Consulting Swordsman
It can be a lonely business running classes or even a whole club, taking responsibility for everyone’s safety, helping students to progress down the path towards mastery of the Art of Arms. My friends and I started a historical fencing club in 1994 to attract people to fight with, and we soon realised that the … Read more
Happy New Year! Though really, this is just an arbitrary calendar change. Years, solstices and equinoxes are real, observable, astronomical events. But this dating system is entirely human and arbitrary. And wouldn’t it make much more sense to date the New Year from the Spring Equinox? But I digress… I don’t do resolutions. They don’t … Read more
What a year. It’s been great for some people, disastrous for others, and overall I’ve been very lucky. So what went well, and what went badly? I’ve had a look at the most important decisions I’ve made that have affected how I’ve managed to stay afloat, and they boil down to getting rid of debt, … Read more
I am often asked by students if they are “ready” for a class with me. It’s a common insecurity- nobody wants to feel that they are holding the class back, or be overwhelmed by a fire-hose of information. I actively seek out opportunities to be a beginner, partly so that I can better understand and … Read more
Teaching can be daunting, especially for less experienced sword people. But the future of the Art entirely depends on people stepping up to lead classes. Eventually all the existing teachers will be dead- if we have no teachers coming up behind us, the whole glorious progress of the Art of Arms will falter and die. … Read more
We all have gaps in our knowledge and skills. To a large degree, training in any martial art is a question of discovering what you should be practising next, and then practising it. The key is discovering the gaps and filling them, before a serious opponent discovers them for you. These gaps can be in … Read more
I have been teaching a lot over Zoom since the Coronavirus epidemic screwed my usual teaching schedule. The primary benefit is that people and groups who couldn’t afford to fly me out to teach them can zoom me in instead. But it comes at a cost: it is astonishingly tiring to teach through a screen. … Read more
It is hugely satisfying for an author to see their work put to work. I received an email recently from Anthony Klon, who is using my Rapier Workbooks. He described how he’s using the area for notes to make cross-referencing the steps of the Rapier Footwork form with the translation he’s using. I’ve been working … Read more
Do you want to learn precise control over the sword, for enhanced speed, power, and the ability to deceive the opponent? In this seminar we will cover some basic handling drills, then move on to the specifics of shortening the path the sword must take. Beginners require a long movement to generate speed and power, … Read more
There’s a sword meme going round the internet which features some self-important prick that can’t hold a sword properly and has the posture most commonly associated with a lifetime spent hunched over a porn site, and words along the lines of the following: While you were out partying, I studied the blade. While you were … Read more