The Sword Guy Podcast

Episode 31 For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/why-swords-are-cool-episode31/  To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy Damon Young is an Australian martial artist and philosopher, author of books like Philosophy in the Garden and the soon to be published in Europe, already out in Australia, On Getting Off: Sex and Philosophy. He has also edited a couple of books on philosophy and martial arts: Engagement, Philosophy and the Martial Arts, and Martial Arts and Philosophy: Beating and Nothingness. In this fascinating conversation we discuss the importance of the study of philosophy when practising martial arts. How do we know the difference between bravery and foolhardiness? How can someone engage in violence and still be a good person? And perhaps, most importantly, why are swords so damn cool? For Damon’s essay on why swords are cool, you can find the details of the Meanjin magazine article in Damon’s blog post here. Damon has also written a series of six books for children, which he mentions near the end of this episode. If you would like to check them out, the first one is My Nanna is a Ninja, which is available in the usual bookshops. You can watch him reading it on YouTube here. The transcription of this episode is on my website here.  

Episode 30 For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/fencing-in-russia-episode30/  To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy Elena Muzurina is a military sabre instructor, longsword champion and owner of a HEMA equipment company. Elena is a Russian champion – one of her proudest moments was winning at Swordfish – but HEMA is relatively new to Russia. In this episode we talk about what it is like learning Italian rapier and longsword in a country where there are very few sources translated into the language. We talk about the problems with fencing equipment, and what she would do with a million dollars to improve HEMA in Russia. When listening to this episode you might not have caught some of the names Elena mentions, so here they are in case you are interested: Andrey Muzurin – Elena's longsword trainer and husband Vadim Senichev – translator of Fiore in Russian Kristine Konsmo and Carl Ryberg – HEMA in Sweden, fencers and Swordfish orgs Leonid Křížek – Czech Republic HEMA, trainer at Ars Dimicatoria school, instructor and researcher of Barbasetti military sabre method, writer Sergei Kultaev – Russian HEMA, longsword champion and trainer at FreiFechter Gilde, Saint Petersburg Here is the Facebook page for Fox Tail Equipment: www.facebook.com/FoxTailEquipment And this is the online store: www.ft-fencing.com You can find Elena on social media: Facebook: www.facebook.com/elena.muzurina Instagram: @silent_battle_song YouTube: Silent Battle Song Vkontate: vk.com/yelena_muzurina  

Episode 29 For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/violence-and-self-defence-episode29/  To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy Rory Miller is a martial arts and self-defence expert and author of many books, ebooks and video courses, including “Meditations on Violence: A Comparison of Martial Arts Training and Real World Violence”, which is widely considered as one of the best books on martial arts ever written and I urge you to read it. Speaking of best books on martial arts, Rory and I have a chat about our top 5 favourites in this episode, so if you are after some new reading material, have a listen. In this episode, the conversation goes in some unexpected places, including sailing across the Atlantic, from South Africa to Florida in a custom catamaran; being “raised by coyotes” in the desert; poo-flinging monkeys on Facebook; and a whole lot in between about self-defence and violence. Rory’s Chiron Training website is here: https://chirontraining.com/ and his blog is here: http://chirontraining.blogspot.com/  

Episode 28 For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/art-and-fencing-episode28/  To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy Nora is an artist and a fencer from sunny Southern California. She works primarily in watercolours and in illumination, though we cover a lot in this episode, including calligraphy, translations, making a living from your art and whether simply putting in the hours of practise is enough to get good. You can see an example of her work here with the logo she produced for the Spada Press: In this episode we talk about how exacting and unforgiving some art forms can be, and the differences between different media in painting. Nora talks about the artist Lori Lamont who works exclusively in watercolour, and you can see her work here. When we talk about fencing in the SCA scene in Southern California, we mention Nora’s painted fencing masks. Here are some examples: This is the link to the Our Fake History podcast, which Nora mentions when talking about her thoughts on the Book of the Five Rings: www.ourfakehistory.com   Here is the fanciest fuckoff piece that Nora produced using all the gold (listen at around 1hr 9min in). Credit for the calligraphy goes to Master Thomas Brownwell. Nora did all the gilding and painting: Nora’s website is www.noracannaday.com and you can find her on the usual social media too.  

Episode 27 For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/irish-stick-fighting-episode27/  To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy Maxime doesn’t do longsword. But he does practise Irish Stick Fighting, 19th century sabre, and has a background in karate and kenjutsu.   In this episode Maxime describes Irish Stick Fighting, the challenges of finding someone to learn it from, and how he was able to bring it back to life as a martial art.   Maxime’s website, HEMA Misfits, is all about the fringes of historical martial arts, the less popular styles, and we talk about some of these less common forms of the art.   Content warning: In the second half of our conversation there is some pretty gory stuff about sword fighting injuries and how they were treated. (Maybe not for listening to over the Christmas dinner table!) Maxime's article on the subject is here.   Merry Christmas everybody!    

