Training Safely
By Sean Ellis
Fighting with a sword is inherently dangerous. Although serious injuries in HEMA are rare, they are not unheard of. Whether you are planning a fencing group of your own, or getting involved in leadership decisions at an existing club, the safety of your people should be your top priority.
It is important that leadership create an enforceable framework so that practitioners know, and are held accountable for, the basic safety needs of the group. These needs cover both physical and social safety.
Physical Safety
When discussing safety, physical safety is likely the first thing you think of. Everyone’s goal should be to reduce incidents of both light and severe injury.
Minimum Safety Requirements
Because HEMA involves the use of weapons, your club or school should always have minimum safety requirements that apply to everyone at all times. A good place to start when planning these is with your insurance and practice space requirements. For example, if your group is a HEMAA affiliate, the minimum safety requirements are detailed here. The document includes information about safety gear, keeping equipment safe, and how to report safety concerns.
If you don’t have an existing safety requirements document, start by reading through the HEMAA document above. You can also google HEMA schools you respect and see what their requirements are. Whether you borrow from these or create your own, having a set of minimum safety requirements is the first essential step in keeping everyone safe.
Safety Gear
Gear needs vary based on the activity. As a minimum level of protection, the HEMAA Safety Policy recommends masks for whenever thrusts are a possibility, even for slow-play. Encourage your students to wear more gear whenever they feel a desire for more protection, but never less!
Your Practice Space
You also need to consider how to keep each other safe in your practice space. It’s important to know both what you are allowed to do in your space and what risks are present. For example, dance studios may not allow competitive freeplay because of their floor-to-ceiling mirrors, and in other spaces sharp swords are specifically disallowed. Although you may feel comfortable drilling grappling on a concrete floor, full speed takedowns are more likely to lead to injury on that kind of floor! Leadership should take responsibility for making sure that all participants are aware of any hazards in the training space.
Sparring
Sparring opens up a whole new world of safety needs. As opposed to drills and other forms of practice, sparring involves adversarial work with a partner, and so increases the risk of participants injuring each other.
It is important to know how you want sparring to happen at your club. Is it completely unsupervised by instructors or is it tightly controlled? Are any targets or techniques disallowed? Can fighters grapple or do takedowns? What are the lengths of rounds in a fight?
Before an exercise of any sort, it is important for every student to know:
The Intensity
How intensely adversarial should participants be?
In cooperative play, the answer here should be “not at all.” If you are practicing a play or drill, your partner should simply facilitate your learning. They should not seek to escalate the play or posit “what if” scenarios. For non-cooperative or freeplay, the answer varies. Are you doing a fun, loose sparring session to warm up or a focused fight at 100 percent? Either way, ensure the fighters communicate and agree on this before they begin. Instructors can help keep everyone safe by being very clear about the nature and purpose of any given activity. .
Forbidden Techniques
What is and isn’t allowed during the sparring session? Every HEMA club or school should explicitly state which techniques are banned. Consider displaying this list clearly in your practice space as a regular reminder, and taking additional time to clarify the terminology to beginners.
Common forbidden techniques include:
Striking with the pommel or quillon.
Cutting at ankles or unprotected knees
High intensity bodyslams.
Intentional cuts to the back of the head or spine
Hits to the groin
Fighters can always add to the list of forbidden techniques on a case-by-case basis. For example, instructors can start each class by asking participants to inform them of any injuries so their sparring partners can avoid contact with that area.
Specific Goals and Equipment
What is the goal of this sparring session or drill? Maybe it’s a specific technique or situation the participants want to prepare for or attempt. Maybe it’s to get more comfortable with a new weapon. It’s important for partners to know in advance what is about to happen so that they react appropriately. For example, nobody should draw a hidden dagger and start stabbing at close range unless their partner knows that daggers are in play!
Social Safety
Make sure to protect your students’ right to train in an environment free of harassment and unwanted romantic advances. It’s up to leadership to make this explicit by defining unwanted behavior and promoting a culture that includes being a good partner
Defining Unwanted Behavior
Clearly define any unwanted behavior in your policies or student guide. Appropriate wording could look like: “Bullying and harassment include any inappropriate conduct or comment by a person towards a member or guest that the person would reasonably know would cause that member or guest to be humiliated and would be unwelcome” and “respect everyone’s right to train free of harassment or romantic advances.”
