LARPing. This is a term I see used as an insult too often on HEMA fora and discussions to describe everything from people dressed as elves engaged in foam fighting and throwing bean bag “lightning bolts” to a trenchcoated teen with a mall katana discussing his studies of “the blade.” While the latter can make us cringe (possibly because he reminds us a bit too much of ourselves in our youth!), the former perhaps deserves more credit as an activity which betters us as HEMAists. Before snorting and clucking our tongues like the town elders of swordsmanship saying “what is to be done about these… LARPers (or Lightsabers, or Dagorhir, or whatever” we should perhaps look at how different games BETTER us as swordsmen:
1.) LARPing gives us unusual scenarios and forces us to use our systems “outside the box.”
I attended a LARP recently looking to see if I could apply my swordsmanship to different scenarios against untrained people. After all, when I attend a HEMA tournament I am guaranteed to face someone who has been trained at least nominally in a historical system. To see the WEIRD stuff or the non-systematic stuff you have to go elsewhere. But that’s for the next heading.
At this LARP, I was playing a gallant knight and was facing down a foe, a wily assassin, and was informed he had an ability where if his boffer touched mine, he could shout “DISARM” and I’d have to drop my boffer which needless to say would be bad. To say this was excellent durchwechseln/disengage practice is an understatement as I triumphed by playing a defensive, disengaging based game rather than cutting to a bind or being aggressive. It proved confounding to my opponent who wanted desperately to use his cool ability.
Similarly, LARPing, along with boffer games like Amtgard and Dagorhir, present multiple opponent scenarios, escort quests, ambushes, melees, and other “games” which besides being fun (which we ostensibly do sword stuff for anyway) inform situational awareness, fighting multiple opponents, and improvisation with your system that the standard HEMA tournament cannot train nor is it designed to.
How well do I understand Liechtenauer, Bolognese, or Esgrima Comun? Do I understand it well enough, the PRINCIPLES well enough that even in a weird scenario like “no thrusts, no hand or head cuts cuts, also this guy throws beanbag lightning bolts so you need to close quickly without taking damage” you can fight and win? LARP tests this.
2.) LARP Lets you Fight More Varied and Weird Opponents
One of my side hobbies is lightsaber fighting and in our local group it is usually the case that the individuals have little or no formal weapons training but through experience have gleaned what works for them. This results in fighting people doing stylish but impractical dual-wielding reverse grip, saber staff/double bladed fighting, and even single saber rooted in sort of an instinctual fighting. In short, they don’t know the “tricks” of Liechtenauer or other systems and it is an untouched ecosystem, at least for a while until they fence you and ask you to teach them (what my Christian background might term an “evangelism opportunity” in this case for HEMA) which is ripe for experimentation. Absetzen is much more effective against experienced and earnest but untrained people used to a more standard parry, and the Hidden Hews really show their value against a sort of common fencing, not to be confused with more formal “common fencing” systems. Not to mention the strange “shots” often developed such as wrap shots which while not the most martially efficacious in the world present a threat to be dealt with
Godinho’s Two sword System does wonders in multiple opponent scenarios in LARP and Lightsaber and the cut pattern, leaps and movement show their value in a way that cannot be tested safely at full speed with steel nor does it have a current outlet in HEMA besides the classes of myself and others who train these situations. LARP and similar activities let us train against the unusual and again, force outside the box, non-static thinking.
3.) LARP is FUN!
This is arguably the most important thing. It’s just damn fun to pretend to be a paladin and krump a guy dressed as a zombie’s outstretched zombie hands with a squishy sword. There is a tendency in HEMA to turn into pompous, humorless stiffs who tut at “inferior” fencing because HEMA is more “real” (if you are this person then please memorize my blog article on this subject https://thevulgarskill.wordpress.com/2018/06/06/reality-in-hema/ and also, lighten the hell up).
Given that knights held “Round Table Tournaments” where they dressed up as different knights of King Arthur’s court and roleplayed in what was basically a medieval LARP, I doubt the old masters would mind that much. So long as we attend to our more “serious” martial studies, I think we can also spare time for the lessons and fun we gain from LARP, lightsaber, and other activities.
The Vulgar Skill 
This begs for HEMA people showing up on a LARPs in a trenchcoats and doing the “when you were playing video games, I was studying the blade” thing completely seriously XD .
Someone would also need to record it XD !
It would be so awesome!
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Some HEMA guys try to disdainfully hold themselves above the geek fray. They’ll look at LARP or lightsaber and be like “hah, what silly games, when everyone knows Liechtenfiore Marozzogochie says that….”
Smugness can easily infiltrate one’s practice and it makes HEMA look like the bullied awkward kid in middle school who got hot and became homecoming king or something and now thinks he’s better than everyone else. Discourtesy is unbecoming and also the people who are the smuggest also tend to really suck at fencing.
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