Guy Windsor
I’m here today with Dr. Sara Lewis, who is a neuroscientist specializing in the biology of childhood movement disorders, and a longtime historical martial artist starting in the SCA in 1999, where she is known as Perin De La Serena, and in historical martial arts since 2016. With the Phoenix Society for Historical Swordsmanship, she has written many articles on improving diversity and inclusiveness in historical martial arts, and has written reports on the challenges facing women rapier fencers in the SCA. She has also produced a series of videos on applying the neuroscience of learning motor skills to teaching historical combat. So that’s an awful lot of introduction. We have a lot to talk about. So without further ado, Sara, welcome to the show.
Sara Lewis
Thank you so much for inviting me. Glad to be here.
Guy Windsor
So whereabouts in the world are you?
Sara Lewis
So I’m in Phoenix, Arizona, in the United States. So that’s the really hot part of the Southwest. So it’s not uncommon for it to get 120 Fahrenheit or I think that’s 49 celsius.
Guy Windsor
That’s pretty hot.
Sara Lewis
Yeah, yeah. Hot part.
Guy Windsor
Okay, I take it you don’t do a great deal of training outside in summer?
Sara Lewis
We do not. So we have a lot of off time, I would say, where we go inside read books or do other things.
Guy Windsor
It’s like the reverse of Finland, where winter is the time you can’t train outside. Okay, so how did you get into historical martial arts all those years ago?
Sara Lewis
So I was sitting in a restaurant studying, I was in high school, and a bunch of people came in having the time of their lives. And I was in a rural area. So people having a good time was a reason to just go over and get involved. And when they mentioned that they were doing sword fighting, you know, my ears perked way, way up. Because I’d always been interested in martial arts. But there wasn’t the ability for me to access it. It was not something that we could afford. And my parents just weren’t okay with that. But I was like, no, this is history. I can go do this. So it was something that I was able to have access to play with swords, and I kept at it because I love it.
Guy Windsor
Yeah. Okay. So that was 1999. So that was the SCA was it?
Sara Lewis
Yes, it was,
Guy Windsor
Was that also Phoenix?
Sara Lewis
That was in Lake Havasu City, so the even hotter part of Arizona.
Guy Windsor
So not too far away. Okay. Is that group still going?
Sara Lewis
That original group is not still going, actually. But I’ve travelled to different parts of the state and participated in other groups within there.
Guy Windsor
It’s actually really nice to have someone on the show who started training in the previous century, because I started historical martial arts in about 1993. And most of the people who I interview started sometime in the last 15 years, and it’s like, ah, you know, it’s really nice to see the newcomers. But it is also really nice to see some of the old guard. So you’ve been training for quite a while. But you’ve taken a break recently for a training injury. Can you tell us what happened?
Sara Lewis
Yeah, so I’m going to have to be brief and try to keep it contextual. So we have a process in the SCA, where we test that somebody is basically safe to participate in tournaments or these melees where we have these group battles. And so it’s this process where we basically check for safety. And as part of that process, the person who was running the situation, I was sort of like the training dummy in this scenario, told the person going through this test to hit me harder.
Guy Windsor
Can I just ask why?
Sara Lewis
As far as I can tell, his rationale is that he was afraid I was going too easy on this person. And so it was the ‘we want to make sure that he’s using safe calibration’. So hit harder so that we know that she’s calling you if you’re hitting too hard, which was ridiculous because he wasn’t.
Guy Windsor
That’s a little bit like saying, we have to make sure you can drive on this road. And to make sure you can drive on this road we need you to drive through this fence on the side of the road.
Sara Lewis
Yes, yes. That is exactly how ridiculous this is. So there’s no way you can look at this and not go okay, somebody was engineering a scenario without using good judgment, where somebody could get hurt, and actually did. You know, when you tell somebody to keep hitting harder and harder until somebody cries uncle, when they’re focusing on this other aspect, like, okay, I have to make sure that I’m providing the right pressure, I have to make sure I’m looking for safety things, my mind is on something else. It’s not on, hey, wait a minute, is this an escalating situation and why might that be? So yeah, there was a whiplash injury as part of that, but also a mental trauma. So all of a sudden the situation that I had been participating in for a while, where I knew there were these safety ropes, like I knew that I could go full force and trust people to pull their shots and to have my best interests in mind, was removed. And that was a very traumatic experience and I had all of the mental issues that came with that as well.
Guy Windsor
Okay, can we just start with the physical stuff? So how exactly were you hit?
Sara Lewis
It was a descending hit with a longsword. And so that created a whiplash.
Guy Windsor
So he hit you like on the top of the head with a longsword? And that created a whiplash injury. That that is insane. I shouldn’t be laughing. I have seen thousands upon thousands of longsword interactions at every level of intensity and I have never seen a whiplash injury.
Sara Lewis
Yes. So I will say that my helmet did an excellent job of stopping the concussive force. But I read somewhere that women are more susceptible to whiplash injuries because they don’t have as strong neck muscles. And so the protective gear took up the that concussive movement, but when your head very moves,
Guy Windsor
And the weight of the helmet also. What kind of helmet were you wearing?
Sara Lewis
Oh, I don’t even remember offhand. But it was something that I had picked up for HEMA longsword and using in that tournament setting.
Guy Windsor
Was it a modified fencing mask or something else?
Sara Lewis
Nope.
Guy Windsor
Okay, so it was a bit like a helmet with maybe a perforated faceplate.
Sara Lewis
Oh, no, no, it was a commercial fencing helmet. But it was the 350 Newton rated, I had, you know, gel pad rugby helmet underneath to make sure…
Guy Windsor
so it was a fencing mask?
Sara Lewis
Yes.
Guy Windsor
A modified fencing mask. Okay, sorry, I misunderstood you before, I thought you said it wasn’t one. Okay. So that shouldn’t have been terribly heavy. Huh. Okay. So basically, in a longsword, free fencing, test environment where you’re testing the person’s safety, the person supposedly in charge, deliberately escalated the level of force that the student was doing. To my mind, the person the student was doing what he was told by somebody who he was led to believe was a competent authority.
Sara Lewis
Yes. And the student actually said, no, I’m not comfortable with this twice and was told, no, you will do this. So even over the student objections, it was the no, we’re doing this. And at the same time, I was getting instruction to go ahead and push him a little harder. See what he does, see how he reacts?
Guy Windsor
This is mental.
Sara Lewis
Yes, it was absolutely a situation of somebody was playing games with the individuals involved.
Guy Windsor
Do you suspect malicious intent behind the person running the thing?
Sara Lewis
At least at a subconscious level.
Guy Windsor
Because obviously, if a similar injury occurred, while you were having a great time, in a fencing match and just something bad happened, it would be a very different psychological experience. Do you feel comfortable unpacking some of the psychological impact of what occurred?
Sara Lewis
Yeah, it was definitely a learning experience to experience trauma personally, rather than from an academic sense. But what your brain basically does is it all of a sudden starts reevaluating all of these contexts that you’ve experienced before, and going well, wait a minute, maybe this is a threat, maybe this isn’t safe in the way that you thought it was. And so it’s a worldview perspective change, that can be very intrusive, like, you know, when you’re minding your own business, all of a sudden, something that had been perfectly benign, all of a sudden becomes a potential danger.
