Minor clarification of the rules of this tournament: the scoring was 2 points for a clean hit, and 1 point for a double if you hit a higher-value target compared to your opponent. Essentially hitting clean was always better than doubling. We've run this ruleset for two years now and this year I was really worried people would catch on to the idea that the best defense is to hit your opponent in the head, but it didn't seem like too many people were adapting in that direction yet, and even those who did still were going for clean hits to gain points even if they doubled to not lose them.
i agree, too much unchallenged casual assumption that doubles = lousy fencing, or worse: that we're becoming a sport and that we're not afraid enough of being hit. Really i think the reverse is true: being too afraid, too tense, too hesistant, and having uncontrolled survival reactions is a big reason why people lose in HEMA and probably historical fights as well. If you wanna use the martial perspective, I would simply say that a sword isn't like a gun; people aren't floored just by any incidental hit, and indeed I would say that if your opponent fakes high and goes for a low-power swing to the legs, while you lay into their face, I think thats a classic case where a double shows inferior fencing, especially if the high hitter had the initiative.
I try to differentiate doubles due to habits from doubles that will just happen, for instance: Habitual doubles: Attacking to a high target then immediately to a mid lands hits but leaves the head wide open. Attacking the leg on the first intention leaves the head wide open. Attacking like you just don't care. Just happen doubles: Training artefacts- working with people on a particular technique leads to people throwing the same move at the same time while testing it in sparring. Sometimes you just happen to both select an action that will lead to a double and fire off in the same tempo. Happens at any ability level or differential.
Afterblows are not encouraged, in theory. They are in the sense that they are reminder to your opponent that he has to cover from the afterblow. IT is not encouraged that you base your defense or offense on afterblows. Now, this is difficult to accomplish, so in the end many rulesets don't handle them well and you can use them as a defense instead of defending. Doubles are different because of the symmetry.
Afterblows force the fencer to refine their technique to protect themselves after an attack. Doubles are sign of shitty suicidal fencing that doesen't have any control over your opponent and are only trying to tag them.
@@codmv2 You've expressed a common fallacy that is still extremely persistent when thinking about these things, which is focusing only on the attacker's incentives and not thinking at all about the defender. Fencing is a two player game, and both players have agency in any situation. "Doubles are a sign of shitty suicidal fencing and are only trying to tag them," okay, well what about the defender, why did they choose to hit when being attacked instead of block? "Afterblows force the fencer to refine their technique to protect themselves after an attack," okay, well why did the defender allow themselves to get hit in the first place? The defender has infinite incentive to attack after already being hit because they have nothing to lose by doing so, and is free to do so as "suicidally" as they would like, because they have already been hit, so it doesn't matter if they get hit again. The unfortunate fact is that stronger afterblow leads to people getting good at doing afterblows, not people getting better at defending after they hit.
@@TheMissingno thank you! Most extended afterblow rules I’ve watched have led to the intentional strategy of tanking shots and then throwing haymakers by many fencers. Suicidal defense certainly seems like the bigger problem than blaming the attacker. Sword coming at the face and one choosing to stab the stomach seems to be a bigger problem than the person launching the initial attack.
@@TheMissingno if the afterblow is allowed +- 0.5 a second it is fine. This simulates a panicked response from an opponent about to get hit. Doubles are the fault of the attacker. Believe me, if everyone did away with protective equipment then the number of doubles would plummet, because people would think twice before initiating any attack. A proper attack at appropriate tempo and from the appropriate position cannot be doubled against, because it retains control of the opponents blade the whole way through. When i perform a proper, by the book attack, even if the opponent tries to double on purpose, they won't be able to. When i do sillier, more dubious shit, i get doubled more often.
So, first off, I really liked this analisis on doubles. Its really nice to see someone consider more perspectives and points of view on this topic, and not limit our view to a single perspective. But also 15:25 mabey chill down a little. Its okay if you personally don't like the discussion on the martiality and the history of fencing, but there's a ton of HEMA practitioners who do like it. Matt Easton from Scholagladiatoria, Skallagrim, Nick from the Academy of Historical Fencing, are all great fencers who helped build this awsome community of historical swordsmanship, and these fencers do read personal accounts of duels, and do consider the martiality of fencing as important. So saying to a large part of the HEMA community to "go fence with sharp swords" and that "no one is going to miss them when they get killed" is a bit much. Its okay to disagree, but saying this sort of stuff is quite toxic to a community that focuses on history and swords.
