Guy's Blog

Guy frequently keeps this blog updated with thoughts, challenges, interviews and more!

Category: Learning Swordsmanship

Jessica Finley throwing Guy Windsor with a twirchringen from Von Baumann. Medieval german wrestling for the win!

Medieval German Wrestling Course: the Twirchringen of the Von Baumann manuscript

The long-awaited Medieval German Wrestling course from Jessica Finley is finally ready!

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.

This comprehensive course delves into the fascinating world of medieval German wrestling, exploring the seven Twirchringen (cross-wrestling) plays from the 15th-century Von Baumann manuscript. You’ll learn the core techniques, their counters, and the counter-counters that make this selection of techniques such a useful mini-system.

This course is ideal for:

•Beginners looking for an accessible introduction to medieval wrestling.

•Practitioners of German or Italian medieval martial arts seeking to expand their knowledge of unarmed combat.

•Anyone with an interest in historical martial arts and the rich traditions of medieval combat.

Course Structure:

  1. Introduction: Course overview, safety briefing, and academic materials (transcription and translation of the Von Baumann manuscript).
  2. First Twirchringen: The first play, its counter, and the counter to the counter.
  3. Second Twirchringen: The second play, its counter, and the counter to the counter.
  4. Third Twirchringen: The third play, its counter, and the counter to the counter.
  5. Fourth Twirchringen: The fourth play, its counter, and the counter to the counter.
  6. Fifth Twirchringen: The fifth play, its counter, and the counter to the counter.
  7. Sixth Twirchringen: The sixth play, its counter, and the counter to the counter.
  8. Seventh Twirchringen: The seventh play, its counter, and the counter to the counter.
  9. Connecting the Plays: Techniques for setting up the plays, and ways to link them together for fluid combat.

You can check out the entire first section for free on the sales page here.

Please do share that link wherever you like, and with any friends you have who you think might be interested. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

The 40% discount ends on February 9th at midnight.

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, drop me an email and I'll send it to you.


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    Guy with three Mexican students, all with thought bubbles. Mexico City 2024

    7 Countries. 4 Continents. 6 books. Two online courses. And one really good idea (I think).

    It’s kind of absurd to summarise an entire year in a single blog post, especially such a busy and yet somehow still productive year as the last 12 months have been, but I need to get a handle on what my actual choices were. It’s all very well to say you prioritise x or emphasise y, but looking back you may well find that you actually prioritised z.

    It seems that this year I’ve prioritised pushing books out the door (sometimes faster than they should be), and travelling as much as I can handle. Leaving aside family travel (such as starting the year on holiday in Italy with my wife and kids, taking my wife to Porto for a weekend, and the whole family to Spain for a summer holiday, and visiting my mum in Scotland (which is a whole other country)), in 2024 I went to:

    • Helsinki, in February and again in May, teaching seminars for the Gladiolus School of Arms (which I’ll be doing again in mid-January 2025)
    • Singapore in April, to teach seminars for PHEMAS
    • Wellington, New Zealand, in April, to teach a seminar for a friend’s club (I segued through Melbourne on my way home to catch up with friends)
    • The USA: Lawrence, Kansas to shoot video with Jessica Finley, Madison Wisconsin to teach a couple of seminars, and Minneapolis likewise
    • Potsdam, Germany, for Swords of the Renaissance
    • Mexico City for the Panoplia Iberica, and then Queretaro for a smaller event.

    That’s a total of 73 nights away from home for work trips. Damn. I’ve loved it, and will be doing some travelling in 2025, but both my daughters have major exams coming up in June (A-levels for one, GCSEs for the other), so I need to be home for much of at least the first half of the year.

    Publishing

    In January 2024 I published From Your Head to Their Hands: how to write, publish, and market training manuals for historical martial artists. Perhaps the nichiest book I’ve ever written, but it was there in my head in between editing drafts of the wrestling book (see below), so I got it out of my head and into your hands. See what I did there?

    In March I published the long-awaited and technically “first” volume in the From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice series: The Wrestling Techniques of Fiore dei Liberi. Only 4 years after what will become the third volume (The Longsword Techniques of Fiore dei Liberi). It took me that long because the pandemic stopped me from going to Kansas to shoot the supporting video material with Jessica Finley. Well, that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. It was also just bloody hard to write.

