I've found that being able to threaten a hand snipe I can much more easily set up a whole bunch of techniques that go for deeper targets... and vice versa. Threaten deep, cut wrist; threaten wrist, cut deep. Wrist snipes that deliberately miss and instead gather my opponent's parrying response to go deep.
I definitely used to be in the "Hand snipes are cheap and ineffective" group but after seeing how devastating a quick snap cut to the hand can be, I've become a menace to my club and all the hands in it
Honestly kenjustu techniques really helped with my HEMA skills since one of the first things they teach you is avoiding hand snipes. Makes me feel like I’m taking an mma approach to fighting
I've always been in the camp that "everything goes in a fight". People that criticize hand sniping have never cut themselves on the hand by accident while cooking or opening a package and it shows. It's always better to know a technique so you also know how to defend against it. Heck, even throwing your weapon with some accuracy can be of use if done correctly (posta sagitaria) and save you a whole fight. Is it valid in tournaments? No. But we have a saying in spanish that goes "palo dado ni Dios lo quita", which means "once hit not even God makes it go away (not happen)". So yes, keep practicing those weird and unusual techniques along with the more standard ones and keep safe and have fun!
There are plenty of Filipino styles which specialize on long, or largo mano, distance, with short or a two handed stick. That distance is all about 'hand sniping'. It is an art by itself. I practice one of these styles, perhaps I should try it with longsword at some point in time.
Coming from kendo, I oftentimes go for the wrists (not the hands) of the opponent especially when they are in high guards or over extend. I think it's a very valid target and I hate whem people use a derogatory term like hand sniping. Protecting your hands trains you to keep peopre distance to your opponent. Why would I "put myself in danger" while attacking the head ir torso when I can easily "incapacitate" the opponent by aiming for their wrists.
@@FedericoMalagutti I actually try to avoid hitting hands as to not hurt my opponents no matter the gloves. Fingers and the back of the hand are to fragile to risk it 😮
@ believe me! With good gloves, it’s easier to hurt the wrist than the fingers while going for the target directly, as in the action I show! By experience!
This is really it for me. Hands get so naturally protected anyways and are also just not as good of a target in general. It would be like going for the eye specifically instead of going for the head generally; you’re just adding needless complexity by going for a smaller and more erratically moving target that requires a particular angle to land a proper strike on, when you could just go for the much easier option that achieves exactly the same thing
In FMA it is a go too tactic and something we use so much it is called "Defanging The Snake" take out the hand holding the weapon you take out the weapon. Also these "Defanging The Snake" tactics will help you open up the lines of attack for for the body and head both with weapons and open hand.
I think that hand snipes in full competition and free sparring should always be allowed and also encouraged. I would say to do so with lighter blows, for safety, but it should happen. That said, I also think that having "gauntlet sparring" to also practice actually significant lethal techniques and body stopping. The simply truth is that if you have a weapon that was used in armour, partial armour is something you should consider. If I was a knight going out to deal with brigands, I might not wear full plated harness, but a breastplate and gauntlets and helm for sure. And I think doing special practice where certain body parts are off-limits help you practice other techniques more regularly.
IMO the hate for hand sniping comes from beginners being heavily influenced by ideas from the "fantasy" sword fighting they see in films & TV. They are often drawn to HEMA by the romantic ideal of flamboyant bladework and powerful strikes. When they discover that (like every other martial art in the world), HEMA is mainly about distance control through good footwork, tempo and economical bladework, they get into a sulk, and choose to see the fault in HEMA for not matching their preconceived ideas, rather than in their own technical shortcomings.
Or maybe people would like to try other techniques and do other stuff than defending against hand snipes... Hand snipes make HEMA almost as boring as fencing.
Hey Fede, please make a video on how to counter hand snipes! Of course hand snipes are valid, and of course they would be effective, even fight ending. I'm just not very good at defending against them (yet).
Great video, as always. You make some great points and in the end, it’s just another aspect of fencing that all of us should learn to use or deal with in order to be a well balanced fencer.
How to counter the hand snipe? Be aware of where your hands are. Not just if I am doing handshake, hammer or thumb grip, nor if my hands are close to my body, far from it, on top, under, to the sides, etc. But the distance of my opponents maximum reach and the hands. So, let us optimise our defence; guards and distance. I used to get hit in my hands very often, I still get hit from time to time; like anybody else, but since I learned to be aware of the guards and distance, I have managed to keep my hands safe from hand snipes.
do the video! 😂 I think the best way to deal with hand snipes is achieving a good sense of where your sword guard is. Most snipes can be avoided my subtly changing the angle of your grip. After that I would say training distance awareness, the "void" or however people call it nowadays should be golden standard.
Another option, don't stand with your hands extended in front of you and in distance unless you are trying to bait the obvious hand strike or are ready to do something. A ton of stuff that particularly beginners get frustrated by can be prevented by properly managing distance, but beginners are often more interested in learning some new technique with the sword than learning to tell when they are standing 3 inches too close.
Probably, a better problem statement is how to protect yourself against handsnipes without being completely vulnerable to other things :D (extreme example: you can keep your hands behind your back!)
My favorite weapon is Bolognese sidesword and dagger, and the Bolognese dagger has only a side ring and no sail. You get real good at doing and defending against hand snipes with that.
Calling hand-snipes unhistorical feels really... weird. Like - look at polish fencing: hand snipes with the false edge! Look at bolognese sidesword - hand snipes aplenty with a "tiny" wrist rotation to the hand/wrist.
Hand (and leg) hits were naturally overlooked only in one historical context - fechtschule sport or training fencing which scored only headshots. People often forget or simply don't know that.
The best way to counteract frustration with opponents is to see them as to your benefit. They are here to teach you what you are missing, even when they are not good teachers like this guy.
If you were given a sharp sword against an opponent with a sharp sword (read: not a suggestion, just an example) would you go for the closer, more exposed target, or the deeper and riskier target? Both would end a fight. I've never met another fighter who legitimately criticized hand attacks, and if I did I would not take them seriously
It's not hand sniping that is the problem, but how hits are scored. There needs to be a way to distinct between a touch and an actual cut/hit where the former should not get any score. A lot of time hand sniping comes down to barely touching the opponent's hand, which in a real scenario (i.e. with sharp steel) would do virtually no effect on person's fighting ability. Unfortunately in HEMA it is not so uncommon getting a "double" where, for example, one fighter does a solid strike on an arm or torso while the opponent merely touches hand in return. So in my opinion, there is nothing wrong with hand sniping as long as it actually resembles a proper strike that would be significantly harmful to an opponent if done with sharp blades, rather than just a touch to abuse a scoring system.
Frustrating? Sure. But there’s no serious weapon art that doesn’t attack the hands and correspondingly teaches you to defend them. Complaining about it is indicative of things like sportification, lack of serious instruction, etc.
My opponents hands are often the target closest to me. I can reach them with the least exposure of myself to my opponents blade. Deep targets inherently expose me to more danger than shallow targets. I'll take the safe bet where I can.
Very nice and throrough answer to the question of handsnipes, and other techniques that are oftentimes considered 'cheap'. I personally use alot of handsnipes, geiselhaus, etc. in my fencing both in tournaments and sparring settings. I think it's very important that if you want to improve as a fencer/fighter, you need to have exposure to a varity of attacks/techniques, especially if there are some you find more frustrating and/ or difficult to deal with. To that end i always try and implement these kinds of techniques to a certain degree for my fencers when they are training for events, so that they've seen them, and know a few different ways of how to handle / counter them. Very well put and thoughtout take on the debate! Keep up the good work :)
Hand sniping is great versus guys with longer reach as they are longer but slower and their hands is always at the same distance ...the reason why the people find hard to defend that is that they use posta breve all the time making easier to reach the hands.
I mean in most tournaments I've fenced in, hand sniping is allowed, but the point system favors deep targets. So yes, you can only focus on hands, but there is far more incentive to go for the body and head.