@HEMA_Fight_Breakdowns I'm not trying to get personal with you, okay? Nor did I claim in any of my comment that you or the fencers I mentioned where encoureging others to fight with sharps. I actually like your content and your insights, especially since you deal with a weapon I don't use. But listen to this: 15:25 then listen at the value Matt Easton, Skallagrim or Nick put value into the martiality and history of fencing. This isn't me making up an argument or trying to convince you of a different point of view, but rather asking you to disagree with a bit more respect. I understand your point of view when it comes to martiality in fencing, and agree with it to an extent, but calling people we disagree with "phsycopathic" and that "no one will miss them" is not going to foster healthy disagreement. Also, if you let the video run 15:25 you did say that: "If thats your frame work, go fight with sharp swords" and you did call fencers who use this frame work "phsycopathic" which again, is not really condusive to healthy disagreement.
if your framework is to only do what you think will kill while sparring with sharps, then yes you are psychopathic. Not all martial validity arguments are this, but they are out there. Those three youtubers DO NOT think that way, and neither do I, and neither do you. We all agree that actually trying to kill someone with a sword is stupid and dangerous and not even a good way to become a decent fencer You have once again hallucinated a point that I didn't make
@@HEMA_Fight_Breakdownsyou say "To the martial validity people, they're just trying to come up with a way to talk about blood and guts and swords... And we don't like talking to them." Who is that addressed to and what do you mean? Most respected instructors and fencers I've trained and sparred with talk about martial validity, but aren't trying to talk about blood and guts. I'm guessing you're not talking about them, but they are the vast majority of martial validity people as far as I can tell.
A fight should only be X minutes long or X passes. Penalize doubles as a -1 point for both fighters. All your doubling kings wont make it out of pools. And limiting time/passes keeps the event flowing. Nothing worse than stopping and talking for 30s after every pass.
My favorite kind of rulesets don't have differential points values, and have a set number of exchanges with no timer, so that fencers have time to set up good actions. Doubles and afterblows just burn an exchange, so you get one less chance to succeed.
Personally i start from the place of "getting it with a sword is bad". Not sure thats cherry picking but thats the first rule we give new folks. Don't get hit is the number one priority. Doubles arejt objectively worse than just getting hit. Doubles exist in a limbo as some are just honest mistakes or a failed technique. Some are the result of silly suicide actions or high risk tricks to get points. I do feel we used to he much harder on doubles in a frankly absurd way. They were treated as the worse possible thing. Id like to think we've evolved since them at least in my local sphere of HEMA
Very interesting perspectives you put forward here. Obviously you are very sports centric and make that clear, which is totally valid. I am all about competitions and training to get better in them, but worry that if we are overly concerned about the sport side, that we will wind up like Olympic fencing which is its own highly mutated thing that has little or nothing to do with historic fencing. And we are, in theory, doing HISTORICAL European Martial Arts. I believe that learning the historic techniques, which are based on hundreds (if not thousands) of years of practical application, have be valid. Obviously some of the techniques will not be maximally effective / or are safe enough to be used in most HEMA conditions, but that is a byproduct of our game and not a reflection of the techniques themselves.
I definitely understand the worry of becoming olympic fencing but currently I don't see many historical techniques that are useless or modern ones that have no basis in history Something might one day ruin HEMA but I just don't think it will ever be doubles
Brilliant conclusion at the end. I wasn’t sure where this was heading given the terrible clickbait title, but I agree. It’s easy to get wrapped up in your head over doubles both in sparring and competition bouts but it’s silly to make it such a big deal that you can’t continue to learn and have fun. Isn’t that why we do this? Sure ain’t for the money or fame lol
Doubles are bad just as much as getting hit. It's just that when only one of the two gets hit or if there is a timing difference (afterblow) we have ways to punish the worst action. Simply by giving points to the opponent. So the "punishment" for failing the defence is intrinsic in the fight. The problem with doubles is that you don't know how to punish both fencers at the same time. But it's a ruleset problem. Not a real issue. The issue is that you got hit. The rules don't know how to tell you that this is bad, because you both did badly. So the options are: - no points to either, but this makes doubles like a defense, so not great - points to both, but this means that whoever is ahead gains an advantage, so the moment you are ahead you can start doubling - weird punishments (like at the third double both lose or you make a tournament with no direct elimination and count the doubles or any death as a negative when making the final tier) None of these is a great solution, so the double problem remains unsolved.
