Consulting Swordsman
Having kicked our opponent in the groin, we turn the page to see this spread: [Note, this image is not a photograph of the manuscript opened up; I have just put the scan of each page next to each other.] The story is the same though; having dealt with a whole lot of cuts, including … Read more
Here we go again! https://youtu.be/z50aH3tGiNE
Here you go! Some rambling on training with sharps, and the ethics of martial arts… https://youtu.be/boOVVT9qUxY Links from this episode: Bullshit post Training with Sharp Swords: article on the CFAA blog My book Swordfighting for Writers, Game Designers, and Martial Artists My book the Theory and Practice of Historical Martial Arts My short book Ethics … Read more
Hi yesterday I sent an AMA email out to my mailing list, and got inundated with questions. The first two are answered in this video. https://youtu.be/V3i18qzPgEo I hope you like the intro-outro music. If you want to put questions to me, then join the list and drop me a line!
I’ve had my woodworking bench for twelve years now. It’s been a good workhorse, small enough to fit into my bijou little workshop spaces but big enough to be useful. It first lived in a corner in the old salle, then the tatami shed in the ‘new’ salle: then my garage in Ipswich, and now … Read more
We in the historical swordsmanship community are often asked about drawing the sword. I wrote a short chapter on it in my book Swordfighting. The chapter was short because there isn’t much information in the sources! I think this is because most sources are concerned with swordsmanship for the duel in a European culture, which … Read more
If you have been following The Fiore Translation Project from the beginning, you may recall that I gave myself permission to skip about in the treatise as the whimsy takes me. I had a nagging feeling that I ought to include the plays of the dagger against the sword, and the sword in the scabbard … Read more
The Fiore Translation Project is growing apace; I’m almost through the zogho largo section already. I compiled the translation, transcription, commentary and video clips for the Sword in One Hand plays into a pdf some time ago: you can get it free as a PDF by subscribing to my mailing list below this post. But … Read more
The seventh play of the sword in two hands in zogho largo punishes the opponent for offences against geometry. Pythagoras is widely credited with establishing the relationship between the lengths of the sides of a right angled triangle (though I think the Babylonians got there centuries earlier). In short, the square of the length of … Read more
As we saw in the 10th play of the Sword in One Hand, the solution to overwhelming force is to let it go by, while preventing it from following you. The “Peasant’s Blow”, or colpo di villano, does this by meeting the incoming sword and yielding to it, while stepping out of the way. This … Read more