As Jeremy Pace prepared to give a lesson on sword fighting, a group of a couple dozen gathered around him. They wore padded clothing, fencing helmets and gloves. Soon, the sound of clashing swords filled the Carson City Community Center gym as they practiced his demonstrated technique.
Pace has been practicing HEMA since 2001, and is the head instructor at Cymbrogi School of Western Martial Arts in Oklahoma City. According to him, there is always something new to learn.
“That idea of, we'll never really know exactly what our masters intended, is a prevailing one. New material, new resources are always coming out, new interpretations of that material is always coming out,” he said.
The lesson was part of a tournament that took place in Carson City on May 18 and 19. A well known name in the HEMA community, Pace was both competitor and guest lecturer at Battle Born HEMA, one of only two fencing competitions here in Northern Nevada. It hosted roughly 80 competitors this year.
Fencing refers to any combat sport where you fight with a sword, but you likely won’t find HEMA weapons at the Olympics next to the foil or épée. Weapons for each competition vary. Pace competed in three of the four disciplines at Battle Born — longsword, broadsword, and rapier. The only discipline he wasn’t able to compete in was women’s smallsword.
For those wondering, HEMA stands for Historical European Martial Arts, a sport that combines the study of historical texts with physical combat. Students of the sport study treatises written by fencing masters in the Medieval and Renaissance periods, then gear up and grab a sword to put those written theories to the test.
Because the sport is so niche and based on constantly interpreting resources, there’s no standardization in techniques or rulesets.
“But us not having a centralized body or authority telling us, this is how you do this thing exactly, I think is actually a strength of ours within HEMA,” Pace said.
Another of HEMA’s strengths is finding technical feedback through every exchange.
“If I hit my opponent, and they don't hit me, there's a reason why. And then we analyze that why,” he said.
According to Pace, many of the skills learned in fencing can be applied to life.
“Communication and openness, honesty, I think these things are very important for fencing. If people don't have them, they're usually not a very good fencer,” he said.
Pace wasn’t the only big name in the world of HEMA to compete at Battle Born. During the second day of the competition, I donned a padded jacket, fencing helmet, and heavy gloves to join a lesson and found myself briefly partnered with Rashelle DeBolt.
DeBolt is number one in the world for women’s longsword, and teaches at the Noble Science Academy in the Reno-Sparks area.
She picked up the sport roughly four years ago.
“I had a friend who was doing HEMA during COVID. And I had just graduated and COVID gave me a lot of time on my hands. So I decided to try a new hobby. And I kind of fell in love with it after my first try,” she said.
DeBolt quickly rose through the ranks at the Noble Science Academy and now teaches longsword, broadsword, and saber.
As HEMA grows, the number of women competing in the sport has also increased. For women who want to get into fencing, DeBolt said finding a women’s class is a great way to start, but the community is supportive and welcoming to all newcomers.
“Most clubs have at least a class that they're going to offer for women. So that's a great place to start. But even if you're not able to find that, just go to your first class, see how you feel. You don't have to jump into the deep end with all the guys,” she said.
Sword fighting, admittedly, sounds dangerous, but according to Michael-Forest Meservy, founder of Noble Science Academy, skiing is an ultimately more injury prone sport.
“I've lost more students to skiing injuries than I have to sword fighting injuries,” he said.
Meservy has been practicing HEMA for 23 years, and started Battle Born to show people a different way of running tournaments. It has since grown to host international competitors.
“In other tournaments the way they were designed, the rule sets they were using, they weren't really encouraging fencing that would A. be interesting to watch, B. be historical. In order to have a voice you have to go and do something. You have to create something for people to listen to you,” he said.
Battle Born's goal is to create a more audience-oriented experience, so it has a ruleset that explains the points system and displays scores for the audience.
“Our rule set is designed with the audience in mind, with a spectator in mind. A lot of HEMA events don't even display the score at the tournament. So if you're watching, you can't even see who's winning,” Meservy said.
Pace won the longsword competition at Battle Born, netting prizes and points to take home with him to Oklahoma.
The other competition held in Northern Nevada is Fraufecht, the annual women’s tournament. It is held annually during the Labor Day weekend.
