The HEMA Ireland Quarter of a Million Minutes Challenge!
‘Strive after integrity
апd take great pains
in your knightly practices:
throwing апd pushing stones,
dancing апd jumping,
fencing апd wrestling,
running at the lance апd tournaments,
апd courting beautiful women.’
Hans Talhoffer, Königsegg Treatise (1446-59)
As the lockdown winds down and we are increasingly free to return to training, we at HEMA Ireland invite you to join us in an epic training challenge!
We have set the goal of working together to put in two hundred and fifty thousand minutes training in a single year! That is over 4100 hours, or 170 days or nearly 6 months of solid training!
We are doing this to create a supportive and fun environment to help our members meet their training goals as well as maintain a sense of community during lockdown. Training challenges can help But, THIS IS BIG!!! We can’t do this alone, we are reaching out to the international HEMA community to invite you to join us!
To take part, simply do your training and log it on the online form and together we will work toward achieving this impressive total. What counts towards the challenge?
Fencing training and drilling, of course, but any kind of physical training that could help your fencing can count towards the challenge, so long as it is a recognised form of physical exercise or meets the minimum definition of moderate physical exercise. You can take inspiration from Talhoffer’s quote, above, except maybe courting beautiful women (or men). And if that gives you a lot of exercise, well that’s just TMI!
Get involved!
Log your training here. You can optionally also record tout club and a sort description of what you did: (Link to Google form)
See live stats on the challenge, along with our progress towards the epic total here: (link to google sheet)
Post updates and videos on your training (training montages are especially welcome!) to let us know what you’re doing, here: (The HEMA in Ireland page)
Suggestions for training: Solo drilling, time spent in group practice, sparring, any aspect of PT, yoga, stretching, cardio work, etc.
In general any activity can be counted so long as it is clearly a fitness or training methodology even if it doesn’t always raise the heartbeat (e.g. yogo, pilates) or meets the minimum standard for moderate exercise (as a general rule of thumb, is it has to be sufficiently demanding that you couldn’t sing while you do it). The absolute minimum standard is at least a brisk walk. So basically anything beyond going to the shops or light housework can count towards your total).
For more guidelines on physical activities see: https://www.hse.ie/…/heal/physical-activity-guidelines/
https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/exercise/