Egy kis adalék John Clements (az ARMA vezetője) tevékenységéhez.

Jake Norwood (HEMA körökben igen ismert és elismert szakértő, vívó, az ARMA egykori helyettes vezetője) válasza arra a kérdésre, hogy mi is az ARMA és az miben más mint a HEMA.

"3. What is ARMA and how is it different from HEMA?
This is a huge and politically loaded question for a lot of members of this forum (and, frankly, for about half or more of anyone who's been in the community for a long time). It certainly is for me (I was a member from 2001 to 2009, and the deputy director from mid 2006 to early 2009). That said, I'll try to give you an admittedly biased-but-IMO-fair answer.

The ARMA is a fairly large "super club" made up of dozens of (mostly) backyard "study groups" which follows the training philosophies and methodologies of John Clements, one of the oldest teachers of the "Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe" (or MARE, as he calls it). Anyone else calls that HEMA or sometimes Western Martial Arts (WMA), but it's all basically the same group of things.

ARMA has a centralized methodology, seminar program, and rank structure. Many would call their approach to the source materials "Pan European," in that they don't study, say, Liechtenauer's KDF or even "German Swordsmanship" but rather pull from all the sources they can into a giant pool. That said, there's probably a more German flavor to their longsword work, for example, than otherwise.

ARMA is very much a "closed door" school. Loyalty to the director is highly prized, and failure to demonstrate such is a primary reason for being purged from the organization. The organization goes through a membership purge or voluntary exodous every 1.5 to 3 years. Individuals who leave the organization voluntarily or otherwise rarely, if ever, are able to come back in, leading many to paint the groups as a cult of personality around John Clements. As a former member, I can say that the cult of personality around John is very real and fairly powerful, but does NOT extend to every member. Unfortunately, the longer you're in and the higher you rise within the organization, the more important it becomes. ARMA members are not allowed to show anyone outside of their school their training methods, leading to a default ban on cross-training with other groups. Members are often kicked out for attending events outside of the organization, especially if that event involves competitions or prominent ex-members (such as myself).

The ARMA has a "meh" to "horrible" reputation with every WMA and HEMA group outside of the ARMA that I'm aware of. This is generally on account of John's (and therefore ARMA's) constant cheers of "we're the best eveyrone else sucks" while failing to actually back that up in many ways. Most all of ARMA's prominent scholars and publishers left back in 2009 (and many more in 2012), leaving John in the position he wanted--only authority on content and interpretation. The group gets defensive quickly and has a persecution complex. Most ARMA members would get kicked out of ARMA for posting on this forum, so we aren't likely to see it here, but try asking the same question over at Schola Gladatoria Forum--or just reading several of the ARMA's online editorials--and you'll see what I mean.

All that pooh-poohing aside, the ARMA is really just a big, multi-group HEMA club. So it's not "different from HEMA," as much as it's "a specific approach to HEMA within rigid confines."

By Jake Norwood

http://hemaalliance.com/discussion/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3674&start=0
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