Guy Windsor

Consulting Swordsman. Writer.

  • Books
  • Training
    • Learn Online!
    • The School
    • Seminars
  • Games
  • Blog
  • Resources
    • Video
    • Audio
    • Sources
    • Errata
  • About
  • Contact
  • T-Shirts!

What happens when you listen to your readers? Eleven five star reviews!

April 13, 2018 by Guy Windsor Leave a Comment

“This should be the core book in every HEMA practitioner’s library”

Comments like this are what authors live for. My new book The Theory and Practice of Historical Martial Arts has picked up eleven five star reviews on Amazon.com in its first week in the wild. I couldn’t be happier. The reviews come from beginners and highly experienced practitioners, which suggests that the book does what I designed it to do: to encapsulate my experience for the benefit of the entire community.

Here are some of the reviews:

“Guy is one of the best authors writing about martial arts today. He offers a unique blend of knowledge and experience, always with an emphasis on safety. Guy really sets the standard for realizing historical training manuals, but in this book, he presents the reader with a broad based primer historical European martial arts. A great book and a good read.” — James Sanderson

“Though focused on historical European sword fighting this book is an excellent handbook on learning any martial art. As a four decade student of martial arts I especially appreciated his section on developing your own drills and his constant emphasis on safety. In short a guy who knows his stuff (Couldn’t resist.) I purchased a pre-release copy that’s how I can review a book that came out yesterday.”– “Rocky”

“This is a great introduction for anyone interested in getting into learning historical martial arts. Guy has many other excellent books covering various specific historical masters or weapon systems, but this book explains the thinking and process involved in recreating any historical martial art from historical sources. Guy covers topics such as how to read and interpret historical source material, how to construct a core drill, organize a practice group or teach a class as well as principles for monitoring your own skill level and determining what to focus on to improve.” — David Tehan

“Once again Guy has written an excellent book on Historical Martial Arts. This one distils his 20+ years in studying historical texts and applying them using today’s training methods, to provide beginners and more advanced students alike with the skills they need to take a manuscript, interpret it and develop and deliver a training course on it. I’ve been lucky enough to train with Guy at several workshops he’s run and this book feels like I am back in one of his classes, put now I’m getting the expanded and in-depth theory as well as the practice. Well worth the read for anyone into historical martial arts or those who want to improve their training in any discipline.”– “SLW”

“This is the book I wish I had when I started my journey into historical martial arts three decades ago. With the exploding popularity of the subject, we’re seeing an abundance of translations and interpretations of the source material, but very few core sources on how to actually go about using them effectively. This book organizes these elements into a foundation for a personal practice, a study group, a school, or beyond. As an experienced practitioner, it’s helped me reset my priorities and add depth to my practice. If you’re new to the field, all I can say is start here.” — Eric Mauer

I could go on, but you can find them all here. I’d like to thank everyone who took the time to review the book; it’s a major help, and it feels fantastic to know how much you liked it. Perhaps the most useful question is how did I do it? The answer is simple. When I had the first draft finished, I sent it out to a hundred beta readers, and asked for feedback. Most people have no experience in delivering useful feedback to a writer. “I liked it”, or “I didn’t like it” are interesting, but not actionable. To help get the best, most detailed feedback, I created a form they could fill in to tell me what was good, what was bad, and what was missing. You can see the form here if you’re interested in the specific questions I asked.

Then, when the feedback came in, I did what they asked me to do. The biggest single change was I greatly expanded the chapter on tournaments. So it’s no wonder that these good people like the book: people just like them had a hand in creating it (and indeed some of the reviewers were also beta readers).

In other words, I asked the readers how to improve it, and then (and this is the difficult bit, and the most important by a million miles): I paid attention to their criticisms. Asking is easy, but actually listening when somebody tells you that something you’ve been slaving over for months or years actually needs quite a lot more work is hard. But the results speak for themselves.

 

 

Get your free 70 page sample here!

9789527157299 perfect

Success! Now check your email to confirm your subscription.

There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.

We won't send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time. Powered by ConvertKit
(Visited 236 times, 1 visits today)

Share this:

  • Google
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • Reddit
  • Telegram
  • More
  • Pocket
  • Skype
  • WhatsApp
  • Print
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn

Filed Under: Books and Writing

I'm sure you have an opinion: do share! Cancel reply

Most Popular Posts

  • How I lost 10kg (22lb) in three weeks without effort…
  • The Princess Bride: how does Thibault cancel out Capoferro?
  • This belongs to you. Fabris’s Sienza…
  • Fascists are poisoning HEMA. Here’s one small…
  • A swordsman’s thoughts on some Game of Thrones fights
  • Size Matters: how long should your rapier be?
  • How to start a HEMA club: 3 principles and 7 steps.

Sample video

A sample class, on the Famous Farfalla!

Recent Posts

  • What happens when you listen to your readers? Eleven five star reviews!
  • Health matters
  • The Theory and Practice of Historical Martial Arts
  • Recovering from injury: six useful ideas
  • The problem of wrestling in a weapons art

Archives

  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012

© 2015 Guy Windsor

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.