On The Training Of Judges In HEMA

Judging in HEMA tournaments is problematic. I think everyone can agree on that. It's been getting better over the past few years, partly because our group of good judges is slowly growing and partly because many events are adopting simplified formats that make the job easier, but it's far from a state that anyone would be happy about.

Stuff to Read

There have been a number of attempts to address this problem head-on; the IGX organizers launched the aborted New England Judges Training Initiative two years ago, and a few other programs have been developed by other parties and may launch soon. But ultimately, a top-down approach to training judges is not going to solve our problems as quickly as we need. Training judges takes a lot of time, and bringing people together to be trained in person (especially on a regional or national level) also takes a lot of money. So while I wish those programs success, and I look forward to the day when there's a judging curriculum and certification program recognized across the tournament community, for now let's talk about what we can do today.

I'm the guy in the white vest that you sometimes see photobombing the fencers you're trying to take a picture of.

Even though it's been years since I fought in a tournament, I've been participating in the HEMA tournament 'scene' on an ongoing basis for quite a while now, and I've served as a judge, referee, and director at events around the country. I'm not the best judge in our community, but I've worked with the best judges and learned a few things about what makes them effective. Based on that, I believe that great judges (like great fighters) are built at their local clubs, not in the thick of things at tournaments.

Ultimately, when we talk about training judges we're talking about two (related) things: training a judge's eye, and training a judge's memory. A judge needs to be able to watch a fight and understand exactly what he's seeing, down to a high level of detail, and then needs to be able to hold that understanding in mind until the time comes to make a call. That's it really; everything else is just paperwork. And these are both skills that can be developed and sharpened every day, no matter the size and skill level of your club.

Stuff to Do

Below, I will outline three different activities, each with a different scale and difficulty level, that you can build into your HEMA training in order to improve yourself and the members of your club as judges. (I had more than three, but ultimately the others were just variations on these.) If you have ideas that aren't covered here, feel free to post them i the comments so we can maintain this article as a living reference.

1) Judged Free Play

Venue: Any
Participants: 3-5
Difficulty Level: Beginner
Time: As desired
Frequency: As desired

Every club tends to include structured or unstructured free-play in at least some of their training sessions. For many HEMA fighters this is their favorite part of training. The general format is that fighters break when they believe that a strike has landed and then one fighter acknowledges the hit (or the other fighter waves it off and motions to continue). This is HEMA 101, and should sound familiar to everyone.

This activity provides a great opportunity for basic judge training. Break everyone into groups of three instead of pairs, and the one not fighting will act as 'judge' for the match. The fighters still stop and start their own action, but before the hit is acknowledged the judge has to call out what he thinks he saw. The fighters then compare it to their idea of what happened, and action resumes. It's generally a good idea to group people by similar experience level, so that the judge has the best chance of being able to follow the action.

Be careful in this activity to not get bogged down in conversation-- the focus should be on fighting for the fighters and watching for the judge, so keep talking to a minimum. Also keep in mind that fighters don't always realize when and where they hit or are hit, so in the case of disagreement between judge and fighters, simply move on.

Coached Free-Play: As I said above, the skills that make a good judge are also important for coaches. So a variant of this exercise is to use a group of four or five. Two will still fight, but two others have the responsibility of 'cornering' for the fighters and offering feedback after each exchange. This is especially good in structured free-play when the fighters have definite objectives they're trying to achieve. A group of four only has the two coaches (who continue trying to call the action after each exchange, as above), whereas a group of five also has a judge in the middle who is only watching and making calls.

2) Group Training

Venue: Club
Participants: 5-20
Difficulty Level: Beginner
Time: 30-60 minutes
Frequency: Monthly to quarterly

This is the type of training activity that is sometimes scheduled for judges in the beginning of events, but it is much more useful when conducted intermittently at home. Generally you want to set aside a discreet block of time (30-60 minutes) for this during a practice session. You should also mark off a ring.

Two fighters gear up and fence under quasi-tournament conditions, while all other participants act as judges. After each exchange, the judges should compare calls and have a conference if there is any disagreement. Once the exchange has been analyzed to the judges' satisfaction, the fight will resume again. If desired, the person conducting the event can give the fighters occasional secret instructions on ways to fence to further test the judges' perception.

