Dealing with left handed individuals in HEMA both in sparring and in teaching.

Weapon: MasGeneral concepts will be worked through several different weapons, recommended to bring Longsword, dagger and a one handed sword (preferably „messerish“)

Source: Capoferro, Marozzo, Merelo i Casademunt, Rada…basically all trestises that I have come across that at one point or other mention left handed individuals, specially XVI century onwards. About the Zettel there is little advice on this subject.

The devils’ own left handed people have been an issue in martial arts. As one of them, I should know! In this workshop we will approach the concepts of combat that make us a nuisance for some fencers and instructors and some solutions as to how to understand training and combat from a left handed perspective. We will work at different levels, from the cognitive to the biomechanical.

Skill level of Participants: Beginners (basic knowledge of weapon / system required)
Needed Equipment: Mask and if possible, at least two of the weapons mentioned.

About the trainer – Gonzalo Martínez Cabrera

Gonzalo Martínez Cabrera (ESP) is a renown HEMA instructor with a rich military background. Having served 10 years in the army, a lot of them in Special Operations where he eventually moved to an advanced instructors cadre. Gonzalo’s HEMA journey began in 2005 and in 2010, he founded Tercio Nuevo in Mallorca eventually founding the Spanish HEMA federation. After a brief hiatus to study other martial arts and psychology, Gonzalo returned to HEMA in 2018 and now teaches longsword, dagger, and Messer at Camhed Club de Artes Marciales Históricas Europeas Drac. He is a certified longsword instructor and international liaison for UGFAS, a military-originated umbrella organization for martial arts. Gonzalo is as much a fighter as he is a scholar; he has been working on collaboration on an English translation of Pablo Moya Montes “La espada de dos manos y el Montante“ which will be published this year.