Guy Windsor
Right. Okay, so basically ups your paranoia levels.
Sara Lewis
Quite a bit, quite a bit. And when all of a sudden, maybe you can’t trust the people who are in charge of your safety in this context, it’s very hard to be like, wow, okay. I need that basic reassurance to go in there and let people hit me about the head and shoulders.
Guy Windsor
Leaving aside the physical equipment side of things. Are you aware of anything that has been done to improve the environment so that that sort of thing won’t happen again?
Sara Lewis
I reported the issue. And the leadership took statements from other people. And their ultimate conclusion was, well, we don’t want to be biased, so we’re not going to do anything. And that is an inherently biased stance to take. It’s your problem, not our problem.
Guy Windsor
Okay, so you took it upstairs. And then they took statements for everyone involved, and then decided that they weren’t going to rule on anything. What could they have done instead?
Sara Lewis
Well, I think that if they had sat down in advance and been like if people break the rules, or do something unsafe, or use a position of being the teacher, the person in charge of safety here for ill intent, we ought to know how we’re going to respond to this, rather than just sort of trying to figure it out on the fly, when you’re busy, when the situation has all of these messy components to it. You know, there’s people involved, there might be different perspectives. So I think that something that could have been done is in advance, say, we don’t tolerate this, this could easily be harassment, at the very least. So we have this as the consequences for harassment.
Guy Windsor
I was thinking more along the lines of having taken the statements, so after the fact, what options were open to them that they could have proceeded with, but they didn’t?
Sara Lewis
I would say, I expected there to be some conversations of the hey, by the way, everyone, you don’t use your position of running a test like this to make people do things that are not safe. Or, hey, you have a problem, we need to have a conversation with you about it, or hey, maybe you shouldn’t be in this authority position, and will relieve you of this duty.
Guy Windsor
So they could have relieved the person who ran the test of that authority.
Sara Lewis
Yes. And so they got like a six month hey don’t release tests for a little bit. But that was it. But also there was no, this person’s being punished, that people could look to and go, hey, bad apples will receive consequences.
Guy Windsor
I mean, there are a couple of options there to my mind. One is, it was due to inexperience or poor training on that person’s part. And so a retraining thing might have been a sufficient response, if there was no ill intent. Or if there’s ill intent, if it was my school, I would just kick them out. That is absolutely an option. Did they find ill intent? I mean, you clearly suspected it.
Sara Lewis
I suspect ill intent. I cited previous micro aggressions and other issues with this individual, and they were like, oh, it’s a personality conflict then and just sort of labelled it, again, that’s your problem, not our problem. And I think that labeling something as a personality conflict, when indeed, it’s an imbalance of power, it’s somebody who’s doing harassing behavior. That’s personality conflict is a code for there’s a problem and the system is encouraging it, but we can’t even touch this mess.
Guy Windsor
Personality conflicts occur between equals, as soon as you have an imbalance in the power dynamic, personality conflict is not necessarily automatically abusive, but it’s certainly not something that is just peers being unpleasant to each other.
Sara Lewis
Right. And personality conflict suggests that that’s something that can be like, negotiated or resolved within those two people.
Guy Windsor
It also suggested this this is 50% your fault. It doesn’t sound to me like that’s the case. If there was somebody who was appointed to be in charge of safety in that environment and everyone involved was doing what they were told.
Sara Lewis
They have responsibility for those actions, yes.
Guy Windsor
Absolutely. Yes. Okay. I take it you don’t want to name this person.
Sara Lewis
I’m happy to name this person. In the SCA they are known as Roland de Winter. And I’ve been happy telling the story because if I bring it up to the authorities and say, hey, you know, there’s this issue, I’m willing to let you handle it how you want and they say, well, our goal is to not handle it, then I’m like, cool. I’m going to handle it how I am able, and that’s naming names. No more missing stairs.
Guy Windsor
Quite right. So is this person still active in the SCA?
Sara Lewis
Yes.
Guy Windsor
Okay. So it’s probably necessary that people are aware that there are issues. Did this person ever actually apologize to you?
Sara Lewis
No.
Guy Windsor
Fuck.
Sara Lewis
I know!
Guy Windsor
Oh, my God.
Sara Lewis
I know. Okay. And there were no lack of opportunities.
Guy Windsor
Right. I mean, including right then and there. So when you actually got hit, immediately after you got hit with it, you were done, or did the injury manifest itself a lot more slowly, over time?
Sara Lewis
More slowly over time. So it was waking up in the middle of night, having that racing heart, nightmares, it was waking up in the morning and being completely unable to move my head, neck, shoulders, you know. So I did follow up reports of like, here’s how the injury is progressing.
Guy Windsor
So right after the blow, you actually kept going for a bit, or did everything stop for a bit?
Sara Lewis
it kept going for a little bit. Like it was definitely like, you know, rocked my world. And I was like, hey, what on earth? Like, yeah,
Guy Windsor
But you weren’t aware that you’d actually been injured in the moment.
Sara Lewis
Yeah. It didn’t feel like a concussion.
Guy Windsor
That’s the problem with lots of these sorts of injuries. They only appear to be actually a problem some days, sometimes even weeks later.
Sara Lewis
Yeah. I mean, that’s the nature of muscle injuries, but also like the adrenaline’s going. But also, who would suspect such an environment, or a situation? It’s bonkers.
Guy Windsor
I think it’s probably a good idea for the people listening that we flag up the fact that you can be injured while fencing and not realized until the next day or the day after. Because we tend to think of okay, fencing injury, I mean, I remember one time I got a finger broken, I knew about it right then and there. There was no carry on after that. But yes, these sorts of neck injuries can, particularly necks, I think can manifest more slowly. So how are you recovering from it physically?
Sara Lewis
I’m at this point actually doing pretty well. So it ended up being a sort of long process with a lot of different specialists to try to break down that scar tissue. And now I’m in that rebuilding state doing physical therapy. And gearing up to feel safe to do that again, with trusted individuals and kind of get my feet back under me. But it’s been a long process.
Guy Windsor
Because somebody I interviewed recently, she’s very vulnerable to having her retinas detached. And she realized this when she went to an ophthalmology exam. And that basically put the kibosh on her fencing career, until they come up with some absolutely astonishing head protection thing where you can take a light tap with a longsword with no risk of retinal detachment for her, then she ain’t getting hit in the head ever again, hopefully. So do you think you’ll be able to train your neck up to the point where you can safely fence rapier or longsword?
Sara Lewis
Oh, probably. So, you know, there’s definitely been times in my past where I can look to and it’s like, okay, I got that knee injury. And then I started doing strength training and was able to move on without that injury being a problem anymore. Necks are trickier, but it’s not insurmountable.
Guy Windsor
Excellent, good. So we can expect you fencing fit, at some point.
Sara Lewis
At some point, I’d love that.
Guy Windsor
Any timeline.
Sara Lewis
I’m going to say no, because I don’t want to jinx it.