    The second volume (on the Dagger Techniques of Fiore dei Liberi) should be out in early 2025, and at that point I’ll re-cover the Wrestling and Longsword volumes and make them look and behave more like a book series.

    Proof if ever you needed it that there’s no need to do things in order.

    In August I published Get Them Moving: How to Teach Historical Martial Arts. This is another super-nichey book. I’m not aiming at the mass market here, just clearing things out of my head so I can get on with other things. Books do that: they simply insist on being written and published, and won’t let me alone until I’ve got them out the door.

    I also managed to edit all the new material for my Medieval Dagger Course, which I had shot in Kansas. I also have a bunch of longsword material to publish, and an entire course on German Medieval Wrestling (Jessica Finley’s work).

    In September I published the celebratory 20th Anniversary edition of my first book, The Swordsman’s Companion, and I’ve made the ebook free on all platforms. The book is hopelessly out of date as regards interpretation, but it’s an interesting window into the state of the art as it was in 2004. And it got a lot of people into historical martial arts.

    In November we published the magnificent facsimile of the Getty manuscript, with my complete translation. Unfortunately that ran into some bizarre technical problems after the first 50 or so orders had come through, so at the time of writing we are fixing the problem and reprinting the books. I also created a companion volume which includes the complete transcription as well; it’s not intended as a standalone, but it is finished and has been sent out to all the buyers of the facsimile, so I guess that counts as two more books, taking the year’s total to a somewhat absurd 6. If you consider that my first book came out 20 years ago, and in that time I’ve written and published about 18 books: a full third of them in this year alone.

    Of course, publishing comes after writing, and a lot of this year’s output were mostly or at least partly written over the last few years; they just happened to be ready all at once.

    My podcast The Sword Guy hit 200 episodes in December 2024, and I’ve decided to pause a while to think about what I want to do for the next 20, 50, or 100 episodes.

    Business stuff

    I had two main goals for 2024: to figure out how to open up my platform to other instructors, and to create partnerships with other businesses serving the HMA community. I’ve made progress on both those fronts.

    Esko Ronimus’s course “Introduction to Bolognese Swordsmanship” went live on courses.swordschool.com in October this year. This is different to the collaborations I’ve done before (such as Jessica Finley’s Medieval Wrestling course) because I was not directly involved in creating it. I didn’t direct the shoot, edit the video, or take part in the production in any way. I just provided a platform to host it on, and some advice on structuring the course and marketing it. So far both Esko and I are happy with the results, and I’m open to requests from other instructors…

    If you’ve bought a sword from Malleus Martialis in the past year you may well have got a discount code for one or other of my online courses, or a code to get one of my ebooks for free. This kind of thing is good for Malleus (they can offer more to their customers at no cost to themselves, and make an affiliate fee on any course sales), good for the customer (they get free or discounted stuff they are likely to be interested in), and me (I get some of the course sales money, and someone who may not know my work becomes familiar with it, and may go and buy a bunch more of my books). So if you’re in the business, and want to set something up, let me know.

    Research stuff

    This year there has been one significant change to my interpretation of Fiore’s Armizare: the three turns of the sword. This doesn’t change much about how we actually do things, but it affects the underlying theory behind the art, and solves a mystery that has been plaguing us for decades. Full credit to Dario Alberto Magnani. You can listen to the entire conversation here.

    It also meant updating my translation of the Flower of Battle: I deleted one word. A very critical word. “Also”. Yes, it makes a difference.

    Plans for 2025

    I came back from Mexico with one clear vision of a problem to solve. Namely, I travel about a lot giving seminars, and so I get to see a lot of students, but only every now and then, and many of them I’ll never see again. This is unsatisfying. I don’t get to see the long-term effects of the things they have learned from me. I don’t get to see them develop over time. Of course there is some continuity, especially when I go back to teach at clubs regularly, but it’s not ideal for either me or the students.

