There is a rather stupid convention common in the upbringing of boys and men: because we are supposed to be strong, we ought not to acknowledge our weaknesses. As any weight-lifter could tell you, … [Read more...]
Archives for July 2015
How to Write Forms or Kata for Martial Arts Training
We are in the middle of our annual monster seminar, the Fiore Extravaganza. We began with a day of pollax training from the medieval French manuscript Jeu de la Hache, taught by Lois Forster. Lois … [Read more...]
Dealing with it.
Oh my, what a week it has been. I was scared of hitting “publish” on my last post, for obvious reasons. I am a big bad scary martial arty swordsman, or at least that’s how a lot of people … [Read more...]
The Price of Privilege
I spent much of yesterday evening crying my eyes out. The kind of wracking sobs that leave you weak and shaky for hours afterwards. This is not normal. I was packed off to boarding school at the age … [Read more...]
Size Matters: how long should your rapier be?
As you may know, I am in the process of videoing everything we do in the salle, and putting it up online for free. This project is called the "Syllabus Wiki". One of the many benefits of this is that … [Read more...]