Guy Windsor
Yeah. And it’s best to take things really, really carefully. Yes, particularly with necks. Okay, so, what are you doing about the mental aspects of the injury?
Sara Lewis
I would say that seeing a therapist, being really open about that, helped me process through those things. But what it kind of gave me was the ability to be vulnerable about this, to talk about this. And that’s had a couple of different effects. One is bringing some attention to these issues, which you know, if anybody can point to my story and go, this is why we should care about these things. Then I consider it a net win. But also by being vulnerable, you get more help, and people relate to you and they’re able to say actually, like you’re not alone. And having that community, having that support, by being open with it has been very helpful.
Guy Windsor
Excellent. Okay. So you think when your neck is physically recovered, do you think your spirit will be sufficiently emotionally recovered that you’ll feel okay fencing someone who actually you know and like and trust?
Sara Lewis
Yes, I will have to be, I think picky for a while. And I think I probably won’t go back to that same environment. But there’s other places to go.
Guy Windsor
Absolutely. And can I say, I am picky. I am always picky. I’ve only got one head. I’ve not had an experience like yours, and I’m still picky.
Sara Lewis
Yes. I use my brain a lot. I need it.
Guy Windsor
Don’t feel the slightest bit awkward about being super picky. It is essential to longevity in the art of arms, I think. Because there are some complete assholes out there who will enjoy hurting you.
Sara Lewis
Unfortunately, yes.
Guy Windsor
Okay, so what do you think we can do to mitigate or prevent similar incidents?
Sara Lewis
Yeah, so I had briefly mentioned the idea of the missing stair. And this comes from a blog, that anybody can look up and get more information. But basically, it comes down to if you’ve got a staircase, and there’s a missing stair, at some point, you learn to step around it. Or if you have a guest over you go, okay, bathroom’s up there, by the way, watch the missing stair. And this manifests in a community of the you’ve got somebody who you know is a problem. So maybe this person hits women too hard. And so a woman comes in, and you kind of warn her against him, like, hey, by the way, like, watch out for this person, maybe not fight him. But that doesn’t fix the problem. That puts all of the burden on to the victim or the potential victim, it makes it their problem, not our problem. And it would be so much better if as a community like you came together, you fix the stair, rather than having to remember to remind everybody or when something bad happens go, oh, well, there’s a completely foreseeable consequence. Gee. I would say taking the stance of this is not your problem for reporting this issue or having the situation, it’s our problem. We did something that we weren’t upfront enough about what our expectations were. We weren’t quick to say, hey, that’s not acceptable and provide a meaningful consequence. We didn’t have conversations to say that you should expect to not be treated this way. And if you are getting like these sort of red flags, you should feel comfortable talking about it, bringing up that situation and being taken seriously. So yeah, the leaders taking these concerns seriously, demonstrating that they will provide meaningful action about it. And that it’s not just your problem, the community’s invested in it.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, one obvious thing would be to make sure this Winter fellow’s not welcome anywhere where there are swords.
Sara Lewis
For us, that would be meaningful action that the community can take.
Guy Windsor
It also strikes me that the authorities within the organization have the responsibility to look for and get rid of problem people. Or look for and retrained if possible.
Sara Lewis
Retrain if possible. Yeah.
Guy Windsor
But that process is never going to be perfect. Because very often people appear absolutely fine until they’re in that one situation, which they think they can get away with something, then it happens. So it can happen from out of the blue. So one thing that it might be a useful thing to incorporate would be training students to say no. So for example, the guy who hit you tried to say no, twice. Which suggests that he was not there to try and hurt you. And I do also wonder what’s happened to his mental health regarding fencing in this?
Sara Lewis
Yeah, I’ve tried to protect that person from this as much as possible, because I do not hold him accountable for this at all.
Guy Windsor
But wouldn’t it be useful if people were trained how to actually say no. Like, if this is a red flag for you, say no.
Sara Lewis
So here’s the thing. When you said these things happen out of the blue, I actually kind of had that internal laugh, because you get a group of women together, and they will have all keyed into the same problematic people. And so, some of these guys are like, oh, hey, this happened out of the blue. And all of these people who had read the situation differently because of their different life experiences were going, that was not unexpected. So I feel like, also, there were times where this individual I had problems with, I was like, hey, you’re hitting too hard. Or tried to say, I’m not comfortable fighting you right now. And those were met with disdain, those concerns were not taken seriously. So you can learn to say no all you want. But if the people who say this is a problem aren’t being listened to then it doesn’t matter.
Guy Windsor
Of course that doesn’t help. Because part of that it’s ok to say no thing includes the assumption that there will be no negative consequences for you for saying no, right? You’re not going to get looked down on as being not sufficiently brave.
Sara Lewis
Right. And when you’re kind of in a sword swinging community, and you’re a woman, there’s kind of some expectations that you’re going to be able to take it just like any man wood, and so there is that sort of like social stigma of the you know, if you speak up, if you say you have a problem, is it your problem, or is it our problem?
Guy Windsor
By the way, it’s perfectly alright to laugh at me on my show. That’s fine. You can go ahead and do it out loud next time.
Sara Lewis
I’m like, was this the cue to insert maniacal laughter?
Guy Windsor
You said you laughed silently in your head. Okay, next time I say something stupid, just laugh at me out loud.
Sara Lewis
But it was very telling that the like, “it came out of the blue,” it’s like the oftentimes these don’t. It’s just a matter of are you listening to what people are saying about their concerns. Are you giving them an ability to do so?
Guy Windsor
I think maybe the key thing is, is creating the channel for those concerns to be aired through. Because, you do sometimes see if a person doesn’t feel comfortable in an environment, maybe because they’ve experienced something bad. The problem is, there’s no one they feel they can trust in that environment to say it to.
Sara Lewis
Yeah. Or that something meaningful will happen if they do bring it up. Or that they won’t be treated as creating drama or having a you problem, not an us problem.
Guy Windsor
One of the difficulties I had running my school was at least a few times, I was told about problematic behavior, so long after the fact that I actually couldn’t do anything because maybe the person had moved on to another club or gone somewhere else, or whatever. And if I’d known at the time, I might have been able to do something about it. But it didn’t actually filter its way through because again, when I set up my school, I didn’t know anything about how to set up a school. I just knew I wanted to teach historical martial arts for a living. So I just did that. And Kaja Sadowski hadn’t written his book, Fear is the Mind Killer yet, which tells you how to set things up.
Sara Lewis
Read this book.
Guy Windsor
Yes, read his book. So any, any concrete bits of advice you would have for people to avoid what happened to you?
Sara Lewis
I mean, seriously, read the book. But also you mentioned that people would bring things up that happened way after you had the ability to deal with it. But how you respond when they do bring it up, to be like, yes, I’m so glad you brought this to me. I might not have anything I can do now. But this is something I’ll look for in the future. This gives me some ideas of what I want to be prepared for, or what to look for. So, you know, creating sort of like a plan of the this is how I’m going to respond if somebody brings something up. Or being very proactive of the hey, like I observed something, I’m not sure if it’s a problem or not, but I’m going to be the one to bring it up, rather than expect somebody to always come to me. So there’s I think a lot that leadership can do to set the set the tone for it’s safe to bring these things to me and you will be taken seriously.
