Hi,

I had a marvellous time at Swords of the Renaissance. It was lovely to see old friends, make new ones, and I think the zines were a hit too. Big thanks to Anna Welter, Stephan Eickelmann, and their excellent team. The event ran like clockwork and I’m already looking forward to next year! I even got to fence with both Anna and Stephan. It’s a sign of a very well run event when the organisers can actually get some fencing in.

I taught 90-minute seminars on Vadi’s mechanics, Capoferro’s mechanics, and Angelo’s salute. If you’d like the zines, you can find them here. They’re free to download, just print them out, fold them up and maybe even read them!

One of the instructors at the event, Diana Matthess, is also a photographer, so I commissioned some new author photos. She goes for moody lighting and a bit of drama!

Don’t all authors lean negligently against a wall with a sword dangling from their hand?

I’m away again this weekend: as this email goes out I’m on my way to the airport with my wife. We’re going to Spain for a few days to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary. Here’s what we looked like 20 years ago:

Two of the people holding swords have been on the podcast! The photo is grainy because this is a scan of a print of a photo my Mum took that's been on my wife's dressing table for a very long time.

Don’t worry, I’ll be back in good time for the Capoferro Mechanics webinar. While I was teaching a similar class at Swords of the Renaissance I was thinking about adapting the material to solo training over the internet. So long as they don’t turn off the gravity where you are, we’ll be able to do a pretty deep dive into how Capoferro’s system works. Not just what we should be doing with our hips and shoulders, but why. Capoferro’s guard positions and footwork can appear quite extreme. Understanding why he does it that way allows us to modify it as necessary and take into account the compromises those modifications introduce.

The first class is at 7pm UK time on Saturday 19th, and the second is at 8am UK time on Sunday 27th. This gives me time to edit the recording and get it out to everyone who is signed up, so you can review it before we do the second class if you want to. If you haven’t signed up yet you can do so here:

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On the book front, I’m still working on the Duel of the Hat. I’ve had some editorial feedback from a couple of early readers, and it clearly needs work to become a properly readable book: it’s currently too much of a data-dump, and apparently not everyone loves reading 19th century French amateur academic articles. Who knew? I’ll let the book rest for a couple of weeks and then rewrite it when a better structure and way of presenting the material becomes clear. This is an entirely normal part of the book writing process. A very fast first draft will almost always need a lot of tidying up and restructuring later.

And I have been sidetracked again from my How to Win Sword Fights. A friend found something in an archive, sent it to me, and I’ve been translating it… I’m not saying more just yet, but as soon as it’s shareable, I will let you know. It will certainly warrant its own newsletter.

Cheers,

Guy

P.S. Just a reminder that I’ve completely overhauled my Sword Person’s Care Package. As you probably know, because you probably have the old one, it’s a free collection of useful things for sword people. I’ve rewritten and reorganised it so it’s a much better introduction to what I do and, more importantly, a more useful thing in its own right. You can grab the new one here.

P.P.S. I’m also doing some long-overdue housekeeping on this email list. If you got an email from me recently asking whether you wanted to stay on the list, that’s why. I’d much rather have a smaller list of people who actually want these emails than a larger one full of people who don’t!