Guy Windsor

Consulting Swordsman. Writer.

The Big Reveal

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I know you’ve been thinking about nothing else for the last few days. Not the pesky plague. Not economic uncertainty. This, and only this:

What the hell is that thing Guy made?

Dale Belcher, of Independence, Kansas, in the USA was the first person to answer, and the only person to get it right! Well done sir!

It is of course a till for hanging my set-squares on.

Dale’s answer won him a copy of my new book.

But it wasn’t the best answer. That laurel belongs to Vojkan Selakovic of Serbia, who wrote in with this:

Perhaps I’m stating the obvious here, but it should be apparent that we are looking at a type of, perhaps unsurprisingly, anti virus barrier for historical manuscripts.

This is a semi-finished, though cleverly masked, DIY set.

In these dire times, we are faced with an increasing challenge of balancing between our health, our lives, and our need for analysing historical manuscripts*.

That is why a group of aspiring inventors…invented a DIY set for sword fighting instructors and dedicated HEMA practitioners. The current model, unfortunately, only cover Fiore manuscript dimensions, blatantly discriminating against other, lesser manuscripts. Something that will have to be addressed in the future.

So to give you a brief overview I will have to use an illustration found on the link provided [I took a screenshot. GW]. Keep in mind these are copyrighted, like, seriously, very strict and all.

View post on imgur.com

– Piece no. 1 is a plastic sheet/screen holder which is fixed to your regular book stand by a screw, or, if you’re really going for that authenticity – nails.

– Piece no. 2 is just a leftover part Guy Windsor put there to mess with us. It’s useless.

– Piece no. 3-4 are a disinfectant holder, a stand nailed to a side of the book stand. It holds your standard 2,5L disinfectant/hand sanitizer dispenser/bottle you probably have tons of by now.

– Piece no. 5 is a (cleverly) unfinished mock up hand used for turning the pages, pointing to a play, pushing the dispenser button, scratching the back etc.It needs a metal rod inserted into it, and provided are three rod holders (ideally all three can be combined into a 3m single rod for that extra level of social distancing).

Please forgive me for being a Captain Obvious here, but it had to be done.

Cheers!

*I hope it was obvious enough that this part was just a joke. Stay safe everybody, #StayAtHome, and stay positive (except if you are testing for COVID-19).

This was so clearly what I should have made that I sent him a copy of the book immediately!

In other news, I went on a walk to some woods outside Ipswich at the weekend, and for the first time got to see the bluebells in bloom. Previously, I have been travelling at this time of year, and missed them. 

Aren’t they glorious? 

For user-friendliness I’ve only uploaded a small version of the photo to my blog, but if you’d like the full size images  I've put them in a dropbox folder here. No copyright, do with them as you will.

Oh, you were expecting something to do with swords? Well, I’m working on a couple of things, but couldn’t leave you in suspense over that squares till a moment longer.

Filed Under: Fun

Instinct, shed time, a new book, and a challenge

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In a sword fight there is no time to think. You see, you act. The essence of training is to adjust your instinct so that the instinctive response is also the correct one. I’ve spent decades training my instinct, and  I apply this to literally all parts of my life. I don’t decide what to do when I get up in the morning, and I certainly don’t plan my week/month/year. I do whatever my gut tells me is the right thing, and figure out why afterwards.

I’m spending a lot of time in my shed at the moment. Not to get away from the wife and kids- in fact the best times are when one or other of them join me, and sit in the chair I keep there for the purpose chatting to me while I chisel. Or when my youngest is cutting stuff up on the bandsaw, just for fun. I’ve completed the major project I was working on (a Pilates ladder barrel for my wife), and have spent almost all my time in there since re-organising my tools and making better tool storage solutions, such as this saw till.

Please note, I should probably be doing that sabre video class for the Solo course, but I’m not. I will, but not until my instinct tells me it’s time. I wondered why I was spending so much time out in my shed, and eventually it came to me. This is a period where the normal illusion of control (I can go here, I can do that) has been stripped away. We actually have exactly the same degree of agency we’ve always had, but as good citizens we are deciding to obey the government guidelines and stay home (yes really please do). The environment seems stranger and more hostile than usual, and it makes us feel helpless. So I have been spending my time in an environment I can control, and exerting that control in a clear and obvious way by making things, particularly things that change that environment for the better. This is the linear opposite of stressing about the plague. 

When I figured that out, I thought “good job, brain! nice one” and carried on making this:

Here it is from another angle.

