Hello and welcome! Here you will find the resources list for my book The Theory and Practice of Historical Martial Arts. We have books, courses, videos, and all sorts of other good things.
Books
I refer to a LOT of other books in this one. Those that have nothing directly to do with training a specific martial art, and which I think you really should read, are listed here:
Strength, Nutrition, Flexibility, Sleep:
Body by Science, by Doug McGuff and John Little. This explains how muscles work, and how to train them, better than any other source I've found.
Biotensegrity: the Structural Basis Of Life, by Graham Scarr. This is a really interesting look at biomechanics, which will change how you think about strength and power generation.
The Four Hour Body, by Tim Ferriss. This is the foundational book for self-experimenting; figure out what makes your body do the things you want it to do (e.g. burn fat), and not do the things you want it to avoid (e.g. deposit fat).
Good Calories, Bad Calories, by Gary Taubes. This is a very important book for the study of nutrition, laying out the case against fast carbohydrates.
Waking Up, by Sam Harris. An excellent non-religious guide to meditation. I think of this book as meditation without the hippy-dippy-shit.
The Naked Warrior, and Relax into Stretch, by Pavel Tsatsouline. These are excellent introductions to developing strength and flexibility, though be warned, he takes things to Russian extremes! (I don't think you ever need to be able to do the splits, unless your martial art requires very high kicks.)
Becoming a Supple Leopard, and Deskbound, by Dr Kelly Starrett. The former has a lot of useful training ideas, and the latter is all about not dying young thanks to sitting around too much. Both are well worth a read.
Starting Strength, by Mark Rippetoe. This is the bible of serious lifters, and if you are trying to increase your strength, it's a must-read, even if you don't use classic barbells.
Why We Sleep, by Matthew Walker. The first truly definitive study of sleep, why we need it, and how to get good at it.
Learning and teaching:
Flow, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. This is a critically important study of how to get into the correct mindset for learning and developing your skills.
The Inner Game of Tennis, by Timothy Gallwey. This more than any other book changed the way I teach swordsmanship. Please note, I can't abide tennis, but I still loved this book.
Fencing and the Master, by László Szabó. This is a really useful guide to teaching fencing lessons, which can be applied to martial arts.
Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman. This is perhaps second only to Gallwey in affecting the way I think about teaching and learning.
The Art of Learning, by Josh Waitzkin. This is a very good book about the specifics of how to train yourself, using chess and T'ai Chi as examples.
Books by Guy Windsor:
Courses
The first third of the book is based on my online course Recreating Historical Swordsmanship from Historical Sources. If you prefer to learn from videos, with homework and the option of some personal guidance, you might like it.
The course costs $250, but you can get 25% off by using this link.
The last practical section of the book also has a course associated with it. If the chapter on Breathing was particularly interesting for you and you want to take it to the next level, you can use this link to get 25% off the usual price of $120.
Free Courses: Arm maintenance, Knee maintenance. I highly recommend these for preventing injury. More importantly, the students on these courses recommend them too!
Videos of exercises mentioned in the book:
Rapier drills, from pages 205-207
Rapier Footwork Form
Hunt the Debole
Plate 7
Plate 15
Plate 16
From the rest of the book:
Standing Step Drill:
Hitting the tyre with a relaxed grip:
First drill:
First drill, stretto form:
Videos for the breathing exercises are not uploaded to YouTube and are too large to host on this website, so you'll need to download them from these links:
More free resources:
You may also find these articles interesting, and this page of free video resources, which includes my syllabus.