I tend to think "points to both" is the best option, because this way you need to score at least one more clean hit than your opponent before doubles start to favor you. When seeding the eliminations/finals from the results of the pools, you can also further reward clean fencing by subtracting the loser's points from the winner's; say a pool match ended in a score of 5-3, the winner gets +2 and the loser either -2 or 0. Makes the math easier.
@@MisdirectedSasha I fenced in contexts where points to both were awarded. They are ok and can be a part of the environment, but I have to say that the near desperation you get when the opponent can just double and win feels terrible, especially if there is also no inhibition of any afterblow, so the opponent can just take a hit and stab low at the chest, for ex, and repeat that to win. Sure in the rounds you can compensate in some ways, by not in the elimination phase.
@@Manweor sure, but it means that doubles are only beneficial to you if you have more clean hits than your opponent, and that every scored hit with a sword is consequential. In cases where a double results in no points, either fencer has the option of going for a double rather than parrying at any time. The fencer in the lead can still double their way to victory by running out the clock, and the fencer with the lower score can use doubles to prevent their opponent from increasing their lead. Yes, it feels bad to be behind and know that your opponent doesn't need to worry about doubles anymore, but it also just feels bad to lose in general and I don't think this is really worse.
To me, the problem with a double is that I got hit; it's not really any worse than if my opponent hit me clean. I don't know how much of a self-esteem problem doubles are to the average fencer, but I do think the focus on them is bad for tournament scoring systems. I don't think I've ever heard of a rule mechanic whose main justification was "punishing doubles" that was any good. I have most definitely been to tournaments where, if you weren't way better than your opponents, it could be substantially better for your seeding to get skunked 10-0 in all your pool matches rather than try to win and risk a double, which always felt silly. I've also noticed that quite a few mechanisms aimed at punishing doubles actually encourage them. I was at a tournament fairly recently where elimination/final matches *could only* end on a clean hit (with a long afterblow window, too), and the result was that whoever was behind would simply force doubles to filibuster the match for as long as possible. Just treat doubles as hits. It makes your life so much easier.
Two kinds of doubles. Those done indes and those done in nach. The issue is that basically NONE of the sources I've been able to find describe the idea of striking in response while forgoing defense. I think the bigger issue is that everyone treats all doubles as nach which is kinda insane. Even Meyer describes simultaneous as a thing that happens, and that the idea is making the correct response from there to attack with good defense.
I think one of the issues that people have with sport fencing is due to what olympic fencing has become, where you can touch someone's blade without properly parrying their attack, and then stab them while they stab you and yet still win the exchange, whereas historically you would just earn an early death for yourself. In my opinion there is nothing wrong with doubles that occur naturally as a part of fencing. The issue rises when you get a bunch of hotheads who don't want to fence but rather just want to bash people and so they just go in swinging non-stop without caring about their suicidal actions. This leads to forced doubles due to careless fencing. The rules set up against doubles are largely meant to discourage these types of people from fighting in a suicidal fashion. It doesn't matter if you're a sport or martial or even historical fencer. If every point you're involved in ends in a double it's usually a sign that you suck and never properly learned to cover yourself while attacking. Or you're unfortunate enough to fight with only suicidal opponents. That being said, as many in the hema community have previously said, if you fence in such a manner where you defend yourself while attacking then you don't have to care about what ruleset you're fighting under. So at the end of the day the sports fencers, the martial fencers and the historical fencers can all get along.
The title question is poorly formulated. HEMA standing for Historical European Martial Arts won t be ruined by a simple competitive /sport mechanic which is just one aspect of the practice and study of HEMA. As a sport/competitive/spar mechanic the double just let us know that we fucked up. That at some point we couldn t get that clean execution ...and it s part of pressure testing a myriad of things.
Wow, people who play swords are taking this way too seriously. Rules always create a meta that create problems, change tactics from "real world" situations, but ultimately they are there to decide a winner. Overall though, the winner isn't the best. They are just the one who won. But maybe I'm just a loser
Damn you really bashed the martial validity at the end there. Do you really not think there's any value or interesting facets to trying to figure out what would be a good way to kill someone with a sword, in a safe way? In a sense, martial validity i feel like has a lot to do with historicity as well!
Re-read the part you wrote about killing someone with a sword and imagine what a statement like that sounds like to the average person. I'm not saying it's not a valid method of judging or training hema, but I think people NEED to understand just how ridiculous it is to talk about a modern sport in this way
@@HEMA_Fight_Breakdowns I'm not sure I see your point, I think. You say that practicing to kill someone with a sword sounds ridiculous, but isn't that exactly what we're practicing? For example, we see the head as a very valuable target, and we are taught to try and hit it. Isn't that precisely because we are trying to replicate a level of martial validity?