What the hell is that? I hear you ask. Well now…

I don’t know if you have ever written a book. I have, several in fact. And every single one is like being constipated for a year or more, before finally it forces its way painfully out, and you lie spent from the struggle clutching this thing you’ve made. I should probably have written ‘pregnant’ for ’constipated’, but I was present for the birth of my children, and actually, giving birth seems to be orders of magnitude harder than producing a book. 

My latest extrusion is done and dusted, and the hardback pre-orders have been sent out. Hurrah!

In it I take you through all of Fiore's longsword techniques on foot out of armour. Each play is shown with the drawing from the treatise, my transcription and translation of the text that goes with it, my commentary on how it fits into the system and works in practice, and a link to a video of the technique as I interpret it. The book contains a detailed introduction describing Fiore's life and times, and extensive discussion of the contexts in which Fiore's art belongs.

You can get the ebook (in all formats) from my gumroad shop here: https://gum.co/longsword1

It’s available to pre-order from Amazon in any one of their national stores, just search for its ASIN: B08629VNKY

But before you go dashing off to buy it: it’s Fiore sword geekery in the extreme. Please ONLY buy it if you are really into the historical side of historical swordsmanship, and/or you want to know how I think Fiore’s art is put together. This is not a basic introduction to how to hold a sword.

Or you can get the ebook for free… if you can tell me what the object pictured above is for, let me know in the comments, and the first correct answer will get the ebook. Note, that the object is lying on my bench, and may or may not be correctly rotated in the images.

I will also give out a free ebook to the best answer, correct or not!

I will post a picture of the object in service, and the best answer(s) next week.

You have ONE JOB. Some thoughts on how to do it.

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Britain went on lockdown this week, about a month later than it should have done, three weeks later than my parents, and a week after my household. I have some thoughts, as you may imagine. But everyone else on the internet has thoughts too so I won’t blame you if you skip mine. There won’t be a quiz at the end. 

Thought #1: You have ONE JOB. 

Unless you are working on life-critical tasks, like healing the sick or providing food, your ONE JOB is to reduce pressure on the health services. That’s it. You can do this by delaying or preventing getting sick, and avoiding accidents. Staying home, not going shopping unless you are literally running out of food, and being super-careful about washing your hands, is quite possibly the best chance you’ll ever have in your lifetime to actually save lives. 

The problem is that staying home and washing your hands doesn’t feel like doing anything. But it really, really is. Because staying home is hard. It’s not glamorous, and it’s not sexy (though I predict a baby boom in nine months time), and it’s very hard to see the results of your (in)action. Imagine how much easier it would be if you got a message every now and then saying thank-you from a person who will live because you stayed home. It would feel so much more worthwhile. But we just have to trust the data. Human beings respond very well to feedback, but this staying-home business doesn’t provide it. Tough! Do it anyway. This article may help you understand why it’s necessary: https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca

Thought #2: Stay physically healthy. 

This is part of your ONE JOB. This involves exercise, eating healthily, sleeping well, and so on. You know how everyone has panic-bought all the bogroll in the world? Well, if you’re eating right, and squatting to dump (as you should), then you need much less of the stuff! And on the subject of bogroll- half the world doesn’t use it. Literally. There are many other ways to clean your arse. So don’t panic if you run out. 

If you’re stuck for exercise ideas, my solo training course may help. It’s usually $500 (plus tax), but I’ve dropped the price to $20 (plus tax) for the duration of this crisis. You can find it here: https://swordschool.teachable.com/p/solo-training And if you can’t afford the $20, email me and I’ll send you a discount code to get it for free, no questions asked, no judgement. A lot of my friends and students are out of work until we’re out of lockdown, and that $20 is needed for food or other essentials.

Thought #3: Stay mentally healthy. 

