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: disability

Dr. Ashley Polasek is a historical martial artist who started with Lichtenauer and now teaches Bolognese swordsmanship. She is based in South Carolina, but spends much of her time travelling for her day job working with one of the world’s most successful playwrights. Ashley is an expert in Sherlock Holmes. She was a consultant on the first Enola Holmes movie and is a member of the exclusive ‘Baker Street Irregulars’. Her PhD is in […]
Elizabeth Champion is an arms and armour historian specialising in high medieval Round Table tournaments and the Merlin legends. She’s also a historical fencer, co-founder of Stratford Swords and an ex-cage fighter. In our conversation we discuss what was a Round Table Tournament. Is it to do with King Arthur, or the arrangement of the tables, or both? If you have come across anything to do with Round Tables in your reading, if you […]
Naziyah Mahmood is a Scottish astrophysicist, aerospace engineer, aspiring citizen astronaut, STEM ambassador, model, writer, and artist. And of course, she’s mad about swords. In our conversation we talk about Naziyah’s love for the Eastern sword arts, primarily Haidong Gumdo. But there’s a diversion into Ancient Roman twin-sword-wielding gladiators… We also talk about training with a visual impairment, being underestimated, and the importance of self-expression. Here is a link to Naziyah’s film, A New […]
Dr. Emilia Skirmuntt runs the Oxford branch of The School of the Sword, and in this episode we talk about running a school with different branches and specialisations, and improving diversity and inclusivity within historical martial arts schools. Emilia is also a virologist at the University of Oxford, which brings up some topical questions about a certain virus. We talk about her fascinating research into virus-like genes in bat genomes and some truly game-changing […]