By theswordguy
The podcast currently has 194 episodes available.
For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to: https://swordschool.shop/blogs/podcast/episode-194-drawing-a-dream-of-swords-with-chris-schweizer
To support the show, come join the Patrons at https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy
Chris Schweizer is a three-time Eisner Award nominated cartoonist, a writer, concept artist and illustrator who lives in rural Kentucky with his wife, daughter, two cats and a long legged dog. He also supplied me with a gigantic list of his previous jobs, but now he makes comics.
In our conversation we hear about how Chris got into being a comic artist, why he doesn’t get to do much HEMA, how he used to fight in bars for money, and a Monty Python connection.
Over the past year, Chris has been going around museums drawing pictures of swords. He has put these together into a book, A Dream of Swords, which has an introduction by friend of the podcast, Sebastian de Castell. You can support Chris’s kickstarter, which runs until 10th October 2024: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/schweizer/a-dream-of-swords.
The book is a collection of 100 monotone watercoloured drawings of swords from museums in Paris, London, and New York. There will also be original artworks, prints, and digital versions available. Check it out!
For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to: https://swordschool.shop/blogs/podcast/episode-193-kinesiology-and-concussions-with-jane-strange
To support the show, come join the Patrons at https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy
Jane Strange represented Team North America at the 2019 European games in Minsk, and she is a competition medallist at longsword in both open and women's competitions. She is currently teaching and training at Edmonton Historical Martial Arts but is mainly focused on pursuing her degree in kinesiology.
We talk about what kinesiology is and her approach to coaching psychology. Find out what way of training works best for improving someone’s ability with a sword, and how Jane’s approach differs from Guy’s.
We also talk about Jane’s experience at the Minsk European Games. The experience was a bit of a mixed bag, including food poisoning, gear issues, and even a concussion. Jane has taught a seminar on Concussion Awareness and Prevention, having suffered a serious concussion from a car crash. Click here for her slides.
In the episode we discuss preventing and treating concussion – whether there’s any mask that can prevent it, and how we need to change the culture within HEMA to make concussion less likely.
For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to: https://swordschool.shop/blogs/podcast/episode-192-solo-training-and-an-interview-with-guy
To support the show, come join the Patrons at https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy
Hello Sword People, and welcome to episode 192 of the podcast!
Training alone is an essential skill. You can train anywhere, any time, and practice things that would be unethical with a partner. Enjoy some sample chapters from my book, The Principles and Practices of Solo Training, followed by a reprise of episode 100, where I’m interviewed by Ariel Anderssen about a whole load of stuff, including how I got into swords in the first place, the vision up a Scottish mountain that told me to open my school in Helsinki, injuries from duelling, my best ever sword fight, feminism, getting through the pandemic, and learning to fly.
Find The Principles and Practices of Solo Training at guywindsor.net/solo.
For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to: https://swordschool.shop/blogs/podcast/episode-191-clubs-wands-and-gladiators-historical-physical-culture-with-ben-miller
To support the show, come join the Patrons at https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy
Ben Miller is the man behind Physical Culture Historians, preserving and reviving historical exercise methods for mind, body and spirit using wands, Indian Clubs, calisthenics, and more. He has a successful and fascinating YouTube channel, and has produced several modern editions of 18th and 19th century fencing and self defence sources, as well as being the author of The Gladiatory Art: The Lives, Writings, & Techniques of the Eighteenth Century Stage Gladiators.
In our conversation we talk about how Ben got interested in the physical culture of the 19th century, and how his experience doing historical fencing made him realise that the people who designed exercises and physical training in the past had some insights that we are lacking in modern sports culture. Modern fitness is too specialised, whereas in the 19th century there was a much greater focus on holistic health, which would be beneficial to us today.
Ben talks about his favourite piece of equipment, the Indian club, and the difference between historical Indian clubs and the modern varieties; they are designed with different ways of swinging in mind. He also explains the origins of the push up, and how you should do the original Swedish version.
Another of Ben’s research interests is Colonel Monstery, and this is a link to the book Ben wrote to verify Monstery’s wild claims about how many duels he won and the combats he fought:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Self-Defense-Gentlemen-Ladies-Nineteenth-Century-Quarterstaff/dp/1583948686
https://www.amazon.com/Self-Defense-Gentlemen-Ladies-Nineteenth-Century-Quarterstaff/dp/1583948686
We go on to discuss the largely forgotten stage gladiators of the 18th century, who were men and women who fought with sharp swords (amongst other weapons) on stage, for real. Often resulting in hideous injuries, disembowelling, and even death.
