The New York Times reports on Longpoint, the historical European martial arts (HEMA) tournament:
Unlike re-enactors or role players, who don theatrical costumes and medieval-style armor, Longpoint competitors treat swordfighting as an organized sport. Matches have complex rules and use a scoring system based on ancient dueling regulations. Fighters wear modern if sometimes improvised protective equipment, which looks like a hybrid of fencing gear and body armor. They use steel swords with unsharpened blades and blunt tips to prevent bouts from turning into death matches.
Skill and technique, rather than size and strength, decide the outcomes. Fights are fast and sometimes brutal: key to the art is landing a blow while preventing an opponent’s counterstroke. Nevertheless, even the best swordfighters earn large bruises in the ring, which they display with flinty pride.
Longpoint began in 2011 with 60 participants; now the largest HEMA event in North America, it drew about 200 this year. The open steel longsword division had 55 entrants, eight of them women.
This is interesting but it’s unfortunate to see the “size doesn’t matter” fallacy again. I did kendo for a while and one of the moves is to get close to your opponent, shove them and hit them with the shinai as they stumble backwards. Anything involving shoving is going to come out in favor of size (men) every time. And if this group hasn’t figured out an equivalent move yet then I have to wonder about their system.
It’s in there as a fig leaf, I’d guess. My wife and I have both done a little German two-handed sword, as well as Italian longsword training. The former was with a HEMA-associated instructor. Let’s just say that “size doesn’t matter” was about the farthest thing from our mind after that experience. I’m a pretty big guy (6’2″) and the extra reach and mass was very useful.
This sort of little qualifying statement shows up everywhere nowadays: “but women came!” “but strength doesn’t matter!” It’s more than a little ridiculous. Who cares?
People have been saying “size doesn’t matter” about martial arts forever, when it would be more correct to say that size isn’t all that matters.