    So what to do about it? The thing that blows the students’ minds most consistently are insights into swordsmanship mechanics. Ask Leon in Mexico or Rigel in Singapore about the rapier guard quarta, and how stringering works. The look of utter startlement on students’ faces when they get it is the absolute best thing. I’m thinking about creating an online course that goes into the absolute fundamentals (ie the most important but least flashy) of how sword mechanics work, and making it free: but required for anyone signing up to one of my seminars when I travel. This will let me cover a lot more stuff in the class itself, and prepare them better to actually make use of the insights. And it will hopefully bring them more into my orbit, make them more likely to show up on swordpeople.com with good questions, more likely to come to the next seminar, etc.

    I also want to create an online course on Vadi’s longsword (might as well shoot my interpretation of the entire manuscript while we’re at it), publish the dagger volume of From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice, maybe shoot the video for the armoured combat and/or mounted combat volumes, and finish The Armizare Workbook Part Two (which has been more than half written for over a year… but is still stuck in hard-drive purgatory). Part One came out in 2022, and I meant to get Part Two out in mid ’23. Oh well.

    I’m planning to make all of the supporting video for From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice (so, clips of every play from Folio 1 to Folio 31v of the Getty ms) free online. They are currently only visible through the links in the books. But making them open to all should help my fellow scholars, and also provide advertising for the books. Another win-win.

    The key thing to remember here is that planning is vital but plans are useless. There is no way to predict the future, and all sorts of things might get in the way of any or all of my intentions for the year. But having a think about what I want to accomplish, and why, makes it much more likely that I’ll be able to look back on 2025 with some degree of satisfaction. Let’s see what actually happens…


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      It’s an exiting time this week. We have a brand-new book out today, and, as it’s my birthday on Saturday (I'll be 51), we’re also running a birthday sale on all ebooksaudiobooks, and online courses. Hurrah! Just use the code GUYSBIRTHDAY30 to get 30% off at checkout (code is valid for all digital products- not print books or t-shirts).

      First up, the new book:

       

      I have completed my translation of Fiore’s Il Fior di Battaglia, as found in the Getty manuscript. You may recall I produced an affordable facsimile of the Getty a few years ago. Well, we’ve now produced an updated version, that reproduces the Getty manuscript in its entirety, in full colour, and as close as possible to the size of the original. But there’s a twist:

      The second half of this volume is a second reproduction of the manuscript with the original Italian text replaced by my English translation. This recreates the experience of reading the original Italian as closely as possible. The book also includes an introduction to Fiore and his life and times, the provenance of the manuscript, and suggestions for further study.

      This way, you get the original, and the translation, in one volume… for the same price as the original facsimile-only edition. Because we can. And it’s my birthday.

      The excellent Katie Mackenzie has done a gorgeous job on the cover and layout:

      A page from the translation laid out on the facsimile
      Sample page from part 2

      The translation section includes tags on the pages so you can find the section you want from the page edges. You can find it here:

      Glorious Getty!

      I don’t know if the book will get to you in time for Christmas- much depends on how busy the printer is, and the shipping options you select at checkout. But we’ve done our best to get it out fast enough that there’s a fair chance…

      You can also get an audiobook of me reading my translation (remember to use your discount code!) here.

      This birthday sale will end on Tuesday December 3rd, so timing is everything…

      The code: GUYSBIRTHDAY30

      Ebooks and audiobooks: https://swordschool.shop

      Courses: https://courses.swordschool.com


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        This is supposed to be a review of the Panoplía Iberoamericana, which I attended over the weekend, teaching several workshops. The event was excellent, a complete delight to attend and teach at. But my hosts here have gone the extra thousand miles to show me the best of their city and culture, and the only way I can think to keep things straight is to just take it in order.

        I’ll skip over the food entirely, because it deserves and will get its own separate post. Let me just say that Mexican food outside Mexico can be fabulous, but the sheer breadth of dishes that I’d never even heard of but which blew me away makes me think that I don’t know Mexican food at all. Pozole. Chile en Nogado. Tetelas de Chapolines. And on and on.