Guy Windsor
Okay. So, slight sidetrack. Not a sidetrack really, as it’s kind of related to get hit in the head, you are a neuroscientist, an actual proper brain person. How do we actually learn motor skills?
Sara Lewis
So I’m going to use an analogy. So think about a flat, sandy plain and you’re trying to run water over it. And basically, the water’s just kind of spread out everywhere and sits there and it’s not going to create very much meaningful movement and action. So what you need to do is you need to create these channels, you need to create these pathways that are going to sort of drive it in the directions that you want. And this kind of takes two forms. So the first form is that you figure out what you don’t want to do. So this is kind of like building your little hills. So you try something out, and it does not work right. And so you kind of go, okay, well mount a little sand there, that’s not good. You find something and it’s successful. And you go, yes, that works. So you kind of dig it in a little bit. And it’s not a one time process. It’s very iterative. It’s very much like the oh, I tried out this, and it didn’t work right in this context, but it worked in this context. So you kind of have all of these different options that you can, you can run through, and you find something that really works. And so you kind of dig in, and you do that repetition. And so you dig that channel, dig that channel, and the water runs much faster, and you get a very fast directed flow. And you can see this in children, as well. So if you want to learn how people learn motor skills, play with kids. When they’re very young, the first step, they have to get pre skills, like, how does your body even move. And so this is very play directed behavior. This is very, like exploring your body climbing up on things, falling off of them. And just learning how your body moves and the joy of it.
Guy Windsor
It’s also like figuring out what works for you and what isn’t, I have two daughters, and honestly, looking after them when they were very little completely changed my way of teaching. Like, one time, when my eldest was about four weeks old, something like that, she was a bit upset and she needed to be kind of soothed and calmed, and she’d go to sleep. And there were these things flapping around in front of her face that were just really, really scary and weird. And of course, they were her hands. So just gently holding her hands and holding her hands against her body. Oh, those scary, stupid things went away, I can relax now. Because she hadn’t yet figured out that these scary flappy things are actually under her control. And when she gets upset and waves her arms around, that’s what’s flapping around in front of her face.
Sara Lewis
Yes. But the what works for you, it’s like, okay, well, you’ve got two children of different shapes and sizes or different joint mobilities. The way that each person learns to move is very unique to that person, and their biomechanics. And, of course, when they become teenagers, and everything shoots up and changes, they have to go back to preschool skills, because they’re tripping all over their feet. So every time there’s a big body change, you kind of have to go back to that idea of, okay, how does this body move? So after that figuring out general movement, then it’s the, okay, well, what works for me, and my body, and all of the different permutations and that variability of if I change the angle of my hand in this way, it’s better for something that’s coming at this angle versus this angle. So being able to adapt to a changing situation is a very variable use of your motor programming. And then once you have the different things that work for you, then training that with a very precision practice base to hone it in, so that it becomes that like reflexive, fast response. But you can’t jump ahead to that. You can’t be like, okay, so you’re going to do a lunge, and now you’re going to do 30 lunges, because then you’ll be able to do a lunge correctly. You’re going to need to make sure that when you lunge, you actually know where your body is. And then after you have a grounding of that as well, there’s not one lunge because you might be targeting different body areas, you might be protecting against shots coming in at different angles. You might have a different follow up that you have planned, you know you’re going to lunge differently if you’re planning to then do a crossing lunge again, versus if it’s a quick lunge and you’re trying to get out of there. And recognizing that variability, and then going okay, so now we’re going to drill this particular thing to get that locked in. After you’ve created your sort of variable responses.
Guy Windsor
When I’m teaching students I very often have people who have never done any kind of physical activity before. Never deliberately learned any physical skills except maybe typing. They might be 30 or 40, or 50, or 60. And so I find it really useful to always include a warm up, which includes all sorts of different, quite simple motions than that they can sort of practice moving their body in these various different ways. So that they can just concentrate on paying attention to what their body is doing. And they’re not actually trying to do some complicated and quite specific fencing thing. They’re just practicing, making their arm go in the right direction at the right time. I find that really helpful, speeds things up a lot.
Sara Lewis
I totally agree, that is a great tool for that.
Guy Windsor
So what is goal directed fencing?
Sara Lewis
So ‘goal directed’ is kind of a term that’s used pretty broadly in a bunch of different contexts. But basically, what it comes down to is that the student is going to set their goals. There’s going to be a particular situation potentially, that they need help with, or an outcome they’re looking to achieve. And so you basically start with that end in mind. You plan whatever activities are going to get you to that point. And then you do them. And then you monitor your progress and kind of use that to sort of like change how you’re targeting your goal. So a non-fencing example would be, I want to learn to make bread. And so you go, okay, cool, I’m going to research different ways of making bread, I’m going to practice these different recipes, I’m going to eat my bread, I’m going to have other people eat my bread, I’m going to get feedback, I’m going to change things from here. And I’m going to create my happy bread recipe. In fencing, it’s going to be more of the okay, well, I realized that I’m struggling to maintain a strong parry against somebody who’s stronger or taller than me is something I get asked about a lot. And so I’m going to figure out how to get situations where I can practice that skill. Identifying drills that will be useful for doing that. But also outside of fencing, maybe I do a little bit of strength training. And then the instructor gets involved with giving you feedback of one problem that you might be having is that you’re bending things, when you kind of receive that impact. And once you start bending, you’re going to keep going. And so you’re collapsing, because of the way you’re responding to this situation. And so basically, identifying that problem and using activities, designing training around meeting that goal. And whether or not you’re seeing improvement in that situation, lets you know how it’s going.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, I think I use basically a similar approach where anytime any student is doing anything, there should always be a very clear objective in mind. So they might be doing a particular drill, making sure that they’re getting their measure correct. And they might be doing the exact same drill, but with the intention of getting their timing correct, or their point control correct, or some other thing, but success is determined by what the goal is not like what the drill looks like.
Sara Lewis
Yes, exactly. And the student needs to know what the goal is, in order to be empowered in their learning and invested in it. But also you can run a drill 30 times, but if you don’t go in with intention, and if you don’t get feedback that lets you know whether you’re meeting that goal, you’re just not going to learn effectively. Going through the motions.
Guy Windsor
Yeah. When I’m wandering around the class, what I’ll normally be asking the students is, what are you working on? And the whole class might be doing the same drill. But I’ll get 25 different answers, because this one is working on a specific mechanical issue. And this one is working on just keeping their breathing consistent as they do the drill. And this other one is has maybe not seen the drill that many times before, and they are just tried to learn the choreography of the drill. And that is a perfectly legitimate goal, obviously, just learning the choreography is a perfectly good starting point. And then the trick is to figure out how to adjust things so that they get the feedback they need so that they know whether they’re heading in the right direction or not.