2:28 oh look, an explosive, technical passing step which is not a fleche ;) and about the topic historical context gets very complicated about that: 1. hands without gloves are much harder to hit 2. on the other hand, maybe blossfechten longsword fencers DID used heavier gloves (it's not like a drawing depicts actual duel, they did not fight with rapiers naked right) 3. in modern environment some handshots in some rulests are low risk high reward (so gets used often). It easy to imagine that with sharp weapons it is the opposite 4. fiore and zettel leave a lot of space for interpretation of basic strikes, including handshots. Zettel glossa don't, but glossa may be made up by townsfolk trying to ressurect knightly culture (there are some reasons to believe it was that way) - so maybe handshots WERE often in medieval times 5. Leckuchner's messer includes a lot of handshots, inclunding false edge undercuts (lemstucke) and a HAND THRUST (one of storchsnabel techniques). But for some reason longsword glossa don't feature these techniques. Maybe the reason is in some point above 6. sucessful handshots happen always when a receiver stands in poor distance without a real threat. These seem impossible to parry or evade, because they ARE! The distance, which seems "too long for a deep target" but "yet safe" is often already a compromised distance resulting in getting hand smashed. And *smashed* is used purposefully, since these undercuts can break fingers even in some heavy gloves (but mostly 5 finger ones) - making whole thing even more complex. Anyway, there is a high possibility that medieval masters simply hated lingering in such poor distance, so they would rather keep bigger distance or enter fighting distance immediately. This seems to be the case in longsword sources, when compared to weapons with more developed hand guards (late sabers, smallsword, rapiers). And this kinda works in modern combat as well. You simply can't fight with simple hilt weapon as if it had complex hand protection. "Binds" in medieval sources often reffer to blade contact after an attack and a parry, not to "bind" in MOF sence, which is preparational movement. Early KDF features very little amount of such binds, and these which are present, are coming from forceful strikes. 7. In the end it seems reasonable to draw a line between historical reconstruction and modern combat. We will continue to use medieval techniques and tactics sucessfully, because these are good and designed for these weapons, but on the other hand, a modern training weapon won't be behaving as a sharp sword.
Decisive, loud hand snipes are satisfying and fun. Would love to see a video on protecting your hands. My gloves don't always cover my thumb as much and I still have a bruise on my nail from a hit haha.
My stance on it was always “wrist strikes, not hand strikes.” It may seem like a superficial distinction, but to me it makes all the difference. My reasoning being that while I understand that HEMA rules are modeled after the assumption of no armor, hands are so incredibly easy to protect that you might find yourself naturally doing so just as a result of your choice of clothing that day. Even just semi-thick gloves that you’d wear for fall or winter would be enough to protect your hands from most cuts, so I see no reason why someone carrying a sword who thinks they might need to use it would not have some kind of simple hand protection to make hand strikes essentially a non-issue, especially when you consider many swords had elaborate cross guards or even baskets to protect the hands. It feels less realistic to me that hand strikes are effective as they are than if they weren’t. Wrists however, do not have these built in forms of protection that do not qualify as armor. More importantly, even when armored, strikes to this area still need to be avoided as they still threaten breakage, guard integrity, or even just intolerable pain, unlike armored hand strikes. This means it’s a perfectly valid target and that it’s incredibly important for a swordsman to learn how to protect this part of the body, because this is also key when it comes to guiding proper cutting/thrusting form, guard form, and contact response.
Completely agree. I once fought a guy from HMB (Alexey Petrik, you may know him if you participate in HMB tournaments) at a dussack tournament. And his technique was so different from everything I was used to (and also his speed, yes). I just couldn't do anything against it and lost 10-0. It was VERY strange, but it worked just great. Since then, I am absolutely sure that the main thing in your fencing is that your techniques work. And the concepts of beautiful-simple-boring-stuff are all for pretentious aesthetes.
I have been hit with a bamboo sword on my hand with such force that I struggled using my hand for an entire week! Yes, we had no protective gear and no our club doesn't have it.
i would really recommend to everybody not to be bugged about hand snipes. Would you rather everybody was just fishing in long point all the time? If it bothers you, I try to remember that it takes very little energy to parry or evade when your hands are the only target. The rhythm of presenting and defending your hands is actually very fun in my opinion. Focusing on the hands also reduces the odds of double-hits, if you're anal about those. from the historical perspective, my guess is that the hands are a particularly painful and vulnerable place to be hit. The hands are delicate, convex, and braced against a hard surface(the hilt); very vulnerable to cuts.
Historic guards all keep your hands covered. If a historic guard is leaving your hands exposed, you are probably in a high or low guard while being too close to your opponent. If you are close to your opponent and getting your hands sniped, you are probably either not in a proper guard or you are falling for fakes.
I noticed in last two tournametns that it became much harder to hand snipe. A few years ago, just after corona, light thrusts and hand snipes seemed to be "the meta". Now landing thrusts and hand snipes seems much more difficult, it mostly comes to second intention strikes.
Hey @Federico, please make a video dedicated to defending hand sniping! (I'd love the help to convert my club members from haters to seeing the usefulness in this area and you explain things really well)
People calling hand snipes unhistoric is so stupid. Getting hit in the hands is a common out come if you're fighting with weapons whose use is dependent on extending your arms and hands. Just because it's not in a fencing manual doesn't mean it's unhistoric. The majority of swordsmen and soldiers throughout the period did not have access to fencing schools and sword therapy. They were tutored by veterans in the management of arms. Battles and duels are not pretty and coronate, they are fast and brutal. If you're unable to defend your hands, you need to practice more and understand the limits of the weapon. Great video, been a fan forever. ❤❤❤❤
Honestly my only gripe about hands sniping is that, and this is only in the context of how my friends learn and train, Is that there needs to be a follow up afterwards. Most hand sniping involves moving in just for enough to Successfully land a hit and then back right out of distance. To be more sincere to the concept of mortal combat, We try to follow hand snipes up with a killing blow
Fencing is frustrating. Frustration of the will is literally the objective. When you frustrate your opponents defenses, you hit. If you fail to frustrate your opponents attacks, you get hit. If you think you want to get involved with a combat art, you better be equipped to cope with frustration. If that frustration is not channeled or controlled, it will eat you alive. Any practical value combative simulation sparring offers includes the opportunity to practice clear thinking under stress.
In many cases I consider counter hand snipes as to defend yourself against a lower thrust or cut. Jesus Christ so hard to deal with it, especially when I prefer to hold my sword with edge facing my opponent, it means there’s no chance that the attack may be stop by the crossguard whether it’s from above or below unless I move my sword. Actually, I always want to develop a way to gain advantage by deal with hand snipes in an active way, but up to now, I haven’t got any idea about it.
My better gloves for sidesword didn't arrive yet, and my hand still hurts from the last week's practice. So these days I am all about banning hand sniping. 😅 P.S. And yea, I know this was not what you meant to say or cover in the video. 😉 You are referring to technique, not accidents. But if it hurts so much as an accident with a blunt or synthetic, man, it must be effective with a sharp on a period appropriate leader gloved hand. So it's a valid approach.
I understand first hand how frustrating it can be to go to a tournament and get hand sniped every exchange in a match. But at the end of the day I'm frustrated at myself for letting them do it, not at them for continuing to do the thing that works.
Hit to the wrist (Kote) is absolutely normal in Kendo and different schools of Kenjutsu, so as an ex Kendo practitioner i dont perceive this type of attacks as a spam
the hands are the closest target so... hand snipes should be the starting point of your game, because if you're not addressing them and threatening with them, you'll be stepping in deeper to get things done, and there will be someone to snipe your hands on the way in. in boxing, the shortest punch for hitting your enemy is the jab, so it's fastest and safest. sure it's nothing much and everyone expect it, but that's exactly because it's so good and easy. if jabbing, feinting your jab, or making your opponent miss his jab, is not the starting point of your game, you'll just eat a jab as you force your way in like an idiot.
Avoiding hand sniping is a sign that HEMA is becoming a sport rather than a martial art. Martial Arts are about combat effectiveness (at least they claim to be). If it works, DO IT. Sports are about limiting options until only athletic prowess (strength and agility) remains. In essence, raw physicality over raw mental ability optimized for your build, weapon, and opponent's capability both physical and mental. If we avoid a technique for any reason other than that it doesn't work, we'll soon have rules about taller fighters using proportionally shorter swords, not to mention weight classes. If you want a sport, take up foil fencing. Still, I feel pretty sure HEMA is unavoidably going to go the sport route.
I respect handsnipes but the problem is some people think they're invincible during it and just ignore threats to get a hand hit in causing lots of doubles.
Despite in many cases my hands are hit by hand snipes, i never think of banning it. Hand snipes are effective, isn’t? If that’s the case, learn to handle it is much better than simply escaping from it.