Let's try a more obvious example "I train to throw my counter left zwerch to the neck really hard because that's what it would take to decapitate someone" That statement is not only frighteningly weird, but something that fundamentally doesn't make sense as a training method because YOU WILL NEVER DECAPITATE ANYONE. There are MANY other reasons to make the head a more valuable target, for example its very hard to hit and easier to defend and requires attacks there to be more precise and better defended. That is still replicating a level of martial validity without coming off like a freak
Basically every ruleset penalizes doubles somehow. The main difference is where they assign blame. Deductive afterblow rulesets usually blame the initiator, by nullifying their hit partially, fully, or making it the opponent's point if there's target weighting etc involved. Right of way rulesets assign priority to attacks, blaming the other fencer for doubling/afterblowing instead of defending themselves before attacking back. Rulesets with specific doubles penalties seek to blame both, though often depending on specifics, it ends up favoring one person or the other. IMO if you penalize initiating an attack too harshly and too often, you can end up with really cagey fencing where no one wants to commit to anything.
@@ActionCow69 I think it depends on the goals of the ruleset. If it is to mimic an actual duel, ending up with cagey fencing is probably a legit result. I think most HEMA fencers, myself included, a a bit too cavalier about getting hit.
Doubling, for all intents and purposes, is the same as losing. While I do agree that "doubling is something that is going to happen", I think the same goes for losing. I think you should learn from both, and try to improve. I have participated in both tournament and regular sparring, and what I want to get out of HEMA is to become as capable with a blade safely, so that if I were to fight someone with a sharp I would have the best chance of winning. Never forget: Rule #1 in a sword fight: don't get hit; Rule #2 in a sword fight: hit your opponent. Dont mix up the order. Whether I missed, wounded our killed my opponent is irrelevant to me if I am dead, dying, or wounded in the bout. Of course there are exceptions. If I block 90% of a hit but it knicks my shoulder while I cut off someone's head, thats fine, but in general, training to protect yourself first and hit second is important. I thought your initial arguments were fine, but as you went on you increasingly straw-manned and mad ad-hominems to the opposing positions.
In the end I almost always like your videos and breakdowns, and even when I disagree (even in this case), I am happy to hear opposing views and their reasons.
I just looked back at my copy of the Lew gloss, and it doesn't say anything about rule number 1 being don't get hit, the first thing it tells you to do is step when you cut.
As I said in the video, if you want to judge exchanges based on martial validity (as you clearly do) then do so. Just know that in a tournament setting, walking up to people and telling them "that wouldn't have killed me if it was real" makes you a deeply uncomfortable person to interact with. If you don't do that, then great, but I've yet to meet a person who applies a negative value judgement to themselves and not others
@@HEMA_Fight_Breakdowns I entirely agree with you on how obnoxious it would be to "um, actually" someone's hit. I certainly apply it to myself, but dont outwardly express it unless its a conversation regarding sufficiency. I think it is valid to discuss whether a cut is edge aligned or glancing, but I think you do too. I personally like some of the tournament rulesets that subtract points from both fencers if there is a double.
@@TheMissingno Every HEMA manual that I know of expects some level of implicit understanding of combat. I think in all likelihood there were people who believed "Rule #1 is to kill your opponent, and if you died trying thats fine", but I dont think they lasted very long. It's some next level HEMA orthodoxy to think "It didnt say try not to die in the manual so they must not have cared".
Doubles are bad. You’re bad. You should feel bad. But to be said, without actual bodily harm being on the line it becomes soooo hard to force a mindset using just rules anyhow to recreate “real” fights anyhow and the more rules try the more issues they artificially create.
Minor clarification of the rules of this tournament: the scoring was 2 points for a clean hit, and 1 point for a double if you hit a higher-value target compared to your opponent. Essentially hitting clean was always better than doubling. We've run this ruleset for two years now and this year I was really worried people would catch on to the idea that the best defense is to hit your opponent in the head, but it didn't seem like too many people were adapting in that direction yet, and even those who did still were going for clean hits to gain points even if they doubled to not lose them.
