Interview with Anouk Post
The Dutch H.E.M.A. Federation has a board with fixed members, but who are these members? What inspires them? In order to introduce these people to you, we will be interviewing a different board member every two weeks.
Read this post on our official website here.
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
My name is Anouk Post, I’m 28 years old and I’m the new board member for external communications. I’m responsible mostly for the Communications Commission, which is in charge of keeping the Facebook page up-to-date, making sure members are informed of what’s going on, and spreading interesting news and articles.
I live in Waddinxveen with Martin de Jong, who, like me, practices H.E.M.A. (which prevents a lot of irritation about weapons and books lying around). In my day-to-day life I work as an audiology technician in a laboratory in Haarlem. I make custom earpieces for, amongst other things, hearing aids, and ear protection for festivals. It’s incredibly fun and varied work, but I do need to be extra careful with my fingers because I work with my hands a lot. This doesn’t make it quite an ideal combination with longsword and military sabre training.
In spite of my sedentary work I like to be physically active. I go to the gym regularly and also like to run. In my free time I enjoy reading, writing and partaking in other creative endeavors like leatherworking and costume design. In addition to this all, I have a fulltime job in keeping my two Abessinian cats happy. They see me as their personal valet, which is, of course, completely justified.
How did you end up in H.E.M.A.?
I’ve always been active in sports, which started with fifteen years of fanatic horse riding. After that came running and kickboxing – until, when I was 21, I was told that I had a vague issue with my joints, which meant they were too unstable for me to be able to exercise without any pain or issues. This was hard for me to take and for a long time I thought the doctors were right. Because of this, I didn’t participate in sports for almost two years. In 2012 a friend told me that I should be able to sword fight if I used an altered training. I was skeptical at first, but a ten-minute lesson turned into half an hour, half an hour turned in to an hour with sparring, and before I knew it I was actively exercising again.
Where do you train?
At the moment I mostly train with Historisch Vrijvechten Nederland in Oegstgeest. Besides the fact that it’s on my route from work to my house, training at HVN also gives me the ability to choose between longsword and sabre, which is my other great love. I also train at show and performance group Bataille in Utrecht, which is a fantastic group that focuses on using H.E.M.A. in stunt and fighting choreography.
What are your interests within H.E.M.A.?
As I mentioned before, I mostly train in longsword. My focus used to be very much on competitions. I went to the gym, trained multiple times a week and fought in any match I could. I took great pleasure from the challenges that competitions bring with them: the ambition, the drive to reach goals and the pressure that can greatly motivate you (or work against you). I didn’t only focus on the physical aspect, the training, but also on the psychological side; why am I nervous? How do I deal with performance anxiety and why do I have it? I was very busy with the sports aspect, and less so with, for example, reading the sources.
Recently my focus has been changing. In the past year and a half I’ve been training in sabre as well. I noticed that I was becoming tired of competitions, but I was also risking injury with every match. That’s something I can’t afford right now. Time-wise, my new focus also works better for me since I now work fulltime in a city that requires some traveling. When you’re sitting in a train, it’s a lot easier to read a treatise than it is to practice with a sword.
My love for sabre was awakened after a workshop in Siebenhaar sabre by Ties Kool during Swordfish 2015. I had already been looking around for a different weapon to train with in order to broaden my horizon, and during the workshop something just clicked. I dove in to research about different sources and styles as soon as I got home, and went on from there.
I enjoy and have an interest in every kind of sabre. It’s like having found a toy store and being allowed to choose just one item to play with. Because choosing to study ‘everything’ is a bit ambitious, I’m currently focusing on Roworth’s saber, an English style from circa 1800. I also have the ambition to some day continue with Radaelli’s North-Italian military-style sabre, but I can hardly do everything at once.
Recently I have been offered the chance to teach workshops during various events. Teaching, putting together workshops, translating information I find interesting into something useable, is a completely new challenge. I’ve noticed that my enthusiasm, which has seen a bit of a decline after choosing to compete less, has definitely been revived. I had to find a new way to give color to my hobby, and I think teaching workshops and being part of the board of the federation is definitely a way to do so.
What was your motivation to become a board member?
I realized that I had no idea what the federation did, or why we even had a federation in the first place. I was a member but didn’t feel involved at all. That’s what was on my mind when I applied for the position of board member for external communications. I knew that I now had the time and energy to dedicate myself to the federation, especially now that I was looking for a different way to be a part of H.E.M.A. besides training and competing. I wanted to make the federation more visible. More fun. I wanted to engage members by providing articles, interviews and news, by having a clear and structured website. I hope to have managed to do so by the end of these two years.
