Hi!

I got back from Mexico on Tuesday night. Oh my goddess, what a trip. It was a blast from start to finish- though some of that blasting came out of my rear end when my system finally protested the influx of amazing food.

Montezuma’s revenge, baby.

I’ve written up a pretty thorough review of the first week of the trip here: https://guywindsor.net/2024/09/viva-la-panoplia-y-viva-mexico/​

I’m still processing the rest of the trip (and my antibiotics!), so will write it up for the blog later and link to it in my next email (if all goes according to plan). But suffice to say I’ve come back inspired to produce a whole new online course, and a new way of preparing students for seminars. But most importantly I’ve come back with a whole bunch of new family members I only just met. My hosts Elena and Eduardo, and Antonio and Juanita, could not have been kinder or more hospitable. When you’re invited into their homes, they say “estas en tu casa”, “You are in your home”. And they absolutely mean it.

The real measure of how looked-after you feel is when you get ill. Do you feel safe where you are? In my case, when my guts exploded last Saturday, I honestly felt entirely safe and (as far as possible) comfortable. That’s a rare and precious thing.

Special thanks to the event organisers Jorge Chavez, Ana Tavera, Eduardo Mayeya, and Pedro Velasco for inviting me to the Panoplía, Ana (again) for inviting me to Querétaro, León for driving me there and back (and to the Freixenet vinyard, and the Escondida hot springs, and excellent conversation the whole while), and to every student who came to one or other of my classes- you were a delight to teach. (Even you, Jose L. Z!)

Apparently there are a bunch of memes from the event. Here’s my current favourite, a candid moment from an impromptu mechanics session on the Sunday morning:

Gaute: “Are you telling me I've been doing Fiore wrong all this time?"

Omar:” Don't worry my friend, I understand"

León: “I thought I understood Capoferro"

In other news

My first book, The Swordsman’s Companion, turns 20 this year. Yes, it’s been two full decades since it came out, decades in which the development of historical martial arts has flourished. To the point that the book itself is long obsolete. But it’s worth a read if you want to know what ‘state of the art’ looked like in 2004.

To celebrate the occasion, I have made the ebook free on all platforms (though they may take a while to catch up), and have slapped a snazzy new cover on the book itself. I’ve also updated the front matter and end matter.

You can find it here: https://swordschool.shop/collections/the-swordsmans-companion​

Feel free to share the ebook as widely as you like. If you already have a print version, there is no need to get this one, it’s substantially the same as the 2nd edition.

Cool stuff from the internet

Just a friendly reminder that Chris Schweizer’s kickstarter for his book A Dream of Swords is still running, but will end before my next newsletter. It’s full of pictures like this:

You can find it here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/schweizer/a-dream-of-swords​

And, given my current health status, here’s a blog post on training when sick:

​https://guywindsor.net/2016/03/fuck-it-but-dont-poke-the-bear-how-to-train-when-sick/​

This week on the podcast: Pirates! With Dr Jamie Goodall

Dr. Jamie L.H. Goodall is a historian at the U.S. Army Center of Military History in Washington, D.C. She is the author of Pirates of the Chesapeake Bay: From the Colonial Era to the Oyster Wars, National Geographic’s Pirates: Shipwrecks, Conquests, and their Lasting Legacy, Pirates and Privateers from Long Island Sound to Delaware Bay, and The Daring Exploits of Black Sam Bellamy: From Cape Cod to the Caribbean. She has a BA in Archeology, an MA in Public History and Museum Studies, both from Appalachian State University, and a PhD in history from Ohio State.

In our conversation we discuss why pirates are seen as so glamorous – the clothes, the swashbuckling, the adventure, the accent. But you won’t be surprised to hear that the life of a pirate was somewhat different to this.

Jamie explains about pirate culture, and the democracies on board ship, the arrangements around compensation, and the famous “Pirate Code.” We hear about the successful pirate, Black Sam Bellamy, AKA the Prince of Pirates, who had a reputation for being a kinder pirate, and how that worked for him.

As you’ll expect from The Sword Guy Podcast, we have a chat about weapons and fighting. What weapons did pirates use? Were they as bloodthirsty as we’ve been led to believe?

We also find out Jamie’s hopes for a biopic of Black Sam Bellamy, and her upcoming book about the taverns, inns and public houses of Virginia.

What I’m reading

You’d think I’d get a lot of reading done on long journeys, but it’s rarely so. I get motion sickness on just about every form of transport, which is made worse by reading. And when I’m travelling to sword events, my usual reading time is taken up with talking to people! But I did find a book on my kobo e-reader that I have no idea how it got there: The Galapagos Incident, by Felix R. Savage. I’ve almost finished it. It’s a freaky sci-fi thriller with some fascinating ideas about our collective future. And, unusually, it’s about space travel and colonisation, but set in our solar system because there’s no faster-than-light travel. Definitely worth a go if that’s your kind of thing.

Speaking of non-FTL space books, Andy Weir’s (author of The Martian) book The Hail Mary Project is a fantastic page-turner. I’ve read it twice, the first time while in an airport, and then on a plane waiting for it to take off. The plane sat on the apron for 45 minutes due to some delay, and I didn’t notice. It’s that good.

cheers,

Guy