Doubles stole my chicken tendies
Historically doubles ruined lives
i agree, too much unchallenged casual assumption that doubles = lousy fencing, or worse: that we're becoming a sport and that we're not afraid enough of being hit. Really i think the reverse is true: being too afraid, too tense, too hesistant, and having uncontrolled survival reactions is a big reason why people lose in HEMA and probably historical fights as well.
If you wanna use the martial perspective, I would simply say that a sword isn't like a gun; people aren't floored just by any incidental hit, and indeed I would say that if your opponent fakes high and goes for a low-power swing to the legs, while you lay into their face, I think thats a classic case where a double shows inferior fencing, especially if the high hitter had the initiative.
I try to differentiate doubles due to habits from doubles that will just happen, for instance:
Habitual doubles:
Attacking to a high target then immediately to a mid lands hits but leaves the head wide open.
Attacking the leg on the first intention leaves the head wide open.
Attacking like you just don't care.
Just happen doubles:
Training artefacts- working with people on a particular technique leads to people throwing the same move at the same time while testing it in sparring.
Sometimes you just happen to both select an action that will lead to a double and fire off in the same tempo. Happens at any ability level or differential.
One thing that confuses me is after blows aw encouraged but doubles are discouraged despite being almost identical
Afterblows are not encouraged, in theory. They are in the sense that they are reminder to your opponent that he has to cover from the afterblow. IT is not encouraged that you base your defense or offense on afterblows. Now, this is difficult to accomplish, so in the end many rulesets don't handle them well and you can use them as a defense instead of defending. Doubles are different because of the symmetry.
Afterblows force the fencer to refine their technique to protect themselves after an attack. Doubles are sign of shitty suicidal fencing that doesen't have any control over your opponent and are only trying to tag them.
@@codmv2 You've expressed a common fallacy that is still extremely persistent when thinking about these things, which is focusing only on the attacker's incentives and not thinking at all about the defender. Fencing is a two player game, and both players have agency in any situation. "Doubles are a sign of shitty suicidal fencing and are only trying to tag them," okay, well what about the defender, why did they choose to hit when being attacked instead of block? "Afterblows force the fencer to refine their technique to protect themselves after an attack," okay, well why did the defender allow themselves to get hit in the first place? The defender has infinite incentive to attack after already being hit because they have nothing to lose by doing so, and is free to do so as "suicidally" as they would like, because they have already been hit, so it doesn't matter if they get hit again. The unfortunate fact is that stronger afterblow leads to people getting good at doing afterblows, not people getting better at defending after they hit.
@@TheMissingno thank you! Most extended afterblow rules I’ve watched have led to the intentional strategy of tanking shots and then throwing haymakers by many fencers. Suicidal defense certainly seems like the bigger problem than blaming the attacker. Sword coming at the face and one choosing to stab the stomach seems to be a bigger problem than the person launching the initial attack.
@@TheMissingno if the afterblow is allowed +- 0.5 a second it is fine. This simulates a panicked response from an opponent about to get hit.
Doubles are the fault of the attacker. Believe me, if everyone did away with protective equipment then the number of doubles would plummet, because people would think twice before initiating any attack.
A proper attack at appropriate tempo and from the appropriate position cannot be doubled against, because it retains control of the opponents blade the whole way through. When i perform a proper, by the book attack, even if the opponent tries to double on purpose, they won't be able to. When i do sillier, more dubious shit, i get doubled more often.
So, first off, I really liked this analisis on doubles. Its really nice to see someone consider more perspectives and points of view on this topic, and not limit our view to a single perspective.
But also 15:25 mabey chill down a little. Its okay if you personally don't like the discussion on the martiality and the history of fencing, but there's a ton of HEMA practitioners who do like it.
Matt Easton from Scholagladiatoria, Skallagrim, Nick from the Academy of Historical Fencing, are all great fencers who helped build this awsome community of historical swordsmanship, and these fencers do read personal accounts of duels, and do consider the martiality of fencing as important. So saying to a large part of the HEMA community to "go fence with sharp swords" and that "no one is going to miss them when they get killed" is a bit much. Its okay to disagree, but saying this sort of stuff is quite toxic to a community that focuses on history and swords.
None of those people tell you to spar with sharps and neither do I
You have hallucinated an argument
@HEMA_Fight_Breakdowns I'm not trying to get personal with you, okay? Nor did I claim in any of my comment that you or the fencers I mentioned where encoureging others to fight with sharps.
I actually like your content and your insights, especially since you deal with a weapon I don't use. But listen to this: 15:25 then listen at the value Matt Easton, Skallagrim or Nick put value into the martiality and history of fencing.
