The Sword Guy Podcast

Ballet for Swordfighters with Anna Beard

The Sword Guy Podcast episode 87

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/ballet-for-swordfighters-episode87/ 

To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy

Anna Beard is a historical dancing and ballet and historical fencing instructor at Austin Historical Weapons Guild. She has been dancing since she was four and went on to get her Bachelor of Fine Arts and Dance from the University of Michigan, followed by teaching in studios, and running her own projects, performances and small dance companies. A move to Texas in 2018 ignited a passion for HEMA that has led to her becoming a co-owner of the Austin Historical Weapons Guild.

Anna’s 20 years of teaching dance have given her a love and deep understanding of pedagogy and in our conversation we talk about training teachers and how to teach children or adults. She has taught workshops at events like Swordsquatch on ballet for swordfighters, renaissance dance, and exploring teaching methods.

Whether she manages to change Guy’s mind on his dislike of ballet remains to be seen…

Useful Links:

• The teacher that Anna mentioned as being a huge influence on her is Liz Lerman.
• Austin Historical Weapons Guild is on Twitter and Facebook, as well as other social media platforms.

 

 

 

 

The Two-Handed Sword with Neil Melville, and a Review of the Year

The Sword Guy Podcast episode 86

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/two-handed-swords-episode86/ 

To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy

Hello Sword People! Welcome to the Sword Guy podcast. This is your host, Dr Guy Windsor, consulting swordsman, teacher, and writer. Join me for interviews with historical fencing instructors and experts from a wide range of related disciplines, as we discuss swords, history, training, and bringing the joy of historical martial arts into our modern lives.

As this show is going out on the last day of 2021, I thought I’d share some thoughts about the year gone by, and some ideas for the year ahead. All the links and information can be found in the blog post on my website.

Then, we welcome Neil Melville, author of The Two-Handed Sword History, Design and Use. So of course we talk about two-handed swords. How do we decide what is a true two-handed sword? What is the difference between a longsword, a bastard sword, a zweihander and a montante? And how were these enormous swords used?

Neil has been collecting swords since he bought his first sword in an antique shop in the 1960s. There are some pictures of his beautiful swords in the blog post.

You won’t find Neil on any social media, but you can support him in the good old way of going out and buying his book, which is available in the usual places. The Two-Handed Sword History, Design and Use.

 

The Mathematics of Fencing with Pamela Muir

The Sword Guy Podcast episode 85

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/the-mathematics-of-fencing-episode85/ 

To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy

Pamela Muir is the founder of the Academy of Chivalric Martial Arts in Arlington, Virginia. She's been doing historical martial arts since about 2003, and I've met her at several events. In this episode we talk about theoretical maths, Liechtenauer, chivalry, and representation for women in HEMA. Pamela also talks about the adult education class she teaches on historical fencing, and what a popular class it has turned out to be.

A couple of things we said would be in the show notes: The Mike Loades interview is episode 48, and it was Dori Coblentz in episode 67 who suggested that there ought to be free childcare at all events.

The web page for Pamela’s Academy of Chivalric Martial Arts is https://academychivalricma.org/ And also on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/AcademyChivalricMA/

 

 

 

 

 

Katanas and Koryu with Jaredd Wilson

The Sword Guy Podcast episode 84

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/katanas-and-koryu-episode84/ 

To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy

This week’s episode is with Jaredd Wilson. Jaredd is the host of the Martial Thoughts podcast, which I appeared on back in January. You can find a link to our “The Pen is Mightier than the Podcast” episode here, or on Stitcher or iTunes. In today’s conversation we talk about what prompted Jaredd to start up the podcast, and the joy of getting to interview interesting people.

Jaredd is also a presenter at CombatCon and a long time practitioner of Japanese swordsmanship and other martial arts. We talk about how Japanese martial arts have evolved over the years and how training works. The conversation also take a slightly unlikely turn when we end up talking about a potential foray into the manufacture of high fashion silk ties.

You can find The Martial Thoughts Podcast on Twitter and The Martial Thoughts blog.

 

 

 

 

 

Swordsmanship is Woodwork, with Shanee Nishry

The Sword Guy Podcast episode 83

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/swordsmanship-is-woodwork-episode83/ 

To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy

Shanee Nishry is a historical martial arts instructor and founder of Stratford Swords, which is in Stratford-upon-Avon in the West Midlands of England. She's also a software engineer in the games industry. We first interacted when she posted some photos of a very ambitious woodworking projects she's working on, because I'm a complete woodworking nerd and it turns out that Shanee is turning into one too.

A couple of woodworking YouTube links for you:

Xyla Foxlin’s impossible table: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk1l9tIjbEs

More woodworking ideas from Tamar 3X3 Custom: https://www.youtube.com/c/3x3CustomTamar

We also talk about the swordsmanship community and a project Shanee would like to complete which would bring together the community into one cohesive place, where everyone can go to find all the publications and discuss and debate them. We talk about the difficulty in getting alignment on the interpretation of sources, and how to make secondary sources more accessible to everyone.

Shanee can be found on her blog: https://shanee.io/ and Twitter: https://twitter.com/lunarsong

 

 

 

Your Challenge for December

The Sword Guy Podcast episode 82

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/your-challenge-for-december-episode82/ 

To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy

Hello Sword People, and welcome to the final monthly challenge of the year. This one is a little different.