This is also part of your ONE JOB. It’s reasonable to be upset, depressed, sad, angry, annoyed, or frightened in the current circumstances. But none of those things are fun, healthy, or helpful so do what you can to avoid them. This has a great deal to do with what you focus on, and your sense of agency. Here are some ideas and examples that may help:

1) Focus on your area of control. You don’t control the epidemic, or the weather. You do control whether you did push-ups today, or how you speak to your housemates. This article on area of control is helpful if this is an unfamiliar concept: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/10/07/how-big-is-your-circle-of-control/

A great tool for becoming better at choosing what you focus on is mindfulness meditation. I’ve written up a super-basic guide here: https://guywindsor.net/2015/12/how-to-start-meditating/

2) Watch out for the cognitive error of grieving for an imaginary future. It’s well established that winning a gold medal at the Olympics feels great (at least at the time), winning bronze feels great (because you got onto the podium). But winning silver usually makes you feel like crap because you’re grieving for the lost gold, not happy about doing better than every other person on earth bar one. This podcast describes the phenomenon in some detail: https://www.happinesslab.fm/season-1-episodes/a-silver-lining

Yes, a lot of people are facing a much worse future than they might have had if this epidemic hadn’t occurred, but being miserable about it won’t change it. And that future would probably never have happened the way they think anyway, because people can’t predict the future. This comes back to focussing on your area of control. 

3) Make Good Art. Neil Gaiman was, and always will be, right on this.

I don’t know what your art is: writing code, painting, baking cookies, it could be anything. And it may well be that it feels like you can’t do your art right now (if your art is the flying trapeze, you can’t do it because all the flying trapeze tents are shut. Or should be.) For laughs, here’s me on a flying trapeze. About as scared as I’ve ever been in my life.

But there are related things you can do, to prepare for when your trapeze tent re-opens. Area of control?

And ideally, whatever it is, share it. Which brings me on to my next thought:

4) Help others. There is nothing more empowering. It can be super-simple. Patrick Stewart, Captain Picard himself, is reading one Shakespeare sonnet per day aloud. I think it’s only on Twitter, but here’s a screenshot:

It’s very interesting to compare this shot-at-home Sir Patrick sat on a sofa in comfortable clothes reading out of a book, to the more polished professionally produced sonnet readings of his you can find on Youtube. To be honest, I actually prefer the homemade version.

Joe Wicks (aka ‘The Body Coach’) is doing a half-hour PE class for primary school kids every morning at 9am UK time. Good man. 

You totally don’t have to be producing content like this. There are a million ways to help people, the most important one right now being STAY HOME.

If you can afford it, it's also a really good idea to continue supporting any creators, local businesses, or other services you'd like to see survive the crisis. There will be massive economic problems created by this epidemic, and unless there is major support from governments (which seems frankly unlikely), thousands of businesses will close because they can't weather a several-month catastrophic drop in income. So think about what you usually spend money on, and see if you can keep sending it to the same place. Of course, if your job is at risk, or you've already lost much of your income as so many have, then this doesn't apply.

So what am I doing? Fair question. I’m STAYING HOME: we took the kids out of school before they closed and went into voluntary lockdown about a week before the government got off its fat arse and acted responsibly. I’m limiting food shopping trips to one a week maximum (food delivery services are overwhelmed here, and so it seems fair to leave delivery slots for those more at risk). It will do us no harm to be out of bread or milk for a few days.  No, we haven’t stock-piled anything- I think that’s antisocial. If you’re the sort of person who always has a year’s food supply in the house, then good for you. Stockpiling in times of plenty is fine, but panic-buying in an emergency when you’re not actually short of food is simply bad behaviour, unworthy of a martial artist.

I’m being careful about doing my breathing exercises, eating healthily and not too much, taking cold showers to boost my immune system, maintaining my relationships (sooo much skype! I even have my phone not-on-silent, which is totally new and bizarre), and I’m working on several projects (hopefully making good art): 

My latest book From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice: the Longsword Techniques of Fiore dei Liberi is going to press this week. Hurrah! It will be released on May 1st, but if you want to support the work you can pre-order the hardback (expected in a few weeks) and get the epub right now here: https://gum.co/longsword It’s not cheap- these limited pre-orders are to raise money to pay my editor and graphic designer. Sales are limited to 75 total. If you’re short on cash, then just wait until general release in May.

I’m starting up an online coaching program. We had the first couple of sessions this week, which has been really useful to find the bugs- the biggest barrier right now is the technology: data transfer speeds not sufficient, sound quality, and so on. I’ll write it up properly later.

I’m also doing a ton of woodwork (I have a blog about that coming- turns out we sword people have a lot in common with our crafty colleagues). I’m currently working on a Pilates ladder barrel for my wife, and making a box for transporting tools for me.

I also helped my 11-year-old daughter make a desk surface to fit under her high-sleeper bed. I did most of the sawing, but she decided the size, shape, and the decoration, which she did entirely herself, including sanding and painting. Good huh?

So, the days are just packed!