        I’m writing this in a slight lull in what has been a whirlwind few days. I arrived in Mexico City last Wednesday night, and spent Thursday visiting (after a breakfast of enmoladas, oh my goddess) an extraordinary presidential private collection of guns and other weapons (no photos allowed), and the utterly stupendous Anthropological Museum. I had no idea of the complexity of pre-conquista Mexican cultures. We think of the Aztecs and the Mayans, but honestly that’s like tacos and burritos. The most famous of a very broad range. It would take a week or more to properly absorb this museum, so I’ll stick with two highlights.

        The stunning Sun Stone:

        This thing is huge- so big that you could put it on the ground and have a sword fight on it. Which is apparently what it was used for! Sacrificial gladiatorial combat. It’s so much a part of Mexican identity that it’s on the 10 peso coin.

        And I had no idea about the Codices of the Mixtec people (or even that the Mixtecs themselves existed). These are folded-up parchment documents that have a kind of pictographic writing on them. Sadly no fighting manuals, but a written record of aspects of their culture.

        one of the Mixtec codices

        The Panoplía Itself

        The Panoplia began on Friday, and I did my usual thing of talking to lots of people, working with anyone who asked on whatever they were interested in, signing a lot of books (hurrah!), and I also led a discussion on balancing academic rigour with fencing skill. In other words, balancing knowledge, and skill development. It’s something I think every historical fencer should think about, and decide for themselves where they want to focus. There is room in the Art for pure academics, and pure competitive fencers. And pure “train to win real swordfights”. Most of us lie somewhere in the middle.

        Saturday began for me with an impromptu bit of smallsword with Neuro, Arturo, and Leon. It started with me showing them some stuff from Angelo, and ended with a very friendly bit of light fencing. Which set me up perfectly for my longsword mechanics class. It was rather full (about double the signed-up students actually attended). My goal with mechanics classes is to get everyone moving better than they were before, and to generate at least one significant ‘aha!’ moment. I think we managed it. (I’m still waiting for the class photos- if you took one, please send it to me!)

        After lunch (oh my goddess) I had my Capoferro rapier mechanics class, which was a bit smaller, and started with everyone present, so it was easier to build the experience for the students. I saw many, many, eyes flashing wide as something tiny and apparently trivial made all the difference in how the sword functioned. It was extremely satisfying!

        This was followed by the official event party, which was held in the Hacienda de Cortes.

        I mean, really.

        I was a bit of a party pooper, going home at about 1.30am. And on Sunday morning my hosts and I were (we thought) a bit early getting to the event. It was the free-fencing not-tournament process that the event’s godfather Pedro Velasco uses (which you may recall from the Panoplia Iberica, in December 2023). But it turns out that after an evening of Mezcal, beer, wine (thanks again, Carlos!) these folk were hard at it in the sunshine:

        Personally, I needed a bit of maintenance so I found a quiet shady spot and did some physio, stretching, breathing form, and push-ups. I then got chatting to a group lead by one of the instructors (Gaute Raigorodsky) about Fiore mechanics. At one point I said ‘get some swords, let’s try it’ which inevitably lead to an hour or so of mechanics training in another shady spot. You can go much deeper with a small group that already know the basics.

        And then the Panoplía was over… except for the after-party. Oh my god, the Mezcal!

        Post-Panoplía “recovery”

        Monday started nice and slow with my lovely hosts Elena and Eduardo taking me to breakfast (which alone deserves a post of its own). Here we are: nice to know that I’m not the only hat wearer! My Mexican sun hat was a gift from my hosts.

        (my very witty t-shirt is by the excellent Stephan Eichelmann).

        After which we went to find the elusive Axolotl in the extraordinary lagoons of Xochimilco.

        the lagoons of Xochimilco- jungly venice

        And we did!

        the axolotl

        Then on Tuesday it was off to see one of the wonders of the world: the pyramids of Teotihuacan. Words fail me.

        the sun pyramid at Teotihuacan, with Guy Windsor in the foreground

        I rounded off Tuesday evening by teaching a Fiore mechanics class for Jorge Chavez and Eduardo Mayeya's club Arthenea. It was rather off-the-cuff: we decided to do it in the car on the way to the pyramids. But I think it was well received.

        The organisers of the event (in no particular order), Jorge Chavez, Ana Tavera, Eduardo Mayeya, and Pedro Velasco have done an amazing job putting together the first (and I really hope not the last) of the Mexican edition of the Panoplía, and an even better job of looking after their guests. What a place. What people. Oh my. Muchisimas gracias a todos!

