Consulting Swordsman
I’m teaching a seminar here in Suffolk for my friends at Suffolk HEMA on Saturday October 18th. If you’d like to learn to move better, and to analyse any guard position or movement from a structural perspective, you should come! Move Like Fiore Improve your structure, flow, and control in Fiore’s art of arms Good … Read more
I flew to Belgrade last week to attend the Sword and Balkan event. I arrived on Thursday evening and spent Friday exploring downtown Belgrade to get a sense of Serbian culture. I’ll write that up properly next, but in the meantime: if you’re visiting Serbia, do not skip the National Museum on Republic Square… The … 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
I was recently contacted by a reader asking about teaching left handed students. It’s a common and relatively complex problem, so rather than confine my answer to an email I thought I’d post it here. The Question How do you teach left-handers? Why it’s a problem Left handers are relatively rare (about 10% of the … Read more
Last week I talked about the importance of swordsmen learning dagger techniques, and I promised I’d explain how to integrate training the dagger material with the longsword material. This needs to be done at the level of syllabus design, as well as within specific training sessions or classes. Let’s start with the syllabus. NOTE: In this … Read more
A recurring theme in my life is a contact from someone who narrowly missed a seminar with me in some far-flung outpost because they didn’t know it was happening. So let me take a minute of your time to let you know about two events coming up in the Pacific North West: This weekend, April … Read more
Teaching is, and often should be, a stealth activity. Let me take a charming example: my kids learning to cook. Cooking is one of the most important skills a human being should have. If you can cook, you can exert some control over your diet. Your diet represents probably 40% of your long-term physical … Read more
One of the most common questions I get asked is this: “there are no HMA clubs near me. What should I do?”, and my answer is always the same: “start one”. So the next question is “how do I do that?” The most difficult part of starting a HMA club is deciding to do so. … Read more
I have always made sure that there are at least some women in the photos in all of my training manuals. This photo from The Swordsman’s Companion is one of my favourite pictures ever: Last weekend, teaching at Lonin in Seattle, one of the women students told me that the only reason she had started … Read more
Spring is in the air, the grass is pushing up under the snow, and books are making their way from my dusty hard drive and out into the world. Ok, in Finland, spring is nowhere to be seen. My kids are going ice-skating and everyone I know has a cold. Bear with me. I have … Read more