The Sword Guy Podcast

What is a volta? A very detailed examination of Fiore, with Dario Magnani

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to: https://swordschool.com/podcast/what-is-a-volta-a-very-detailed-examination-of-fiore-with-dario-magnani/

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

My guest today is Dario Alberto Magnani, better known as Mr. Thokk, who was a longtime scholar of the Italian single combat tradition from the late medieval/early Renaissance period, and a world renowned historical martial arts instructor and gear designer. As a swordsman, he specialises in northern Italian fencing from the early 15th to the 16th centuries, i.e., Fiore, Vadi and into the Bolognese. And he's a successful competitor and sought after instructor.

In the late 2010s Dario became a historical martial arts professional, between his teaching activities and the founding of Thokk Personal Armor, a business through which he designs and sells innovative historical martial arts gear, such as the Thokk gloves.

The reason I'm chatting to Dario is because I met him in Spain at the Panoplia, and we ended up spending probably five or six hours of the weekend discussing details of Fiore stuff and other things. In the conversation recorded for the podcast, we pick up where we left off in Spain, with an in-depth discussion about the Three Voltas of the Sword in Il Fior di Battaglia. If you own a copy of From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice, you need to listen to this episode with your book and a red pen in hand!

Here's the link to the video giving an example of tornare: guywindsor.net/dvsthrust

And the article, One Play, One Drill, Many Questions.

Horse Armour at the Royal Armouries, with Eleanor Wilkinson-Keys

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to: https://swordschool.com/podcast/horse-armour-at-the-royal-armouries-with-eleanor-wilkinson-keys/

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

Today’s episode is with Eleanor Wilkinson-Keys, who is Assistant Curator of Arms and Armour at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds. She has an MA in Medieval Studies from the University of Leeds, and works with the European armour and edge weapons collections, which makes us all extremely jealous, and the Asian and African collection which also makes us extremely jealous. She works there with Natasha Bennett, who you may recall from Episode 82.

In our conversation, we talk about how Eleanor got into her career and why a jousting helmet sparked her interest in working at the Royal Armouries. Ellie’s particular interest is in later jousting, when the kit got really weird and wonderful. We chat about some of the fantastic decoration on both the horses’ and knights’ armour, such as dragons, snails with wings, and even squirrels. 

We also talk about the best way to visit a big museum where there is just too much to see. Ellie tells us which pieces at the Royal Armouries she would make a beeline for.

Finally, Guy sets Ellie a challenge, and if you are looking at this after 28^th November 2024, you’ll be able to see the results of that challenge!

Photos:

https://royalarmouries.org/collection/object/object-20471

https://royalarmouries.org/collection/object/object-1292

 

Bronze Age Britons Were Weird, with Dr James Dilley

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to: https://swordschool.com/podcast/bronze-age-britons-were-weird-with-dr-james-dilley/ 

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

Dr James Dilley is an archaeologist and craftsman specializing in prehistoric technologies such as flintknapping, and casting bronze weaponry. He is the founder of Ancient Craft, a company that provides expertise and experiences to individuals and educational institutions.

James has three archaeology degrees, which seems like an awful lot. He has a BSc exploring polished stone axes, an MA focusing on bone flintknapping hammers, and a PhD from the University of Southampton on Upper Paleolithic hunting technology. So if you get lost in the woods with just a stone, James is clearly your man.

In our conversation, we talk about how James got into his career and started Ancient Craft. We talk about casting swords out of bronze, how to do it and what the swords are like. Listen right to the end for a bonus question about hilt design. I can confirm, casting your broadsword is really good fun. I did that with James a while ago. Here’s a video of me casting the sword:

​https://vimeo.com/886422500

Heres a link to the Grotsetter sword: https://nms.scran.ac.uk/database/record.php?usi=000-100-102-426-C&scache=1yxxwujgq5&searchdb=scran

We also talk about some of the weird finds (or things we haven’t found) from the Bronze Age period. For example, the Tollense battlefield site in Germany, where after the huge battle all the bodies were just left there. Another weirdness is the complete lack of Bronze Age armour found in Britain, when there was loads just over the Channel in France. Why didn’t the Brits wear armour? Were they just too brave? Also, why didn’t they eat any fish in Bronze Age Britain? And what did they do with their dead? Why can’t we find human bones? Surely the theory that people were cannibals can’t be true? Listen to the episode for speculative answers to these questions and more!

Community and the Club with Samantha West

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to: https://swordschool.com/podcast/community-and-the-club-with-samantha-west/

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

Sam West is an instructor at the Dueling Weapons Academy of Renaissance Fencing aka DWARF, a historical martial arts club in Barrie, Ontario, where she teaches Italian longsword, 1.33 sword and buckler, and rapier.

We chat about running a non-profit club and creating an open and inclusive space for everyone to take part in HEMA. Sam is passionate about relating the club to the community, and she tells us about the different projects they get involved in to help the local community and also create awareness of HEMA. 