        And a final note: if you have photos of my classes from the event, please send them to me to incorporate into this post. Thanks!


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          At the end of June I went to Kansas… and came back with footage of a whole lot of my interpretation of Fiore’s Il Fior di Battaglia, including all 73 plays of the dagger, and 7 new clips on Fiore’s footwork. These are now available with the re-edited and re-released Medieval Dagger Course.

          Dagger Course Info

          For the next ten days, you can get 40% off with this link: Click here for Dagger Course

          Or use the code DAGGERLAUNCH2024 at checkout. Feel free to share the link, the code, and this post with your friends.

          If you already own the old course you can get the new one for just $70 with a different link, please drop me an email and I'll send it to you. I tried to do that with a bulk email a while ago, and a) most people didn't get it and b) the link stopped working.

          Fiore’s dagger plays comprise by far the largest single section of the manuscript, so there is a lot of new material, all organised according to where you’ll find it in the treatise. I’ve also included all the plays that include a dagger in any form, so, the defence of the dagger against the sword, the defence of the sword in the scabbard against the dagger, and even the dagger and the staff defending against a spear.

          Veterans of my mailing list will know that when launching a new course, I have to send out a bunch of emails. I will try to make every email worth your time, whether you buy the course or not. To do that I’ll include a link to a piece of the course content, like the one with me throwing stuff at Jessica’s head that I shared last week. For now, the following sections of the course are already free to preview on the sales page:

          • Falling
          • Dagger Handling and Basic Strikes
          • The Nine Masters
          • First Master plays 1 and 2: disarm and counter

          This way you can get the idea whether the course is for you, or not.


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            Learn to teach historical martial arts!

            My new book, Get Them Moving: how to teach historical martial arts is now available at the swordschool shop. It will go live on other platforms (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc etc.) in a few months, but you can get it now: Click here to Get Them Moving


            Guy_Windsor_book_Get_Them_Moving

            Here's the blurb:


            In ​Get Them Moving I’ve distilled over twenty years of teaching experience into a comprehensive guide that’s as practical as it is motivational. Whether you’re stepping into the salle as an instructor for the first time or you’ve been teaching students for years, this book offers clear and actionable guidelines to improve outcomes for your students.

            From constructing effective lesson plans to overcoming the hurdle of imposter syndrome, I’ve laid out strategies and insights to elevate your teaching craft. Learn how to engage beginners with effective drills, run advanced classes, and how to incorporate the historical sources into your teaching.
            This isn’t just a manual; it’s a mentorship in book form, designed to accompany you as you forge the next generation of martial artists.
            Ready to transform your practice into impactful teaching? Let’s begin.

            Here's a thought- you could get a copy for your historical fencing instructor… if they will take it as a friendly gesture, not a critique of their current skills!


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              Join me in Madison, Wisconsin, July 6th and 7th, to work on your freeplay skills!
              The theme is “improve your fencing”: we will cover a systematic approach to improving your fencing/freeplay/sparring skills with the rapier (Saturday) and longsword (Sunday), regardless of what fencing style you currently study. We will start by establishing safety guidelines, then gradually introduce complexity to simple drills, and learn to create the optimal environment for you to improve your skills.
              Beginners are welcome: you won’t be thrown in the deep end.
              It’s worth coming to both days, because the challenges are different for each weapon (controlling the impact of a lunge is mechanically very different to controlling the impact of a longsword cut, for example). While the overall approach is the same, the specific exercises and applications are different.
              We will include exercises and approaches for:
              1. developing your fencing memory, so you can recreate what just happened, and learn from it.
              2. using freeplay/sparring for technical and tactical development
              3. setting up modified freeplay to allow you to focus on the things you personally need to work on
              4. competitive fencing: how to use it to develop, and how to get better at it.
              5. equipment: what equipment you need, and what the pros and cons are of full-kit freeplay versus using less protection.
              6. communicating goals and boundaries with training partners you don’t know.

              Minimum equipment: blunt training sword, mask.

