Consulting Swordsman
Guy Windsor Good morning, and Happy Monday. When I got back to my salle last week, after a 3 month absence, I found two rather hastily constructed Marozzo stars on the floor, left over from Ilkka Hartikainen’s Bolognese swordsmanship seminar. I have always liked the design (readers of my The Swordsman’s Companion will remember there’s a reproduction … Read more
My sojourn in Italy ended when I left Lucca for the United States, on the very day of the Lufthansa pilot strike. After much kerfuffle and a comedy of errors (including the airport train in Newark that takes you from one terminal to another being out of action at 5am occasioning a walk outside to … Read more
You know you’ve done something right as a teacher or writer when somebody takes your stuff and recombines it into something new and meaningful. In my latest book, Swordfighting for Writers, Game Designers, and Martial Artists, there are individual chapters for three of Fiore’s four virtues; boldness, strength, and speed. (I’ve yet to write the … Read more
Yesterday, I gave the impression that I had found an authentic medieval Italian falchion treatise. But actually it was the work of Heidi Zimmerman (the Meyer plates printing genius), an anonymous calligrapher friend, and yours truly. I got the idea long ago, and while talking to Heidi over skype one day, asked her in on … Read more
UPDATE: this was posted on April 1st, and was, as some readers spotted, a giant jape. For more details, see here. Oh. My. God. As you may be aware, I have spent most of this year in Italy, and much of that time looking for insight into the systems I teach. While I was there, … Read more
Fifteen years ago today, my employer Patrick Baxter laid me off from my job as a cabinet maker. Exactly one year later, I opened the School of European Swordsmanship in Helsinki. We began with a free demo class, which was hopelessly over-attended; so much so that the demo class turned into a lecture instead. The … Read more
Hail, oh people of the sword or pen! I am sitting in Bar Pult, in Lucca, with a filthy cold, and a head full of snot. Yet today is an excellent day, because today I uploaded all the final files of Swordfighting, for Writers, Game Designers, and Martial Artists to Amazon, Lightning Source, Kobo and Selz; all except … Read more
It has been a very long time since I last taught swordsmanship in Italy. This little gem of an event confirmed a suspicion that I have long held, that I need to spend more time in Italy, and cross swords with more Italians. First up, the location, the Castello Savelli in Palombara Sabina, not too … Read more
One of the least explicable aspects of Italian art culture that I have come across here is the way that painting and sculpture seem to be the only media that get any real respect. While admittedly great* and astonishing** painters and sculptors were apparently tripping all over each other*** in Italy between 1050-1700 AD**** at … Read more
I get a lot of my best ideas while brushing my teeth. This morning, as I watched the water swirl down the drain, I suddenly thought about how much expensively-heated water gets wasted every day from shower stalls around the world. And then I thought about penguins and camels. Because they both have an arrangement … Read more