Before I introduce it, let me just refresh your memory about what the challenges are. Basically, they are alternatives to New Year's resolutions because I don't like New Year's resolutions very much, and the challenges so far this year have been: breaking a habit, adding a habit, sleeping - in other words, how to sleep better, food, (so eating better,) learning a new skill, working on stamina, working on strength, working on range of motion, working on footwork and working on striking. Now you may very well suppose that this month's challenge will have something to do with perhaps, well, we've done striking, let's have a look at throws. Or we’ve done striking, let's have a look at parrying or something like that. But no, we've done most of the aspects of solo training as I discuss in my book, The Windsor Method: The Principles of Solo Training. So the focus of these challenges is on solo training and rest is part of training. So the question we are addressing this month, December, is how do you recover?

 

 

Orcs in Space and Swords in a Suitcase with Edoardo Albert

The Sword Guy Podcast episode 81

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/orcs_in_space_episode81/ 

To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy

Content warning: Within this podcast are descriptions of the horrific neglect of very elderly swords.

Edoardo Albert is a London-based writer who writes about Britain in the early medieval period (between the Romans leaving and the Normans arriving), the 40th millennium in the Warhammer universe, and lots of other things besides. Find out more by visiting his website. This podcast is different to usual format in that Edoardo contacted me with a question, and rather than reply by email, I got him on the podcast instead.

We talk about the research project at Bamburgh castle in Northumbria, which sparked Edoardo’s interest in the early medieval period. If you’ve never visited, please do, because it truly is the most impressive castle.

Edoardo’s question relates to two pattern welded swords found at Bamburgh and how they would have been fought with. As you may know, this early medieval period is known as the "Dark Ages" because of a lack of sources relating to the period, and so it is an interesting question to discuss. One thing is for sure, the owners of these swords would have been a lot more proficient with their weapons than even the most dedicated HEMA practitioner today.

 

 

Asian and African Arms and Armour with Natasha Bennett

The Sword Guy Podcast episode 80

Photo credit: The Royal Armouries

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/asian-and-african-arms-and-armour-episode80/ 

To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy

Natasha Bennett is the Curator of Oriental Collections at the Royal Armouries in Leeds, working with the Asian and African collections. These include an enormous spread of arms and armour mostly dating from between the 14th and 20th centuries, so her research interests are necessarily wide-ranging. She has presented specialist study sessions and seminars on mounted warfare in Asia, South Asian arms and armour, Islamic arms and armour, Asian swords, and textiles in Japanese armour.

In our conversation we talk about guns, specifically the “15 Rupee Jezail” and how the popularity of the matchlock mechanism persisted because of its simplicity and functionality, even when elsewhere in the world newer technologies took over.

In case you were wondering, this is what a jezail looks like:

Photo credit: The Royal Armouries

And this is the Tusken Cycler rifle from Star Wars:

We also talk about Natasha’s work with the Anglo Sikh Virtual Museum and the amazing benefits of 3-D technology. You can have a good, close-up, 3-D look at the objects on the museum’s website: https://www.anglosikhmuseum.com/

This leads us into a discussion about the circumstances in which many items ended up in British museum collections, i.e. as colonial loot, which is a tricky issue for museums to navigate.

Listen in to find out whether Indian steel weapons are the best, and also how Natasha plans to get her baby doing horseback archery before they can walk.

 

 

 

Medieval Myths, the Mindsword, and Mounted Combat with Jason Kingsley

The Sword Guy Podcast episode 79

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/medieval-myths-mindsword-mounted-combat-episode79/ 

To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy

This episode is with Jason Kingsley OBE, co-founder and CEO of the games company Rebellion Developments, which also owns 2000 AD. And he's the man behind the YouTube channel Modern History TV starring his horse Warlord, which goes into depth and detail regarding many aspects of medieval life, most notably combat and horsemanship, but also aspects of daily life.

We talk about misconceptions people have about medieval warfare, life, and horsemanship, and how Jason busts some of the myths on Modern History TV. We also chat about how Jason came to start a videogames company, create a YouTube channel and his role as the owner/custodian of 2000AD and the Treasury of British Comics.

Here are a couple of YouTube videos to get started with:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM6abbGll0s Guy and Jason discuss Fiore’s play where one combatant is on horseback and the other is on foot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RsCHNx0cis Jason gets to play with the Mindsword.

Note: It was in Ewart Oakeshott’s book, European Weapons and Armour: From the Renaissance to the Industrial Revolution, that he discusses how appalling it seemed when one side started shooting with actual guns, because if that was the case, war could become really dangerous.

Jason is on Twitter: @rebellionjason

 

 

 

Improve your striking in November

The Sword Guy Podcast episode 78

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/improve-your-striking-in-november/ 

To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy

Your challenge for November is to improve your striking. Really, what we are looking at more than anything else is your precision and accuracy, which you can apply to any domain. Someone who drives a car might look at the smoothness of their gear changes, or the precision with which they take a corner. There is no domain in life that this cannot be applied to. Of course, as sword people, we will tend to apply it to swords first, but it is no bad thing to let it leak out into other areas of your life.

Whether you are striking with a fist, a foot, a stick, or a sword, there are fundamental components in common. I’ll cover these in this episode, along with ideas for training, equipment you can utilise, and the use of forms.

The bulk of this episode is taken from my book, The Windsor Method: The Principles of Solo Training, which is available to buy now.

For all the other monthly challenges so far this year, head over to the Challenge of the Month category of my blog. We have covered topics including sleep, getting stronger and more flexible, meditation and more.