Where the first format was about gaining experience in watching fights, this focuses on understanding them. Judges who saw different things should walk through the exchange and try to understand what happened and why their perspectives only showed them part of the action. If judges disagree about details (such as edge vs. flat), that should be discussed as well. If video equipment is available, that can also be used to replay the fight during the conversation. (This being 2016, we can even have every participant pull out a phone or tablet and take video from their perspective, to see how it matches their memory.)

This was the primary format that we used in the New England Judge Training series, and it worked very well for identifying exactly what mistakes judges consistently made and what situations were consistently hard to judge. If you're planning to devote an entire practice session to training judges, then this format can be used as the intensive training phase in the first hour, and afterward everyone can break up into groups of three or five and spend the next half hour or hour engaging in judged sparring as described above to practice further.

3) Judge Training Tournament

Venue: Multi-club gathering
Participants: 10+
Difficulty Level: Intermediate
Time: 2-4 hours
Frequency: Quarterly to semiannually

This is a format that was formalized as part of the Longpoint program for the first time in 2016, though it's intuitive enough that we may not be the first to try it. The format is essentially a full mock-tournament, and can be implemented at regional sparring camps or other gatherings. Because of the amount of fighting involved, this is also a good way for a large club or group of clubs to train all of their personnel for an upcoming tournament (I would love it if non-competitors began feeling like staff roles were a thing to train up for in advance of an event).

The participants should divide into teams of four to five fighters each. During each hour of the event, one team will fight a full card of pool matches while the other team staffs the ring-- one acting as director and the rest as judges. These matches should be conducted under tournament conditions for both fighters and staff; the actual ruleset used is less important, but to avoid the rules being an impediment to the training it's good to use of the simpler rulesets (such as Nordic Rules or the forthcoming Longpoint Basic).

Throughout these matches, the team members not fighting should be acting as coaches in the corners of those who are, and likewise the team staffing should rotate through positions (unless one has a reason to specifically train as a director the whole time). After all of the pools have concluded, it's always fun to put together a small bracket-- such as the top 1-2 fighters from each pool-- and train fighters and judges in how that part of a tournament plays out.

Between each round, take ten minutes to debrief. The fighters should talk to their coaches and get feedback. The judges should talk to each other and compare notes about things that worked and problems they ran into. This feedback will make the training event twice as effective.

Alternately, instead of pool fights you can organize this as a team vs. team event, in which each fighter fights all members of the opposing team while a third one staffs (keep in mind for scheduling that all three teams need to cycle through the positions, so this takes will take a minimum of three hours). This variant is good if several different clubs are present, so that each can form a separate team and fight people they don't often see. The Longpoint Rookie Training Tournament is structured this way, and event instructors are recruited to act as team captains to coach a team of rookies through their fights and direct the ring when their rookies are staffing.

Conclusion

Ultimately, training judging needs to become a part of the rhythm of our community, just as training fencing is. It's a skill that is built up through hours and hours of practice over the course of months and years. It's also a skill that is perishable, and needs to be used frequently to be maintained. If you're in the thick of tournament season, staffing an event every few weeks, then that's probably enough, but during the long droughts it's important to continue training and developing.

As I said above, these are just three ideas that have been tested by various groups and seen a lot of success. If you have other ideas, sound off in the comments!

All images © 2016 Véronique McMillan

Longpoint 2015 Longsword and Sword and Buckler Rules

Click here to view the rules.

This is my first year as part of the Longpoint team; I was forcibly onboarded after publicly expressing my criticisms of the results of implementation of the Nordic League rules I saw at Purple Heart Open, which were similar to the problems I saw in the 2014 Longpoint tournaments and that I predicted in the more recent draft of the 2015 rules. Jake Norwood challenged me to do better, so I took a hard look at several rulesets and pieced together a document that became the core of the official 2015 Longpoint rules. I attached a version of this editorial to the initial document laying out my rationale, and I’ve updated it now that the rules are finalized to explain in part the reasoning behind some of the design. If you don’t care about my thoughts on the state of HEMA tournaments, just skip down to the targeted system-centric formats section.