I am very mixed about hand-sniping. I like HEMA because of the historical context and that it is a martial art, not a sport. HEMA might not simulate a sword fight, but it teaches you the skills to prepare you for a sword fight. So I like to view rules from that lens. I don't like Olympic fencing because it is a sport, and not a martial art. In a historical context of a longsword where I'm wearing gauntlets a hand-snipe isn't a meaningful strike that could disable an opponent; it exists to earn an easy point in a HEMA match, making hand snipes more of a "sport" tactic than a "martial art" tactic. Conversely a sword fight wearing light gloves, a strike to the hand is debilitating. So it depends on the martial art you're trying to emulate. But in the end, its better to train to avoid getting hit. A similar argument can be made about trips and grapples. Perfectly valid from a historical martial arts aspect, yet the school I attended didn't allow them, which resulted in my opponents having bad habits that I would have exploited if I was allowed.
@@Nogardle the answer is: You never always wear gauntlets, if the opponent wears them, you don’t hand snipe! Bolognese masters throw false edge cuts and thrusts to the hands a lot of times! And In a real fight, I would go for the hands first if possible. This doesn’t make me unable to hit other targets anyway!
I should clarify that I am specifically speaking to light taps to the hands that land with almost no force. The kind where your opponent is looking for an easy point. A solid strike even in gauntlets can do damage. But as I said: I will always lean towards learning not to get hit is best.
@@Nogardle I feel even a "Light tap" can deal fairly devastating damage to an exposed hand, especially given it's "braced" against a solid object and the enemy may be trying to resist the motion even more. Like, the tip of a sword has a lot of speed behind it and it's going to be pretty sharp and hands are incredibly fragile for how vital they are. Think a wrist-rotation cut with a sidesword or a false-edge cut with a sabre.
@@konstantin3374 I am referring specifically to longsword while wearing gauntlets. The kind of strikes gauntlets are designed to protect against. As a thought experiment: If I am doing sword and bucker, Should striking the buckler count as a hand strike? Because in my mind, Gauntlet is more like a buckler than it is an exposed hand.
While I agree that banning any move creates flaws in technique, I think there is an argument involving scoring to be made here. My own experience is not with HEMA but with unarmed martial arts, and a huge problem that is faced in that community is 'slapping', I've also heard it called 'tapping'. Basically, because one does not do full contact sparring except in rare circumstances, it is very tempting to 'slap' i.e. to strike with a very swift motion which lacks any force or real potential for force behind the movement. Such attacks are realistically extremely difficult to defend against since they require no shift in body weight, no preparation, and have no recoil or overswing since they involve very little force. The problem is that you can score hits using such techniques, in fact it's nearly impossible not to score hits with a flurry of such attacks. However realistically those attacks would not be a real threat, a light hit can be annoying or distracting, but it won't actually do damage. If you deliver a hand strike without your weight behind it or some sort of real momentum, then you've effectively only thrown perhaps at best 20 lbs of your arm against someone. Even at speed, that is not going to do much unless you hit eyes, ears, etc (which are obviously their own techniques, since they are quite effective). This is why proper striking form is so important, but it still remains a huge problem in sparring, since you are supposed to pull your punches. I would suspect that HEMA may have the same problem. While a sword drastically improves damage potential even with light hits, armor decreases that damage potential. Even reinforced hard-shell working gloves can make your hands able to ignore hits that would be incredibly painful, and that is true force, not cutting potential. Plate gauntlets are purpose built to stop sharp strikes, especially whip-like low-energy strikes. I would like to see some really careful modeling on those love taps I see exchanged with swords, to see if that would have even the slightest chance of penetrating plate. I am also seeing horrific edge alignment on a lot of those strikes, which isn't surprising given how contorted they are. Scoring should be adjusted accordingly, hand strikes are logical, but playing slap-fight with a sword shouldn't be rewarded.
Most people in the comments talk about gauntlets, but HEMA in general doesn’t represent armored fighting, I’m writing it over and over. It’s unarmed fighting, for duels self defense or whatever other context in which fighting has been applied in a 1vs1 scenario without the use of protections, which are carried in the context of war or other organized combat situations related to warfare. There’s also a specific branch of HEMA which studies armored fighting, and in that context armor is actually weared. Sometimes people also train with partial armor on, in the case someone would wear real gauntlets on top on our modern HEMA kit for instance, it could mean that those parts are real armor and are defended. We wear modern equipment and not armor precisely to have the lesser weight possible to represent unarmored fighting, so why feigning that we are wearing it, or part of it? ;-)
Ps: Cutting never passes plates, only blunt force does, or extremely powerful piercing supported by huge leverage and body weight concentration. So if you see someone wearing steel mittens you simply don’t cut there.
@@FedericoMalagutti Like I said, HEMA isn't my background. If it really is meant to depict unarmored fighting, than that does make some sense. Though gauntlets would seem the one piece of armor I would bring to a duel, personally. In fact, I would be surprised if anyone in an historical context wasn't wearing hand protection during sparring, for the same reason people do today. I dunno, perhaps HEMA is not trying to recreate that sort of thing, and prefers to have hands open. But given that hand protection is extremely easy to don, easy to carry, and from what you say is highly effective, why not merely put the appropriate weight on the hands, and say they are protected? This ends the silly hand sniping in a perfectly realistic way. A flaw in technique would be created if you planned to fight without hand protection, but that can be easily avoided in a realistic context. As well say that one should not use kicks which are ill-suited to bare feet because it 'creates a flaw in technique' since you can't always be wearing shoes. Having shoes is a fairly easy thing to do, and thus not using them is creating a flaw in technique. For example, all those hand snipes, from what you say, would be utterly useless against someone with proper hand protection. Isn't relying on those hand snipes going to create horrible habits if they fight someone with properly protected hand? Or heck, even trying to avoid being struck would be a flaw, if what you say is true and even hand plates provides almost certain protection against a cut. Finally, and I guess this is where I became confused as to the intent of HEMA, but what possible situation are we modeling where someone is walking around with a polearm but not some gauntlets? The weapons being used are in many cases ones which would not appear casually, and thus I would expect a certain amount of other equipment to be assumed as well.
@ we are using mainly swords, swords were mostly related to civilian life weapon based scenarios, and mainly a side weapon in other contexts. We recreate all contexts, but when we wear armor we don’t simulate it, we actually wear it. Search “HEMA in armor” or “Harnischfechten” if you want to see that. And about the fact that wearing gauntlets is something easily doable: Yes, it’s also easy to carry an AK 47 around nowadays, but it’s not necessarily legal in most places, and everyone would look at you. You would be amazed by how much (especially Renaissance) rules had been wrote and can be found about not wearing armor or hidden armor… But swords could be carried anyway.
@@Malorn0 most of 'civilian-context' combat addressed by HEMA practice is in fact considering little to no hand protection. Consider this. First of all, much of civilian combat takes place in a self-defence context where people are not walking around with armor, especially not gauntlets, on carry, and if they were, have no time to put them on. This we can confirm knowing that sword and buckler, as well as complex hilted swords and daggers to better protect the fingers of an unarmored hand, were popular for the longest time across the mediaeval and renaissance period. Second, some masters, such as Fiore himself, direclty recount of civilian sword duels fought only with "a gambeson and a pair of leather gloves" as body protection, which means this was the pracrtice even for formal bouts. Hope this clears things up!
I do not understand why people just try and focus on guarding their hands better. Add it to drilling. Do practice matches where hand snipes are the ONLY way you can get points so you focus entirely on guarding your hands and then go back to free sparing.
Bro, I have to train with Borislav. I am born in frustration, molded by it. You think hand sniping is frustrating... try excessive force. 😆 PS: Good take by the way.
I think handsnipe is "cheap" because is one of the best things you can do, if I would have to fighrt for real, I would use it all the time, that's because a hit in the hands in longaword is relatevely easy and commin specially with ubtrained people, but, for practica, O trybto avoid them because the can hurt a lot, and to get better in oter targets... Anyway, ot wold be good a video about hoe to defend against it, ot is not as common, but people that do kendo can hit them really fast
I think the only relevant question is if handsnipes like they are used to score points would damage your hand while wearing proper hand protection. And i think for most snipes this is not the case. I have seen people in full armour fight (Buhurt) and take really bad hits to the hands without slowing them down even for a second. So i think handstrikes should only give you points when you assume your fighters would not wear handprotection (even if they are wearing it for safety reasons).
@@FedericoMalagutti Thats just wrong. HEMA can incorporate Armour. It does not represent unarmored fighting. That would just be fencing. But as said for a sport event you can set the rules how you want to.
@ HEMA in armor is harnissfechten. And you actually wear armor. And if you want to play a little role play and use patch of armor, such as only gloves and chest for instance, you simply wear that patches on top of the HEMA soft kit.
