Now Available: SwordSTEM Polos
Due to popular* demand, SwordSTEM Polos are finally here!Enjoy a nice performance polo and support SwordSTEM at the same time. https://southcoastswords.com/products/sword-stem-sport-polo *as popular as anything […]
Articles by Sean Franklin
Power Through The Body, Or How I Learned To Do A Leaping Cut
You can cut without proper grounding, or across your body. But it does have consequences.
How Does Meyer *Illustrate* a Longsword
Does Meyer depict cutting with the hand on the pommel? Come and learn. (Or don’t read and post a response anyways.)
Breakdown: Thrust and Point Control
A breakdown of video footage of Robert Childs delivering his trademark start-from-low thrust.
HEMA Tournament Double Hit Frequency
The YouTube channel Turul HEMA recently posed a video attempting to derive the average number of double hits seen in HEMA longsword tournaments. (HEMA Longsword […]
A Win is a Win: How Weighted Point Values Don’t Affect Match Outcomes
Good fighters find a way to get it done. It looks like hitting them more than they hit you is more important than what the point values of the targets are.
Dynamic vs Static: A Generic ‘+Balance’ Stat Doesn’t Exist
Balance is generally regarded as a very important part of any martial art. And for good reason. If you don’t have your balance stabilized you […]
Do Fullers Make Feders Take a Set?
In a completely non-intuitive trick of physics, adding a fuller to a feder actually makes the sword more likely to take a permanent set. Let’s have a look!
First Blood, First Win? How Important Is the First Exchange
How important is the first exchange? Turns out, it tells you quite a bit.
Describing Motions
In the year 2000 Antoinette Gentile published a framework of understanding and classifying motions based on four controlling dimensions. This framework, which has come to be called the Gentile Taxonomy, can help to classify different actions and identify the prime challenges in accomplishing them.