Medieval Games in the Academy

Why We Play Medieval Games at the Knight Errant Academy

History, balance, friendship, and learning through play

There are times at the Knight Errant Academy when the swords are set aside and the students play.

Recently, during one of our classes, the students played a traditional game we call Hunker Hawser. Two students face one another in a contest of balance, leverage, timing, and a fair amount of laughter as each tries to upset the other’s stability without losing their own.

To someone watching for the first time, it might simply look like a fun break from swordsmanship.

It is fun.

But it isn’t really a break from the lesson at all.

Learning Balance Without Calling It a Drill

One of the first principles we teach a new student is Stability.

Before a student can become an effective sword fighter, they must first learn how to control their own body. They learn stance, posture, footwork, balance, and how to move without sacrificing the structure that allows them to act effectively.

We can teach those things through exercises and drills—and we do.

But a game such as Hunker Hawser gives the student an opportunity to discover those same principles for themselves.

Lean too far and you become vulnerable.

Allow your feet to become poorly positioned and recovering your balance becomes difficult.

Pull at the wrong moment and your own strength may work against you.

Remain balanced, observe your opponent and recognize the right moment to act, and suddenly a much larger or stronger opponent may not have quite the advantage you expected.

Those are remarkably important lessons for a beginning martial artist.

More importantly, the student learns them while playing.

They fall. They laugh. They get back up.

Then they immediately want to try again.

Why Medieval Games Belong in a Medieval Martial Arts Academy

There is another reason we introduce traditional games into our classes.

They provide our students with a different kind of connection to history.

When children learn about the Middle Ages, history can easily become a collection of kings, castles, battles, armor, dates and distant events. Those things are fascinating, but they can also make the people of the past seem very far removed from us.

Games can shorten that distance.

People in centuries past didn’t spend every moment fighting battles or performing the great deeds that eventually found their way into history books.

They worked.

They learned.

They competed.

They told stories.

They challenged their friends.

And they played.

When our students participate in traditional games, they get to experience a small piece of that shared human past rather than simply hearing about it.

The laughter of a group of children trying to outwit one another in a physical game may be one of the easiest parts of medieval life for a modern child to understand.

Some things about childhood have changed enormously.

Some haven’t changed very much at all.

Games Can Teach Serious Skills

Traditional physical games also provide an excellent environment for developing abilities that will later become important in martial arts.

Depending upon the game, students may be practicing:

• balance and body control;

• coordination and agility;

• timing and reaction;

• leverage and positioning;

• observation and problem solving;

• controlled physical competition;

• perseverance after failure;

• cooperation and good sportsmanship.

These are not replacements for martial arts instruction.

They support it.

A child who learns to recognize when their balance is being compromised during a game is beginning to understand something that will eventually matter in wrestling, weapon work, defensive movement, and sparring.

The lesson simply arrives in a form appropriate for a young student.

Learning How to Win—and Lose

Games also create something we value greatly in the Academy: small opportunities to experience competition well.

Someone wins.

Someone loses.

Sometimes the student who expects to win doesn’t.

Sometimes the smallest student in the group discovers a solution nobody else considered.

Sometimes a student makes a mistake and falls over in spectacular fashion while everyone—including that student—bursts out laughing.

Then we reset and play again.

These little experiences matter.

Students learn that losing a contest isn’t a catastrophe. They can acknowledge what happened, learn something from it and try again.

They also learn that winning does not require humiliating the person who lost.

Both lessons belong in an Academy that teaches chivalry alongside martial skill.

Games Help Turn Classmates Into Companions

There is another benefit that is harder to measure but easy to see.

The students become friends.

Martial arts can certainly help children develop confidence, but confidence doesn’t come exclusively from learning how to fight.

For many children, something else begins happening as they train.

They start seeing themselves as part of the Academy.

They have friends here. They know the traditions. They understand the jokes. They recognize the commands. They remember the games.

They begin thinking of themselves as sword fighters because they are surrounded by other young sword fighters who recognize them that way too.

Games help create those relationships.

A child who might have arrived at their first class nervous and unsure gradually becomes one of the students laughing with everyone else while waiting for their turn.

That sense of belonging can be every bit as important to a child’s growing confidence as learning another sword technique.

There Is Purpose Behind the Play

At the Knight Errant Academy of Chivalry, we take the responsibility of teaching martial arts seriously.

That doesn’t mean every moment of learning needs to feel serious.

Sometimes the best way to teach an eight-year-old about balance is to explain proper stance.

Sometimes it is to place a sword in their hands and teach them how to move with it.

And sometimes it is to let another eight-year-old try very hard to knock them off balance while they laugh themselves silly.

All three can teach the same student.

That is why medieval games have a place in our Academy.

They develop physical abilities. They encourage problem solving. They teach students to compete with good character. They build friendships. And they allow children to experience a small piece of the historical culture surrounding the martial arts they are studying.

Most importantly, they remind us of something worth remembering:

Learning and joy do not have to be separate things.

Sometimes the lesson is hidden inside the game.

Knight Errant Academy of ChivalryMedieval martial arts and historical swordsmanship in Henderson, Nevada

Train hard and be Knightly.