              Ideally, have full freeplay gear: mask, gorget, elbow and knee pads, gauntlets, chest protection (jacket, plastron, padding etc.).

              Location: The Goodman Centre: 214 Waubesa St Madison, WI 53704

              Time: hall open at 10.30, start at 11.00, finish at 17.00 both days.

              Cost: $85 for one day, $160 for both days.


              Sign up for email updates from Guy and get your free Sword-Person's Care Package

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                I’m delighted to let you know that From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice: the Wrestling Techniques of Fiore dei Liberi is now out on the Swordschool shop! For the next week only, you can get 10% off the hardback, paperback, and ebook here. Use the code wrestle10 at checkout to apply the discount.

                This book is the academic basis of my interpretation of Fiore’s wrestling plays, following the format I pioneered in the first book to come out in this series, From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice: the Longsword Techniques of Fiore dei Liberi.

                I start at the very beginning, and provide a transcription and translation of the full introduction from the Getty Manuscript, then for each play, I provide the drawing from the manuscript, transcribe the text, translate it, and interpret it, with a video clip of the action in practise. The book also includes an essay by Jessica Finley comparing the Italian wrestling with German medieval wrestling, and a bonus section where I transcribe and translate the wrestling plays from the mounted combat section.

                The book provides the “what” and “why” of Fiore’s wrestling plays. For instruction in how to train Fiore’s wrestling, you will need my online course which I created with Jessica Finley, so I have also discounted that by 45%, here.

                These discounts expire on March 14th.


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                  Fiore dei Liberi's text on footwork and the voltas

                  For an academic, it is the best feeling in the world when the ground you have built a mansion on starts to tremble. (Less so for an architect, I’d imagine.) I had that experience on my recent trip to the Panoplia Iberica where I finally met Dario Magnani in person. He runs the THOKK gloves enterprise, and is a keen Fiore scholar. We talked for literally hours about the most minute details of our interpretations, starting with his take on the famous “three turns of the sword”. It was so much fun I got him onto my podcast to revisit the topic, which you can hear here:

                  I’ll go through the passage first, then describe my current interpretation of it, then his take on the same text, and then sum up. We’re talking about folio 22 recto from the Getty manuscript. I’ll quote the transcription, translation, and interpretation from pages 116-117 of From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice: The Longsword Techniques of Fiore dei Liberi.

                  What does Fiore dei Liberi say?

                  The text reads:

                  Noy semo doi guardie, una si fatta che l’altra, e una e contraria de l’altra. E zaschuna altra guardia in l’arte una simile de l’altra sie contrario, salvo le guardie che stano in punta, zoe, posta lunga e breve e meza porta di ferro che punta per punta la piu lunga fa offesa inanci. E zoe che po far una po far l’altra. E zaschuna guardia po fare volta stabile e meza volta. Volta stabile sie che stando fermo po zugar denanci e di dredo de una parte. Meza volta si e quando uno fa un passo o inanzi o indredo, e chossi po zugare de l’altra parte de inanzi e di dredo. Tutta volta sie quando uno va intorno uno pe cum l’altro pe, l’uno staga fermo e l’altro lo circundi. E perzo digo che la spada si ha tre movimenti, zoe volta stabile, meza volta, e tutta volta. E queste guardie sono chiamate l’una e l’altra posta di donna. Anchora sono iv cose in l’arte, zoe passare, tornare, acressere, e discressere.

                  We are two guards, one made like the other, and one is counter to the other. And [with] every other guard in the art one like the other is the counter, except for the guards that stand with the point [in the centre], thus, long guard and short, and middle iron door, that thrust against thrust the longer will strike first. And thus what one can do the other can do. And every guard can do the stable turn and the half turn. The stable turn is when, standing still, you can play in front and behind on one side. The half turn is when one makes a pass forwards or backwards, and thus can play on the other side, in front and behind. The whole turn is when one goes around one foot with the other foot, the one staying still and the other going around. And so I say that the sword has three movements, thus stable turn, half turn, and full turn. And these guards are called, one and the other, the woman’s guard. Also there are four things in the art, thus: pass, return, advance, and retreat.

                  What do Fiore's words mean?