Sara Lewis
Yes, and being able to express what it is that you’re working on so that your partner hears what it is, and can kind of assist you and give you feedback. Their perspective on that can make a huge difference in what you’re getting out of that and how that’s helping you improve.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, so we’ve sort of gotten into the pedagogical side of things. Which brings me in mind of this whole business a feedback is really critical. And in fencing, like the most obvious, and if it’s used properly, the most effective feedback is if things go well, you hit the other person and don’t get hit. And if things go badly, you get hit, right? Which has sort of devolved into a very crude and rather stupid ‘the whack don’t die method’. So I interviewed psychologist Kari Holman on why the hit them until they get it right approach is often counterproductive from a psychological perspective. So we’ve gone into that in some detail in that episode. What are your thoughts on this?
Sara Lewis
Yes. So basically, we are equipped to work with two different kinds of feedback, positive feedback and negative feedback. And of the two, the positive feedback is the more useful one, what am I doing right? And there can be so many different things that you’re getting right that still don’t give you your outcome. And in the moment, and as somebody who’s like, in that perspective, it can be really hard for you to tell what’s right and what’s wrong, without some sort of external check. And that could be a mirror sometimes, or a video recording, but really the most useful is your instructor or your partner, saying, Okay, so, what you had right was this, this and this. And this is the part where you’re having a little bit of trouble and providing the actionable feedback. So rather than the okay, don’t do this, implement a negative.
Guy Windsor
Do not imagine a pink elephant. No, stop imagining pink elephants. It’s classic.
Sara Lewis
Absolutely. We sometimes, I think, forget this in fencing, it’s the don’t drop your arm. And it’s like, no, give the actual feedback that what you want to make sure that your hand is above your shoulder when you’re in this position at all times. And so that gives you like something that you can actually like pay attention to, and look for, rather than the ‘don’t drop your arm’, it should be above this level.
Guy Windsor
Yeah. Or push the hand forward enough or whatever. But a positive actionable statement. Ideally, I find that is more effective if there’s an external focus. So rather than push the hand, I would say something more like, pointed to that thing on the wall. So it’s an external focus, because I find that most students then pick up the movement much more cleanly. Because if your intention sort of stops at the end of your finger. It’s not how children learn to walk, they don’t learn to walk by consciously controlling their feet, they learn to walk by getting from A to B, because they see other people do it. And their great big head relative to their body means they’re going to fall down really quickly if they get even slightly wrong.
Sara Lewis
Yes, yes. So the other thing I will say, from a neuroscience perspective is the negative feedback gets amplified in a really wild kind of way. So even though the positive feedback is the more useful, actionable, and building what you want to see, the negative is felt stronger. So that getting hit, and your brain can’t really distinguish the difference between, oh, that’s the I didn’t do it right and the, I’m not good at doing this. Or even the social rejection aspect of the I don’t belong here, it all feels the same. It’s all the same neuro chemistry and circuitry. And so it can be very challenging for somebody who’s had a bad day where they felt like they didn’t belong, or they were getting pushed around. And now they’re in a situation where they’re making mistakes, and it just gets amplified. Or they’ve had a trauma and all of a sudden they get hit, and they’re like that set off things I had no idea about. People experience it differently.
Guy Windsor
Sure. And there’s a there’s an optimal rate of failure, which we can sort of approximate for most people most of the time, depending on the drill, being maybe eight successes for two failures, something like that. But for some people, some people need 20 successes, for one failure, and other people are quite happy with a 50/50 ratio. It really depends on the person, the circumstance and what they’re doing. And that same person in different circumstances will have different optimal rates of failure. Finding the right one for a given student is super hard.
Sara Lewis
Well, and I also say that there’s different necessary rates of success for different points of the learning process. So when you’re still trying to figure out preskills you need 100% success, everything has to be whatever you’re doing is fine. And as you’re trying things out, as you’re being variable, you want to have again, like, okay, there’s a lot of different successes, they may look different, but things are working out, you’ve got options. When you’re doing that final refinement, doing that slightly more critical, a higher level of failure to really hone it in is fine. So it depends not just on the student and what they’re bringing with them on that given day, but also where they are in learning that particular skill.
Guy Windsor
Right. I think that’s another useful thing for the warm up. Because there’s no failure in it at all. There’s sometimes physical challenge, but it’s absolutely clear that if we’re doing a squat exercise, and their knees shouldn’t do a squat, they are supposed to not do it. And maybe do some alternative action or whatever. So it doesn’t register as failure, it just registers as okay, this is an area where I do this instead of that, and this is normal.
Sara Lewis
Yeah. And so looking at this, from a teacher’s perspective of ‘the whack don’t die’ is one tool in the toolbox. It could be the right skills for okay, we’ve done this action a bunch of times. And so you’re refining it. And so this is where I let you know whether you’ve got it absolutely right or wrong. But you have to have a really broad toolbox, because there’s so many different ways people learn, where they are in the learning process, if you’re using whack, don’t die, oftentimes, you’re neglecting the other tools in your toolbox. And you can be a better teacher than that.
Guy Windsor
Right. Also, the whack part is an issue, like a carefully placed touch on the arm or the chest, or mask or whatever, that just indicates that you didn’t close the line properly is a totally different thing to getting hit.
Sara Lewis
Yes, it can be, particularly if you’re just picking it up.
Guy Windsor
Yeah. So enough sort of presence and contact that they’re aware of it. But I can think of a couple of training environments where it is useful to put the student under that kind of psychological pressure. But that’s rare. And for only a few students for only very specific things, and all only ever at a pretty damn high level.
Sara Lewis
And if that’s what you’re using your environment for, only those students who meet those criteria will succeed and stay. You’re missing out on all of these other individuals and what they would bring to the table.
Guy Windsor
Which brings us neatly on to the inclusivity topic. You know the goal of this show is to improve diversity in historical martial arts. That’s why I started it for. Through representation, which is why I make sure that more than half of the guests are women. You’ve done research on the attrition rates of women fencers as they progress through the SCA. So what are your findings? And what can be done to improve this situation? Let me just clarify, I’m making the assumption that stuff that’s likely to work for the SCA is also likely to work for what I think of as historical martial arts clubs, although the distinction isn’t actually that clear in my head.
Sara Lewis
I initially became interested in this question through academic medicine and professional environments. So I would say that it’s sort of globally applicable. So HEMA, SCA, all of it. The way the study was done was that I looked at recognition at the different levels of advancement as a proxy for how the community viewed that person’s abilities, their teaching and the time and energy they put into participation. So that’s kind of generally what these different tiers are representing here. And what we found was that at that earliest time point where somebody went through that safety test to see whether or not they were good to start participating in these tournaments and melees, 40% of the participants were women. So it’s fantastic. There’s at the beginning, almost an equal representation of women and men picking up the sword. But when we looked at that, sort of like top tier, those that are sort of like globally recognized, only 15% were women. Yeah. So there was basically this huge discrepancy between who was getting that top tier acknowledgement. And looking at it over time, the rate of whether or not this was improving or not, wasn’t changing. So at 1/5, the rate of men being recognized, the women were being recognized with this award. We kind of looked at the steps in between, and found that that drop off, that attrition rate was happening at every step. So it’s not just like when you get to that top top tier, can women compete? They’re getting nudged out at these lower levels.
