Hi!

Since the last newsletter came out I’ve been to Germany and returned unharmed… I was at Swords of the Renaissance in Potsdam, hosted by Martin Hoeppner and Stephan Eickelmann. I was generally far too busy to be taking photos, but managed one selfie for SwordPeople.

I had a great time, teaching an intro to Vadi’s longsword on Saturday, and fencing a dozen people on Sunday. It was a delight. And yes, I met a few potential podcast guests while I was there, including a mechanical engineer and a professor of astrophysics. I also got to fence former podcast guest Cornelius Berthold for the first time. Our discussion of tempo in episode 73 remains one of the most popular episodes, and I can now confirm from getting stabbed a lot that his understanding of tempo is not just theoretical. Yes, I asked him and yes we can expect him back on the show in due course.

What I’m working on

I’m still plugging away at two new books: How to Write Training Manuals is sufficiently done that I’ve ordered a print proof. But there’s a spinoff short work (about 6000 words) on how I think HMA people should present their interpretations. I’m debating whether or not to combine them, or keep them separate.The wrestling book From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice: The Wrestling Techniques of Fiore dei Liberi is coming along too. It’s about ready to go to the editor, but I’m holding onto it for some reason. My gut says hold, so I’m holding for now.

Solo Training: reboot!

American readers will be thrilled to hear that bookvault is now printing and shipping books in the USA. Which means if you are stateside and order a book from swordschool.shop, it will be printed and shipped from there, saving you time and money. Hurrah! Speaking of the shop: We have now published the audiobook of The Windsor Method: the Principles of Solo Training, and while that was in the works I took the time to update the book a little bit- there’s nothing like reading it aloud into a microphone to highlight stylistic infelicities. And if there are any blacksmiths listening, yes I did fix the “annealing” problem at the end of the book. I’ve also decided to change the title, and give the book a whole new look. It’s now called “The Principles and Practices of Solo Training”, and it’s got a spiffy new cover. I loved the old one, but the book simply wasn’t selling as it should have done, and sometimes this kind of rebrand makes all the difference.

You can find it here: