Consulting Swordsman
Guy Windsor This week’s intermediate class yielded some interesting insights. I began by asking my students what they thought my job was. As far as I see it, at their level, my job is mainly to keep their practice mindful, and provide solutions to any problem that crops up that they cannot solve themselves. We started by … Read more
I should warn you, reading this, that my experiments in the land of data entry have shifted to a new phase. I am boldly going into Star Trek territory, and dictating this to the computer. This experiment has yielded some astonishingly weird results, including one mini shit-storm on Facebook, but it is very interesting (to … Read more
The distribution mechanisms of print on demand and ebook titles are arcane in the extreme. But it appears that the paperback versions of Veni Vadi Vici and the 2nd edition of the Swordsman’s Companion will have filtered through by the middle of May. And while the pdfs can be had from my Scribd account, the … Read more
I have just come back from teaching seminar in Oulu, a charming little town in the North of Finland. Friday afternoon was spent doing game development with our game designer for the new card game, which is coming on very nicely. I was asked to run a conditioning class before the intermediate class that evening, … Read more
I’ve been rushed off my feet with a plethora of interesting projects, including a card game version of Fiore’s art of arms, an upcoming trip to Oulu, and finding out the hard way that my youngest child is lactose intolerant, so time for blogging has been severely curtailed. I hope that the next few weeks … Read more
I have spent the morning fiddling about with web interfaces to get my Veni Vadi Vici and Swordsman’s Companion books distributed. Expect both to be generally available as epubs and paperbacks very soon, and for those that can’t wait a moment longer, I have uploaded them to my scribd account as pdfs for paid download. … Read more
Week 4 and we are half way through the course. We ran through a normal warm-up, including kicking squats, knuckle push-ups and falling. Then I had them remember as much as they could of the four guards drill, with minimal demonstration. A few of the attendees had missed last week’s class, and this really highlighted … Read more
The third class of this beginner’s course was oddly attended, in that half the students present were not members of this course. Great for the true beginners, of course. We started with the salute, of course, then the warm up, into which I incorporated the beginnings of knuckle push-ups— being able to create a stable … Read more
The second class of this course (on March 12th) began with the warm-up, to which I added kicking squats, and basic falling. We then swiftly reviewed the four steps and four guards, which they then practiced on their own. From there we tested where your weight should be on your feet for maximum stability, using … Read more
This morning’s meeting got shifted to Monday so I spent the time in the shed. Much progress was made! First, I finished thicknessing the parts: Which required touching up the plane iron. To polish the flat on my 8000grit waterstone I use a variation on David Charlesworth’s ruler trick. My shed does not abound with … Read more