More links:
And finally! Ben’s book on Babe Ruth was just released and here are the links to it on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999056794/
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0999056794/
For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to: https://swordschool.shop/blogs/podcast/episode-190-crystal-and-silver-in-a-shakespearean-accent-with-ben-crystal
To support the show, come join the Patrons at https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy
In today’s episode we have another audiobook/interview mashup!
The Paradoxes of Defence Audiobook Project involved me hiring two narrators to record George Silver’s 1599 book, Paradoxes of Defence. Ben Crystal is a Shakespearean actor, specialising in original pronunciation, and Jonathan Hartman is a modern dramatic actor who narrates in modern English. Renowned historical harpist Andrew Lawrence-King provides the musical punctuation.
George Silver, an English gentleman, was appalled at the influx of Italian rapier fencing into England, and set out his arguments in favour of the traditional English weapons. He rails against the fashionable new style on the grounds that it is both dangerous to the practitioners, and of no use in warfare.
Whether he was right or wrong, history was against him and the fashionable Italian rapier took over. But his work offers a vital window into the theory and practice of martial arts in England in Tudor times, and ironically provides much of what we know about several Italian rapier masters: Rocco Bonetti, Vincentio Saviolo, and Jeronimo Saviolo.
This podcast episode contains a couple of sample chapters of the audiobook read in original pronunciation by Ben Crystal, which is then followed by my interview with Ben, from episode 58. Here’s a bit more information about the interview:
Ben Crystal is an actor, author, producer, and explorer of original practices in Shakespeare rehearsal and production. In this episode we talk about Ben’s work in exploring how actors would have rehearsed, staged, and performed Shakespeare’s plays in the 16th century, and how the original rhymes and pronunciation would have sounded. It makes for a completely different experience to what we think of as “Shakespearean” in modern times. Even if you aren’t into Shakespeare this is a fascinating conversation about theatre, memory, language, and of course, swords.
Which leads us on to George Silver. Find out what Ben thinks of Silver and whether he would have wanted to go to the pub with him. For those of you unaware of our project, in 1599 George Silver published his Paradoxes of Defence, offering a window into the Tudor and medieval martial arts as practiced in England.
You can find the audiobook at guywindsor.net/silver
For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to: https://swordschool.shop/blogs/podcast/episode-189-federations-forests-and-body-awareness-with-marine-beaumel
To support the show, come join the Patrons at https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy
Marine Beaumel is a historical martial arts instructor best known for her work with Royal Armouries Manuscript 1.33 Sword and Buckler. She started her historical martial arts career in Toulouse before moving to Finland, like all sensible people, where she co-founded the Tampere HEMA club. She is a member of the board of the French Federation of Historical European Martial Arts. And she has served on the executive board of the International Federation of Historical European Martial Arts.
We talk a bit about what these federations are and how they help, and move on to talk about Marine’s master’s in plant science and the fascinating ways that plants can be used to help restore the environment and farm more sustainably.
Here is a picture of Marine’s favourite plant, the Judas Tree (Cercis Siliquastrum):
Once Marine has finished her Master’s thesis, she plans to work on a project for the French Federation to improve HEMA practitioners’ body awareness and understanding of how to prevent injury. The project will produce a series of leaflets to give people a basic overview, rather than going into massive depth and detail on these topics. Guy is working on a similar project, called Jumppa, to cover prehab and conditioning for historical martial artists. So, look out for both of those in a few months’ time.
Marine is a fan of fencing with sharps and towards the interview we talk about the benefits of training with sharps, but also the challenges of working with people who don’t seem to have any awareness of the danger of having a very pointy sword in the vicinity of their face.
For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to: https://swordschool.com/podcast/vadi-and-the-four-virtues-of-sword-making-with-eleonora-rebecchi/
To support the show, come join the Patrons at https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy
Today’s episode is a bit different to the usual format, as we have both a delightful sample from an audiobook and a related interview.
I have created an audiobook of Philippo Vadi’s De Arte Gladiatoria Dimicandi. It comes in three parts: 1. My friend, Eleonora Rebecchi (more on her later) has read Vadi’s words in mellifluous Italian. 2. I have read my translation in a rather more clunky English. 3. There’s a combined version, with the Italian chapter followed by its translation in English. Find the audiobook and more details here:
https://swordschool.shop/products/de-arte-gladiatoria-dimicandi-audiobook
This podcast episode contains a couple of sample chapters of the audiobook in both Italian and English, and it’s followed by a repeat of my interview with Eleanora Rebecchi (episode 129, October 2022). Here are the show notes for the interview:
Eleonora Rebecchi is the creative director at Malleus Martialis, producer of excellent training swords, as well as a practising historical fencer and a graphic artist who has done some lovely covers for Guy. She is also a classically trained singer, which you’ll get to hear in this episode.