This isn't me making up an argument or trying to convince you of a different point of view, but rather asking you to disagree with a bit more respect. I understand your point of view when it comes to martiality in fencing, and agree with it to an extent, but calling people we disagree with "phsycopathic" and that "no one will miss them" is not going to foster healthy disagreement.
Also, if you let the video run 15:25 you did say that: "If thats your frame work, go fight with sharp swords" and you did call fencers who use this frame work "phsycopathic" which again, is not really condusive to healthy disagreement.
if your framework is to only do what you think will kill while sparring with sharps, then yes you are psychopathic. Not all martial validity arguments are this, but they are out there. Those three youtubers DO NOT think that way, and neither do I, and neither do you. We all agree that actually trying to kill someone with a sword is stupid and dangerous and not even a good way to become a decent fencer
You have once again hallucinated a point that I didn't make
@HEMA_Fight_Breakdowns I get your point now. Thanks for taking the time to clarify.
@@HEMA_Fight_Breakdownsyou say "To the martial validity people, they're just trying to come up with a way to talk about blood and guts and swords... And we don't like talking to them."
Who is that addressed to and what do you mean?
Most respected instructors and fencers I've trained and sparred with talk about martial validity, but aren't trying to talk about blood and guts. I'm guessing you're not talking about them, but they are the vast majority of martial validity people as far as I can tell.
A fight should only be X minutes long or X passes. Penalize doubles as a -1 point for both fighters. All your doubling kings wont make it out of pools. And limiting time/passes keeps the event flowing. Nothing worse than stopping and talking for 30s after every pass.
My favorite kind of rulesets don't have differential points values, and have a set number of exchanges with no timer, so that fencers have time to set up good actions. Doubles and afterblows just burn an exchange, so you get one less chance to succeed.
That does still favor whoever is in the lead, though. If you win the first two exchanges you can double out the rest of it.
Personally i start from the place of "getting it with a sword is bad". Not sure thats cherry picking but thats the first rule we give new folks. Don't get hit is the number one priority. Doubles arejt objectively worse than just getting hit.
Doubles exist in a limbo as some are just honest mistakes or a failed technique. Some are the result of silly suicide actions or high risk tricks to get points.
I do feel we used to he much harder on doubles in a frankly absurd way. They were treated as the worse possible thing. Id like to think we've evolved since them at least in my local sphere of HEMA
Very interesting perspectives you put forward here. Obviously you are very sports centric and make that clear, which is totally valid. I am all about competitions and training to get better in them, but worry that if we are overly concerned about the sport side, that we will wind up like Olympic fencing which is its own highly mutated thing that has little or nothing to do with historic fencing. And we are, in theory, doing HISTORICAL European Martial Arts. I believe that learning the historic techniques, which are based on hundreds (if not thousands) of years of practical application, have be valid. Obviously some of the techniques will not be maximally effective / or are safe enough to be used in most HEMA conditions, but that is a byproduct of our game and not a reflection of the techniques themselves.
I definitely understand the worry of becoming olympic fencing but currently I don't see many historical techniques that are useless or modern ones that have no basis in history
Something might one day ruin HEMA but I just don't think it will ever be doubles
Brilliant conclusion at the end. I wasn’t sure where this was heading given the terrible clickbait title, but I agree. It’s easy to get wrapped up in your head over doubles both in sparring and competition bouts but it’s silly to make it such a big deal that you can’t continue to learn and have fun. Isn’t that why we do this? Sure ain’t for the money or fame lol
It’s a general rule that the answer to a yes or no question in an article or video is always No.
Doubles are bad just as much as getting hit. It's just that when only one of the two gets hit or if there is a timing difference (afterblow) we have ways to punish the worst action. Simply by giving points to the opponent. So the "punishment" for failing the defence is intrinsic in the fight. The problem with doubles is that you don't know how to punish both fencers at the same time. But it's a ruleset problem. Not a real issue. The issue is that you got hit. The rules don't know how to tell you that this is bad, because you both did badly.
So the options are:
- no points to either, but this makes doubles like a defense, so not great
- points to both, but this means that whoever is ahead gains an advantage, so the moment you are ahead you can start doubling
- weird punishments (like at the third double both lose or you make a tournament with no direct elimination and count the doubles or any death as a negative when making the final tier)
None of these is a great solution, so the double problem remains unsolved.