                  Let me unpack this:

                  1. The two guards shown are both posta di donna. One is shown forward weighted, the other back weighted. I interpret the difference between them to be a volta stabile (more on that later).

                  2. Any two guards that are alike can counter each other.

                  3. Except for guards that have the point in the centre line (longa, breve, and mezana porta di ferro; more on those in the next section). This is because the longer sword will strike first. Here I’m translating punta as point (stano in punta, stand with the point), and thrust (punta per punta, thrust against thrust). The meaning is obvious whichever way you translate it though: don’t stand with your point in line against someone else who has their point in line unless you have the longer sword.

                  4. Any similar guards can do what the guards they are like can do.

                  5. Every guard can do the volta stabile and the meza volta. (I use the Italian terms for technical actions, guards, etc. where possible. Refer to the glossary [link] if you need it.)

                  6. The volta stabile: I interpret stando fermo, standing still, to mean without stepping, or moving a foot. As I do the volta stabile, the balls of my feet stay on the same spot on the ground. It makes no sense for a turning action to involve no movement at all, so standing still cannot mean literally ‘not moving’.

                  7. The meza volta: this is a passing action, forwards or backwards. I interpret that to include a turn of the hips and body, so you go from one side to the other.

                  8. The tutta volta: here again we have a ‘fixed’ foot, that, unless your legs are made of swivel-joints (top tip: they’re not), must at least turn around itself for the action to occur. This supports my reading of stando fermo above. Simply, this is whenever you pivot on one foot by turning the other one around it. There is a video of me doing these three movements linked to further on in this chapter.

                  9. The sword also has three movements: stable turn, half turn, and full turn. Unfortunately there is no further discussion of this, and these terms simply aren’t used in the rest of the book. Fiore will tell us to ‘turn the sword’, for instance in the play of the punta falsa, on f27v, but never with the qualifiers stable half or full. So I simply do not use these terms to apply to sword actions. Other instructors and interpreters do, but you should be aware that there is no evidence supporting any one interpretation of these turns over another.

                  10. In case you missed it the first time: both these guards are posta di donna. Both of them. Got that?

                  11. There are four things in the art: pass, return, advance and retreat. See the video: three turns, four steps: https://guywindsor.net/lgg01

                  Okay, so that’s the current state of affairs, and it accords with what most Fiore scholars I know think of the three turns.

                  Dario’s reading is different though. In essence, he thinks that the volte Fiore is describing here are specifically the turns of the sword. Or better, the movements of the sword.

                  In other words: a volta stabile is what you can do moving the sword forwards and backwards while standing still. For example, thrust from breve to longa without stepping at all.

                  A meza volta is what you do with the sword when passing forwards or backwards, and the sword goes from one side of the body to the other. This could be a blow, or just changing guard.

                  A tuta volta is what you do with the sword while turning one foot around the other.

                  This makes sense for the following reasons:

                  1. Why would footwork come between the sword in one hand and the sword in two hands? Surely if this was meant to be a purely footwork description, it would be earlier in the manuscript.

                  2. The volta stabile as we do it as a footwork action cannot reasonably be described as ‘standing still’. It took some wrangling to get it to apparently mean that (as you can see in points 6 and 8 above).

                  3. The line “And so I say that the sword also has three movements, thus stable turn, half turn, and full turn” can be read as a summary of the preceding sentences, not an application of footwork actions to the sword. The “also” there doesn’t come from “anchora”, it’s more pleonastic: it comes from E perzo digo che la spada si ha tre movimenti, zoe volta stabile, meza volta, e tutta volta. That bit “la spada si ha” literally means “the sword it has”. There’s really no “also” in that sentence, thought I’m not alone in inserting one: Leoni translates it as “the sword also has” (Leoni and Mele, Flowers of Battle vol. 1 page 252). Drop the questionable “also”, and the sentence reads as a summarising of the preceding three turns as turns of the sword.

                  4. Volta has many meanings and shades of meaning. You can find literally dozens of meanings for it on pages 1000-1002 of Battaglia’s dictionary, online here: https://www.gdli.it/sala-lettura/vol-xxi/21 Dario’s contention is that these actions don’t have to be read as specifically turning actions (which allows for a simple thrust from breve to longa to be a ‘volta’). To be honest, that’s the hardest part of this for me- I haven’t found a solid linguistic reference to justify a non-circular interpretation of the word, though the expression “dai volta”, lit. ‘give turn’, means “get a move on”.