Guy Windsor
Nudged out is a very good way to put it. Because it’s not, none shall pass, girls aren’t welcome here. It’s just the sort of gentle little sort of nervous this environment doesn’t really suit women so well…
Sara Lewis
Yes. And it’s kind of easy to go, well, that person sort of made choices to do this other thing. Instead, it’s like, yes, what you were offering them versus what was being offered elsewhere, wasn’t as attractive as you thought it was. And the other thing that I kind of looked at, in addition to that, nudging out, that retention idea was the time it took to go between these milestones, and it took women 33% longer, and the way I designed that study, that was the same household, so it was like a couple, and the man was being recognized 60% of the time compared to what the women were doing.
Guy Windsor
That is mental.
Sara Lewis
That absolutely is. And so there’s something wrong with the support that they’re being given, the training that they’re being given to build their skills. There’s something wrong with the criteria that are being applied to judge success. There’s little biases that have got to be built into there. So, looking at it from that standpoint, it was pretty clear that there were several things going on that was making it harder for women to get recognized in that way. But also, it was leading to a drop off of their participation.
Guy Windsor
Okay, so what can be done about it?
Sara Lewis
I mean, so we did a follow up study. And we did a big survey, where we asked questions about training environment satisfaction, and feelings of whether or not you would be able to reach these levels of recognition. And do you even want to. And we looked at all sorts of cofactors. Cofactors such as are you in a rural environment, or an urban one where you might have more access to resources? Or just all of these different things. Do you identify as a minority of some sort. And the biggest predictor of success. Of that feeling of the, yes I can make this or I want to participate, I don’t want to leave is whether or not they felt their training needs were being met. So that suggests that it’s not an issue of women being women, it’s the, you’re not giving them the tools to succeed, you’re not developing the training in a way that is useful to a broader population. And so that really kind of got me looking at maybe the big gap is this sort of lazy ‘whack, don’t die’ training approach, rather than building a good toolbox of training tools, and being really deliberate and that intention of making sure that you’re meeting the needs of the individual student, doing those goal directed trainings, and helping them fill those gaps.
Guy Windsor
I have a lot to think about. There are several different directions we could go. And I’m just trying to pick the best one, because I’m really interested in some actionable things, right? Theory is great. But to get more women hitting each other with swords, then there needs to be like specific things that people can choose to do. Firstly, just slightly, as an aside to that. Are these studies published somewhere? And can we put them in the show notes?
Sara Lewis
I can put them in the show notes. So I have written them up for public consumption, and I have links.
Guy Windsor
So we’ll put links in the show notes so people can find out your research methodology and the specific data and the results you’ve got and the analysis you’ve done on the results, because science is helpful.
Sara Lewis
Science is the way.
Guy Windsor
This is the way. Okay, so the key thing, you think, based on your research, is that the teaching methods, and the sort of club culture is what makes it likely that women will succeed or not succeed in a particular environment?
Sara Lewis
Absolutely, absolutely. So doing the work to set up a good environment where issues can be brought up and dealt with. And also setting up an environment that is responsive to individual’s training needs, rather than just we’re just going to go through these things in a repetitive but not necessarily responsive kind of way. Good training will lead to good retention. It’s really not a magic formula.
Guy Windsor
No, really not. I did find that as my teaching skills got better, so my retention rates improved. But that’s entirely anecdotal. I don’t have data for that. But that’s just what I’ve observed over time.
Sara Lewis
I’ve observed it in different environments as well, like when you provide value for the student, they will come back. And value is they learn, and they enjoy learning.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, and again, something that Kaja says is you need to provide a psychologically safe environment for learning physically dangerous things, and a physically safe environment for doing psychologically dangerous things.
Sara Lewis
That is so true.
Guy Windsor
Yes, genius. Okay, so basically, what we’re saying is everyone should just go read Kaja’s book.
Sara Lewis
Well, but I think we also need to have a lot more resources to become good teachers and conversations about how to do that.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, I produced a course on how to teach. Are you familiar with it?
Sara Lewis
I saw it, but I haven’t dug into it. But I’m presuming there’s so many things that you weren’t able to include for format and everything else?
Guy Windsor
Basically, I think you’ll like the content sufficiently. Because basically, we seem to have a very similar idea as to basically training should be tailored to the individual student. And feedback mechanisms are essential. And the you have to create the environment you want where the desired behavior is natural, that sort of thing. I’ll send you a link to it, you can have a have a look through it. And then tell me what you think. Because I will be very interested to see what you think is missing?
Sara Lewis
I would be delighted to do that. Yes.
Guy Windsor
Fine. Okay, I will get that sorted, because the one of the great things about these online courses is you can update them quite easily. So when I get new material to put on, I will just update the course and everyone who is on the course will just get the new material. It’s great. I started out writing it as a book. And it didn’t feel like it was a book, it felt like it didn’t work. So I recast it as a course. And I think the reason for doing that is because the change of medium changed expectations about finality. You know, it’s like you write the book on something. That’s the last word. It’s not the last word on the subject, but it kind of feels like it when you’re writing it.
Sara Lewis
Well, and also my idea, my teaching toolbox, as I call it, evolves every time I talk to somebody with new ideas, or I do it this way, it’s like, fantastic. Let’s add another thing into there. So I think teaching as a skill is something that is incredibly dynamic and draws from everything.
Guy Windsor
You’re on the Sword People platform? Yes, excellent, good. So I can just comp you on there. It is two clicks of the mouse.
Sara Lewis
That’s fantastic. I love this.
Guy Windsor
So do you have any headline ideas for how to build a safe and inclusive training environment?
Sara Lewis
I would definitely say that whether or not you’re treating the students with respect, should kind of be a check in question for everything that you do. You know, is the way I’m doing this demonstration respectful? Is the way I’m reading them when they come in with toilet paper in the bathroom, and, like, you know, a place for their gear, creating a place where they feel respected. When somebody comes to me with a problem, does that feel respectful? And I think there’s a lot of different ways to do that for different environments and different people, but ultimately asking, will the student feel respected as part of this and that they’re getting their value and that it’s okay to make mistakes and we’re all helping each other out. Part of just how things are coming together, how the community is manifesting. And there’s a lot of great advice in the book about specific aspects of that, of creating that code of conduct, following it, talking about the expectations, modeling it. But also, as a teacher, I realized that I wasn’t doing a very good job at understanding people who had this sort of challenge. And so this is how I went out and learned more about it. And I’m excited to share my own journey as a teacher and be really open about those things.
Guy Windsor
So you study the biology of childhood movement disorders, which I can imagine can be quite heartbreaking at times.
Sara Lewis
Yeah, it is not for the faint of heart to work on these disorders.
Guy Windsor
But I imagine that’s given you some insight and perspective as to what we could do better to help people who are living with movement disorders to learn swords.
Sara Lewis
And not just movement disorders, but all sorts of different physical challenges, learning abilities. And so I’ve worked with people who have all sorts of different challenges in the sword fighting arena. So one example would be hypermobility, so they have lax joints. And so learning how to engage muscles to keep the shoulder from jumping out is something that I deliberately added to my toolkit of the understanding of that. The idea of learning the way the body is supposed to move in these circumstances and keeping an eye open for that, and asking the question, how is this working for you? How does this feel? What’s making sense? What’s not? What should we break down and talk about? And so somebody who’s experiencing pain while they’re doing something, maybe you can kind of go through different ways of doing that action? Or well, maybe we need to brace this in a certain way. Or let’s talk about how you would engage more of your core muscles to have your back do more of that supporting action, rather than putting all of that work on your arms or your elbow joint. So asking lots of questions, really trying to put yourself into their shoes and see what they’re seeing and experience what they’re experiencing and then tailor the solutions for them.