@@FedericoMalagutti Ok i think the communication is stuck a bit on the definitions. I think there are diffrent things and unamoured sword fighting is either Historical Fencing (HF) or Historical European Swordsmanship (HES). The term Western Martial Arts (WMA) would be for unarmed fighting and the term Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA) incorporates everything from anicent european fighting manuals for all kinds of weapons, shields, armour, non armed combat, mounted combat and even middle ages war machines. I know that in the last 15-20 years a lot of what HEMA represents is long sword fencing but thats not all that HEMA is. And Long sword fencing at least in my opinion should be done with full or at least partical armour to be called "historic".
@ well… I know, I mean… I am a professional HEMAist, I live out of it. And I’m saying: If you practice unarmored fighting go for the hand snipe, if not don’t (anyway, not even true because there’s hand sniping in most armors too while using swords by targeting the palm of the hand in certain conditions), and that on average HEMA is practiced to replicate 1:1 fights without armor. If someone mixes everything together, without context, it’s even harder to recreate anything.
Im all for hand sniping. The only concern i have for it is that it will further ruin the sport from being more "effective" and "safe" for the person that does the sniping. Fencing is no longer about fencing its about who can poke the other person first. Forget learning how to actually fence. Just learn to be super quick and run in with out worrying about the fact that you got stabbed too. Because you stabbed them first. That or the people that can only pull guard in BJJ. Humans are lazy and take the path of least resistance. Pretty soon youll see actually competitive matches that are just people trying to focus hand snipes and nothing else.
I have heard the argument that strikes to the hand are not effective or have no martial validity. To that I say, spar without gloves and let's see how quickly you either ban hand shots or put the gloves back on. I like to spar with varying amounts of gear, and with fencers whom I trust I will spar with no gear at all. We can fence with enough control that we don't cause injury and without so much ego that we can't acknowledge how much damage the strike would have caused otherwise. Getting hit in the hand sucks even from a light hit with sticks and blunt weapons, I can only imagine what it's like with a sharp sword
Precisely. I received so much injuries (to my bones actually!) to the hands back in the days when protections were meh who I can’t actually understand who says what you mentioned about martial validity XD
That would be like complaining about leg sweep in judo. Lear to avoid or parry hand snipes by working your ass off. Yes it's long and borring ... deal with it or take them and don't complain that other people are working more than you (or are younger and faster ... yes I'm old). I'm far more bothered by "suicidal" attack.
The main issues is when the scoring rewards hand-snipes disproportionately to actual damage it causes. By scoring even light hand taps, hand-sniping can become a tool that can be used to defend against much more dangerous strikes aiming for the body or head. If historically handsnipes weren't hugely represented in the treaties is this because they never considered the possibility of tapping hands or maybe it was because causing sufficient damage to stop more dangerous strike wasn't feasible. Obviously there are some treatises which do represent strikes to the hand and sniping can be effective especially if done cleanly in way that doesn't leave the sniper open for counters. However the question is whatever the rules are capable of distinguishing effective and ineffective handstrikes. Of course if you are just being competitor you'll just have to learn to deal with it. The rules are what they are and if you want to compete you have to be able to operate withing the existing rule set. But when it comes to settings those rules we have to ask ourselves what we want the sports to actually represent. Are we fine with HEMA just becoming sport where the most effective techniques are caused by the quirks of the rules or do we want it to be safe way to practice what swordfight would have been.
That's just not true at all, Fiore several times aims for the hands/arms. The main difference here is that out gloves increase the size of the hand by a factor of 4x or more. I've done more "true" blossfechten and hand hits are a bit harder to get because the targets are significantly smaller, this does not mean they are nonviable though. Another consideration here is that a good bit of languages do not actually distinguish between hands and arms, which makes understanding the sources a bit harder here. They could just be referring to the entire arm as a target (including the hands).
Come on, the one on 2:01 is not a hit, it is just a touch, i would not qualify this as a hit. It could be potentially good cut or even thrust, but it is not.
I don't think the problem is attacking the hands. It's completely legit. The problem, as I see it, is people who HAVE TO WIN, making sparring boring by only attacking the hands. There's no attempt to try anything else, expand their capability and help you expand yours. Every sparring sesh becomes a drill on protecting your hands. As a result, progress is slowed and frustrations accumulate.
@FedericoMalagutti my comment was mostly tongue in cheek, but gauntlets was worn back then for sure. Your right though, it's better to deal with them properly l.
@SkepticalCaveman Ah but then the armor arms race happens where inevitably both party's eventually end up in plate armor so only stabs to eyes and armpits count. That said based on what I've seen on internet with hema training that could be fun for additional rules. Namely cause I like 12th century armor more so it would be great for a mail armor rules where only solid stabs count for first blood.
Hand attacks while effective are not interesting to watch. If you are in any kind of combat sport you don't want to appear to win by dirty tactics. You can be shunned even if it's not illegal.
@@arcanearcher13 I honestly love to see a precisely timed hand snipe XD as much as I see every other clean action landed without getting doubles (or afterblows, which to me are the same).
@andresantoniovalencia1257 with all due respect I do not underestimate threats around me, would not lose so easily. Train how you fight and you will get best results on the street.
@@SirKanti1 well, everything is part of fighting. Both the cool and the uncool stuff. And the land the cool you need to be able to avoid the uncool! LoL
Cry more, longsworders. Basket hilted broadsword fencers don't have to worry about such things ;). Seriously, though threatening the near target is a great way to open your opponent up to deeper attacks.
Don't like hand sniping? Defend your hands
@@Theredsunrising true!
Git good ?
just parry
@k1l170 just don't make them available as a target.
Even better, no hands, no need to defend them.
I've found that being able to threaten a hand snipe I can much more easily set up a whole bunch of techniques that go for deeper targets... and vice versa. Threaten deep, cut wrist; threaten wrist, cut deep. Wrist snipes that deliberately miss and instead gather my opponent's parrying response to go deep.
@@DarkwarriorJ exactly!
@@DarkwarriorJ Kind of like jabs in boxing.
I definitely used to be in the "Hand snipes are cheap and ineffective" group but after seeing how devastating a quick snap cut to the hand can be, I've become a menace to my club and all the hands in it
LOL! Way to go, both for you and for them!
same ahha
Honestly kenjustu techniques really helped with my HEMA skills since one of the first things they teach you is avoiding hand snipes. Makes me feel like I’m taking an mma approach to fighting
@@hris3540 good stuff!
Kote!!
Defang the snake…, hand shots are common in Filipino Martial Arts. A very good concept
what kenjutsu I did really made me good at hand sniping and avoiding hand snipes. It's certainly a tool I wish more people looked at seriously!
I love how his answer can be summarised as, "toughen up and get good, it's the nature of fighting"
Literally "DEAL WITH IT LMAO" but more constructive and formal.
I've always been in the camp that "everything goes in a fight". People that criticize hand sniping have never cut themselves on the hand by accident while cooking or opening a package and it shows.
It's always better to know a technique so you also know how to defend against it.
Heck, even throwing your weapon with some accuracy can be of use if done correctly (posta sagitaria) and save you a whole fight. Is it valid in tournaments? No. But we have a saying in spanish that goes "palo dado ni Dios lo quita", which means "once hit not even God makes it go away (not happen)".
So yes, keep practicing those weird and unusual techniques along with the more standard ones and keep safe and have fun!
@@razgril definitely true
There are plenty of Filipino styles which specialize on long, or largo mano, distance, with short or a two handed stick. That distance is all about 'hand sniping'. It is an art by itself. I practice one of these styles, perhaps I should try it with longsword at some point in time.
@@Tsurukiri extremely interesting!
I love hand snipes. Do I still have to watch the video?😂
Of course, for the Algo! LoL
"Hand sniping is not historical"
Talhoffer literally showed himself chopping off the other guy's hand.......
@@jaketheasianguy3307 true XD
I mean hell, fiore's first longsword play is to cut the hands.
I mean, you end the fight and avoid a murder charge
Its a win/win
Coming from kendo, I oftentimes go for the wrists (not the hands) of the opponent especially when they are in high guards or over extend. I think it's a very valid target and I hate whem people use a derogatory term like hand sniping. Protecting your hands trains you to keep peopre distance to your opponent. Why would I "put myself in danger" while attacking the head ir torso when I can easily "incapacitate" the opponent by aiming for their wrists.
The wrist is one of my favorite targets, hands too but slightly lesser (Lesser occasions to land a clean action), but yeah, both are good!
