HEMA instruction is literacy instruction
The case and tips for better teaching of those damn fencing words
“All instruction is literacy instruction.”
I first encountered this saying when starting my Master’s of Curriculum and Instruction program in 2018, and I scoffed at it initially. “I’m a science teacher, not an English teacher, I’m not here to teach high schoolers to read and write,” I thought. Over time, however, I began to understand more what this phrase alluded to, and ended up integrating it across all my pedagogical practices, from my work as an educator to my HEMA instruction.
No matter your content, scope, or audience, teaching how to interact and use the specific “academic language” of your subject is an essential part of student growth and success.
All sports and martial arts have their own academic language, which all enable effective and accurate communication of concepts within them.
A “baseball thrown hard with 2 fingers laid along the red laces that starts level in flight but increases in height as it crosses home plate” becomes “rising 2-seamer.”
A “lead fist thrown straight and fully extended and controlled” becomes “jab.”
A “rising cut from a lower guard using the long edge” becomes “unterhau.”
When we teach “HEMA literacy” we’re not trying to prep students for the Sword SAT or pop quizzes during classes. Rather, effective literacy instruction should serve to empower your students to have more control and agency in their growth and learning, not simply to get them to be able to recite rote definitions of some old German fencing techniques. In HEMA, this is most important in being able to communicate, reflect, and evaluate fencing actions using concise, accurate shared vocabulary. A fencing student who can put their actions into words quickly and easily can analyze their own fencing with higher fidelity than a student who cannot, and they can contribute to the growth of their peers by participating in feedback cycles more clearly and precisely.
We should strive to create communities of practice in our clubs where students feel they are not expected memorize and recite the names of techniques, but rather to interact with the academic language of fencing in order to heighten their ability to do the fencing itself. See this clip of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where the Ballet Mistress Nancy Raffa is able to use the academic language of ballet both with and without demonstration to effectively communicate to her dancers what she wants to see, and their ability to act on the language used. Although complicated, their mastery of the vocab allows Nancy to instruct at a higher level and allows the dancers to match expectations more easily (along with the years and years of physical training and practice to pull off the instruction).
Demonstrate, practice, and don’t popcorn your vocab.
The best way to teach academic vocabulary in fencing is to do fencing. Tying vocab to actions while doing sparring games, partnered drills, or demonstrations consistently and clearly sets the tone that the terminology is important and useful. Creating cultures of pre- and post-sparring discussion, where fencers have opportunities to talk about their goals in a match and then reflect on what worked well or not gives them a space to flex their applied vocab skills with one another. Doing coached sparring or mock tournaments, where students may act as match directors and have to describe what they saw as they give scores, or have a mid-match huddle to practice evaluating strategies and fencing using terminology and shorthand, can push students to turn actions they see (and do) into words. Posting examples of techniques in club discord or social channels can help students tie the fencing actions used into class to the related vocabulary by seeing actions more often. Asking students to lead drills or games and highlight when they use precise terminology can shift the focus to student-driven vocab use rather than an instructor being the only one saying “zwerchau” all night. The doing of the vocab will cement the terms to movement more easily, rather than rote study.
And avoid popcorn questions. “How do we use the kurtzhau, class?” “Now, what guard do I go to from here?” “The posta di donna guard is similar to…?” These single question, single answer inquiries test only retention and definition regurgitation, and rarely venture into application of terminology to solve problems or reflect. The most famous example of popcorn questions (and their typical response) is in this clip. You either know it, spit it out, and succeed (yay!), or you don’t know it and fail (boo!).
Push students to USE their academic language as they USE their fencing, tie the language to the actions. Demonstrate to them how powerful it can be to have a vocabulary of fencing at their disposal during sparring day reflections, do judging practice by watching tournament footage, and more.
It matters less if your HEMA term is necessarily “correct,” but rather that it is consistent.
One of the biggest detracting arguments against teaching terminology in HEMA (other than “uwuuu we’re here to fence not to do vocab quizzes uwuuu”) is that many pieces of vocabulary are subject to interpretive differences, so teaching them as a solid part of curriculum sets up students for confusion when venturing out into sources or interactions with the wider HEMA community, which may have alternative definitions. Instructors will put asterixis next to terms they use, de-emphasize using German cut names in class, or copy-paste terminology from other practices such as Olympic Fencing into HEMA because the Italian words are “too hard.”
If the zornhau you use in class is consistent and solid in definition, it serves its purpose. What’s important is that if a student says “that zornhau you got on me after my bad parry had perfect structure,” this word has the same meaning to both the student giving and receiving the feedback. If you can describe a sequence like Nancy did in the clip above, such as “left weschel, sweep to high tag, left zorn passing, right zwerch abzug,” and your students could both picture what is expected of them and put the language into action, your instruction has been effective. Fencers who have a grasp on the vocab of fencing will be able to more quickly focus on actions that need work, communicate what they find most effective, and participate in fencing more fully.