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I first became involved with the wider HEMA community in 2008-2009 when a schism within ARMA resulted in my study group of many years becoming newly independent; before that, I was only vaguely aware that such a community might potentially exist. This timing roughly corresponded with the growth of tournament-based events and the rising profile of the tournament in HEMA. Despite the initial misgivings I had, as I’ve watched the tournament circuit come into its own over the past six years the results have been incredibly positive: a sharp increase in the level of skill and technical excellence demonstrated by the top echelon of historical fencers, an increased attention to and capacity to perform (under pressure) the more sophisticated techniques and tactics of the various Medieval and early Modern systems, and a general explosion in the number and quality of practitioners and organizations worldwide.

Part of the maturation of HEMA tournaments has been in creating ever more sophisticated structures and rule-sets in an effort to discover the ideal tournament format for each particular art. When it comes to early Modern fencing systems, especially Kunst des Fechtens and Armizare with their focus on cut and thrust swords, there have been three primary approaches used to reasonably good effect, which I will call the purely modern formats, the reconstructed historical formats, and the targeted system-centric formats. Each has, however, also faced significant problems.

A purely modern format was the obvious first choice when organizing a HEMA tournament. While general knowledge of and skill with Medieval and early Modern dueling weapons may have been lost over the intervening centuries, the practice of holding tournaments and sportive fencing matches with the swords of the day—as well as wrestling matches, boxing matches, etc.—has persisted to the present. While some of this knowledge is surely useful, modern sportive rules are not without many problems. For example:

• Easily-abused Rules: Unlike a boxing match or a wrestling match, which can be allowed to continue until the natural conclusion of the fight (knock-out or tap-out), the natural conclusion of a sword fight is often injury or death, neither of which can be tolerated in sport. This means rules have to be implemented to simulate these win conditions, and the rules that have evolved in modern Olympic fencing are very easily gamed in such a way that the match no longer resembles sword-fighting. (For example, rules of right-of-way allow a fencer to earn a victory on an intentional double-touch, and awarding points only to the first strike removes the need for a tactical withdrawal at the end of a bout.)
• Difficult to Judge: Classical fencing judges dedicate enormously more time to learning their trade than HEMA judges are willing or able to devote, but even then and with a much more limited set of legal techniques than in longsword, judging in an accurate and consistent manner across a whole tournament is a difficult task.
• Empty Vessel: Most modern sportive rules seek to create a container in which fighters can fight, nothing more. This means defining starting conditions, ending conditions, and usually certain banned techniques, but beyond that all tactics and techniques are treated equally. Without strong incentives offered to reward specific high-risk techniques—such as those prized by early Modern fencing masters—such techniques are rarely seen, and instead fighters rely on superior athleticism coupled with simple strikes to easy targets.

Of course, there have been many tournaments conducting using modern sport rules, and I would be very interested in assisting with a HEMA tournament designed by hybridizing rules from living traditions (e.g. classical fencing, academic fencing, and something like glima for grappling).

The historical formats that some have attempted to reconstruct include Franco-Belgian rules compiled from fragments in guild archives, German Fechtschule rules gleaned from tournament descriptions in literature, and Bolognese school-fencing rules extrapolated from comments in the treatise of Antonio Manciolino. These seem on the surface to be ideal tournament formats for an art that is equally a modern construct based on historical sources, but in practice there are a number of problems:

