Dr. Guy Windsor is a world-renowned instructor and a pioneering researcher of medieval and renaissance martial arts. He has been teaching the Art of Arms full-time since founding The School of European Swordsmanship in Helsinki, Finland, in 2001. His day job is finding and analysing historical swordsmanship treatises, figuring out the systems they represent, creating a syllabus from the treatises for his students to train with, and teaching the system to his students all over the world. Guy is the author of numerous classic books about the art of swordsmanship and has consulted on swordfighting game design and stage combat. He developed the card game, Audatia, based on Fiore dei Liberi's Art of Arms, his primary field of study. In 2018 Edinburgh University awarded him a PhD by Research Publications for his work recreating historical combat systems. When not studying medieval and renaissance swordsmanship or writing books Guy can be found in his shed woodworking or spending time with his family.
Swordschool turns 24!
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Hi! Time flies... Swordschool turned 24 years old yesterday! March 17th 2001 saw the very first class I taught as a full-time professional instructor, at the Olympic Stadium in Helsinki. Not the whole Olympic Stadium. A small room somewhere inside it. I was expecting about 6 to 12 people, and something over 70 showed up. Some of them are still training now. I don’t have a photo of that very day, but digging around through the archives I found some golden oldies. Here’s what a rapier class looked like in (I think) 2002:
And the photoshoot for The Swordsman’s Companion in 2003 was very serious.
And lots of hard work.
And nobody fooled around because it was serious hard work.
The School depended so entirely on the goodwill and trust of those early adopters, who had no good reason to believe I knew what I was doing, but turned up to class anyway. So to celebrate Swordschool turning 24, you can use the code SWORDSCHOOL24 at checkout to get 24% off all digital products (not printed books, t-shirts etc, sorry. They cost too much to produce!). You can find courses at courses.swordschool.com, and books, audiobooks, and print-at-home pdfs of my card game Audatia at swordschool.shop Just use the code at checkout to get the discount. The code expires on March 31st. Thanks for coming along on the Swordschool ride, whenever it was you started! yours, Guy |
Guy Windsor's Swordschool
Dr. Guy Windsor is a world-renowned instructor and a pioneering researcher of medieval and renaissance martial arts. He has been teaching the Art of Arms full-time since founding The School of European Swordsmanship in Helsinki, Finland, in 2001. His day job is finding and analysing historical swordsmanship treatises, figuring out the systems they represent, creating a syllabus from the treatises for his students to train with, and teaching the system to his students all over the world. Guy is the author of numerous classic books about the art of swordsmanship and has consulted on swordfighting game design and stage combat. He developed the card game, Audatia, based on Fiore dei Liberi's Art of Arms, his primary field of study. In 2018 Edinburgh University awarded him a PhD by Research Publications for his work recreating historical combat systems. When not studying medieval and renaissance swordsmanship or writing books Guy can be found in his shed woodworking or spending time with his family.
Hi! When I get to the end of a major project I usually clear my desk and have a general tidy up. It’s then very likely that I’ll spend some time making something physical. There’s something about editing video that makes doing woodwork a psychological necessity. Pretty much the moment I hit “Publish” on the new Vadi course I went out to my shed and got to work cleaning and sharpening my most-used chisels. As I was slotting them back into their rack, I thought it was about time I upgraded...
Hi! There’s a knotty question which I’m sure keeps you up at night. Who would win in a longsword duel, Fiore or Vadi? Well, Fiore was a famous soldier, commander of the artillery on the walls of Udine, with streets named after him. And who claims to have fought five grudge matches against other fencing masters. Vadi… we’re not 100% sure. There’s some evidence to suggest he was governor of Reggio from 1452 to 1470, and he probably lived from 1425-1501. But no record of him ever teaching...
Hi! I hope you’re getting some time off for Easter this weekend. And lots of Easter eggs. We all need to keep moving to burn off some of that chocolate, so here’s a short gentle warm-up routine from the new Vadi course: https://vimeo.com/1071693384/0c6d4215e2 Yes it’s very gentle, because I’ve made the course fit for absolute beginners, as well as much more advanced students. So I include everything from how to hold the sword, through basic actions, techniques and counters, up to quite...