Episode 26 For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/straight-white-men-with-swords-episode26/  To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy Claire Mead is an English/French freelance curator with museums and heritage sites specialising in making collections and programming more inclusive, specifically in terms of women's narratives and LGBTQI narratives. Claire also fences with foil and longsword. Since recording the episode she has taken the post of Programme Manager at the National Videogame Museum. In this episode we have a fascinating conversation about how a traditionally white, male perspective of history has overlooked many women, people of colour and those from the LGBTQI community. Did you know that one of the foremost fencers of the 18th century was black, and another was trans? I mention two African-born emperors of Rome. These are: Lucius Septimius Severus, who was a Roman emperor from 193 to 211. He was born in Leptis Magna, at that time a Roman province in Africa. His eldest son, Lucius Septimius Bassianus, commonly known as Caracalla, was Emperor from 211 to 217. In the second half of the podcast we talk about Claire’s webcomic The Girls’ School of Knighthood and also discuss depictions of women holding swords in art, particularly Judith slaying Holofernes. To see the paintings we talk about, see this episode's webpage.   To find Claire Mead and her work, visit: Webzine: Girls’ School of Knighthood Podcast: Bustles & Broadswords Patreon: www.patreon.com/clairemead  

Episode 25 For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/fire-eating-and-fencing-episode25/  To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy David Ito is a sport épée fencer, Kendoka, longsword practitioner, and a fire eater. He also does 100 burpees first thing every morning. In this episode David tells us how he got into both fencing and fire eating, takes us through his somewhat intensive training regime, and shares good advice for anyone looking to get into teaching fencing as a career. In the podcast you will hear David talk about a footwork training machine, and if you are interested to see it in action, head over to https://guywindsor.net/2020/12/the-sword-guy-episode-25-david-ito/ ‎to see the video. We also talk about the effect of the covid pandemic and what we might expect a post-covid world to look like for martial artists. To find out more about David and his work, you can find him on Instagram @ittofireshow, or at www.illuminair-entertainment.com. He also works at www.swordplayers.com and has taught at www.aemma.org, both of which are in Toronto, Canada.  

Episode 24 For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/designing-knives-random-flow-episode24/  To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy Maija Soderholm lives in the United States, but grew up in England with Finnish parents. She trained with the late Filipino master Sonny Umpad, and she has taken this multicultural approach in her designs with her company, SoMiCo Knives. In this week’s episode we discuss how Maija got into martial arts and designing knives, including the most important use for a knife in Finland. We also discuss the Random Flow technique of sparring, which uses constant movement and no choreographed drills or pre-set patterns. Maija’s first book The Liar, The Cheat and the Thief: Deception and the Art of Swordplay, came out in 2014. Her new book The Hustler – Swordplay and the Art of Tactical Thinking is also out now, and in this episode we discuss the tactics of fighting, why we should aim to be more like pickpockets, and how fighting for real is, more often than not, a lose/lose situation. In the podcast, Guy mentions a smallsword treatise where the writer recommends taking a blade into the palm of your hand, sliding your hand up the blade and grabbing the handle. This may be one of those times when memory plays tricks- he's looking for the book but hasn't found it yet. Have your bullshit detectors set to high alert!  

Episode 23 For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/african-martial-arts-episode23/  To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy Da’Mon Stith is the Chief Instructor and Founder of the Guild of the Silent Sword, teaching a range of African martial arts. In this conversation we discuss how he began his martial arts journey, and go into the specifics of how he recreates African arts, many of which do not have detailed written sources.   You can find his Youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/austinwarriorarts   We discuss many aspects of African martial arts, and he mentions a lot of weapons the average HMA practitioner may be unfamiliar with. Here are some of them (images are borrowed from the internet- if they belong to you, l'll happily give credit or take them down, just get in touch): Khopesh:     Shotel swords:   Takoba sword   Tetela sword:      

Episode 22 For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/tournament-mindet-episode22/  To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy Brittany Reeves is the co-founder of Mordhau Historical Combat in Mesa, Arizona, and has taught internationally. She has medalled at tournaments in longsword, cutting, glima, and ringen. She also has a degree in Ancient and Medieval history. In this conversation we discuss tournament mindset, her advice to beginners wanting to go to tournaments for the first time, and of course, equipment. You can support the show at Patreon.com/TheSwordGuy Patrons get access to the episode transcriptions as they are produced, the opportunity to suggest questions for upcoming guests, and even some outtakes from the interviews. Join us!  

