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Hi!

I know, I know, this was supposed to go out yesterday. But I’m running late for one good reason and one bad one.

The good reason:

My brother and his family came over from Abu Dhabi last Saturday to stay at my mum’s, so I went up to visit on Sunday. I spent the vast majority of the week getting the shit kicked out of me training martial arts with his two young kids. I brought a big bag of swords for them to have a go with, though we spent most of the time punching, kicking, and wrestling.

And my whole body hurts. Little fists are sharp. And little children quite rightly do not hold back. So I was simply too busy having too much fun to write much. The picture below gives the general sense: the nattily-shod foot belongs to my eldest nephew, but it was usually me in that position.

The bad reason:

I woke up on Tuesday morning, got out of bed, and staggered. My balance was all over the place, and I suddenly felt severe motion sickness. It was the weirdest thing. I grabbed on to the bed frame, and established that I did actually have control of my limbs, so it wasn’t a stroke. When I made it downstairs I told my sister-in-law what was going on, and (fortunately for me if not for her) she had had the same thing. It’s called benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV). Benign as in ‘not dangerous’ (unless you lose your balance somewhere dangerous), though let me tell you it doesn’t feel at all benign; paroxysmal as in it comes and goes; positional as in it is related to your physical position; and vertigo as in loss of balance and feeling sick.

You know those semi-circular canals in your inner ear, that help with balance? They are filled with fluid, which passes over little hairs inside the canals, triggering nerve impulses, so your brain can figure out how you’re moving relative to gravity. Little calcium carbonate crystals (otoconia) can break loose inside the vestibule (a chamber full of the fluid connected to the semi-circular canals) and bash about on those hairs causing the vertigo.

So, rocks in my head.

The fix is really simple- it’s called the Epley maneoevre, and you basically turn your head, lie back, wait a bit, turn your head again, wait a bit, etc. which uses gravity to get those pesky otoconia to drift out of the canals and back into the vestibule. You can find tutorials on Youtube if you need one.

There is no known cause of the problem, as in what causes the otoconia to be created.

It took many iterations of the maneoevre, every half an hour for much of the day, to actually work. Apparently it works first time for most people, but it seems I’m special. Yay.

I lost a full day of roughhousing (and writing this email) to wandering about feeling like I do during bad plane landings. BPPV gets 0 stars, 100% do not recommend. But at least it’s easy to fix.

It’s worth knowing about too, because it is apparently pretty common.

What do you want? Update…

In my last email I asked about books or courses you’d like me to create, and there’s been a lovely lot of responses. Front runners are:

• A British Military Sabre course.
• An Armoured Combat course.
• A Halberds/Spears/Polearms course.
• Anything on English Longsword.
• An in-depth look at how to keep training as you age (Swords for Seniors?)

I’m giving them all some thought. I certainly can do any or all of them, so I’ll ponder over the holidays, and see what begs to be made. If you have any requests it’s not too late to ask, just reply to this email and let me know what you’d like (with the same “no promises” proviso as I made last time). In the meantime, I do have a ton of material already out there…

Birthday sale reminder

You can get 10% off all print products (in the Swordschool bookshop) and 25% off all digital products (in the bookshop and on Teachable), with the pretty self-explanatory codes:

BIRTHDAYPRINT10 and GUYSBIRTHDAY25

The codes are valid until January 2nd.

Trainalong over Christmas

If you’d like to come to my trainalong sessions next week, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 8.30 UK time, here’s the link. I’ll start the zoom meeting at 8.25. I’m not expecting many people- probably none! So if there’s nobody there I’ll turn it off again at 8.35, so don’t be late if you’re coming.

You’ll need a bit of space to move in, and ideally an exercise mat for some of the floor exercises. We’ll determine the exact content on the day, depending on people’s needs and interests.

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​For the medieval geeks among you:

My friend Dr. Antti Ijäs has written a fascinating article on Konrad Kyeser’s Bellifortis. Ijäs, A. (2025). Sources of Astrology and Secret Knowledge in Konrad Kyeser’s Bellifortis. Mirator, 25(2). Here’s the abstract:

Around the turn of the fifteenth century, Konrad Kyeser of Eichstätt (1366–after 1405) composed his magnum opus on military technology and other technolo-gies under the title Bellifortis. Composed in response to the embarrassing defeat of the crusader army at Nicopolis in 1396, the contents of this illustrated work range from descriptions of technical wonders and astrological phenomena to alchemical and magical recipes. In addition to the obscure hexametric captions in Latin composed by the author, the Bellifortis incorporates both verse and prose passages lifted from other extant sources. Some of the most notable examples are excerpts from the Liber ignium of Marcus Graecus which are included in the main manuscript, and material previously thought to have been lifted from Pseudo-Albertus Magnus’s De mirabilibus mundi but now identified in the pre sent article as excerpts from the anonymous Liber vaccae. In his prologue, Konrad explic-itly states that he has collected material from Vegetius, someone called Antonius Romanus, and other authors. This article will discuss Konrad’s sources on astrology, magical recipes, and experiments, suggesting new source-identifications and explaining the significance of these borrowings in the composition of his work.

You can find the whole article here. (It’s free.)

That should keep you all busy until next year! Expect the next newsletter on January 2nd... assuming I'm not under a pile of children.

cheers,

Guy