Dr. Guy Windsor is a world-renowned instructor and a pioneering researcher of medieval and renaissance martial arts. He has been teaching the Art of Arms full-time since founding The School of European Swordsmanship in Helsinki, Finland, in 2001. His day job is finding and analysing historical swordsmanship treatises, figuring out the systems they represent, creating a syllabus from the treatises for his students to train with, and teaching the system to his students all over the world. Guy is the author of numerous classic books about the art of swordsmanship and has consulted on swordfighting game design and stage combat. He developed the card game, Audatia, based on Fiore dei Liberi's Art of Arms, his primary field of study. In 2018 Edinburgh University awarded him a PhD by Research Publications for his work recreating historical combat systems. When not studying medieval and renaissance swordsmanship or writing books Guy can be found in his shed woodworking or spending time with his family.
HELLsinki for the win! And Jason Kingsley returns to podcast
Hi!
Just a short note today, as you’re probably overwhelmed with the current launch emails. Don’t worry, today is the last day of the launch for the new course (I’ll put a link at the bottom just in case), so that flurry of emails will soon be over.
I’m actually in Helsinki as this goes out, seeing friends, and even teaching a seminar tomorrow, in Espoo. It’s always good to be back- 7 years in England has not changed the fact that Helsinki is home. You can find the seminar details here, in case you’re in the area:
| Espoo seminar: Fiore by Windsor |
For Bolognese fans, and students of early Italian martial arts generally, Josh Wiest has produced an epic historical dive into the story of Lancillotto Beccaria di Pavia and Giovanni Bentivoglio. You can find it here:
| How Fiore dei Liberi's Protege Helped Put the Bentivoglio Family in Power |
My question a couple of weeks ago about what are the best historical sword fights on screen has generated quite a lot of shows and movies that I haven’t seen. Hurrah! I’ll be posting the results up on my blog soon (it seems the easiest way to share what is effectively a spreadsheet), but you can see all the results by just filling out your own suggestions, in the form here:
| Best historical swordfights on screen |
This week on The Sword Guy: Business, Chivalry, and Life-or-Death Training, with Jason Kingsley
One of our most listened-to guests is back on the show! Jason Kingsley OBE is the co-founder and CEO of the games company Rebellion Developments, which also owns 2000 AD, and he’s the man behind the YouTube channel Modern History TV, starring Warlord, which goes into depth of detail regarding many aspects of medieval life, most notably combat and horsemanship, but also aspects of daily life. We catch up on how Warlord is doing since our last chat in episode 81.
It’s always great to hear that a podcast guest has acted on the best idea they hadn’t acted on. Jason has written his book, Leading the Rebellion, which he tells us about in this episode.
We also talk about writing: how someone as busy as Jason managed to get the book written, how to get useful feedback, and how to finish what you start.
We also talk about how to train for a life-or-death situation, without the death bit. How does one train to be in a situation where someone is actively trying to kill you?
You can find the episode here:
| To the podcast! |
yours,
Guy
Today is the last day to get 40% off the course Medieval German Longsword: the Hauptstucke of Johannes Liechtenauer:
| Medieval German Longsword Course |
Guy Windsor's Swordschool
Dr. Guy Windsor is a world-renowned instructor and a pioneering researcher of medieval and renaissance martial arts. He has been teaching the Art of Arms full-time since founding The School of European Swordsmanship in Helsinki, Finland, in 2001. His day job is finding and analysing historical swordsmanship treatises, figuring out the systems they represent, creating a syllabus from the treatises for his students to train with, and teaching the system to his students all over the world. Guy is the author of numerous classic books about the art of swordsmanship and has consulted on swordfighting game design and stage combat. He developed the card game, Audatia, based on Fiore dei Liberi's Art of Arms, his primary field of study. In 2018 Edinburgh University awarded him a PhD by Research Publications for his work recreating historical combat systems. When not studying medieval and renaissance swordsmanship or writing books Guy can be found in his shed woodworking or spending time with his family.
Hi! I’m writing this in Minneapolis St Paul airport, waiting for a delayed flight to Chicago to connect to my flight home. This three-week trip has been extremely eventful, so much so that I’m going to split telling you about it over a couple of emails. After a magnificent week with Jessica Finley (as you no doubt recall from the last missive), I went to see my friend Jason James, currently stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas. Just getting “on post” (as these military types call it) involved a...
Hi! And greetings from stormy Kansas. I arrived on Wednesday night after a more eventful than is ideal trip. There was a medical emergency on the plane (I’m the wrong kind of doctor to be useful there, but the right kind of doctor literally ran across a row of seats to get to the action); then there was a queue at passport control that took over 2 hours, while I had an hour and 40 minutes to catch my connecting flight; which was fortunately delayed just long enough that I made it, though my...
Hi! Guns in Helsinki While I was in Helsinki my friend Jan Kukkamäki took me shooting, with his family. It’s the first time since leaving Finland in 2016 that I got to shoot my own guns again. Here they are: A Ruger Mk II 22/45 semi-automatic target pistol; a Ruger bearcat .22 revolver, and a Ruger GP100 .357 Mag. revolver. That was much fun… but then Jan introduced me to the Remington New Army (1860s, reproduction) percussion-cap revolver… It’s a lovely gun, which you have to load chamber by...