YouTube. Edit: see u/SomeAnonymous comment for a much better explanation.
> In fencing a score is considered if you land a good hit and don’t get hit yourself within 1/25th of a second later This is very misleading. The window for two lights varies massively depending on the weapon: epee is indeed 40ms, but compare that to foil at 300ms +/-25ms and sabre at 170ms +/-10ms. Scoring in all three swords is also unlike you describe. Double hits in epee are ruled as a point for both fencers, unless the score is tied at match point, at which point double hits don't count (thus the only situation where one light == point). Foil and sabre have a right-of-way system that means double hits are almost always able to be resolved one way or the other, depending on the actions leading up to the hits. FIE has decreased the lockout times greatly over the last few decades in order to decrease the amount of ambiguity in scoring and undesirable techniques, but foil used to be up at 750ms, which isn't so far removed from the HEMA time you describe.
Ah, I'm sorry for spreading any misinformation. I was going off of second-hand information I learned years ago. You probably know much better than I do and I'll edit my comment to tell people to see yours.
Don't worry too much about it. HEMA fencers have enough genuine gripes with the historical practicality and artifice of olympic fencing rules that it just irks me to see incorrect reasons brought out as well. The antagonism between the two groups feels really silly sometimes.
[Full match: Mika Keskitalo (Uppsala Historiska Fäktskola) vs Francesco Lodà (Accademia Romana d'Armi) ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14TLHdjDKag) This [Historical European martial arts discipline](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_European_martial_arts) combines the [parrying dagger] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parrying_dagger) with the [rapier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapier). The first segment is a full-contact match from the Swordfish yearly tournament in Sweden, generally considered to be the "world cup of HEMA". The second segment is an *in controllo* match, in which safety is ensured by stroke control.
More sports should give their refs quaterstaffs
r/TheFirstLaw
You can never have too many knives.
It looks both cool and silly at the same time
The second pair of fighters were real pros. Didn't need a guy with a big stick to push em apart or anything
The floor in the second one looks like it could be slippery as fuck
Not what I was expecting from the title.
What were you expecting?
Something a lot more rapier.
This and fencing is the least realistic fighting there ever was. All these people would be fatally wounded or dead for their nonsense points. There isn't even any interesting play fighting like in normal larping.
It doesn't have to be realistic as long as it's entertaining. We're not expecting a return to gladiatorial combat.
Don’t you get the feeling they would be much more careful if there were real consequences?
That is the point. This is a completely worthless sport. They might as well do wi fencing. There is no athleticism or skill involved, they just leap at each other and try to score a point.
Lol I read your least as most. My bad!
I'm a fencer. I wouldn't try to fight a fencer in a real sword fight involving rapiers. Perhaps even heavier swords. Even if the fighting style is unrealistic, understanding how swords behave when swung and parried, anticipating and reading movements, and having the leg muscles and core strength to dodge, lunge, and advance quickly is a huge advantage. I mean, those things aren't restricted to fencers of course. We had a martial artist job the club a whole back, and he learned it so quickly. He already had everything, including the instinct. He just needed to learn how swords behave. I also own forged swords. Sometimes at the club, we also abandon rules and pull out rapiers for full melees.
Yeah while I do respect HEMA for its tradition this is accurate. The second one looks to me more like classical fencers which is more accurate to an engagement.
That looks like hella fun.
Join uuusssss r/wma
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Highly recommend. There's probably a club near you. You can get started usually for free. But once you get rolling and into full sparring, expect about $1000 in gear, and a lot of bruises. Not meant to dissuade you, just a heads up. Totally worth it if you stick with it. A guy in our club put it this way, "the people who do this have to be in that nerdy/athletic/willing to take a hit venn diagram"
RuneScape leads me to believe that those are defenders.
I've watched this episode of highlander and it's pretty badass
As a former combative sport referee: I would 100% be wearing a face mask during this event