Consulting Swordsman
UPDATE: this was posted on April 1st, and was, as some readers spotted, a giant jape. For more details, see here. Oh. My. God. As you may be aware, I have spent most of this year in Italy, and much of that time looking for insight into the systems I teach. While I was there, … Read more
While living in Lucca, I am taking advantage of the opportunity to see something of the rest of Tuscany, and indeed Italy. Most recently, I went to Florence to catch up with Heidi Zimmerman, she of the sumptuous Meyer longsword plate reproductions, as she passed through with Chris Vanslambrouck (who was touring Italy teaching Meyer). I took the … Read more
This instalment of the Blog of Guy is coming to you from beautiful Italy, a land where historical artefacts of astonishing antiquity are just left lying around! I shit you not, this is a place where the new buildings are anything less than 500 years old. And people seem to live and work in buildings … Read more
Way back in the dawn of time when I came to Finland to open my school, my research into historical swordsmanship was at a very early stage. But we all have to start somewhere. As I wasn’t sure whether to focus on Vadi or Fiore I included elements of both systems in the material I … Read more
This blog has now been up for one whole year. Huzzah! In that time I have published 58 posts, in 11 categories. By far the most-viewed post, with nearly double the hits of the next most viewed, has been “Plastic swords are for children”, which is interesting as the majority of hits have been sent … Read more
I have spent the morning fiddling about with web interfaces to get my Veni Vadi Vici and Swordsman’s Companion books distributed. Expect both to be generally available as epubs and paperbacks very soon, and for those that can’t wait a moment longer, I have uploaded them to my scribd account as pdfs for paid download. … Read more
I recently posted this video as part of the ongoing Vadi interpretation work I am doing. As should be clear from the context, this is not syllabus-ready material, it is just my first proper take on the subject. In other words, the interpretations in the video are not the gospel according to Guy, but an … Read more
The printer’s proof of the special edition hardback version of Veni Vadi Vici has arrived. A major milestone in the development of any book. Huzzah!
I am not known for my sense of proportion when it comes to the Art I serve. OF COURSE everyone should train. OF COURSE it’s more important than jobs or other distractions (I make an exception for children. Only for children). But the Art itself is based on proportion. For any action to work, it … Read more
The Fiore Extravaganza, a week-long immersion in medieval Italian martial arts, is now over. This year we spent much of our time working through Filippo Vadi’s fencing theory, and his 25 longsword plays. This was in part to help with the commentary section of my upcoming Veni VADI Vici book, in part to satisfy the … Read more