Amongst other things, she's also involved with running The Gathering of the Blades, which is not a tournament. It’s a historical martial arts buffet of a weekend seminar.

We also talk about smallsword, aka murder spikes, access to equipment, bringing together women in HEMA, translating sources, and starting your own club to have people to play with.

You can find Sam’s school at Barrieswords.ca.

The Politics of Eastern and Western Martial Arts, with Jonathan Bluestein

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to: https://swordschool.com/podcast/the-politics-of-eastern-and-western-martial-arts-with-jonathan-bluestein/ 

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

 

Jonathan Bluestein is a martial artist and author who contacted Guy with some interesting questions related to his research. Jonathan is looking into the similarities and differences between the traditional Chinese martial arts and traditional European Martial Arts, both in Medieval and Renaissance times as well as in our everyday lives today.

 

Jonathan’s background is in traditional oriental martial arts in general and he practices and teaches traditional Chinese martial arts from his school in Israel. He is the author of a number of books on the martial arts as well as other topics. He’s also a practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine.

 

Jonathan is currently in the midst of working on a book called Martial Arts Politics Explained. In this episode we discuss how we might classify different types of martial arts school, and how the structures and hierarchies of different types of schools inform the politics within the school. Jonanthan explains how Chinese martial arts schools work and the culture of family and disciples within them. We discuss how the cultures within Western historical martial arts schools compare.

 

This is a wide ranging conversation which also covers philosophy, the war in Israel, straight swords versus curved swords, and Chinese medicine.

 

You may find this list of terminology useful, which was helpfully provided by Jonathan:

 

Names of Jonathan’s teachers:

Master Nitzan Oren

Grand-Master Zhou Jingxuan 

Master Sapir Tal

Master Stephen Jackowicz

Master Brian Hall

 

Martial arts Jonathan has studied and have taught:

Xing Yi Quan

Pigua Zhang

Jook Lum Southern Mantis

Bagua Zhang

Li Jia Shaolin Quan (Li Family Shaolin)

 

Weapons mentioned:

Dao (Chinese curved sword)

Miao Dao (Chinese equivalent of the Nodachi/Odachi)

 

Historical figures and periods:

General Qi Jiguang 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qi_Jiguang

Japanese Pirates

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wokou

Meiji Restoration

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji_Restoration

Chinese Cultural terms:

Wuguan - 'Martial Hall' - Chinese equivalent term to 'Dojo'. 

Kwan - the Cantonese pronunciation of 'Guan', and short for 'Wuguan'. 

Gongfu - A high level of skill, acquired through longstanding effort and practice

Gongfu Family (Gongfu Jia) - the martial arts family within a given lineage, of teachers and disciples

Shifu - a teacher in a traditional relationship of a Master and an apprentice

Tudi - a disciple of a Shifu - the Apprentice

Bai Shi - the ceremony with which a Tudi is accepted into the Gongfu Family. 

Medieval Music and the Troubadours, with Alix Evans

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to: https://swordschool.com/podcast/medieval-music-and-the-troubadours-with-alix-evans/

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

Alix Evans is a professional performer and teacher of historical music, founder of Falsa Musica, and has even fenced rapier in the SCA.

We talk about what led Alix into becoming a musician, with a mention of her husband David Biggs. (Check out his episode here.) Alix explains what it is about historical music that is so interesting and how it differs from how music is commonly thought to work today.

To listen to some troubadour music performed by Alix, at the end of the episode you can hear:

• Amours u trop tard me sui pris - attributed to Blance de Castille (who was queen of France around the beginning of the 13th century), voice and harp
• Deus enim rorem in ilas misit - by Hildegard of Bingen - this is is in phrygian!, just voice
• Ecce tempus gaudii - an instrumental setting of a 12th century song, just harp
• Gloria sanctorum - a 14th century chant from Ireland, voice and harp
• Frondens virga - another Hildegard piece just because it’s pretty, voice and symphonia (early hurdy-gurdy)
• Reis glorios - 12th century troubadour piece by Giraut de Bornelh, just voice

Troubadours came from Occitan in around the 11^th and 12^th centuries. They were a diverse set of people, writing poetry and setting it to music. Some were the wandering minstrels we think of today, but many stayed in one place.

We talk about how to make a living from your passion by having a ‘portfolio career’, and Alix tells us about her new project uncovering unknown and unfamiliar ways of making music and bringing them to audiences.

 

For more information about Alix and her work, see her website: https://www.alix-evans.com/

Swords in South Africa, with David Wagenfeld

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to: https://swordschool.com/podcast/swords-in-south-africa-with-david-wagenfeld/ 

David Wagenfeld is a fencing coach, creator of the En Garde model for teaching fencing in schools, and the co-founder of Table Mountain Fencing and Historical European Martial Arts. He lives in Cape Town, South Africa and has been instrumental in creating the HEMA scene in the country.

