The Sword Guy Podcast

Listen in as Guy interviews a wide variety of interesting swordspeople and historians from around the world. Learn more about the practical, the tactical, the theoretical and the just plain awesome from a diverse group of voices.

Podcast Tag: business

My guest today is Dario Alberto Magnani, better known as Mr. Thokk, who was a longtime scholar of the Italian single combat tradition from the late medieval/early Renaissance period, and a world renowned historical martial arts instructor and gear designer. As a swordsman, he specialises in northern Italian fencing from the early 15th to the 16th centuries, i.e., Fiore, Vadi and into the Bolognese. And he’s a successful competitor and sought after instructor. In […]
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 […]
Andrew Newton lives in the Annapolis Valley in Eastern Canada. He is a historical fencer and mounted archer and runs the Annapolis Valley Historical Fencing Club, teaching broadsword, sabre and cutlass. Andrew was also an officer in the Air Force, so of course there’s a bit of plane chat. In our discussion we talk about the business end of running a club: how to make money, effective marketing tips, and why even if you’re […]
Eleonora Rebecchi is the creative director at Malleus Martialis, producer of excellent training swords, as well as a practising historical fencer and a graphic artist who has done some lovely covers for Guy. She is also a classically trained singer, which you’ll get to hear in this episode. We talk about how Eleanora and her partner Rodolfo got into designing swords for a living, what goes into the design process, and what qualities a […]
Alessia Pagani and Jack Gassman run Horsemen of Eire, an equestrian training school and medieval combat academy outside Wexford in Ireland. Alessia specialises in natural horsemanship and Jack takes care of the swords. In this episode we talk about what’s natural about ‘natural horsemanship’, and its origins in American cowboys and medieval training techniques. Here are some images of the single and double pillar training techniques we discuss, and there is a blog post […]
Mila Jędrzejewska runs Audatia Creative, a professional services company for businesses in the historical martial arts space. In this conversation, we hear what led Mila to start up her own business, why she focuses on our particular niche, and how Guy and Mila are working together. Mila describes her experiences of sexism in the sword world and racism in the business world and we discuss the privilege of being able to work in a […]
Jo York is a provost of the Hotspur School of Defence, which is based in the north east of England, and an entrepreneur in her work life, as well as an avid listener of this show. Jo talks about her home town of Knaresborough, with its annual Bed Race. There are pictures here: https://www.bedrace.co.uk/gallery/2022-race And this is the fabulous Yorkshire-accented raven at Knaresborough castle: Jo works with start-up businesses and has started her own […]