@@FedericoMalagutti I actually try to avoid hitting hands as to not hurt my opponents no matter the gloves. Fingers and the back of the hand are to fragile to risk it 😮
@ believe me! With good gloves, it’s easier to hurt the wrist than the fingers while going for the target directly, as in the action I show! By experience!
This is really it for me. Hands get so naturally protected anyways and are also just not as good of a target in general. It would be like going for the eye specifically instead of going for the head generally; you’re just adding needless complexity by going for a smaller and more erratically moving target that requires a particular angle to land a proper strike on, when you could just go for the much easier option that achieves exactly the same thing
In FMA it is a go too tactic and something we use so much it is called "Defanging The Snake" take out the hand holding the weapon you take out the weapon.
Also these "Defanging The Snake" tactics will help you open up the lines of attack for for the body and head both with weapons and open hand.
I think that hand snipes in full competition and free sparring should always be allowed and also encouraged. I would say to do so with lighter blows, for safety, but it should happen.
That said, I also think that having "gauntlet sparring" to also practice actually significant lethal techniques and body stopping. The simply truth is that if you have a weapon that was used in armour, partial armour is something you should consider. If I was a knight going out to deal with brigands, I might not wear full plated harness, but a breastplate and gauntlets and helm for sure. And I think doing special practice where certain body parts are off-limits help you practice other techniques more regularly.
IMO the hate for hand sniping comes from beginners being heavily influenced by ideas from the "fantasy" sword fighting they see in films & TV. They are often drawn to HEMA by the romantic ideal of flamboyant bladework and powerful strikes. When they discover that (like every other martial art in the world), HEMA is mainly about distance control through good footwork, tempo and economical bladework, they get into a sulk, and choose to see the fault in HEMA for not matching their preconceived ideas, rather than in their own technical shortcomings.
Or maybe people would like to try other techniques and do other stuff than defending against hand snipes...
Hand snipes make HEMA almost as boring as fencing.
@@dearcastiel4667But they also make it more realistic, which is part of what the H stands for.
Hey Fede, please make a video on how to counter hand snipes!
Of course hand snipes are valid, and of course they would be effective, even fight ending. I'm just not very good at defending against them (yet).
@@leonhard.doerflinger I will! Hehe
Foire de'i Liberi literally says: "We are the blows called Under,
Who always seek to strike the hands;"
No gauntlets on your partner, no hand snipes. Gauntlets, now it's safer.
All in all I love the hand snipes. I've to study that video to couter the countermoves I'll see in the next future 😁
Great video, as always.
You make some great points and in the end, it’s just another aspect of fencing that all of us should learn to use or deal with in order to be a well balanced fencer.
@@DanielPopeScholarVictoria thanks Daniel!
How to counter the hand snipe?
Be aware of where your hands are. Not just if I am doing handshake, hammer or thumb grip, nor if my hands are close to my body, far from it, on top, under, to the sides, etc. But the distance of my opponents maximum reach and the hands. So, let us optimise our defence; guards and distance.
I used to get hit in my hands very often, I still get hit from time to time; like anybody else, but since I learned to be aware of the guards and distance, I have managed to keep my hands safe from hand snipes.
"How to counter the hand snipe? "
Swiss saber guard.
Great, now because of 1 move HEMA has become pay to win.
do the video! 😂
I think the best way to deal with hand snipes is achieving a good sense of where your sword guard is. Most snipes can be avoided my subtly changing the angle of your grip. After that I would say training distance awareness, the "void" or however people call it nowadays should be golden standard.
Handsnipe counter: retract and handsnipe
Simple and effective.
Another option, don't stand with your hands extended in front of you and in distance unless you are trying to bait the obvious hand strike or are ready to do something. A ton of stuff that particularly beginners get frustrated by can be prevented by properly managing distance, but beginners are often more interested in learning some new technique with the sword than learning to tell when they are standing 3 inches too close.
Please, Federico, make a video about how to counter it.
I will, lol ;-)
Probably, a better problem statement is how to protect yourself against handsnipes without being completely vulnerable to other things :D (extreme example: you can keep your hands behind your back!)
@@FedericoMalagutti thank you!
@@alexeyrb1807 ahahaha, rly
My favorite weapon is Bolognese sidesword and dagger, and the Bolognese dagger has only a side ring and no sail. You get real good at doing and defending against hand snipes with that.
Calling hand-snipes unhistorical feels really... weird. Like - look at polish fencing: hand snipes with the false edge! Look at bolognese sidesword - hand snipes aplenty with a "tiny" wrist rotation to the hand/wrist.
Hand (and leg) hits were naturally overlooked only in one historical context - fechtschule sport or training fencing which scored only headshots. People often forget or simply don't know that.
The best way to counteract frustration with opponents is to see them as to your benefit. They are here to teach you what you are missing, even when they are not good teachers like this guy.
Precisely! The correct way of looking at it.
People that say "hand snipe is boring" are they same people thate get hand sniped. Period.
LoL
If you were given a sharp sword against an opponent with a sharp sword (read: not a suggestion, just an example) would you go for the closer, more exposed target, or the deeper and riskier target?
Both would end a fight. I've never met another fighter who legitimately criticized hand attacks, and if I did I would not take them seriously
@@alinkinthechain true!
It's not hand sniping that is the problem, but how hits are scored. There needs to be a way to distinct between a touch and an actual cut/hit where the former should not get any score. A lot of time hand sniping comes down to barely touching the opponent's hand, which in a real scenario (i.e. with sharp steel) would do virtually no effect on person's fighting ability. Unfortunately in HEMA it is not so uncommon getting a "double" where, for example, one fighter does a solid strike on an arm or torso while the opponent merely touches hand in return.
So in my opinion, there is nothing wrong with hand sniping as long as it actually resembles a proper strike that would be significantly harmful to an opponent if done with sharp blades, rather than just a touch to abuse a scoring system.
Frustrating? Sure. But there’s no serious weapon art that doesn’t attack the hands and correspondingly teaches you to defend them. Complaining about it is indicative of things like sportification, lack of serious instruction, etc.
No serious weapon art would tell you to use a sword when we have guns. Weapon arts are purely recreational now, and hand snipes are just boring.
My opponents hands are often the target closest to me. I can reach them with the least exposure of myself to my opponents blade. Deep targets inherently expose me to more danger than shallow targets. I'll take the safe bet where I can.
@@SpidermAntifa I think the same way.
Very nice and throrough answer to the question of handsnipes, and other techniques that are oftentimes considered 'cheap'.
I personally use alot of handsnipes, geiselhaus, etc. in my fencing both in tournaments and sparring settings.
I think it's very important that if you want to improve as a fencer/fighter, you need to have exposure to a varity of attacks/techniques, especially if there are some you find more frustrating and/ or difficult to deal with.
To that end i always try and implement these kinds of techniques to a certain degree for my fencers when they are training for events, so that they've seen them, and know a few different ways of how to handle / counter them.
Very well put and thoughtout take on the debate! Keep up the good work :)
@@thefencingdane5020 agreed!
Still love your content.
Hand sniping is great versus guys with longer reach as they are longer but slower and their hands is always at the same distance ...the reason why the people find hard to defend that is that they use posta breve all the time making easier to reach the hands.
@@stefanodellavalle3988 true!
Good point, I have never though about it, but it is true, it worked better against people that is noticeble taller than me
I mean in most tournaments I've fenced in, hand sniping is allowed, but the point system favors deep targets. So yes, you can only focus on hands, but there is far more incentive to go for the body and head.
@@jt11425 balancing it with different point values is also a good thing, while talking about sport matches.
2:28 oh look, an explosive, technical passing step which is not a fleche ;)
and about the topic
historical context gets very complicated about that:
1. hands without gloves are much harder to hit
2. on the other hand, maybe blossfechten longsword fencers DID used heavier gloves (it's not like a drawing depicts actual duel, they did not fight with rapiers naked right)
3. in modern environment some handshots in some rulests are low risk high reward (so gets used often). It easy to imagine that with sharp weapons it is the opposite
4. fiore and zettel leave a lot of space for interpretation of basic strikes, including handshots. Zettel glossa don't, but glossa may be made up by townsfolk trying to ressurect knightly culture (there are some reasons to believe it was that way) - so maybe handshots WERE often in medieval times
5. Leckuchner's messer includes a lot of handshots, inclunding false edge undercuts (lemstucke) and a HAND THRUST (one of storchsnabel techniques). But for some reason longsword glossa don't feature these techniques. Maybe the reason is in some point above
6. sucessful handshots happen always when a receiver stands in poor distance without a real threat. These seem impossible to parry or evade, because they ARE! The distance, which seems "too long for a deep target" but "yet safe" is often already a compromised distance resulting in getting hand smashed. And *smashed* is used purposefully, since these undercuts can break fingers even in some heavy gloves (but mostly 5 finger ones) - making whole thing even more complex. Anyway, there is a high possibility that medieval masters simply hated lingering in such poor distance, so they would rather keep bigger distance or enter fighting distance immediately. This seems to be the case in longsword sources, when compared to weapons with more developed hand guards (late sabers, smallsword, rapiers). And this kinda works in modern combat as well. You simply can't fight with simple hilt weapon as if it had complex hand protection. "Binds" in medieval sources often reffer to blade contact after an attack and a parry, not to "bind" in MOF sence, which is preparational movement. Early KDF features very little amount of such binds, and these which are present, are coming from forceful strikes.
