The Sword Guy Podcast

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.

 

 

 

Strategy and War with Lynette Nusbacher

The Sword Guy Podcast episode 77

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/strategy-and-war-episode77/ 

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

Dr. Lynette Nusbacher is a Strategist and Devil’s Advocate. Her work has included being a logistics officer in the Canadian Armed Forces, a writer of books such as Bannockburn 1314, a lecturer at Reading University, the senior intelligence advisor to the UK Government Cabinet Office, as well as a TV presenter of various military history shows, and she now runs a management consulting company, Nusbacher and Associates. Of course, most importantly from my perspective, she is also a historical martial arts instructor.

Our conversation covers military strategy, government policy, Clausewitz, Iraq and Afghanistan. We do bring all this back to HEMA and talk about the difference between strategy and tactics and how this applies to fencing. You might also like to hear that Lynette thinks of George Silver as a “bit of a bullshit artist”.

As promised, here is the link to the Rob Roy final duel: https://youtu.be/ERmM5l2ceoY

You can find Lynette on Twitter: https://twitter.com/nusbacher

 

Armour of the English Knight, with Tobias Capwell

The Sword Guy Podcast, episode 76

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/armour-of-the-english-knight-episode76/ 

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

Dr Tobias Capwell has a lifelong love of arms and armour, since being taken to the Met Museum in New York as a small child. He has made this passion into a career and is now the curator of Arms and Armour at the Wallace Collection in London. We talk about how he got the job as a museum curator, including offering his services to the Met Museum at the tender age of twelve.

If you are in the vicinity of London and are interested in seeing the wonderful Wallace Collection, or if you are far away but want to check out the online content, have a look on their website. And here is a video by Toby from The Wallace Collection, Armour as Renaissance Art.

In our conversation Toby tells us how he came to be one of two mounted knights in armour escorting the procession at the recent re-burial of Richard III, whose remains were found buried under a car park in Leicester, in the East Midlands of England. Click on the link for a YouTube video covering the event.

We talk about Toby’s ground breaking research into English stone funerary effigies that depict armour in exquisite detail, including showing repairs and bits which don’t match the rest of the armour. This research formed his Ph.D. and then became his trilogy of books, Armour of the English Knight. His eagerly awaited second book, Armour of the English Knight 1450-1500 is out now. His first book is sold out so get your hands on this one quick!

A couple more links:

• Toby’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tobiascapwell
• How Real Is It? on YouTube, with Toby on the treatment of medieval arms and armour in cinema. It’s very entertaining!

 

 

YouTube by Lauren Danger Adventure Ranger

The Sword Guy Podcast episode 75

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/youtube-lauren-danger-episode75/ 

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

Lauren Shaw is from Calgary, Canada and is a founder of the Calgary Fellowship of the Sword, where they practice 14^th – 19^th century martial arts, including longsword, sword and buckler, and - since Covid social distancing rules came in - quarterstaff.

Lauren is also known for her YouTube videos as Lauren Danger Adventure Ranger, where Lauren posts videos on just about every single historical martial arts topic imaginable, and each one of them starts with a rhyme. We talk about Lauren’s skill for rhyming and why she includes them in her videos, as well as her passion for welcoming people into the HEMA world.

The answer to the usual question of “what would you do with a million pounds to improve historical martial arts worldwide?” is one that really got me thinking and is an excellent and potentially very doable suggestion.

You can find Lauren on Twitter, and of course, YouTube.

As mentioned in the introduction, you can access Guy’s new Sword and Buckler course with the 50% discount (expires on Wednesday 20^th October) at www.guywindsor.net/buckler. Don’t miss out!

 

 

Hope and Black Powder with Dr. Milo Thurston

The Sword Guy Podcast Episode 74

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/hope-and-black-powder-episode74/ 

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

Milo Thurston is the founder of the Linacre School of Defence in Oxford, UK. He’s an absolute bastard with a single stick and a leading expert in the work of Sir William Hope. In our conversation we talk about the essence of Hope’s New Method of Fencing and what is so good about it.

We also talk about Napoleonic battle reenactment, being late to class, Ken Monschein’s PhD, and why Milo would use Guy’s imaginary millions to pay off his mortgage.

 

Milo’s books:

A Newer, Shorter and Easier Method of Fencing

Defence in the Street: Translated from Jean-Joseph Renaud's La Defense dans la Rue (Amazon Kindle edition)

 

Link to The Linacre School of Defence, which has Hope’s works and poetry, plus works from other masters from the period.

 

 

 

Your October Challenge: Improve Your Footwork!

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/october-challenge-episode73/ 

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

Today’s episode is your October Challenge. This year I have been setting a different challenge every month, as I really don't like New Year's resolutions, and it struck me that there was an opportunity for self-development and self-improvement that we were missing by making these nebulous resolutions at pretty much the worst point in the year to make any kind of changes. It's right after Christmas and if you're in the northern hemisphere, it’s in the middle of winter. Not a great time to be trying to make a resolution that's going to last all year. So instead, we have a different challenge every month.

So far we have looked at breaking and making habits, prioritising sleep, prioritising food, learning a new skill, stamina and strength. Last month we looked at improving our range of motion. If you want to have a look back at all of those monthly challenges, you can go to guywindsor.net/blog and look at the category called “Challenge of the Month”.

Your challenge this month is to improve your footwork. And I borrowed this from my new book, The Windsor Method, The Principles of Solo Training, which you should definitely go and buy, of course, at guywindsor.net/solo.

There is a transcription of this episode on my website for you to read at your leisure.

 

Viruses and Bats with Emilia Skirmuntt

The Sword Guy Podcast, episode 72

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/viruses-and-bats-episode72/ 

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

Emilia Skirmuntt runs the Oxford branch of The School of the Sword, and in this episode we talk about running a school with different branches and specialisations, and improving diversity and inclusivity within historical martial arts schools.

Emilia is also a virologist at the University of Oxford, which brings up some topical questions about a certain virus. We talk about her fascinating research into virus-like genes in bat genomes and some truly game-changing theories about memories and consciousness.

Emilia has started a cookery blog, called The Corgi, The Princess and The Kitchen, which we also chat about in the podcast. The molecular gastronomy book that Guy refers to is: On Food And Cooking: The Science And Lore Of The Kitchen by Harold McGee.

You can find Emilia on Twitter @ESkirmuntt, or look out for her on Sky News and other news outlets where she is frequently interviewed about the pandemic.