Consulting Swordsman
In 2012, Piermarco Terminiello discovered the previously lost Second Book of Nicoletto Giganti in the Howard de Walden collection, which is housed at the Wallace Collection (in my not very humble opinion, one of the top ten museums worldwide, and in the top five for anything sword-related). You may recall my rejoicing when the 1608 … Read more
This is a great week for historical fencing. I spent three full days at the National Fencing Museum with a decent camera and a book-photography rig, taking hi-res images of the cream of their amazing collection of treatises, with the kind assistant of James Hester, and Malcolm Fare (whose collection this is). I have 122 … Read more
This post is a short library of my favourite online resources regarding how medieval manuscripts were created, and related traditional bookbinding videos. One of the unexpected consequences of my return to Phillipo Vadi’s De Arte Gladiatoria Dimicandi while working on the second edition of Veni Vadi Vici was that I got completely hooked on the physical craft … Read more
Philippo Vadi’s instructions for the size of your sword, in Chapter 2 of his De Arte Gladiatoria Dimicandi, are the earliest example of sword specs in fencing literature. So what is Vadi Sword Geometry? He says (as I translate it in The Art of Sword Fighting in Earnest): Chapter II: The Measure of the Two-Handed … Read more
Many students find the (often) foreign terminology a major barrier to learning swordsmanship. I get it. I really do. In 2006 I even wrote an article explaining why I translate “meza” and “tutta” the way I do. I put a glossary in the back of most of my books, and I created a separate pdf … Read more
I take ethics very seriously, to the point of writing a short book on them. As you may know I have recently begun offering online courses, in addition to the free videos on my wiki, and the books that I write. When I emailed my list about the Medieval Dagger course, I got this reply: I’m sorry … Read more
On Monday last week I was sat in the departures hall at Vancouver airport when I got a message from my friend Samantha Swords. She suggested I attend an event in London that weekend called the Hero Round Table. She had spoken at one, and had suggested to the organiser, Matt Langdon, that he invite … Read more
Every HEMA school has its own particular vibe, a culture and a way of being. I spent my last weekend in the New World at Valkyrie Martial Arts Assembly, teaching a longsword weekend; a day of Fiore and a day of Vadi. So far, so normal. But the Valkyrie vibe is quite unlike any other … Read more
They say travel is all about having new experiences. Well… having a week to fill between my Seattle and Vancouver seminars, I thought I’d take the opportunity to get back in the saddle. My friend Jen Landels (she of Pulp Literature fame, and as yet the only guest blogger on this site) runs the Academie … Read more
It has been a splendid few days in Seattle so far, kicked off by a trapeze lesson with the excellent Milla Marshall at SANCA. The place was pretty empty, so there was no-one to hold the camera (Milla was busy spotting me through the tricky bits), but we did manage to catch this new trick … Read more