7. In the end it seems reasonable to draw a line between historical reconstruction and modern combat. We will continue to use medieval techniques and tactics sucessfully, because these are good and designed for these weapons, but on the other hand, a modern training weapon won't be behaving as a sharp sword.
a focus on hand sniping is a symptom of HEMA's devolution into kendo with longswords.
Decisive, loud hand snipes are satisfying and fun. Would love to see a video on protecting your hands. My gloves don't always cover my thumb as much and I still have a bruise on my nail from a hit haha.
Argh, I’ll make one for sure! Try to find some more protections for your hands in the meantime 😉😉😉
My stance on it was always “wrist strikes, not hand strikes.” It may seem like a superficial distinction, but to me it makes all the difference.
My reasoning being that while I understand that HEMA rules are modeled after the assumption of no armor, hands are so incredibly easy to protect that you might find yourself naturally doing so just as a result of your choice of clothing that day. Even just semi-thick gloves that you’d wear for fall or winter would be enough to protect your hands from most cuts, so I see no reason why someone carrying a sword who thinks they might need to use it would not have some kind of simple hand protection to make hand strikes essentially a non-issue, especially when you consider many swords had elaborate cross guards or even baskets to protect the hands. It feels less realistic to me that hand strikes are effective as they are than if they weren’t.
Wrists however, do not have these built in forms of protection that do not qualify as armor. More importantly, even when armored, strikes to this area still need to be avoided as they still threaten breakage, guard integrity, or even just intolerable pain, unlike armored hand strikes. This means it’s a perfectly valid target and that it’s incredibly important for a swordsman to learn how to protect this part of the body, because this is also key when it comes to guiding proper cutting/thrusting form, guard form, and contact response.
Completely agree.
I once fought a guy from HMB (Alexey Petrik, you may know him if you participate in HMB tournaments) at a dussack tournament. And his technique was so different from everything I was used to (and also his speed, yes). I just couldn't do anything against it and lost 10-0. It was VERY strange, but it worked just great.
Since then, I am absolutely sure that the main thing in your fencing is that your techniques work. And the concepts of beautiful-simple-boring-stuff are all for pretentious aesthetes.
Great perspective on this issue. Thanks!
@@jamesstruthers4357 you are welcome!
Hand snipes are most natural. HEMA included.
Back in the day, we broke and bled our hands... then... We learned.
As a short person, I like swords with unprotective guards. They make the game more fun for me :)
-wear gauntlets.
Done, no more hand snipes.
One of the main plays for fiore's armored section is to stab the inside of their gauntlet (which isn't nearly as protected).
@connormccluskey9103 and how often do hand thrusts happen in HEMA ? Really not often.
Not to mention Fiore has a hard on for going for the hands.
I have been hit with a bamboo sword on my hand with such force that I struggled using my hand for an entire week!
Yes, we had no protective gear and no our club doesn't have it.
@@edi9892 argh!
i would really recommend to everybody not to be bugged about hand snipes. Would you rather everybody was just fishing in long point all the time? If it bothers you, I try to remember that it takes very little energy to parry or evade when your hands are the only target. The rhythm of presenting and defending your hands is actually very fun in my opinion. Focusing on the hands also reduces the odds of double-hits, if you're anal about those.
from the historical perspective, my guess is that the hands are a particularly painful and vulnerable place to be hit. The hands are delicate, convex, and braced against a hard surface(the hilt); very vulnerable to cuts.
Historic guards all keep your hands covered. If a historic guard is leaving your hands exposed, you are probably in a high or low guard while being too close to your opponent. If you are close to your opponent and getting your hands sniped, you are probably either not in a proper guard or you are falling for fakes.
I noticed in last two tournametns that it became much harder to hand snipe. A few years ago, just after corona, light thrusts and hand snipes seemed to be "the meta". Now landing thrusts and hand snipes seems much more difficult, it mostly comes to second intention strikes.
@@NQWG yeah that’s good, people get better at dealing with them!
as a dark souls player I would say: GIT GUD
@@franciscofunari2343 lol
Hey @Federico, please make a video dedicated to defending hand sniping!
(I'd love the help to convert my club members from haters to seeing the usefulness in this area and you explain things really well)
@@josephdorey8458 I will make it ;-)
Is like practicing boxing and hating jabbing
If you don’t like your hands getting sniped, learn to fence from posta di coda longa!
People calling hand snipes unhistoric is so stupid. Getting hit in the hands is a common out come if you're fighting with weapons whose use is dependent on extending your arms and hands. Just because it's not in a fencing manual doesn't mean it's unhistoric. The majority of swordsmen and soldiers throughout the period did not have access to fencing schools and sword therapy. They were tutored by veterans in the management of arms. Battles and duels are not pretty and coronate, they are fast and brutal. If you're unable to defend your hands, you need to practice more and understand the limits of the weapon.
Great video, been a fan forever. ❤❤❤❤
Honestly my only gripe about hands sniping is that, and this is only in the context of how my friends learn and train, Is that there needs to be a follow up afterwards. Most hand sniping involves moving in just for enough to Successfully land a hit and then back right out of distance. To be more sincere to the concept of mortal combat, We try to follow hand snipes up with a killing blow
@@pey7759 I may agree but honestly I think about the objective as “making the opponent unable to combat” - Then every other things comes after it.
@FedericoMalagutti ahh that's a fair point, if they are disabled by a snipe the fight is over... and nobody's dead lol
Fencing is frustrating. Frustration of the will is literally the objective. When you frustrate your opponents defenses, you hit. If you fail to frustrate your opponents attacks, you get hit.
If you think you want to get involved with a combat art, you better be equipped to cope with frustration. If that frustration is not channeled or controlled, it will eat you alive.
Any practical value combative simulation sparring offers includes the opportunity to practice clear thinking under stress.
@@l3lixx well, it’s true, hehe
In many cases I consider counter hand snipes as to defend yourself against a lower thrust or cut. Jesus Christ so hard to deal with it, especially when I prefer to hold my sword with edge facing my opponent, it means there’s no chance that the attack may be stop by the crossguard whether it’s from above or below unless I move my sword. Actually, I always want to develop a way to gain advantage by deal with hand snipes in an active way, but up to now, I haven’t got any idea about it.
My better gloves for sidesword didn't arrive yet, and my hand still hurts from the last week's practice. So these days I am all about banning hand sniping. 😅
P.S. And yea, I know this was not what you meant to say or cover in the video. 😉
You are referring to technique, not accidents. But if it hurts so much as an accident with a blunt or synthetic, man, it must be effective with a sharp on a period appropriate leader gloved hand. So it's a valid approach.
You need contact sword feel it, and control the sowrd push tout
I am not handsniping as first intend.
But I will surely take the a gift presented to me when the opponent does not protect all of his hittable area.
1:28 😂😂😂 🍕
I understand first hand how frustrating it can be to go to a tournament and get hand sniped every exchange in a match. But at the end of the day I'm frustrated at myself for letting them do it, not at them for continuing to do the thing that works.
@@samuraidude92 I understand! Correct attitude to the issue anyway!
Hit to the wrist (Kote) is absolutely normal in Kendo and different schools of Kenjutsu, so as an ex Kendo practitioner i dont perceive this type of attacks as a spam
All else fails, complex hilt. (This is mostly meant as a joke)
@@Specter_1125 lol
I think the obvious solution is to be better. 😮
"Hand snipes aren't martially valid!" says the guy with two broken fingers and a 66th out of 70 tourney standing.
With proper distance management it is always avoidable.
