BOOKS PODCAST COURSES COMMUNITY BLOG Hi! I’m running a flash sale starting today, on the combined Philippo Vadi Longsword and Dagger courses bundle. Bought separately these courses cost $850. The Bundle is $600. And you can get 30% off the bundle for the next few days. Just put the code WELOVEVADI2025 into the little box at checkout. Hurrah! That’s still a lot of money though, so you can also find both courses in the Mastering the Art of Arms and the Italian Medieval Combat subscriptions...
19 days ago • 2 min read
BOOKS PODCAST COURSES COMMUNITY BLOG Hi! I have a couple of seminars coming up! Suffolk, UK, October 18th: Move Like Fiore: Improve your structure, flow, and control in Fiore’s art of arms Good movement is the foundation of great fencing. It keeps you safe from injury, helps you control your level of force, protects your training partners, and lets you fight harder and longer without fatigue. In this full-day seminar, you’ll develop practical skills to make your fencing smoother, stronger,...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Hi! I'm teaching a seminar here in Suffolk for my friends at Suffolk HEMA on Saturday October 18th. If you'd like to learn to move better, and to analyse any guard position or movement from a structural perspective, you should come! My very clever email list thinks you live close enough that you might make the trip. Sorry if that isn't the case.Move Like Fiore:Improve your structure, flow, and control in Fiore’s art of arms.Good movement is the foundation of great fencing. It keeps you safe...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
BOOKS PODCAST COURSES COMMUNITY BLOG Hi! I spent the last weekend of August at Swords of the Renaissance (my fourth time at this jewel of an event). It was a delight from start to finish, as expected! I taught three classes: “Attack with Capoferro”, which included a lengthy digression into how to hold the sword properly, “Lessons from Vadi”, which included an overview of Vadi’s movement mechanics, and various ways to set up the basic plays, and a short breakout session on “Boredom and...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
well, not quite yet. Hi. Yesterday I sent the final draft of From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice: the Dagger Techniques of Fiore dei Liberi off to the editor. Hurrah! There's a lot of admin work to do from here, checking edits, sending to layout, making sure all the links work etc., but let's put it this way: if I became incapacitated, my highly competent assistant could get the book finished and into your hands no problem. Which means that it's ready to preorder, in ebook, paperback,...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
BOOKS PODCAST COURSES COMMUNITY BLOG Hi! I was in London a couple of weeks ago for a family reunion, and took the opportunity to wiggle along for another DEXA scan. My last was a year ago. On the positive side, I’ve put on about 2.4kg of ‘lean tissue’ (the scan can identify fat, bone, and ‘lean tissue’, which is everything else), mostly in the upper torso. So all that weight training and eating protein is paying off. And my overall fat percentage has come down from 24.8% in May 2024, to 21.5%...
2 months ago • 4 min read
BOOKS PODCAST COURSES COMMUNITY BLOG Hi! Firstly thanks to everyone who sent me questions to answer in the upcoming dagger book. I’ve answered every email I received, so if you’ve sent a question but haven’t heard back please send it again. This book is part of the From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice series, so has my transcription, translation, and interpretation of every one of the dagger plays in the Getty Ms, with a video clip of how I do it in practice, as well as discussion on...
2 months ago • 2 min read
BOOKS PODCAST COURSES COMMUNITY BLOG Hi! It was only last Friday when you got an email from me saying I was still completely stuck on From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice: the Dagger Techniques of Fiore dei Liberi. When that email arrived in my inbox (yes I'm subscribed to my own newsletter: it's quality control not narcissism, I promise), I thought I'd just open the book file and see how far along it was. Somehow that triggered a rash of productivity, and at about 7.30am this morning...
3 months ago • 1 min read
BOOKS PODCAST COURSES COMMUNITY BLOG Hi! I’m back from my holidays, featuring ten days in Spain with the whole family then a six-day post-exams road trip with Daughter 2. This included visiting Manchester, York, and Edinburgh. And we popped in to Rosslyn Chapel on the way down south. You can see why conspiracy theorists go nuts for this place; it’s an astonishing bit of late medieval stonework, complete with weird and wonderful carvings such as this fallen angel: And a Green Man: You’re not...
3 months ago • 2 min read