Guy Windsor
One thing to add to that is, I had a student in class recently, very big guy, about six foot five, quite overweight, and he has had serious issues with his back. And it was really helpful to him when at the beginning of the course I was teaching, we said, Okay, everyone has a goal for the course. And he was he started talking about his injuries when I said, Okay, well, how about your goal is you get through every class with minimal pain. He was like, I can do that. Yeah. Let’s work on that. So while the topic of the course was How to Teach, but his personal goal for the course was to learn to do sword-like stuff in a way that didn’t hurt. Which you wouldn’t think you’d need to say that, but sometimes people just need permission to focus on the thing that’s actually really important.
Sara Lewis
Yes, yes. And again, it’s the coming back to those goal directed things. The goals might really surprise you. But those are what’s important for them. And sometimes it’s the guy being able to do this without pain. You know, I worked with somebody in a wheelchair. And so needing to, well, let me squat down to that level and see what it’s like to try to hold my sword with my pelvis immobilized, and what muscles do I need to be using to adapt that action? What movements are going to be most useful, because you’re not gonna spend as much time on footwork in that situation, but you’re going to probably spend a lot more time thinking about body voids, or really strong parries and the ability to counter attack from there. So really taking that time to listen and see things from their perspective and understand their goals and go from there. And for people with, I would say, different learning styles or just from a mental learning state. Again, the bigger your toolbox, the better you are. So recognize that there’s people who really can’t hear words of “do these things” and translate that into movements. So having like, okay, well, let me show you. And then let me, with your permission, actually physically move your body so that you can feel what that’s like. So being able to come at the problem from many, many different perspectives will help you find the right one for the right for that student.
Guy Windsor
Cool. Yeah, so these are questions that I asked almost all of my guests. The first is, what’s the best idea you haven’t acted on yet?
Sara Lewis
So it kind of sounds like you might have beat me to it. And that is a Teaching the Teachers event where I would love to see it be not just here’s my perspective on doing it. But a bigger weekend event where you have all of these different people who have different teaching styles, backgrounds, talking about different ways that they do things. So where you’ve got a preschool teacher, you’ve got the dog trainer, you’ve got the professional athlete, and all of them taking on something that they feel like they do really well as a teacher so that you can go around and get all of these different toolboxes, have these conversations, and get those different perspectives and have that exchange of ideas. As a fun event.
Guy Windsor
I’m not ahead of you. I haven’t even tried to organize a proper event like that. I mean, I’ve taught classes myself, and created an online course. Event organization is its own separate skill. And it’s something where I know that I don’t have the necessary skill set, and I’m not the right personality to try to organize an event.
Sara Lewis
But yeah, I would really love to organize not just an event, but also like a place where, hey, I wrote this curriculum. You know, I wrote this lesson plan that worked really, really well. And I want to share that. And having teaching resources so that it’s not bunch of people try to figure out how to run a sword school, run these tournaments? And like, how am I going to bring new teaching ideas when I don’t have that background?
Guy Windsor
Now, that is something that I do hope that the Sword People platform will do, there is a teaching and instructing sub forum.
Sara Lewis
I can put curriculum ideas there, and everybody will be very excited.
Guy Windsor
I will at least be excited. Okay, funnily enough, though, one thing that I’m finding, it’s quite difficult to educate people on in using the platform itself is they used to everyone is used to algorithms that throw stuff into your feed, and the better the algorithm knows you, the more likely you are to actually be interested in the stuff that is throwing into your feed. And the thing is, Sword People doesn’t have an algorithm. There is no feed, other than what people you have chosen to follow or doing, or what topics you have started being commented on. So it requires the users to actually choose to follow specific topics or choose to follow specific people for anything to appear in their feed. So one thing I’m finding is because a lot of people follow me, because it’s my platform, most of the people on there have been invited by me directly. A lot of people follow me. And so what I do, is I try and follow everywhere back then whenever anyone posts anything, I go and comment on it or do something on it so that that action will appear in everybody else’s feed. So it will get the ball rolling.
Sara Lewis
So you’re the algorithm.
Guy Windsor
At the moment, yeah. We will get to a critical mass where people will eventually learn that they actually need to actively follow the things they’re interested in, rather than just have the algorithm passively feed it to them. But at once we will get over that, we’ll get there.
Sara Lewis
Yeah, but knowing that this is a good place to share those ideas and having people hear this and going and well I want to use that, I think makes the platform a lot more useful of the this is where I go for that information. This is where I go to share that information.
Guy Windsor
And there’s a specific forum for people who want advice, which is separate all the other ones because the bane of the bloody internet is unsolicited advice. So if anyone gives you advice, anywhere except you’ve deliberately asked for it, that is a reportable offense in our code of conduct.
Sara Lewis
Honestly, though. I feel like in real life there just needs to be like a would you like advice or are you just expressing something, you know? We could be better about that as humans.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, we certainly could. My last question, somebody gives you a million dollars or similar large sum of imaginary money to spend improving historical martial arts worldwide, I think I have an idea of how you’ll spend it, but tell me.
Sara Lewis
Really, I think teaching the teachers is going to have such a profound effect overall. And so you know, the idea of organizing events where people can come and learn all sorts of different takes, because teaching is not just like, okay, I have the content, and I deliver it. It’s coaching, it’s learning how to develop it, it’s learning how to support curiosity, and problem solving in a fencing environment. It’s learning how to be a good training partner. So all of these are like different components that get kind of lumped together with teaching. But having a place where you can go and exchange those things that you’ve learned, these different perspectives. And really, the data seems to suggest that that’s going to be enormously helpful for creating good training, and people will stick around, and it will amplify throughout the community. But I also feel like, in addition to having the teachers go and learn, then having the ability to help teachers travel to these areas, because there’s nothing more exciting than a teacher who knows what they’re doing coming in and teaching you something new. That is just HEMA Christmas. But not everybody can afford to do that. And teachers ought to be fairly compensated for putting in that time and energy to develop those things and to travel. And I feel like it’s kind of a rare privilege to be able to do that or to afford to do that. And if we could just throw a bunch of money into it, I feel like that would, again, really help with those exchanges of ideas, bringing instruction to places that might be a little bit more remote and not have access to those resources would be very helpful.
Guy Windsor
One thing I’m working on is developing other sides of the business to the point where I can afford to travel and teach without actually having to get paid. Because it’s a big constraint on any club that’s trying to organize an event with me, as I need to get paid, because this is my job. And it does make it very difficult for clubs, first there’s the airfare, which is never a small amount of money, unless it’s somewhere fairly local. And then there’s away from home for at least three or four days. So there’s, there’s my time, and it would be really nice to not have to worry about the local club actually being able to find the money. But we’re not there yet.