How to Be a Good Partner
Being a good partner combines physical and social safety. It allows you to go beyond minimum requirements and to foster a positive learning environment for yourself and others. By promoting a culture of good partnership within your HEMA club, you can help ensure the physical and social safety of everyone involved.
The expectations of a good partner are:
Communicate Your Intentions and Power Level
Clear communication is important for both cooperative and competitive play. It is vital that you teach your students how to communicate with their partners. It is not enough for them to assume based on their partner’s gear level or other people’s preferences. Before beginning or changing actions in a drill, everyone should let their partner know what they are going to do and how fast or hard they are going to do it. Their partner also has a right to opt out of any activity or level of intensity they are not comfortable with! When in doubt, default to the less force and less risk.
For example:
“I’m going to go at about 75% speed”
“Is it ok if we allow soft-set arm locks?”
“Can I give you some outward force to see if the technique still works?”
Gear Up to the Same Level as Your Partner
Except for very strictly controlled drills, it’s generally a good idea for both fencers to wear the same level of protective gear as each other. The amount of protection a fencer wears generally reflects the power level they want to fence at and may suggest safety concerns they haven’t articulated (such as a need to protect an injury or against a move their opponent frequently uses). Better to discuss why your opponent has geared up more (or less) than you and get on the same page than fight with different protection levels or intensity expectations.
Never Strike to Injure
Participants should never strike with the intention to injure their partner. This may sound obvious, but it’s never wrong to be specific! Fighters should limit the power of their strikes so that if they land no injury is done. It is very important to let your partners know when they are hitting too hard.
Start Slow
It’s always best to start slow, and only speed up when both partners are ready. In cooperative play, people sometimes speed up because they are having trouble executing a technique. Communicate with your partner and slow down instead! Think about getting your structure correct instead of moving faster, which can lead to mistakes or injury.
Protect Yourself at all Times
Communicate with your partner if you need to stop! Wear gear appropriate for your club’s standards, your activity, and your own feelings of safety. Be aware of your partner’s actions and intentions so that you do not look away from them, drop your guard, or walk onto their point. Take a break from fencing if you’re feeling distracted, weak, or woozy. If you have doubts about your ability to protect yourself, take a step back and evaluate whether you should maybe call it for the day. Keep yourself safe! While clubs can and should do everything they can to keep their student’s safe, it is the person themself who is the ultimate force for keeping themself out of danger’s way. The best safety culture in the world cannot keep a careless person from harm.
Protect Your Partner at all Times
In any partnered activity, your partner is placing an enormous amount of trust in you. With that trust comes a responsibility to take your partner’s well being seriously. Make sure your partner is ready before starting. Notice if your partner is slowing down, unstable on their feet, moving into an unsafe or not-for-fencing area, reacting inappropriately (or not reacting when they should), distracted, can’t seem to modulate their intensity, or even just not their usual self. When something doesn’t seem right — stop the action, tell them what you are seeing, ask questions, and take a break if need be. Anyone is capable of inflicting harm on someone unready, out-of-sorts, tired, or otherwise physically or emotionally compromised. It is good practice to look out for others when they may not be fully aware of an issue to look out for themselves.
Enforcing Safety Policies
It is up to every organization to state their specific expectations for safety and the consequences of violating that policy. It is important that leadership create an enforceable framework so that practitioners know, and are held accountable for, the basic safety needs of the group. It is also important to have buy-in. Encourage your students to read and give feedback to your safety rules. If they don’t respect the rules, they aren’t likely to follow them!
No A-Holes Policy
Consider establishing a zero tolerance policy for dangerous practitioners, colloquially known as a “no a-holes” policy. That means not tolerating anyone who creates an unsafe or uncomfortable learning experience for others, regardless of their experience or expertise. Many learning environments are ruined by a single participant. Don't bargain, don’t make excuses. Make sound policy decisions and hold students accountable!
The majority of safety violations are social in form. Rarely does anyone refuse to wear a cup or gorget, rather people who do not adhere to safety policy are usually endangering or harassing others with their behavior. Your organization will be defined by the people there: do not suffer fools!
Consequences
Whether you decide on a probationary period, loss of privilege, or a temporary loss of membership, set your expectations and stick to them. It is better to have the consequences for unwanted behavior detailed in advance than to try and improvise later.
Safety Comes First
Deciding on and implementing safety standards is an important part of running a successful HEMA club. It is leadership’s responsibility to make the tough decisions and ensure that every student is protected. Do this by providing for their physical and social safety by encouraging proper use of gear, communication, enforcing your rules, and not allowing a-holes!