I tend to think "points to both" is the best option, because this way you need to score at least one more clean hit than your opponent before doubles start to favor you. When seeding the eliminations/finals from the results of the pools, you can also further reward clean fencing by subtracting the loser's points from the winner's; say a pool match ended in a score of 5-3, the winner gets +2 and the loser either -2 or 0. Makes the math easier.
@@MisdirectedSasha I fenced in contexts where points to both were awarded. They are ok and can be a part of the environment, but I have to say that the near desperation you get when the opponent can just double and win feels terrible, especially if there is also no inhibition of any afterblow, so the opponent can just take a hit and stab low at the chest, for ex, and repeat that to win. Sure in the rounds you can compensate in some ways, by not in the elimination phase.
@@Manweor sure, but it means that doubles are only beneficial to you if you have more clean hits than your opponent, and that every scored hit with a sword is consequential.
In cases where a double results in no points, either fencer has the option of going for a double rather than parrying at any time. The fencer in the lead can still double their way to victory by running out the clock, and the fencer with the lower score can use doubles to prevent their opponent from increasing their lead.
Yes, it feels bad to be behind and know that your opponent doesn't need to worry about doubles anymore, but it also just feels bad to lose in general and I don't think this is really worse.
Great video!
To me, the problem with a double is that I got hit; it's not really any worse than if my opponent hit me clean.
I don't know how much of a self-esteem problem doubles are to the average fencer, but I do think the focus on them is bad for tournament scoring systems. I don't think I've ever heard of a rule mechanic whose main justification was "punishing doubles" that was any good. I have most definitely been to tournaments where, if you weren't way better than your opponents, it could be substantially better for your seeding to get skunked 10-0 in all your pool matches rather than try to win and risk a double, which always felt silly.
I've also noticed that quite a few mechanisms aimed at punishing doubles actually encourage them. I was at a tournament fairly recently where elimination/final matches *could only* end on a clean hit (with a long afterblow window, too), and the result was that whoever was behind would simply force doubles to filibuster the match for as long as possible.
Just treat doubles as hits. It makes your life so much easier.
Two kinds of doubles. Those done indes and those done in nach. The issue is that basically NONE of the sources I've been able to find describe the idea of striking in response while forgoing defense. I think the bigger issue is that everyone treats all doubles as nach which is kinda insane. Even Meyer describes simultaneous as a thing that happens, and that the idea is making the correct response from there to attack with good defense.
I think one of the issues that people have with sport fencing is due to what olympic fencing has become, where you can touch someone's blade without properly parrying their attack, and then stab them while they stab you and yet still win the exchange, whereas historically you would just earn an early death for yourself. In my opinion there is nothing wrong with doubles that occur naturally as a part of fencing. The issue rises when you get a bunch of hotheads who don't want to fence but rather just want to bash people and so they just go in swinging non-stop without caring about their suicidal actions. This leads to forced doubles due to careless fencing. The rules set up against doubles are largely meant to discourage these types of people from fighting in a suicidal fashion. It doesn't matter if you're a sport or martial or even historical fencer. If every point you're involved in ends in a double it's usually a sign that you suck and never properly learned to cover yourself while attacking. Or you're unfortunate enough to fight with only suicidal opponents.
That being said, as many in the hema community have previously said, if you fence in such a manner where you defend yourself while attacking then you don't have to care about what ruleset you're fighting under. So at the end of the day the sports fencers, the martial fencers and the historical fencers can all get along.
Doubles are bad, but they happen. It is like saying losing a match is bad. We should train to mitigate doubles, but accept that they do happen.
The title question is poorly formulated. HEMA standing for Historical European Martial Arts won t be ruined by a simple competitive /sport mechanic which is just one aspect of the practice and study of HEMA. As a sport/competitive/spar mechanic the double just let us know that we fucked up. That at some point we couldn t get that clean execution ...and it s part of pressure testing a myriad of things.
Wow, people who play swords are taking this way too seriously.
Rules always create a meta that create problems, change tactics from "real world" situations, but ultimately they are there to decide a winner.
Overall though, the winner isn't the best. They are just the one who won.
But maybe I'm just a loser
Damn you really bashed the martial validity at the end there. Do you really not think there's any value or interesting facets to trying to figure out what would be a good way to kill someone with a sword, in a safe way? In a sense, martial validity i feel like has a lot to do with historicity as well!
Re-read the part you wrote about killing someone with a sword and imagine what a statement like that sounds like to the average person.
