Podcast Tag: Italian swordsmanship

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Podcast Tag: Italian swordsmanship

Eleonora Rebecchi

Episode 188

Vadi and The Four Virtues of Sword Making, with Eleonora Rebecchi

Today’s episode is a bit different to the usual format, as we have both a delightful sample from an audiobook and a related interview. I have created an audiobook of Philippo Vadi’s De Arte Gladiatoria Dimicandi. It comes in three parts: 1. My friend, Eleonora Rebecchi (more on her later) has read Vadi’s words in mellifluous Italian. 2. I have read my translation in a rather more clunky English.  3. There’s a combined version, […]
Zeng Yang

Episode 187

Could HEMA ever be big in China? With Zeng Yang

Today’s episode is with Zeng Yang, who is a doctoral student at the Shanghai Sport University, where he is pursuing a PhD in the history of European swordsmanship from the 14th to the 17th centuries. He is a lifelong martial artist having begun training in Wushu at the age of eight. His master’s degree is a comparison of Duan Bing and HEMA. In our conversation, we talk about the spread of Chinese martial arts […]
Sarina Wagner

Episode 185

Historical dancing, historical fencing… and a bear, with Sarina Wagner

Sarina Wagner is a musical actress and dancer who trained at the University of Music and Arts of the City of Vienna, which is probably the best place in the world to do that. She is a historical fencer focusing on Capoferro and Fabris, as well as Spanish destreza. She is currently a member of the Academia da Espada. We talk about why Sarina moved to Vienna, and her work running workshops about musicians […]
Dario Magnani

Episode 180

What is a volta? A very detailed examination of Fiore, with Dario Magnani

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 […]
Jack Gassman

Episode 168

Force of Virtue with Jack Gassman

Jack Gassman, runs Horseman of Eire, an equestrian training school and medieval combat academy outside of Wexford in Ireland with Alessia Pagani. Alessia specialises in natural horsemanship, and Jack takes care of the swords. I interviewed them both in Episode 124 of the show. Jack has now invented and published a game that is very on topic for us, so he’s coming back on the show to talk about it. The game is called […]
Marli Vlok

Episode 166

Big Blue Flags, with Marli Vlok

Marli Vlok is a virologist, historical martial arts instructor and historical flag waver. And she was also a competitive target shooter who represented South Africa for a decade. Now based in Ottawa, Canada, Marli tells us about her work finding viruses in the oceans and working on diseases, including Covid, of course. Marli got into historical martial arts through a Groupon voucher, which started her on the path to becoming a rapier instructor. Since […]
Huang Chun-Yi

Episode 156

Bringing Italo-Hungarian Sabre to Taiwan, with Huang Chun-Yi

Huang Chun-Yi is an instructor of classical and military sabre at Lionheart Historical European Swordsmanship in Taipei, Taiwan. She also blogs in Chinese at travelingswordslady.wordpress.com. Chun-Yi’s club is the only one in Taiwan that practises classical sabre, and we talk about what drew Chun-Yi to the Italo-Hungarian sabre, over the longsword or rapier. This is the sabre duel from Potop (The Deluge) that we discuss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP98CcasA-E We chat about the European historical martial arts […]
Ian Davis

Episode 152

Bringing Fiore to a Knife Fight, with Ian Davis

Ian Davis is a historical fencing instructor at Boston Armizare, specialising in Italian fencing from the 14th to the 16th centuries. These days he is almost exclusively interested in wrestling, dagger and harness. Ian has been testing to discover what it actually takes to stick a sword point through historical maille. Here are some videos of his tests: Maille testing round 1 (sword): https://youtu.be/CLDcmiF1u1s Maille testing round 1 (dagger): https://youtu.be/WRE80BpQi7I Maille testing round 1 […]
Alberto Mattea

Episode 146

Fiore: The Movie, with Alberto Mattea

Alberto Mattea is an Italian film composer and filmmaker, actor and re-enactor with a deep interest in the Middle Ages. In the historical martial arts world, he is perhaps best known for his short film Fiore, which is, I think, the most accurate representation of the late 14th century ever put on the screen. In this episode Alberto explains how the film got made on a tiny budget of €3,000, how they built the […]

Episode 136

Ask Me Anything! With Guy Windsor

Today’s episode is a little bit different. It’s an Ask Me Anything with me. I sent out a query to my patrons on Patreon and also to my mailing list, and I got a whole bunch of questions that apparently people want answers to, so I’ve answered them. Find out which historical master I would like on my side in a tavern brawl, my funniest moment in teaching, my ideal podcast guest, and more. […]

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