Episode 21 For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/wiktenauer-episode21/  To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy Michael Chidester is the a long-time researcher and practitioner of historical martial arts, and the Director of Wiktenauer. There were some unfortunate technical problems with the recording of this interview, so you may wish to refer to the transcription below. You can also support the show at Patreon.com/TheSwordGuy Patrons get access to the episode transcriptions as they are produced, the opportunity to suggest questions for upcoming guests, and even some outtakes from the interviews. Join us! Transcription: GW: Hello, sword people, this is Guy Windsor, also known as The Sword Guy. And I'm here today with Michael Chidester. Michael is the Director of wiktenauer.com, which for those of you who are new to historical martial arts, and who may not have even heard of it yet, it is a fantastic Internet repository of scans of historical fencing treatises dating back as far as you can imagine. There are just hundreds of them there. It is this extraordinary resource and not content with that gigantic contribution to the art of arms, Michael is also the author of several books, including Concordance of Fiore’s Plays, the Meyer Study Companion, Translation of 3227a; from which you can gather he's something of a Fiore man, something of Meyer researcher, something of a Liechtenauer person. And he has also got into producing very high quality facsimiles, first of the Thott manuscript. I have that on my bookshelf right now and it is a glory and a delight. And, at the time of recording, but it'll be done by the time the show goes out, he has a crowdfunding campaign to raise money to do Fiore’s Getty Manuscript in glorious, glorious, hand-bound leather gorgeousness. So, Michael, welcome to the show. MC: Thanks, Guy. GW: It's lovely to see you. Now, just so we can orient everyone, whereabouts in the world are you? MC: I currently live in a small city outside of Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States of America. GW: Lovely. I saw you there a year or so ago, so, what event was that? That was when I was teaching in Boston. MC: Yeah, we met up just after. GW: Yes, and thanks to the technical hitches at the beginning of this podcast recording, next time I'm over that way, I definitely owe you a beer. OK, so let's kick off straight in. Now, obviously, from your published works, we can tell you have a pretty broad set of interests, but what would you say are your main research interests? MC: So I, as anyone who looks at Wiktenauer can tell, I've looked at a lot of different sources, but really, and this is something that people sort of anticipate - that everything that’s on Wiktenauer I have studied in depth, but you don't actually have to really understand something to put it on a website. GW: You’re not that old. You would have to be a thousand years old to have studied all those things in depth. MC: A lot of what I do with that is a lot of copying and pasting and light proofreading. So I don't have to process all of it. A lot of the work on Wiktenauer around that is just trying to find out the history of the book as opposed to the teachings. As far as the stuff that I studied in depth and study on a physical level, Fiore was my first love. That was the first treatise I ever tried to interpret on my own. But I can't say that I really ever became a Fiorist. I was never in a club that studied it. And so it was all on my own time. And I went through all the dagger plays and most of the rest of the book and I think I've done the sword stuff very slightly and that's about it. So there's a lot of Fiore’s teachings that I have no experience with outside of translating them. And also likewise Meyer I’m involved with mostly because I love the Meyer Freifechter Guild, which is a network of Meyer-focused clubs, and I been to their an

Episode 20 For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/spanish-rapier-episode20/  To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy Lois Spangler is a Verdadera Destreza ("Spanish Rapier") instructor and researcher with the Brisbane School of Iberian Swordsmanship. We discuss translating Spanish fencing sources, the problems of getting fencing jackets that actually fit, and even the philosophy of narrative. Check out her blog at StoryTrade.Net, and her Patreon account at Patreon.com/LoisSpangler She has been involved in producing a fencing jacket (the LS Diestrx) with HemaGearCanada, which you can find on their Facebook feed here. The jacket has undergone testing and has been certified to 410 newtons. We also mention a lecture she gave for Puck Curtis and Eric Myers, you can find it here: https://youtu.be/FhRbXO9XZZg  

Episode 19 For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/founding-longpoint-fencing-in-armour-episode19/  To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy Jake Norwood is a highly experienced and widely respected historical martial arts instructor. He co-founded the HEMA Alliance (one of the largest historical martial arts associations), and Longpoint (one of the best-known US historical martial arts events). He has taught and competed internationally. We talked about the founding of Longpoint, creating tournament structures that give you the outcomes you want, preparing for armoured combat, and many other things.  

Episode 18 For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/the-sword-guy-episode-18-kendra-brown/  To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy Kendra Brown is a swordswoman, researcher, and translator of the Latin version of Fiore’s Il Fior di Battaglia (known as the Florius manuscript). She has an awesome blog at https://darthkendraresearch.wordpress.com/ In this wide ranging conversation we discuss the perils and pitfalls of translation, women in combat in medieval times, and even what a very pregnant Caterina Sforza wore to occupy the Castel Santangelo.   In this episode we cover a lot of ground, and make a lot of references. For a complete list of references, please go to: https://guywindsor.net/2020/10/the-sword-guy-episode-18-kendra-brown/

Episode 17 For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/maori-martial-arts-bartitsu-episode17/  To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy Tony Wolf is an author, lecturer, antiquarian, and has trained in a very wide range of martial arts. In this conversation we discuss everything from Maori martial arts to Professional Wrestling, Victorian combatives to the Lord of the Rings (he designed the fighting styles for the different peoples of Middle Earth).And yes, he answers the question: can an Uruk bench press a motorcycle? In the show we discuss the Maori martial art Te Mau Taiaha, and he mentions the reality TV series called "Toa" ("Warrior").  In addition, Tony recommends "The Dead Lands", “which is basically "Apocalypto" set in prehistoric New Zealand.  Lots of stylistically accurate fighting.”The weapon is a Taiaha: You can find his many books at his Amazon author page here.You can see his excellent documentary on the Suffragettes’ martial arts training, “No Man Shall Protect Us” here: https://vimeo.com/275968947