I'm not saying it's not a valid method of judging or training hema, but I think people NEED to understand just how ridiculous it is to talk about a modern sport in this way
@@HEMA_Fight_Breakdowns I'm not sure I see your point, I think. You say that practicing to kill someone with a sword sounds ridiculous, but isn't that exactly what we're practicing? For example, we see the head as a very valuable target, and we are taught to try and hit it. Isn't that precisely because we are trying to replicate a level of martial validity?
Let's try a more obvious example
"I train to throw my counter left zwerch to the neck really hard because that's what it would take to decapitate someone"
That statement is not only frighteningly weird, but something that fundamentally doesn't make sense as a training method because YOU WILL NEVER DECAPITATE ANYONE. There are MANY other reasons to make the head a more valuable target, for example its very hard to hit and easier to defend and requires attacks there to be more precise and better defended. That is still replicating a level of martial validity without coming off like a freak
@@HEMA_Fight_Breakdowns Uhh, I think we agree dude. Martial validity is valuable, in so far is it can be practiced safely. Right?
At some point you will need to recognize the inherent contradiction of training to "kill" and training safely
But yea we agree
Doubles are bad and should penalized.
Basically every ruleset penalizes doubles somehow. The main difference is where they assign blame.
Deductive afterblow rulesets usually blame the initiator, by nullifying their hit partially, fully, or making it the opponent's point if there's target weighting etc involved.
Right of way rulesets assign priority to attacks, blaming the other fencer for doubling/afterblowing instead of defending themselves before attacking back.
Rulesets with specific doubles penalties seek to blame both, though often depending on specifics, it ends up favoring one person or the other.
IMO if you penalize initiating an attack too harshly and too often, you can end up with really cagey fencing where no one wants to commit to anything.
@@ActionCow69 I think it depends on the goals of the ruleset. If it is to mimic an actual duel, ending up with cagey fencing is probably a legit result. I think most HEMA fencers, myself included, a a bit too cavalier about getting hit.
Doubling, for all intents and purposes, is the same as losing. While I do agree that "doubling is something that is going to happen", I think the same goes for losing. I think you should learn from both, and try to improve. I have participated in both tournament and regular sparring, and what I want to get out of HEMA is to become as capable with a blade safely, so that if I were to fight someone with a sharp I would have the best chance of winning.
Never forget: Rule #1 in a sword fight: don't get hit; Rule #2 in a sword fight: hit your opponent. Dont mix up the order. Whether I missed, wounded our killed my opponent is irrelevant to me if I am dead, dying, or wounded in the bout. Of course there are exceptions. If I block 90% of a hit but it knicks my shoulder while I cut off someone's head, thats fine, but in general, training to protect yourself first and hit second is important. I thought your initial arguments were fine, but as you went on you increasingly straw-manned and mad ad-hominems to the opposing positions.
In the end I almost always like your videos and breakdowns, and even when I disagree (even in this case), I am happy to hear opposing views and their reasons.
I just looked back at my copy of the Lew gloss, and it doesn't say anything about rule number 1 being don't get hit, the first thing it tells you to do is step when you cut.
As I said in the video, if you want to judge exchanges based on martial validity (as you clearly do) then do so.
Just know that in a tournament setting, walking up to people and telling them "that wouldn't have killed me if it was real" makes you a deeply uncomfortable person to interact with.
If you don't do that, then great, but I've yet to meet a person who applies a negative value judgement to themselves and not others
@@HEMA_Fight_Breakdowns I entirely agree with you on how obnoxious it would be to "um, actually" someone's hit. I certainly apply it to myself, but dont outwardly express it unless its a conversation regarding sufficiency. I think it is valid to discuss whether a cut is edge aligned or glancing, but I think you do too. I personally like some of the tournament rulesets that subtract points from both fencers if there is a double.
@@TheMissingno Every HEMA manual that I know of expects some level of implicit understanding of combat. I think in all likelihood there were people who believed "Rule #1 is to kill your opponent, and if you died trying thats fine", but I dont think they lasted very long. It's some next level HEMA orthodoxy to think "It didnt say try not to die in the manual so they must not have cared".
Doubles are bad. You’re bad. You should feel bad.
But to be said, without actual bodily harm being on the line it becomes soooo hard to force a mindset using just rules anyhow to recreate “real” fights anyhow and the more rules try the more issues they artificially create.
You forgot to mention that you are a FMA master who knife fights to the death every weekend
@@HEMA_Fight_Breakdowns I assumed everyone knew that.