Historical Pedagogy

Video Review as a Coaching Tool

By HILT Official · Sep 28, 2025 · 6 min read

Your students don't know what they look like when they fence. Show them.

The Perception Gap There's a consistent phenomenon in every HEMA club: a student performs a technique, and they think they did it correctly. Their mental model of what their body did bears little resemblance to what actually happened. Their Zornhau felt sharp and diagonal. On video, it's a lazy chop that barely crossed the center line. This isn't a failure of intelligence or effort. It's how proprioception works. Our internal sense of body position is approximate, not precise. Video closes the gap between what we think we're doing and what we're actually doing. It's the most underused…

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