Sara Lewis
But also, I feel like it would give opportunities to a broader pool of teachers to be like, okay, so you have your choice of going once a year or every two years to bring an instructor, are you going to choose Guy Windsor or Sara Lewis? Like, it’s a no brainer, right?
Guy Windsor
Sara every time, obviously.
Sara Lewis
Sadly that’s not been true. So basically, if you have more opportunities, then you have a broader pool of ideas being shared. I think that will be a net win.
Guy Windsor
So some kind of like scholarship program for teachers to travel.
Sara Lewis
Yeah, or for clubs to be able to pay for bringing in teachers, I think it would be more of a group directed grant process and I immediately went to grants.
Guy Windsor
Well, you’re a scientist. So some club somewhere decides they want a particular seminar with somebody, and they can apply for a grant to pay somebody like me or you or whoever else to fly, and they will have the money to then pay for it. I mean, given what that would do for my finances, that would be great. Yeah, please, let’s do that.
Sara Lewis
Yeah, your heart’s in this idea. But you know, as somebody who started in a very rural area, the ability to bring in teachers can be very limiting.
Guy Windsor
It’s something that I managed to do when I was running my school in Helsinki. Because I had enough students and living in a high cost of living country, they could afford to pay the kind of money it would cost to fly somebody over from America or whatever else to do seminars. So we had at least three, usually four, sometimes five seminars with guest instructors every year, and hugely valuable for me, obviously, because I was learning from these other instructors too, and also hugely valuable for the students, not least so they got to see that I’m not the only instructor the way I do things isn’t the only way to do them.
Sara Lewis
That’s so important for a student to have lots of different models of success. Because then they can see themselves in some sort of successful role.
Guy Windsor
Yeah. So in that sense, the grant giving body was my students. But that’s not an option if you happen to live in a country which has a low cost of living, and you’re flying in somebody from the United States, or Europe, or Canada, or whatever I mean, it’s is we’re talking about the equivalent of three months salary for a person just for the airfare. Like, ridiculous. So it’s not practical. But having that fund available would definitely help with that. And maybe some of the funds should go to organizing this event you’re talking about? Absolutely. So are you actually going to organise this event? I think you should.
Sara Lewis
Am I going to organise this event? It’s one of those things of if there’s enough interest, and people who actually organize events and are good at it are buying into that idea, that’s something I could see taking forward. On the other hand, I’d have to balance that with that whole science life.
Guy Windsor
Actually having a proper job? We never actually really discussed your proper job, and is extremely interesting. So if you don’t mind, what exactly do you do for a living?
Sara Lewis
So I work for a children’s hospital. And I oversee research to understand genetic mechanisms of cerebral palsy. So we do genetic sequencing of individuals with cerebral palsy and identify new genes that we didn’t know could do something like that. And then I take those genes into a fruit fly model, and ask what happens when you change those genes? How does that affect the way the brain develops? How does that affect the way the animal moves? And looking at it all the way from that genetic predisposition through how does this change these different molecules? How does that change the way the cells develop? How does that change the way that the circuitry develops? And really trying to understand from the ground up how the brain normally develops to be able to orchestrate these movements to inhibit them appropriately, to drive them appropriately? And from there, how do you try to get it back to normal? So within the flies, I’m creating a model of this particular movement disorder where you have these unwanted movements. And actually from understanding what’s going on with the molecules I can then try to add in compounds, or do other modifications to try to make it better, or understand if there’s a second hit, and what that might look like, and how you can prevent these sorts of things. And then take this information to the clinic.
Guy Windsor
Well, yeah, there’s a long way from Drosophila to Homo Sapiens. So if I summarise it, you tell me if I’m getting it, right, so you might, for example, find that adding a particular chemical reduces the symptoms. And then you might think, well, actually, maybe if we can get that chemical into human cells that will have a similar effect.
Sara Lewis
Yes. And that’s very akin to the way biomedical research is done for human disorders generally.
Guy Windsor
So is it polite to ask, have you had any notable successes in this area?
Sara Lewis
I have, actually.
Guy Windsor
In which case, it’s definitely polite to ask. If the answer was no, I shouldn’t have asked the question.
Sara Lewis
Yeah. So I was a lead author on a Nature Genetics paper, demonstrating that there even is a genetic component to cerebral palsy, which was kind of a big change and paradigm shift. But I’ve been invited to give talks at conferences for clinicians working in cerebral palsy, the dystonia foundation. So I’m actually an invited speaker to come and talk on this topic, and I have numerous publications about it.
Guy Windsor
Have you have you managed to treat any?
Sara Lewis
Have I managed to treat any? It’s more data needed, right?
Guy Windsor
Yeah. Because some friends of ours who have a daughter the same age as our eldest, their child has cerebral palsy and it’s not terribly severe. You know, some walking difficulties. Some loss of use of the left hand, that kind of thing. But yeah, she goes to normal school as she can function just fine. She needs orthotics in her shoes and that kind of thing. So she got kind of lucky, she kind of dodged the bullet there, or was just grazed by it rather than hit in the head.
Sara Lewis
Evasion maneuver. But I will say like, one of my current projects that I’m very excited about is taking what we already know about related brain disorders and saying, well, if you find a genetic finding, now you have treatment options that have been discovered for epilepsy, or these other things, and you can try it here. So when you change the way you look at a problem, all of a sudden, you might have solutions that were already figured out for this other thing.
Guy Windsor
If there’s a similar genetic component, then it’s likely that a treatment might work, or at least plausible that the treatment will work? Okay.
Sara Lewis
Yes, provided you get the information about genetics as part of your process of figuring out well, okay, what do you have? How does it affect you? What do we do?
Guy Windsor
Wow. What made you want to go into that particular area?
Sara Lewis
I got very interested in neurodevelopmental disorders early on in life because I had numerous friends that have autism. But there is just so very little known about it, or why there might be such a diversity in the way people’s brains develop, and it’s not always bad. Sometimes it’s trying to optimize something that maybe doesn’t need to be optimized anymore. And so that kind of drove my interest in it. And I love what you can do with fruit flies, you can ask so many questions so rapidly, that you cannot do so it’s a very gratifying bubble organism when you come in not knowing much at all. Because two weeks later, you got an answer, of some sort. Might not be a good one.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, we did some we did some genetic manipulation of fruit flies when I was doing a bit of biology back in the day. Yeah. So much quicker than doing it on a sheep.
Sara Lewis
Yeah, or rodents or whatever.
Guy Windsor
Okay, well, I sort of talked myself into the subject because I can actually go into the biology rabbit hole right now. I’m not sure what the average listener will be interested.
Sara Lewis
They were probably like, I think they’re supposed to talk about swords. Why on earth are they talking about brains?
Guy Windsor
Well, because without brain swords don’t work.
Sara Lewis
No, they really don’t. They really don’t. And believe it or not, you use a lot of parts of the brain that you don’t even think about to do your fencing, to do your problem solving, to take in all of these variables and respond to them.
Guy Windsor
I think we’d better wrap it up here or it’s going to get very, very technical. Thank you so much for joining me today, Sara. It has been lovely to meet you.
Sara Lewis
It was great. Thank you so much again.