@@SUB0SCORION sure!
the hands are the closest target so... hand snipes should be the starting point of your game, because if you're not addressing them and threatening with them, you'll be stepping in deeper to get things done, and there will be someone to snipe your hands on the way in.
in boxing, the shortest punch for hitting your enemy is the jab, so it's fastest and safest. sure it's nothing much and everyone expect it, but that's exactly because it's so good and easy. if jabbing, feinting your jab, or making your opponent miss his jab, is not the starting point of your game, you'll just eat a jab as you force your way in like an idiot.
get a sword with hand protection. problem solved
Avoiding hand sniping is a sign that HEMA is becoming a sport rather than a martial art. Martial Arts are about combat effectiveness (at least they claim to be). If it works, DO IT. Sports are about limiting options until only athletic prowess (strength and agility) remains. In essence, raw physicality over raw mental ability optimized for your build, weapon, and opponent's capability both physical and mental. If we avoid a technique for any reason other than that it doesn't work, we'll soon have rules about taller fighters using proportionally shorter swords, not to mention weight classes. If you want a sport, take up foil fencing. Still, I feel pretty sure HEMA is unavoidably going to go the sport route.
I don't like hand sniping and thrusting because it's can easily miss.
I prefer getting parried than missing the hit.
I respect handsnipes but the problem is some people think they're invincible during it and just ignore threats to get a hand hit in causing lots of doubles.
@@Chroma710 that’s an issue I talk in the previous hand sniping video actually, yes.
Despite in many cases my hands are hit by hand snipes, i never think of banning it. Hand snipes are effective, isn’t? If that’s the case, learn to handle it is much better than simply escaping from it.
I am very mixed about hand-sniping. I like HEMA because of the historical context and that it is a martial art, not a sport. HEMA might not simulate a sword fight, but it teaches you the skills to prepare you for a sword fight. So I like to view rules from that lens. I don't like Olympic fencing because it is a sport, and not a martial art.
In a historical context of a longsword where I'm wearing gauntlets a hand-snipe isn't a meaningful strike that could disable an opponent; it exists to earn an easy point in a HEMA match, making hand snipes more of a "sport" tactic than a "martial art" tactic. Conversely a sword fight wearing light gloves, a strike to the hand is debilitating. So it depends on the martial art you're trying to emulate.
But in the end, its better to train to avoid getting hit.
A similar argument can be made about trips and grapples. Perfectly valid from a historical martial arts aspect, yet the school I attended didn't allow them, which resulted in my opponents having bad habits that I would have exploited if I was allowed.
@@Nogardle the answer is: You never always wear gauntlets, if the opponent wears them, you don’t hand snipe!
Bolognese masters throw false edge cuts and thrusts to the hands a lot of times! And In a real fight, I would go for the hands first if possible.
This doesn’t make me unable to hit other targets anyway!
I should clarify that I am specifically speaking to light taps to the hands that land with almost no force. The kind where your opponent is looking for an easy point. A solid strike even in gauntlets can do damage.
But as I said: I will always lean towards learning not to get hit is best.
@@Nogardle I feel even a "Light tap" can deal fairly devastating damage to an exposed hand, especially given it's "braced" against a solid object and the enemy may be trying to resist the motion even more. Like, the tip of a sword has a lot of speed behind it and it's going to be pretty sharp and hands are incredibly fragile for how vital they are. Think a wrist-rotation cut with a sidesword or a false-edge cut with a sabre.
@@Nogardlethese light taps routinely destroy fingers of fools who wear rapier or saber gloves to a longsword fight.
@@konstantin3374 I am referring specifically to longsword while wearing gauntlets. The kind of strikes gauntlets are designed to protect against.
As a thought experiment: If I am doing sword and bucker, Should striking the buckler count as a hand strike? Because in my mind, Gauntlet is more like a buckler than it is an exposed hand.
show me how to defend my hands, please
While I agree that banning any move creates flaws in technique, I think there is an argument involving scoring to be made here. My own experience is not with HEMA but with unarmed martial arts, and a huge problem that is faced in that community is 'slapping', I've also heard it called 'tapping'. Basically, because one does not do full contact sparring except in rare circumstances, it is very tempting to 'slap' i.e. to strike with a very swift motion which lacks any force or real potential for force behind the movement. Such attacks are realistically extremely difficult to defend against since they require no shift in body weight, no preparation, and have no recoil or overswing since they involve very little force.
The problem is that you can score hits using such techniques, in fact it's nearly impossible not to score hits with a flurry of such attacks. However realistically those attacks would not be a real threat, a light hit can be annoying or distracting, but it won't actually do damage. If you deliver a hand strike without your weight behind it or some sort of real momentum, then you've effectively only thrown perhaps at best 20 lbs of your arm against someone. Even at speed, that is not going to do much unless you hit eyes, ears, etc (which are obviously their own techniques, since they are quite effective). This is why proper striking form is so important, but it still remains a huge problem in sparring, since you are supposed to pull your punches.
I would suspect that HEMA may have the same problem. While a sword drastically improves damage potential even with light hits, armor decreases that damage potential. Even reinforced hard-shell working gloves can make your hands able to ignore hits that would be incredibly painful, and that is true force, not cutting potential. Plate gauntlets are purpose built to stop sharp strikes, especially whip-like low-energy strikes. I would like to see some really careful modeling on those love taps I see exchanged with swords, to see if that would have even the slightest chance of penetrating plate. I am also seeing horrific edge alignment on a lot of those strikes, which isn't surprising given how contorted they are. Scoring should be adjusted accordingly, hand strikes are logical, but playing slap-fight with a sword shouldn't be rewarded.
Most people in the comments talk about gauntlets, but HEMA in general doesn’t represent armored fighting, I’m writing it over and over. It’s unarmed fighting, for duels self defense or whatever other context in which fighting has been applied in a 1vs1 scenario without the use of protections, which are carried in the context of war or other organized combat situations related to warfare. There’s also a specific branch of HEMA which studies armored fighting, and in that context armor is actually weared.
Sometimes people also train with partial armor on, in the case someone would wear real gauntlets on top on our modern HEMA kit for instance, it could mean that those parts are real armor and are defended.
We wear modern equipment and not armor precisely to have the lesser weight possible to represent unarmored fighting, so why feigning that we are wearing it, or part of it? ;-)
Ps: Cutting never passes plates, only blunt force does, or extremely powerful piercing supported by huge leverage and body weight concentration. So if you see someone wearing steel mittens you simply don’t cut there.
@@FedericoMalagutti Like I said, HEMA isn't my background. If it really is meant to depict unarmored fighting, than that does make some sense. Though gauntlets would seem the one piece of armor I would bring to a duel, personally. In fact, I would be surprised if anyone in an historical context wasn't wearing hand protection during sparring, for the same reason people do today.
I dunno, perhaps HEMA is not trying to recreate that sort of thing, and prefers to have hands open. But given that hand protection is extremely easy to don, easy to carry, and from what you say is highly effective, why not merely put the appropriate weight on the hands, and say they are protected? This ends the silly hand sniping in a perfectly realistic way.
A flaw in technique would be created if you planned to fight without hand protection, but that can be easily avoided in a realistic context. As well say that one should not use kicks which are ill-suited to bare feet because it 'creates a flaw in technique' since you can't always be wearing shoes. Having shoes is a fairly easy thing to do, and thus not using them is creating a flaw in technique.
For example, all those hand snipes, from what you say, would be utterly useless against someone with proper hand protection. Isn't relying on those hand snipes going to create horrible habits if they fight someone with properly protected hand? Or heck, even trying to avoid being struck would be a flaw, if what you say is true and even hand plates provides almost certain protection against a cut.
Finally, and I guess this is where I became confused as to the intent of HEMA, but what possible situation are we modeling where someone is walking around with a polearm but not some gauntlets? The weapons being used are in many cases ones which would not appear casually, and thus I would expect a certain amount of other equipment to be assumed as well.
@ we are using mainly swords, swords were mostly related to civilian life weapon based scenarios, and mainly a side weapon in other contexts. We recreate all contexts, but when we wear armor we don’t simulate it, we actually wear it. Search “HEMA in armor” or “Harnischfechten” if you want to see that.
And about the fact that wearing gauntlets is something easily doable: Yes, it’s also easy to carry an AK 47 around nowadays, but it’s not necessarily legal in most places, and everyone would look at you. You would be amazed by how much (especially Renaissance) rules had been wrote and can be found about not wearing armor or hidden armor… But swords could be carried anyway.
@@Malorn0 most of 'civilian-context' combat addressed by HEMA practice is in fact considering little to no hand protection.