One final thought (for now): laugh every day. It’s good for you. This motivating speech from Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon dubbed by Janey Godley is perfection:

 

What to do if the Corona virus keeps you away from your sword class?

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Snapshot from the ‘Stick Conditioning drills' video

Train at home, obviously!

The current situation regarding the corona virus is not unprecedented. Plague has swept various parts of the world regularly since time began. What is new is that we are experiencing this phenomenon with a completely safe and so-far quite reliable way of communicating with each other. I know that many of my Italian friends are stuck in their homes, unable to get out to work, let alone get out to training. The Helsinki branch of my school has suspended classes for the time being. This has never happened before in the 19 year history of the school- indeed, it will be shut on its 19th birthday, March 17th.
I have been wondering what I can do to help my students and friends. Then it struck me that I have an entire online course dedicated to training alone, so if you are stuck at home and want to train anyway, I have a course that will help.
But it’s very expensive- $500, more if you have to pay tax on top. That’s just not affordable to most people, especially those who are currently at risk of losing their jobs because their companies are going out of business.
So I have decided to make the course available for just $20. That’s just enough money that it will make you likely to actually use the course- if it was free, hundreds of people would grab it quick and then never watch the videos or do the training. But it’s at a level where just about anyone who might need it can have it.
If you need it but don’t have twenty dollars, email me and I’ll send you a discount code so you can have it for nothing. No judgement, no questions asked.
If you’re currently sitting comfortably on a pile of cash, then please feel free to pay the regular price, subsidising your less affluent peers. My online courses are my primary income stream, so they literally pay the bills, but this is not a time for making money out of things people need- and I’m pretty sure that a lot of swordspeople need this course right now.

You can find the course here: https://swordschool.teachable.com/p/solo-training

Scroll down to the bottom of the page to find the “Corona Special” option.
Feel free to share this offer with everyone in your sword-circles.
And I mean it about giving it away for free if you need it.
I hope this helps.

From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice

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Producing a book is a marathon, not a sprint, but the finish line for From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice: The Longsword Techniques of Fiore dei Liberi is in sight!

I’m in my study plodding through the first draft of the the laid-out print file. This is simultaneously very exciting (my NEW BOOK! HURRAH!), very nerve wracking (I’ve got to find EVERY error!), and very tedious (I’ve got to go through every page with a fine-tooth comb. For instance, in the bibliography I had the publication year for Domenico Angelo’s School of Fencing wrong. Doh!). This is simultaneously the best and worst part of publishing: the best because you can see that the book is real, not just a thing in your head; the worst because the temptation to rush through the last few hurdles is extreme. 

I have Basil Poledouris’ soundtrack to Conan the Barbarian on repeat coming in through my noise-cancelling headphones. This helps.

Here’s the back cover blurb:

In the late 14th century Fiore dei Liberi, an Italian knightly combat master, wrote a magnificent treatise on the Art of Arms. He called his book Il Fior di Battaglia, the Flower of Battle, and it is one of the greatest martial arts books of all time, describing how to fight on foot and on horseback, in armour and without, with sword, spear, pollax, dagger, or with no weapon at all. Guy Windsor has spent the last 20 years studying Fiore's work and creating a modern practice of historical swordsmanship from it. In this book, Guy takes you through all of Fiore's longsword techniques on foot out of armour. Each technique (or “play”) is shown with the drawing from the treatise, Guy's transcription and translation of the text, his commentary on how it fits into the system and works in practice, and a link to a video of the technique as Guy interprets it. The book contains a detailed introduction describing Fiore's life and times, and extensive discussion of the contexts in which Fiore's art belongs.

This is essential reading for any scholar of the Art of Arms, and will also provide fascinating insight to all martial artists and historians of the medieval and early Renaissance eras.

What do you think?

I don’t have a draft of the cover yet, but my friend Siobhan Richardson is starring in the image above (by Dahlia Katz) for it. I think it looks fantastic, and really tells the story of the book.

Staring at the pages of the new book means that I will soon also be staring at the bills coming in from my editor (Andrew Chapman) and my layout artist (Bek Pickard). Both these fine humans totally deserve to be paid for their work. And of course they will be no matter what – I would never stiff a freelancer.

I used to crowdfund my books through Indiegogo to cover the costs before publication. I don’t do that any more because the platform fees are rather high, and they also tend to hold onto the money for weeks. Instead, for the last couple of books I’ve taken limited pre-orders for the hardback, through my Gumroad account. It’s much more efficient- I get paid at the end of the following week, and the platform fees are way lower. I’ve set it up to allow maximum 75  pre-orders.

