Drilling vs Sparring in HEMA

How we divide our time between drilling (practice of technique) and sparring (some form of competitive fighting).

[scholagladiatoria]

Really interesting perspectives and insights.

[JustGrowingUp]

Whooo, he's back!
I've been waiting for this video, and I agree with your points.
When talking about this subject I will send people this video, as you express these ideas far better than I can.
P.S. Happy holiday!

[TheMissingno]

We do sparring for maybe 20% of practice in kendo. The rest of the class is warm ups and drilling. Kendo has a different purpose than training people to use a real sword in a fight, so it may look different from how you think it should, but we don't practice specifically for tournaments and we don't consider it a sport.

[timothyhayes]

I tend to agree with you. The way we run our club is closer to 60/40 leaning toward drilling but very close to what you are saying for many of the same reasons.

[JonasUllenius]

Nice insight :)
Thank you.
How do you divide the time in a year/session sparring, drilling and other activities like worming up?

[dextrodemon]

in hema do they do an equivalent to those boxing drills where they punch those pads and things like that?

i imagine something like an instructor exclaiming like the name of the guard and then hitting you with a broom handle from that line, so even though it's a drill it'd still be sort of physical i guess.

"third!" ~whack~

"forth!" ~whack~

something like that..is that a thing?

[EPYHDA]

In my opinion, it is a bit too binary - I would say it entirely depends on the drills. I do not know whether you emphasize strictly historical drills, or you could modify them to closer and closer approximation of could be called sparring, so I would rather see a spectrum.

[ImperialStoneDragon]

any chance you do some sparrings with great swords, claymores or two-handed swords?

[devast]

I've always wanted to give historical fencing a go, do you have a club in the south east midlands or south east England?

[nachoolo]

Wicht part of Spain? you Englishmen tend to go to the Mediterranean coast XD.