Within the German school of fencing,Bloßfechten or “bare fighting” is the technique of (armed) fighting without significant protective armour such as plate, mail or a brigandine.
Vulnerable targets like the head and upper torso are totally
unprotected except for normal clothing during Bloßfechten. The lack of
significant torso and limb protection leads to the use of a large amount
of cutting and slicing techniques in addition to thrusts. These
techniques could be nearly instantly fatal or incapacitating, as a
thrust to the skull, heart, or major blood vessel would cause massive
trauma. Similarly, strong strikes could cut through skin and bone,
effectively amputating limbs. The hands and forearms are a frequent
target of some cuts and slices in a defensive or offensive maneuver,
serving both to disable an opponent and align the swordsman and his
weapon for the next attack.
(description via wiktenauer)
The other form of armed historical combat is Harnischfechten, or “armoured fighting”, which is fighting in protective gear, most specifically plate armour. The techniques used are rather different, as the need to circumvent the protective armour completely changes the way in which the longsword is used.
Now this is something that by now any HEMA practitioner should be familiar with, or at least those who are learning German martial arts (Kunst des Fechtens), but just to reiterate: If you fence with longsword, and you are using techniques that assume that your opponent is not armoured, and likewise you are defending yourself as if you are also not wearing any armour, what you are practicing is bloßfechten.
This is Bloßfechten:
And so is this:
So what makes these bloßfechten is the fact that they are attacking and defending themselves with longswords as if they are not wearing plate armour. Only wearing t-shirts and light gloves, like in the top drill, can be referred to as minimal gear fencing, but wearing additional safety gear for added protection against more committed attacks does not change the nature of the techniques.
In other words, wearing your full competition-grade SPES gear, sparring gloves and joint protection does not transform the type of the fencing you are doing, it’s still unarmoured fencing!
For comparison, this is Harnischfechten:
But so is this:
So though these last two chaps are wearing gear that is not very far off to what you might find in some unarmoured longsword competitions, what is key to understand is that they are using Harnischfechten techniques (or Fechten in Harnisch zu Fuss, literally “fighting in armour on foot”), specifically designed to overcome the problem of fighting men clad in full plate armour. Please note that this is quite different from the random armour bashing we see in modern armoured combat games (HMB, ACL etc).
Which brings me to the last point. Bloßfechten is the type of armed combat, and some argue that to practice it properly you should attempt to recreate the conditions in the Fechtschule (a 16th century competition
based on the unarmoured duel with safety rules barring the more lethal
and damaging sort of moves within the limitations of available equipment
and commonly agreed concepts of acceptable risk at the time), but to claim that bloßfechten and modern “competitive longsword/sport HEMA” are two different things is also a misconception.
So this is Bloßfechten:
But then again, so is this:
The gif is just a small training exercise, and the video is an actual competitive tournament (Fechtschule Brugge), but the fact that one is an actual competition (the dreaded ‘sport’ word!) and the other one isn’t doesn’t change the fact that they are both f@$%&*! bloßfechten!
So the next time someone tells you they don’t compete nor fence for points, or that they don’t believe in wearing safety gear, or that they only wear period shoes etc because they “do proper bloßfechten”, be safe in the knowledge that they are probably quite full of it.
Aliquid de Magis 