Hi!

as this goes out I’m on my way to Stansted airport to fly to Berlin for the Swords of the Renaissance event, where I’m teaching three classes: Improve your Rapier fencing; Lessons from the Abrazare; and a short “break-out session” on fencing with the rapier and dagger. Should be lots of fun! I’ve attended the last two of these events, and am really looking forward to this one.

Between the family trip to London and dashing off to Germany, I’ve been finishing up the video editing for the new Medieval Dagger course. It’s all done and dusted, and should be ready to launch next week, on both Teachable and Sword People. I’ve added video clips of all of Fiore’s dagger plays (really all of them- not just the 73 plays of the dagger in the Getty Ms, but sword against dagger, dagger and staff against spear, all of them). I’ve also re-edited the training course videos, splitting them up into much more user friendly short clips, so you can find exactly what you want very easily. During that process I also used the audio editing skills I had to learn for bringing The Sword Guy podcast up to scratch to re-master the audio on all the clips. The course is now over 120 videos, plus a bunch of pdf handouts.

The new course will launch with a 40% discount off the $400 price, with the option split the cost over 10 months, as usual. I’ll run the launch through Teachable, and include links in the course materials to access it on Sword People.

Here’s a really fun video of a dagger play from the course that involved throwing stuff at Jessica’s head:

​https://vimeo.com/998250101/0381ebb2b9​

If you’re already enrolled in the course you should have got an email already with a stupendous discount. If that hasn’t arrived, hit reply and I’ll send you the discount code.

Health Update

While I was in London I went along for another DEXA scan (if you missed the email in May where I discussed the first one, it’s here)

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So far, progress has been pretty good. I’m about 4kg lighter than I was in May, and my waist has come down by about 6cm. I can and do measure that for myself, but the trick is making sure I’m losing flab, not beefcake. It’s also hard to distinguish water loss from fat or muscle loss. The Dexa scan is excellent at measuring bone density and fat mass, and everything left over from those two is “lean mass”.

According to the new scan, of the 4.4kg I’ve dropped between the scans, 3162g (just over 3kg, or about 6.6lb) is fat.

What this means is that my process is generally working- I’m getting the results I’m looking for with my relatively minor lifestyle changes. Those changes are drinking less wine (boo!), eating less starch (boo!), and being a bit more strict about getting some exercise even on days when I’m not training (which is fine).

I could certainly be stricter and burn flab faster, but I really don’t want to lose muscle in the process, and the faster you burn the fat, the more muscle you’re likely to lose in the process. Because human bodies are not well adapted to the 21st century, and really well adapted for keeping you alive in conditions of uncertain food supply.
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Cool stuff from the internet:

You may recall that last Sunday I exploded with glee and sent out an email telling the world about an amazing new academic find. And then a few hours later had to report back that actually it was a hoax. So, not cool stuff from the internet, but an interesting lesson. I made two critical mistakes that day. One was to trust the authenticity of the source, based on who sent it to me (in perfectly good faith), and where it was posted (an academic papers website).

In my rush to share the good stuff, I trusted but did not verify. Oops.

It’s also worth remembering that the more you want something to be true, the more likely you are to believe it is. And I really wanted it to be true!

So here is something that I’m sure of, and is definitely a damn cool thing from the webz. Organic Archery, on Youtube, has a video about making a reconstruction of the Holmegaard bow (the oldest complete bow ever found, from about 9,000 years ago!). This combines old weapons (yay!), woodwork (yay!), and damn all talking. Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7igmcPTJvqI​

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​This week on the podcast: Kinesiology and Concussions with Jane Strange

Jane Strange represented Team North America at the 2019 European games in Minsk, and she is a competition medallist at longsword in both open and women's competitions. She is currently teaching and training at Edmonton Historical Martial Arts but is mainly focused on pursuing her degree in kinesiology.

We talk about what kinesiology is and her approach to coaching psychology. Find out what way of training works best for improving someone’s ability with a sword, and how Jane’s approach differs from mine.

We also talk about Jane’s experience at the Minsk European Games. The experience was a bit of a mixed bag, including food poisoning, gear issues, and even a concussion. Jane has taught a seminar on Concussion Awareness and Prevention, having suffered a serious concussion from a car crash.

In the episode we discuss preventing and treating concussion – whether there’s any mask that can prevent it, and how we need to change the culture within HEMA to make concussion less likely.

​Listen to the episode here​
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What I’m reading

I recently whizzed through John Scalzi’s The Kaiju Preservation Society. It’s light, and a lot of it is taken up with engaging world building. I wouldn’t put it in the same class as his excellent Red Shirts, or The Long War series, but it’s an interesting idea and a lot of fun.

For something a bit deeper, having loved Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, I went and read Gabrielle Zevin’s The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry. This is literary enough that it takes place mostly in a bookshop. I loved it, but be warned it’s got no fight scenes at all.

On the non-fiction front, I’ve re-read (for the third or fourth time) Cory Doctorow’s vitally important Information Doesn’t Want to be Free: Laws for the Internet Age. This is more than just a vigorous attack on foolish corporations trying to lock up content with DRM nonsense, it’s all about how we the people are lied to by them the corporations, and about how one can make a living ethically producing content on the internet. I’m not doing it justice- if you haven’t read it, please do.

cheers,

Guy