Consider this. First of all, much of civilian combat takes place in a self-defence context where people are not walking around with armor, especially not gauntlets, on carry, and if they were, have no time to put them on. This we can confirm knowing that sword and buckler, as well as complex hilted swords and daggers to better protect the fingers of an unarmored hand, were popular for the longest time across the mediaeval and renaissance period.
Second, some masters, such as Fiore himself, direclty recount of civilian sword duels fought only with "a gambeson and a pair of leather gloves" as body protection, which means this was the pracrtice even for formal bouts.
Hope this clears things up!
I do not understand why people just try and focus on guarding their hands better.
Add it to drilling. Do practice matches where hand snipes are the ONLY way you can get points so you focus entirely on guarding your hands and then go back to free sparing.
Bro, I have to train with Borislav. I am born in frustration, molded by it. You think hand sniping is frustrating... try excessive force. 😆
PS: Good take by the way.
lol
I think handsnipe is "cheap" because is one of the best things you can do, if I would have to fighrt for real, I would use it all the time, that's because a hit in the hands in longaword is relatevely easy and commin specially with ubtrained people, but, for practica, O trybto avoid them because the can hurt a lot, and to get better in oter targets... Anyway, ot wold be good a video about hoe to defend against it, ot is not as common, but people that do kendo can hit them really fast
I think the only relevant question is if handsnipes like they are used to score points would damage your hand while wearing proper hand protection. And i think for most snipes this is not the case. I have seen people in full armour fight (Buhurt) and take really bad hits to the hands without slowing them down even for a second. So i think handstrikes should only give you points when you assume your fighters would not wear handprotection (even if they are wearing it for safety reasons).
@@Telendil well, as you say, in buhurt they wear armor… HEMA represents unarmored fighting, so… Hehe!!
@@FedericoMalagutti Thats just wrong. HEMA can incorporate Armour. It does not represent unarmored fighting. That would just be fencing. But as said for a sport event you can set the rules how you want to.
@ HEMA in armor is harnissfechten. And you actually wear armor. And if you want to play a little role play and use patch of armor, such as only gloves and chest for instance, you simply wear that patches on top of the HEMA soft kit.
@@FedericoMalagutti Ok i think the communication is stuck a bit on the definitions. I think there are diffrent things and unamoured sword fighting is either Historical Fencing (HF) or Historical European Swordsmanship (HES). The term Western Martial Arts (WMA) would be for unarmed fighting and the term Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA) incorporates everything from anicent european fighting manuals for all kinds of weapons, shields, armour, non armed combat, mounted combat and even middle ages war machines. I know that in the last 15-20 years a lot of what HEMA represents is long sword fencing but thats not all that HEMA is. And Long sword fencing at least in my opinion should be done with full or at least partical armour to be called "historic".
@ well… I know, I mean… I am a professional HEMAist, I live out of it. And I’m saying: If you practice unarmored fighting go for the hand snipe, if not don’t (anyway, not even true because there’s hand sniping in most armors too while using swords by targeting the palm of the hand in certain conditions), and that on average HEMA is practiced to replicate 1:1 fights without armor.
If someone mixes everything together, without context, it’s even harder to recreate anything.
100%. hand snipes are as martially valid as face thrusts.
Im all for hand sniping. The only concern i have for it is that it will further ruin the sport from being more "effective" and "safe" for the person that does the sniping. Fencing is no longer about fencing its about who can poke the other person first. Forget learning how to actually fence. Just learn to be super quick and run in with out worrying about the fact that you got stabbed too. Because you stabbed them first. That or the people that can only pull guard in BJJ. Humans are lazy and take the path of least resistance. Pretty soon youll see actually competitive matches that are just people trying to focus hand snipes and nothing else.
I have heard the argument that strikes to the hand are not effective or have no martial validity. To that I say, spar without gloves and let's see how quickly you either ban hand shots or put the gloves back on.
I like to spar with varying amounts of gear, and with fencers whom I trust I will spar with no gear at all. We can fence with enough control that we don't cause injury and without so much ego that we can't acknowledge how much damage the strike would have caused otherwise. Getting hit in the hand sucks even from a light hit with sticks and blunt weapons, I can only imagine what it's like with a sharp sword
Precisely. I received so much injuries (to my bones actually!) to the hands back in the days when protections were meh who I can’t actually understand who says what you mentioned about martial validity XD
Coming from Olympic Foil hand snipes for me were extremely unnatural in the beginning. 😂 Now don’t care. Use them quite often.
@@Timeblade_Guild good!!!
Epee ftw! XD
That would be like complaining about leg sweep in judo. Lear to avoid or parry hand snipes by working your ass off. Yes it's long and borring ... deal with it or take them and don't complain that other people are working more than you (or are younger and faster ... yes I'm old). I'm far more bothered by "suicidal" attack.
Getting hit in specific spots? Skill issue.
Adjust accordingly.
Tl;dr - get good
The main issues is when the scoring rewards hand-snipes disproportionately to actual damage it causes. By scoring even light hand taps, hand-sniping can become a tool that can be used to defend against much more dangerous strikes aiming for the body or head. If historically handsnipes weren't hugely represented in the treaties is this because they never considered the possibility of tapping hands or maybe it was because causing sufficient damage to stop more dangerous strike wasn't feasible. Obviously there are some treatises which do represent strikes to the hand and sniping can be effective especially if done cleanly in way that doesn't leave the sniper open for counters. However the question is whatever the rules are capable of distinguishing effective and ineffective handstrikes.
Of course if you are just being competitor you'll just have to learn to deal with it. The rules are what they are and if you want to compete you have to be able to operate withing the existing rule set. But when it comes to settings those rules we have to ask ourselves what we want the sports to actually represent. Are we fine with HEMA just becoming sport where the most effective techniques are caused by the quirks of the rules or do we want it to be safe way to practice what swordfight would have been.
That's just not true at all, Fiore several times aims for the hands/arms. The main difference here is that out gloves increase the size of the hand by a factor of 4x or more. I've done more "true" blossfechten and hand hits are a bit harder to get because the targets are significantly smaller, this does not mean they are nonviable though.
Another consideration here is that a good bit of languages do not actually distinguish between hands and arms, which makes understanding the sources a bit harder here. They could just be referring to the entire arm as a target (including the hands).
Come on, the one on 2:01 is not a hit, it is just a touch, i would not qualify this as a hit. It could be potentially good cut or even thrust, but it is not.
You don't even have to be doing HEMA. Attacking the hands is part of all weapons based martial arts.
I don't think the problem is attacking the hands. It's completely legit. The problem, as I see it, is people who HAVE TO WIN, making sparring boring by only attacking the hands. There's no attempt to try anything else, expand their capability and help you expand yours. Every sparring sesh becomes a drill on protecting your hands. As a result, progress is slowed and frustrations accumulate.
Sparring may have various objectives yes, but winning the most exchanges is clearly one of those ones, admittedly.
git gud.
Just agree that both are wearing gauntlets so the hits don't count, solved.
@SkepticalCaveman I prefer to learn how to defend honesty ^^
@FedericoMalagutti my comment was mostly tongue in cheek, but gauntlets was worn back then for sure. Your right though, it's better to deal with them properly l.
@SkepticalCaveman Ah but then the armor arms race happens where inevitably both party's eventually end up in plate armor so only stabs to eyes and armpits count. That said based on what I've seen on internet with hema training that could be fun for additional rules. Namely cause I like 12th century armor more so it would be great for a mail armor rules where only solid stabs count for first blood.
Hand attacks while effective are not interesting to watch. If you are in any kind of combat sport you don't want to appear to win by dirty tactics. You can be shunned even if it's not illegal.
@@arcanearcher13 I honestly love to see a precisely timed hand snipe XD as much as I see every other clean action landed without getting doubles (or afterblows, which to me are the same).
I agree, and afterblow is the same as a doble, with real weapons, you would have been hurt too
@andresantoniovalencia1257 with all due respect I do not underestimate threats around me, would not lose so easily. Train how you fight and you will get best results on the street.
skill issue
LOL, hilarious "historically accurate combat" that complains about the MOST LIKELY TARGET in historically accurate combat.
But when you compare them to all the cool stuff in longsword sources, they are kinda boring and lame.
@@SirKanti1 well, everything is part of fighting. Both the cool and the uncool stuff. And the land the cool you need to be able to avoid the uncool! LoL
Skill issue.
Cry more, longsworders. Basket hilted broadsword fencers don't have to worry about such things ;). Seriously, though threatening the near target is a great way to open your opponent up to deeper attacks.
@@weaselrampant lol - And, yes true!
I didn't believe in hands anyway, too many bones.
@@FogmanS2N lol!