Consulting Swordsman
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
You may recall that my recent trip to Mexico blew me away. What a country, what people. And yes, what food. I’ve had lots of “Mexican” food before: some awesome, some so-so. But nothing prepared me for the breadth and depth of the Mexican food experience. I ate everywhere from people’s homes, to roadside shacks, … Read more
This is supposed to be a review of the Panoplía Iberoamericana, which I attended over the weekend, teaching several workshops. The event was excellent, a complete delight to attend and teach at. But my hosts here have gone the extra thousand miles to show me the best of their city and culture, and the only … Read more
I’m just back from the Panóplia Iberica, held in Alconchel, a village in Spain near the border with Portugal. This was an utterly delightful event, all the more impressive for being the first time it has been run. Hats off to the organisers Pedro Velasco, whom I met in Warsaw in June; Jessica Gomes, whom … Read more
I’m just back from the International Rapier Seminar, held in Warsaw last weekend. It was an absolute blast, so the first order of business is a heartfelt dziękuję/gracias/thank you to the organisers, especially Lorenzo Braschi for inviting me (he was the very man who introduced me to the mighty porrón in Spain in 2012), and … Read more
It’s been a while since I last posted here, because I have been dashing about from pillar to post, or from Ipswich to Adelaide, teaching sword stuff to the koala bears, kiwis, and even the occasional possum. I arrived in Melbourne on Wednesday November 6th, after a pretty quick tramp across the globe. I flew … Read more
I have just returned from a trip to the USA, centred around Lord Baltimore’s Challenge, a rapier-themed event held in, you guessed it, Baltimore, and organised by David Biggs. Because of the vagaries of international air travel, I flew to New York on Wednesday 3rd, and took the train down to Baltimore on the 5th. … Read more
It’s been quite a month. I’ve spent half of it in the USA, and the other half moving house. Both of those projects went splendidly, but left very little room for anything like writing- even writing a blog post like this. I really ought to do a post-seminar-review-post for my first ever Boston seminar (the … Read more
In a rural corner of County Clare there is a tiny little village (only three pubs that I could see) called Feakle, which is perhaps the last place one would expect to find a historical swordsmanship event. And yet, I have just returned from the Tempest event held there last weekend, which started off on … Read more
I’m currently in Helsinki sitting at the dining table in my friend Tina’s apartment, and it’s a very good day, on several counts: I spent the weekend at my salle teaching my students. We covered breathing exercises on Friday evening, spent all day Saturday torturing ourselves with rapier footwork, and all day Sunday working on … Read more