We talk about how Eleanora and her partner Rodolfo got into designing swords for a living, what goes into the design process, and what qualities a business selling swords needs.
Eleonora explains how the aesthetics, ergonomics and dynamics of a sword fit together, which is demonstrated by Guy’s longsword.
Here is the unboxing video so you can see what he means: https://vimeo.com/722218823
For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to: https://swordschool.com/podcast/could-hema-ever-be-big-in-china-with-zeng-yang/
To support the show, come join the Patrons at https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy
Today’s episode is with Zeng Yang, who is a doctoral student at the Shanghai Sport University, where he is pursuing a PhD in the history of European swordsmanship from the 14th to the 17th centuries. He is a lifelong martial artist having begun training in Wushu at the age of eight. His master’s degree is a comparison of Duan Bing and HEMA.
In our conversation, we talk about the spread of Chinese martial arts to the Western world, through things like kung fu movies and immigration, but the question is, why the same hasn’t happened in the other direction? How could HEMA become more popular in China? We hear about a new term, Bing Ji, which combines all steel weapons in an exciting new form of cross-cultural communication.
Here’s a bit of detail on some of the terms that come up in this episode:
For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to: https://swordschool.com/podcast/hema-and-heresy-with-xian-niles/
To support the show, come join the Patrons at https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy
Xian Niles is a fencing instructor, martial artist and the founder of Spada, a recreational Bolognese fencing study group in maritime Canada. He's also the founder of The Niles Fencing Academy in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In our conversation we talk about his move from representing Barbados in sport fencing to getting into HEMA in Canada.
We also hear about how Xian switched from an engineering degree to theatre, and a very challenging job he had working in mental health security, which required serious martial arts skills to safely restrain people in severe distress.
Xian has a different take on HEMA to some other practitioners, which comes from his childhood in Barbados. The culture is such that people settle disputes publicly using sword-like weapons, and Xian witnessed these fights as a child. These experiences have led Xian to question the historical sources: would it work in real life, and did the person who wrote it ever fight for real? This leads our discussion into what Xian refers to as his heretical views about Messers, Vadi, and Liechtenauer.
We chat about a whole load of other stuff in this episode, including a universal language of HEMA, the difference between ice hockey and HEMA, setting up a competition for kids, tournament rule sets to avoid concussions, and why Guy would rather pour bleach in his eyes than watch HEMA at the Olympics.
Click here for photos of Guy’s longsword: https://swordschool.com/podcast/hema-and-heresy-with-xian-niles/
For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to: https://swordschool.com/podcast/historical-dancing-historical-fencing-and-a-bear-with-sarina-wagner/
To support the show, come join the Patrons at https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy
Sarina Wagner is a musical actress and dancer who trained at the University of Music and Arts of the City of Vienna, which is probably the best place in the world to do that. She is a historical fencer focusing on Capoferro and Fabris, as well as Spanish destreza. She is currently a member of the Academia da Espada.
We talk about why Sarina moved to Vienna, and her work running workshops about musicians and dance. One of her favourite composers is Jean-Baptiste Lully, and she likes to do her fencing training to his operas. Have a listen here to see if you’d like to do the same:
(3. Symph., I. Movement // 6. Symph., I. Movement)
The above playlist also contains another of Sarina’s favourite composers, her fellow Bavarian, Christoph Willibald Gluck, plus a couple of tracks from Anton Bruckner.
We talk about how a grounding in dance can really help with fencing, and Sarina recommends all fencers go and take a few dance lessons – the waltz is an easy one to start with. And have a couple of beers first.
As promised, these are the books on historical dance Sarina is working from:
ORCHESORGRAPHY by Thoinot Arbeau (1589) (Sarina’s version is from Dover Publications, 1967)
In our conversation we talk about how we can learn from other disciplines, and Sarina sent an extra note to say, “[T]hanks to Chris Lee-Becker and Ton Puey and Academia da Espada for being so supportive and pushing this work forward, because it's also in the spirit of Academia, where everything from the era is supposed to flow together to develop a sense and understanding of the time. In my words, and this fits so well, because this is also how I see myself as an artist: interdisciplinarity.”
Finally, here’s a picture of the armoured bear, Don Herkules, who accompanies Sarina to events: https://swordschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/image1-1024x683.jpeg
The podcast currently has 194 episodes available.