Choosing the Diagonal

I was sparring with my partner. I know to catch their blade with mine when going for a thrust to the chest. However, the way I caught their blade made it so that I kept walking straight into their sword, stabbing myself in the process.

My instructor saw this and asked what I could be doing differently. I flipped through previous lessons in my head and realized I was attacking in a straight line when I could have stepped to the side, on a diagonal. The direct path was not my best route.

Straight lines can be tempting. I'm not typically someone who cuts corners, but I also don't wander off the trail when I have somewhere to be. I want to be efficient. There's too much to do. I can't justify exploring different directions.

But what happens when the direct path is the most painful? The direct path might be blocked. Or even the direct path might not exist by the time I get there. Choosing the diagonal could mean choosing the only way forward.

Choosing the diagonal means creating space while closing the gap. It means both.

In longsword, we see the concept of "both" pretty frequently. Master Strikes will both attack and defend in the same movement. Feinting implies potential strikes from both angles. You will both take and receive hits. And in practice, partners are both opponents and teammates. Longsword is often about finding the intersection of two concepts and having them exist simultaneously, even for a moment.

Life is also full of diagonals and intersections. To move forward, you might have to step off the original path. Or maybe you are existing at an intersection where concepts have already met, feeling the tug of multiple paths and identities. That's okay. That's normal.

The thing is, if I hadn't had those previous lessons, or if I hadn't repeatedly walked into a sword that day, choosing the diagonal would be difficult for me to understand. The longsword experience itself was critical. And while not everyone will have a longsword-specific experience, I certainly believe in encouraging folks to try. It can illustrate ideas that are otherwise too abstract. So when you choose the diagonal, when you simply must have both, not everyone will understand why or how based on their lived experience.

HEMA (historical European martial arts) is about more than stabbing and slashing. To me, HEMA is also about the people doing the stabbing and slashing. We are what makes HEMA both a sport and a community. We create space for people to participate, then we close the gap by welcoming them in.