If you pre-order the hardback I can’t guarantee that it will be faster than ordering it through your usual bookshop (online or bricks-and-mortar) when it's released, because sometimes the shipping takes forever. But you will get immediate access to a pdf of the current draft (no images, but the video links all work), the ebook version the moment it's ready, and your book will printed and shipped before the book goes into general distribution. 

So, if you would like to order one or more copies of the new book, go here! https://gum.co/longsword

What sparks joy?

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A hundred and four years before Marie Kondo was born, William Morris wrote:

If you want a golden rule that will fit everybody, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.

Which I think is a better rule of thumb than does something ‘spark joy'. Toilet paper doesn't spark joy, but I wouldn't be without it.

They say that money can’t buy happiness, and that’s largely true. But some things never fail to provide a deep sense of satisfaction to me, and I thought I’d share them with you. I’ve linked to where I got mine from, just for your convenience- none of the links are affiliate. And, just because I like them, doesn’t mean you will.

Let’s start with Tombow Mono 100 2B pencils. I mean really, if you haven’t tried them, you don’t know what a pencil can be. They are consistent, tough (I’ve never had a broken lead with them), write or sketch beautifully smoothly. Yes, they are ten times the price of cheap pencils, but they are 100 times better, so a bargain, really. I do use a 2H for some woodworking applications, but I almost always have a 2B somewhere on my person. These paragons of pencilhood I usually sharpen with Möbius and Ruppert brass pencil sharpeners. As with any blade I use, I’ve sharpened mine to improve their performance. Yes, I really do take the blade out and touch them up on the same waterstones I sharpen my chisels with. The brass body makes them more stable than cheaper sharpeners, and while they are good right out of the box, they are excellent with a little extra polish, and you get a beautiful point from them. You may recall I reviewed the book How to Sharpen Pencils and was only half-convinced that it’s meant to be humorous.

My Veritas apron plane so-called because it fits in an apron pocket, and my Starrett combination squares (I especially love the little one). I got these from Lee Valley Tools in Toronto, on a shopping spree with Christian Cameron (who is a pretty good craftsman himself). They appear eye-wateringly expensive, especially the squares, until you realise that they have a useful lifespan measured in generations. I spontaneously shot a video of them (and I never spontaneously video anything!).

My Indiana Jones jacket. My wife bought me this for Christmas, and it’s awesome on every level. Not only is it a really high quality leather jacket, it’s also made to the exact same pattern by the same company that made the jackets for all the Indiana Jones movies. I imprinted on Dr. Jones as a kid, and yes, I do wear proper hats, and am handy with a bullwhip (which you can see behind the jacket on the back of my study door). The hat, by the way, is not a Herbert Johnson Poet at some £300+ as Harrison Ford wore in the movies. It’s a much more reasonably-priced Akubra Adventurer, bought at The Hattery in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains outside Sydney, encouraged by my friend Paul Wagner. The bullwhips (a six-footer and an eight footer) were custom made for me some years ago by the excellent Alex Jacob of Cobra Whips.

What else brings a sense of gleeful satisfaction? Why, sending off a new book to layout. Yes, from the chrysalis of the Fiore Translation Project series of blog posts has emerged From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice: The Longsword Techniques of Fiore dei Liberi. It’s a bit late because I re-wrote a big chunk of the introduction, adding more historical background, lots of book recommendations, and thoughts on how to approach the manuscripts. 

The current back-cover blurb reads like so:

Once upon a time there was an Italian sword master called Fiore, and he wrote a really good book. Guy has read his book, translated it, commented on it, and videoed all the cool longsword stuff. Awesome, huh? You should definitely buy it.

Not bad for a first draft, wouldn’t you agree? But perhaps it needs a tweak here and there.

I celebrated this milestone by going to classichandtools.com who happen to be based in Ipswich! Literally a few miles away from my house! Which I discovered last week when browsing their site, and noticed their phone number area code. I picked up one or two entirely essential items. Which also, dare I say it, spark joy, and which I might write up when I’ve had them in use for long enough to fully appreciate their qualities.

Oh all right then. Here's a pair of Simon James holdfasts I got yesterday holding an awkward bit of Pilates equipment-in-embryo tight to the bench.

So, what do you find both beautiful and useful?