                  It is very convenient to translate words that may have many meanings into simple, specific, and concrete technical actions. The volta stabile then gets to be one simple thing, easy to explain and teach, rather than a class of things (what you do with the sword while standing still). But this can be a false sanctuary. Likewise with the final sentence of this troublesome passage: “Anchora sono iv cose in l’arte, zoe passare, tornare, acressere, e discressere. Also there are four things in the art, thus: pass, return, advance, and retreat.”

                  These have long been interpreted by me and just about everyone else as passing forwards, passing backwards, stepping forwards, stepping backwards.

                  We know from the definition of the meza volta that ‘passare’ means to pass forwards or backwards. What is ‘tornare’ then? It means return, and when we see it in action, such as in the defence of the dagger against the sword thrust on f19r, “Lo pe dritto cum rebatter in dredo lu faro tornare”, it isn’t a pass at all: it’s the withdrawal of the front foot (see From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice pages 44-47 for the transcription, translation, and video).

                  Likewise the discrescere that we find on f26r when we slip the leg against a sword cut; it’s not a step backwards; your back foot doesn’t move.

                  So our neat classification of footwork actions starts to fail.

                  So is this passage, the beginning of the sword in two hands section, all about how the sword moves? That would not be a stretch. And for sure the volta stabile is not a great big movement of the body. I’ve started calling that movement (which is still a fundamental part of the art) a “volta stabile of the body”.

                  I’m not sure where I stand on all this yet. I’m convinced of one thing though: it’s past time to return to the assumptions that I have based my interpretations on and work through them with ever-closer attention to the text.

                  And if you listen to the podcast episode, you'll hear the moment when I'm convinced that the “also” has to go!


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                    German longsword

                    In July I flew to Kansas to shoot video with Jessica Finley. I originally intended to just get the material for my medieval Italian wrestling course, but when I saw this amazing mural on Jessica's salle wall, I was hit by a really good idea- why not use this memory-tree of Liechtenauer's 12 hauptstucke (“chief pieces of the art”) as a course plan?

                    12 hauptstucke mural

                    Jessica is one of my oldest sword friends, and a highly respected colleague. We first met at a Western Martial Arts workshop event in about 2007. She was my first choice for a podcast guest (and has been back on the show twice since then). She started out as Christian Tobler’s student, and used the training he gave her to develop her own areas of expertise, notably in medieval German wrestling. She wrote the book Medieval Wrestling, published in 2014, which was one good reason why I shot my own medieval wrestling course with her. And she has her own way of organising and interpreting Liechtenauer’s longsword material, based on Liechtenauer’s own categorisation of the hauptstucke.

                    You can find the course here.

                    We have quite different teaching styles, as you can see in this video where she teaches the guard Ochs:

                    I think it’s important to expose your students to other instructors, and this is no less true in online courses as it is in person. When I ran my school in Helsinki, we averaged 3-4 visiting instructors per year.
                    But there is a very small overlap between the quite large group of instructors whom I would deem worthy to teach my students, and the much smaller group who have the skills to produce a course like Medieval German Longsword: the Hauptstucke of Johannes Liechtenauer. To be clear- Jessica herself doesn’t have the technical background to produce a course either (though she is solidly in the first group, and indeed taught a seminar for my students in Helsinki in 2015). But I do, and we had the time, the space, and the very clearly organised system that you need for producing a course, when I was over in Kansas in July this year.
                    My part in this course includes directing, producing, editing, and providing the Fiore perspective in each section, so the course itself is very much a collaboration. But every bit of Liechtenauer interpretation is 100% Jessica.
                    Here’s the next video in the sequence: Thrusting from Ochs and Pflug:

                    The course is available here
                    See you on the course!


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                      Are you Madly Medieval or Raptly Renaissance? Let me know what you're interested in. You can have both, of course!

                      We won't send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time. Please check our privacy policy for details of what we will do with your data. The short version: send you emails about interesting stuff, and nothing else.

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