• Asymmetry: The historical solution to problems of gamesmanship in fencing matches and difficulty in judging was often to abandon any pretext of equality and create steeply asymmetrical encounters that eliminate any ambiguity. For example, a Franco-Belgian solution to resolving double-hits and near-double-hits was to declare one fencer the automatic winner in all such exchanges, placing the burden firmly on the other fencer to prevent them from happening.
• Technical and Target Restrictions: It was not uncommon in these contests to ban whole categories of actions, such as disarms, throws, or thrusts. This was, presumably, partly for safety and partly to isolate some specific skill-set which they wished to put on display. In a similar vein, historical formats often limited the target area, ranging from penalties for striking to the hands (a reasonable safety precaution when neither fencer was wearing gloves) to only scoring strikes to the top of the head. Both of these classes of restrictions are incompatible with the presumptive goal of a HEMA tournament, which is showcasing as much of the “complete art” as possible.
• Incomplete Data: A major drawback in historical formats is their fragmentary and largely speculative nature. There simply isn’t enough information available to establish more than the most basic concept of how these tournaments were executed. The historical rule-sets that have been proposed to date do not represent the format of any specific tournament known to have ever been held, but are rather the amalgamation of many scraps of information stapled together by considerable guesswork.
• Irrelevance: Ultimately, the connection between the known historical formats and the reconstructed martial arts from the early Modern period is tenuous at best. For example, it does little to advance the practice of historical fencing for a fencer trained in the Germanic tradition of Johannes Liechtenauer as it was recorded in the 15th century (or even the coeval Italic tradition of Fiore de’i Liberi) to then fence under the house rules of 16th century Bolognese master Antonio Manciolino (using weapons he didn’t even teach, no less), and it does even less to fence under rules used by fencing guilds in 17th century Belgium, even if either rule-set were reconstructed perfectly. It is no less anachronistic than fencing under rules designed for classical fencing in the 19th century or rules designed specifically for HEMA in the 21st.

All of which is not to say that these tournament efforts should not continue, either. Even if they are not ideal for the practice of early many Modern systems, they still provide invaluable historical context and insight into the culture of fencing (and can be quite fun, to boot).

This brings us to targeted system-centric formats, tournaments that are constructed from the ground up around the particular details and constraints of a certain fencing system (or cluster of systems). Though it is not without its own problems, this experimental category has been the most successful tournament format in North America in recent years. Longpoint is an example of this, and here is how the 2014 Longpoint Rules describe the approach:

• A Game: The rules are constructed so that using historical techniques which demonstrate all the criteria listed in the assumptions above [hitting the opponent without also being hit at the same time or shortly thereafter; movements that are measured, balanced, and stable; good technique that ultimately leads to a wound to the head or torso; skill demonstrated by techniques which actively interrupt and control the opponent’s weapon while striking] score more points than those who simply fence using the simplest approach to the easiest target. Sadly, this also brings many of the limitations inherent in all games.
• A Pressure Test for Interpretations and Skill: By rewarding specific styles of fighting without forbidding others, fencers seeking to improve or refine their training and interpretations of historical technique will be rewarded against fighters who might use a more basic, attribute-based style of fencing.
• A Feedback Tool: The judging process is more time consuming than in most HEMA competitions before 2013. Each of the four criteria is scored separately to provide fighters with more detailed feedback on their performance. As such, we expect that fighters training for the LP rules will improve as fencers over time.
• Focused on Certain Skill Sets at the Expense of Others: No rule set currently in use can safely simulate all the eventualities and possibilities of a violent encounter with swords or other historical weaponry. LP rules focus on certain aspects of historical fencing, and ultimately favor certain historical techniques over other equally legitimate historical techniques. In building these rules, we have tried to emphasize what we feel is the next step in our skill development as a HEMA community. We reward less for techniques that we see more, and reward more for techniques that we see less…sometimes arbitrarily so. We also acknowledge that—as a side effect—the rules may favor some historical sources, techniques, schools, or traditions over others.

This approach appeals to me as the best way forward, but unfortunately, I feel like the rules have strayed from this vision a bit over the past few years. In an effort to address staffing concerns and to seek more consistency in judging, some of the core components of the system have been discarded. Most notably, the idea that the sequence of strikes is one of the most important defining features of an exchange. While discarding sequence and scoring all strikes by both fighters equally (the so-called “judged after-blow”) is admittedly much easier to judge, it has caused the resulting rule-set to slide into some of the same shortcomings seen in modern-inspired formats (rules exploitation, technical shallowness, etc.) In my revisions, I’ve attempted to reintroduce the concept of sequence/priority of hits without increasing the burden on less experienced judges (though it will fall to Directors to pick up the slack).

