Consulting Swordsman
In early September I will be leaping aboard an aircraft with a spring in my step, as I will be off to see my friends in Seattle (again). The pretext for this merry jaunt is attending the awesome SwordSquatch event for the first time. This is the third Squatch, and for the last couple of … Read more
Who am I to be writing this blog post? Nobody. I’m sure there are a thousand people out there who would do it better. But a friend of mine asked me, not them, so here we go. First, I’ll define my terms, so we can get a good look at the beast before we kill … Read more
I am delighted to announce that the National Fencing Museum’s copy of Alessandro Senese’s rapier treatise from 1660 is now available to download from here. The download includes a zip file of edited jpgs, and a pdf for handy reference. If you need the full-res raw files at 25mb/page, email me and I’ll send you … Read more
Last year my friends at Freelance Academy Press boldly crowdfunded a publishing project: reproducing in facsimile and translation all four of the extant Fiore manuscripts. I supported the campaign, of course, and my copy of the first volume arrived some time ago. Flowers of Battle, Volume 1. I left it unopened for a couple of … Read more
Ultra-geeky sword post alert: this is a lengthy and detailed discussion of some really specific terms from Fiore. Expect pedantry and nit-pickery, in the service of a definition of terms which has little bearing on how we actually fight. Read on only if that sort of thing floats your boat. I have written this because … Read more
Hypocrisy is deliberately saying one thing and doing another. Pretending to be something you are not, or pretending to believe something that you do not. Lecturing others on family values while cheating on your spouse, for instance. The problem with having values is that sometimes you fail to live up to them. This is normal, … Read more
There’s more to medieval combat than just longsword. Yes, the sword is the big cool shiny thing that everyone seems to love best, but you’ll do much better with the sword if you also have decent footwork and dagger skills. To help with this I have bundled together my Footwork, Dagger, and Longsword courses into … Read more
I get a lot of stuff done, as you have probably noticed. A while ago, a kind soul took a few of my blog posts on time management and my approach to getting stuff done and put them together into a pdf. I was touched, and enjoyed the idea of it, but didn’t do anything … Read more
My shoulders ache. My legs ache. Everything aches. It’s awesome. It’s the signal that I’ve been outside my comfort zone doing something different. Last weekend I attended a beginners’ Parkour seminar combined with a Wim Hof method seminar, at the extraordinary Chainstore Gym run by Parkour Generations in London. What a place that is. I … Read more
As you may know I’ve been working on a second edition of Veni Vadi Vici for several years, as part of my PhD work. I have completely rewritten the book, so much so that it has been re-titled as The Art of Sword Fighting in Earnest. It is now available to buy in glorious full-colour … Read more