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Hi!

Online Course progress

As you know I’m working on the Introduction to Historical Martial Arts course, designed to introduce beginners to the historical, martial, and artistic elements of this pursuit. It’s a worthy challenge- in other words, it’s very difficult to get right, but I can’t delegate it to anyone. I’ve cracked the overall structure and the technical side of how it’ll be delivered, so I’m now working on the actual individual components of the course materials.

I’m also about ¾ of the way through re-editing the Complete Medieval Longsword Course, which I’ll be updating soon.

I’ve also given a lot of thought to making these courses more available. I do think that the Mastering the Art of Arms subscription is very good value: over $4500 worth of courses for $45/month. But not everyone wants the “How to Teach” course, or wants all that medieval stuff, or all that rapier stuff. So I’ve created some more options. You can still get everything at $45/month, or you can get a package of Medieval Italian Martial Arts ($27/month); or Medieval German Martial Arts ($23/month); or Renaissance Italian Martial Arts ($23/month). Take a look here:

If there’s some combination of courses that would make sense as a package that I haven’t got listed there please let me know.

Everyone on any of my subscriptions, please send in questions in advance for our Office Hours on June 21st, which will start at 15.00 UK time. I’ll put links to the meeting in the course contents, and send it out by email too.

International travel

Next week I’ll be attending Sword and Balkan, in Belgrade, Serbia. I hope to see you there! This is only my second short international trip this year, because I’m staying home while my kids slog through their major exams (youngest is on GCSEs, eldest is doing A-levels). Exams are over in July, so I’m planning to attend Swords of the Renaissance in Potsdam at the end of August, and I’m not sure about travel in the autumn.

I can’t currently travel to the USA because my ESTA visa, which was sufficient for my previous work trips there, at least according to the multiple immigration officers in multiple states who queried me on entry during my last 50+ visits over the last 25 years, no longer allows the kind of work I’d be doing. And frankly while it might be okay, I’d have no reasonable expectation of due process or being treated like a human being if the officer decided it was not okay. It breaks my heart, but there we have it. Hopefully sanity will return to the land of the free before too long. Until it does, none of my usual American fixtures are an option.

But that does leave Mexico, Canada, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, in fact the entire rest of the world, so no doubt I’ll be back out there soon. If you’d like to set something up, drop me a line.

Fun with Swords!

Way back in 2019 my lovely friends at Lonin.org gave me a falchion, that has the magical power of turning me into a cackling murder-pirate. I got to play with it last week at a cutting party. You can see what the blade can do here:

​https://vimeo.com/1090755608​

What I’m Reading

I’ve finished Abraham Verghese’s Cutting for Stone. It’s a beast of a book, brilliantly written, and now I really want to visit Ethiopia. To be honest the climax of the book wasn’t what I was expecting or hoping for- it went in a direction that didn’t make a lot of sense to me. But it could be I just need to read the whole thing again. That happens- the first three times I read Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon I found the ending a bit abrupt. On the fourth reading (and it’s a 1000 page book, so this happened maybe 10 years after my first reading) it all clicked into place and was entirely satisfying. I’ve got another Verghese lined up, The Covenant of Water, but am taking a break from the more serious stuff for a bit.

Noodling about in the Kobo bookstore I realised there’s a Max Barry book I haven’t read yet, so I’m now half way through his Machine Man. It’s classic Barry weirdness with great pace and a really interesting premise… if you could upgrade yourself with machine parts, would you? (I wouldn’t, but the narrator absolutely would and does.)

cheers,

Guy