Additionally, I think it’s necessary at this stage to revisit a concept that emerged from Matt Galas’ research into the Franco-Belgian guilds, namely the Naerslag (commonly translated “after-blow”). The Naerslag is a rule in this format whereby a fencer, once struck by his opponent, is allowed a brief moment for a “revenge strike”, representing the fact that your opponent will not always be disabled by your first hit and you must continue to defend yourself. While this device has been broadly, almost universally, incorporated into HEMA tournament formats, and has been enormously effective in promoting proper defensive behavior during fencing matches, it is ultimately alien to the fencing systems that the Longpoint rules in particular are attempting to address. It also shifts the focus at the end of an exchange from the attacker to the defender in a way that seems unconstructive and unintuitive.

Thus, in my revision below I do not speak of “after-blows”, but rather the behavior that the after-blow is intended to promote—a clean and effective Abzug (Withdrawal) vs. a messy and ineffective one. If a fencer strikes his opponent without sacrificing his defense—ideally by achieving a Control point, but alternatively with a guard or parry—then he is Withdrawing from the engagement correctly. If he strikes his opponent but leaves himself exposed—demonstrated by his opponent striking to the opening if he can—then the fencer has failed to Withdraw effectively.

The type of exchange (Clean Hit, Failed Withdrawal, Double-Hit, Grapple, or no exchange) thus becomes the key to determining how the match will be scored, replacing the old first scoring step in the Longpoint rules (Contact)—a call of Clean Hit or Grapple can reach up to six points, whereas a call of Failed Withdrawal can earn only one (and a call of Double-Hit or no exchange results in no points at all). In essence, this integrates the “after-blow” fully into the scoring pyramid: Contact alone ends the exchange but awards no points; Quality is worth one point (regardless of Abzug); Target is worth two additional points, but only with a proper Abzug; and Control combines both offense and defense into a single action and is worth a further three.

To further simplify scoring and align the rules, we took a hard look at special actions this year. Special awards for ring-outs and different grappling actions bogged down the process and were just more things for judges to keep in mind. So this year, grappling is scored in the same fashion as fencing: an intentional ring-out earns a Quality point (encouraging fencers to remain in the ring without rewarding “shoving” as a tactic too strongly, since it also endangers staff and spectators), a standard takedown or throw with dominance earns Target points, and a throw or takedown rises to the level of a Control technique if the dominant fighter retains his weapon and the ability to use it. Other special grappling actions (such as disarms) are non-scoring but will likewise award Control points if followed by a suitable strike.

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Final note: These rules, which have now been picked over by several leading fencers and successfully field-tested at Fechtschule New York last month, are not without their own flaws and we don’t pretend otherwise. There are two ways to add a revenge strike mechanic to a tournament, which I’ll call the Naerslag approach and the Abzug approach, and each has a critical flaw that we haven’t managed to solve yet.

• The Naerslag approach scores the revenge strike by the same metric as the initial strike, allowing both fighters in an exchange to score points.
• The Abzug approach instead reduces or negates the score of the initial strike if a revenge strike lands, only allowing the fencer who hits first to score points.

The key problem scenario is one where a fighter lands a shallow or otherwise low-value strike, only to receive a deep/high-value revenge strike. In this case, the Naerslag awards net positive points to the fighter who struck second, whereas the Abzug approach awards positive points to the fighter who struck first. Either fighter can “game” this situation very easily: under Naerslag, a fighter may offer a low-value target as bait to an opponent, intentionally soak up the hit, and then return a high-value strike; under Abzug, a fighter may offer a high-value target as bait, speed in a sniping strike to an arm or other low-value target, and thus negate the high-value strike that lands moments later.

There is no way out: one of those two scenarios is going to happen, and the further band-aids we explored for one or the other not only make the rules much more difficult for staff and for fighters, but also open new avenues of gaming ad infinitum. Given that, and after long debate (including hundreds and hundreds of Facebook posts), we find the latter scenario to be the lesser evil and marginally more martially-sound. If you have an idea on this front, feel free to send it to us and it might just appear in the 2016 Longpoint Rules.

Michael Chidester
Wiktenauer Director