Rigel Ng is the president of the Pan Historical European Martial Arts Society (PHEMAS) in Singapore. In this conversation we cover a lot of ground, from military service to establishing your training goals. The Society was founded in 2005 by Greg Galistan and Chris Blakey, who spent a month training 24/7 in my salle in Helsinki, and I've taught there many times since, so it's especially gratifying to me to see the next generation pick up the torch and run with it.

You can find our wide-ranging conversation here: Podbean, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or wherever else you get your podcasts from. Please consider supporting the show on our Patreon account, here: https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy.

You may have noticed I’ve started a podcast. It’s going really well- a dozen episodes published, and another dozen recorded, with several thousand downloads so far. The guests so far include: Jessica Finley, Fran Lacuata, Sam Swords, Airrion Scott, Kaja Sadowski, Tan Smith, Jen Landels, Roland Warzecha, Siobhan Richardson, Tomas Suazo, and Kimberleigh Roseblade. And Episode Twelve is going live this week, with Rigel Ng of PHEMAS in Singapore!

Quite a line-up, I think you’ll agree. Guests from seven countries on three continents, and that's just the first dozen!

This podcast is a tactic in the service of a larger goal, namely to encourage diversity in historical martial arts. The first rule of the podcast is there must be at least 50% female guests. Fortunately there are no shortage of women practising swordswomanship! But representation doesn’t end there. I have also found guests from a range of martial backgrounds (Airrion Scott started out swinging light-sabres, Siobhan Richardson started out in stage combat), cultural backgrounds (there are guests from Asia, South America, Europe, and North America), and ethnicities.

My goal is that eventually anyone, from any culture, of any race, sexual identity, height, weight, health status, and any other demographic data point you can think of, can find a historical martial arts role model on this podcast. That may encourage them to take up the Art, and so historical martial arts will become more diverse, and therefore deeper and stronger. This might not make much difference to many people, but I know for sure that it will make some difference to some people, and that is a whole lot more than nothing.

This is of course an ethical standpoint, but it’s also a practical one. Getting opinions from a diverse range of people makes for better outcomes. Matthew Syed makes the case for this phenomenon in his book Rebel Ideas, which I highly recommend. A rising tide lifts all boats, so if your overall goal is improving the practice of historical martial arts as a whole, it makes sense to get as many different minds on the problem as possible.

I know that some people will feel that I ought to just interview the “best” hma practitioners. The famous ones, the ones with big followings, the ones with the most books out. (I know it because they've written and told me so!) I will, and I do, as you can see from the guest list. But if we only hear from them, we will tend to hear mostly from middle aged white men (like me), because this field was founded mostly by people like me. But it has grown beyond that rather narrow beginning (thank goddess!) and there are very many people out there worth listening to. Some of them don’t even do swords! I have a medieval historian lined up for episode 16….

What began as a side project is swiftly taking over a great deal of my time, and costing me some money, so to support the show I have created a Patreon account here: https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy. If you think this show is a good idea, please demonstrate it by throwing some coins in the hat. Every little helps. I would like to be able to add transcriptions of each show to the shownotes, as well as invest in better equipment. Patrons will get first dibs on suggesting guests to interview, and I will also try to offer some Patron-only content such as audio AMAs with me. I’ll also be asking the Patrons for any questions they particularly want me to ask my guests- so they will also find out who’s coming on the show before anyone else. Right now there’s only one patron-only post up, but it does include the audio file for episode 13… There are also t-shirts and stickers for the higher tiers.

Sound like your sort of thing? Then toddle along to https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy 

Thank you!

Kimberleigh Roseblade is a historical martial arts instructor, specialising in Fiore's Art of Arms. She teaches at AEMMA in Toronto, and has taught at many international level events including Swordsquatch, VISS, and Longpoint. In this conversation we discuss many things, including setting fire to nunneries, Fiore's wrestling plays, and even head protection for fencing.

You can find our wide-ranging conversation here: Podbean, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or wherever else you get your podcasts from.

My guest this week is Tomas Suazo, a historical fencer and armourer from Chile. I first met Tomas when he came to train with me in Finland in 2014. He did a Grand Tour of European historical fencing clubs, before returning home to run his own. He's a professional maker of protective equipment for HMA, as well as what I think of as “proper armour”. You can find his work at Broken Anvil: https://www.facebook.com/brokenanvilarmourshop/

You can find our conversation here: Podbean, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or wherever else you get your podcasts from.