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.
Why Fiore scholars should study the Twirchringen
|
Hi! Last June I flew to Kansas to shoot Fiore dagger plays with Jessica Finley. While I was there she asked if we could also shoot a course on Von Baumann’s wrestling plays, because they formed such a handy mini-system. A great introduction to German wrestling, and also useful to broaden the education of Fiore scholars. She had helped me with the Abrazare (Fiore’s wrestling) course the previous year, so she knew what it Fiore covered- and what he left out. And she thought Von Baumann’s Twirchringen plays would fill some of the gaps. That was a very easy HELL YES! for me, and so we set to work. I love Fiore, as you probably know. And I think his abrazare section, taken in context with especially the dagger plays, is relatively complete. But it’s not intended to be anything like a comprehensive wrestling method: it’s just the abrazare plays you need as a foundation for the entire knightly combat system. Assisting Jessica on this course on the Twirchringen added a great deal of breadth to my own wrestling knowledge, and I think every Fiore scholar who doesn’t yet have a solid wrestling background (which includes me! My unarmed experience is mostly punching and kicking) will find this a really useful way to broaden their base. I mean, does Fiore show us this? I mean, it looks like a gambarola, but it is really not... Check out the video here!
And here’s the obligatory reminder to go buy the course before the discount expires:
Remember to share that link, or this whole email, with your friends! And can we agree that this is a much better way to run a launch sequence? If you’re not even a bit interested in Von Baumann’s wrestling stuff, then click on this link, which will take you to a post about syllabus design for rapier fencing, and also tell my very clever email system not to send you any more of these emails about the wrestling course. And if you are a Patron, or have bought the Abrazare or Hauptstucke courses, you should already have received an even bigger discount code. If that's not the case, reply to this email and I'll send it to you. 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.
BOOKS PODCAST COURSES COMMUNITY BLOG Hi! Tournament Takeaways I’m back from a wonderful trip to Potsdam, where I competed in both sidesword and rapier at the Torneo di Spada. I took no action shots at the event, but used it as an excuse to buy a new sidesword. My friends at Malleus Martialis hooked me up with this beauty (their Marozzo no. 3 sidesword trainer): I’ve written up the tournament experience in a 3000 word post, which went live on Patreon last week, and is now up in the Training...
BOOKS PODCAST COURSES COMMUNITY BLOG Hi! I hope the new year is treating you well. I’m jetting off to Potsdam this weekend for the Torneo di Spada: if you see me there, say hello! At the moment I’m working full time on a huge, tedious job: a ground-up reboot of the open-access Swordschool wiki. It has been woefully neglected over the last many years, during which time I’ve produced literally hundreds of videos that really belong on there. So, I’m adding a ton of new content, and reorganising...
BOOKS PODCAST COURSES COMMUNITY BLOG Happy New Year! I guess I'm supposed to do a review of 2025 and a bunch of resolutions for 2026. I might get round to it, but haven't felt any particular urge to so I haven't yet.Maybe that's my resolution for 2026: Don't do things just because there's a general expectation that I should. Or not. So moving on, let's consider this question: What comes first, the treatise or the tournament? For some historical fencers the answer is obvious- we’re here to...