Consulting Swordsman
I spent much of yesterday evening crying my eyes out. The kind of wracking sobs that leave you weak and shaky for hours afterwards. This is not normal. I was packed off to boarding school at the age of eight. Unlike most other boarders, I did not get to go home every three weeks. Because … Read more
Rapier Length: responding to criticism from the internet As you may know, I am in the process of videoing everything we do in the salle, and putting it up online for free. This project is called the “Syllabus Wiki“. One of the many benefits of this is that informed commentators can see what we are … Read more
“Ethics (also moral philosophy) is the branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct.” – Wikipedia I am writing the fourth instalment of my Swordsman’s Quick Guide series, and the topic is Ethics. I believe that the study of ethics is at least as important to a historical swordsman … Read more
I returned yesterday from a visit to the Osnabrück branch of my School, where every day of training was followed by one or two small beers, and playing Audatia. These guys are good enough (at the game, at least 🙂 ) that I got at least one pommel strike in my face, and ate a … Read more
We often duck and dive to avoid something, when our interests would be better served by meeting it head on. Sometimes it’s better to just take the hit. By the time they are a few weeks old, most babies have mastered the art of the double-dump. Inexperienced parents react to the first load: a stinky … Read more
A good swordsman must be able to handle a range of different opponents, and so must train to face lots of different styles of attack and defence. This is quite difficult to accomplish within a relatively small group of training partners, which is one of the reasons that it’s a good idea to travel a … Read more
This has been quite a month. Since May 1st, here are the projects I have been working on, and some of the stuff I have done, in no particular order. Finishing and publishing the first three instalments of my Swordsman’s Quick Guide series. Working on a complete rewrite of Veni Vadi Vici. Installing a new … Read more
There are always at least two sides to every story, and usually many more. As historians, we do our best to take all the evidence into account, and tend to rely more on first-person eye-witness accounts than on secondary sources. But I have recently been personally involved in historical eye-witness accounts, and I’m here to … Read more
Happy Mothers’ day, from sunny Finland! And what could be more motherly than a spot of medieval combat? It is very hard to defend yourself against a fully-committed attack with a dagger. To be honest, it’s not something we focus on all that much; we tend to prefer sword fights. But a couple of weeks … Read more
The first three instalments of my new series, The Swordsman’s Quick Guide, are now live! Just take a look at these covers, by Eleonora Rebecchi (the photo on part 2 is by Nathan Robinson): I am experimenting with using Smashwords to distribute my ebooks; their formatting requirements are arcane in the extreme (they require vintage … Read more