We talk about how he got into sport fencing, then coaching, then HEMA. He feels that coaching fencing is what he was born to do, but fencing in South Africa doesn’t have the history that it does in Europe, and the culture is very different.

David tells us about the model he has created from scratch, and how it has created some extremely successful fencers, as well as a broad base of lots of students having fun. Of course, there is the equipment problem, and the challenge of being so far away from everywhere else. Over the years there has been a lot of improvisation!

We also talk about sports psychology, what makes a good tournament fencer, and what sport fencing can teach HEMA.

Link to En Garde Fencing

 

Life in the Stone Age and Bothering Hedges with Sally Pointer

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to: https://swordschool.com/podcast/life-in-the-stone-age-and-bothering-hedges-with-sally-pointer/

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

Sally Pointer is a freelance heritage educator, archaeologist and presenter of traditional skills and historic crafts. She is also an author and an Experimental Archaeology MSC student at Exeter University.

Sally lives near Hereford, which is in the west of England on the Welsh border. It’s a rural area and perfect for her hobby of “hedge bothering” – a mix of foraging, looking at all the species that are in the hedge, what the birds are up to, and also checking for any pixies or interesting bits of wood.

We talk about her time spent in the Middle East as a child, where she and her family could go off into the desert and find stone age campsites and dinosaur bones, just sitting there. This sparked a love of experimental archaeology: finding out how people actually spent their time, what they made and how they lived.

We discuss the misconceptions about “cavemen” and how actually they weren’t at all stupid. They made Bunsen burners, they dug mines, they wore makeup, and they wanted the same things out of life that we do now.

Sally has written a book about the history of makeup and tells us about a slightly alarming experiment she performed on herself, which explains why on earth people were so keen to wear toxic white lead makeup, despite its dangers.

There is lots more in our conversation, including the stupidest thing a member of the public has ever said to us at an event, how to gain an extra two hours in the day, and whether Sally could survive in the wild.

To find out more about what Sally does, and see her YouTube videos covering things like the acorn pasta and nettle material mentioned in the episode, see: https://www.sallypointer.com/

Business, Chivalry, and Life-or-Death Training, with Jason Kingsley

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to: https://swordschool.com/podcast/business-chivalry-and-life-or-death-training-with-jason-kingsley/

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

One of our most listened-to guests is back on the show! Jason Kingsley OBE is the 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 Warlord, which goes into depth of detail regarding many aspects of medieval life, most notably combat and horsemanship, but also aspects of daily life. We catch up on how Warlord is doing since our last chat in episode 81.

It’s always great to hear that a podcast guest has acted on the best idea they hadn’t acted on. Jason has written his book, Leading the Rebellion, which he tells us about in this episode. Here is the info for the book:

A fascinating look into the business and lifestyle philosophy of Jason Kingsley OBE, CEO of Rebellion. Rebellion is one of the world’s most successful independent games developers and also a film and TV production company and publisher. Combining his love of Medieval History and success in business, this unique book will give insight into a modern interpretation of the Knightly Code of Chivalry, the moral system which combined a warrior ethos, knightly piety, and courtly manners, all combining to establish a notion of honour and nobility, in a motivational and aspirational take on how to live life to the fullest.

Find it at: https://rebellionpublishing.com/product/leading_the_rebellion/

We talk about writing: how someone as busy as Jason managed to get the book written, how to get useful feedback, and how to finish what you start.

We also talk about how to train for a life-or-death situation, without the death bit. How does one train to be in a situation where someone is actively trying to kill you?

To see more from Jason (and Warlord) check out the Modern History TV channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/ModernHistoryTV

Washing paper and restoring books with Aurelia Sedlmair

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to: https://swordschool.com/podcast/washing-paper-and-restoring-books-with-aurelia-sedlmair/

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

Aurelia Sedlmair is a historical fencer, a translator, a transcriber, and is now studying the conservation of paper and books. Her Instagram is @freiraum.buch

In our conversation we talk about what brought Aurelia to the Isle of Man, a small, independent island off the coast of England, and her study at West Dean College of Art and Conservation. 

We talk about what happens when you get a book restored, and Guy recommends the bookbinder in Colchester who restored his copy of Alfred Hutton’s The Sword and the Centuries. (Colin Brown, at Cuckoo Farm Studios. bindingarrangement.co.uk). The aim is not to modernise the book, but instead to make it look as if nothing has been done to it. No modernisation.

Aurelia describes how to repair paper and how to clean it. Amazingly, if dry cleaning doesn’t work you can just wash it, and she explains how it’s done.

Click here for some before and after images of books and paper that Aurelia has worked on:

https://swordschool.com/podcast/washing-paper-and-restoring-books-with-aurelia-sedlmair/

Of course, this wouldn’t be the Sword Guy Podcast without talking about swords. Aurelia is a rapier and smallsword fencer, though there’s not much of it happening on the Isle of Man. We talk about the brilliance of smallsword and also about how to encourage beginners to give historical martial arts a try.