Making seated longsword work, with Ella Rose
Ella Rose has been practicing historical martial arts since 2017. In 2023 she founded Black Cat Historical Fencing with co-founder Shane Scallin, where she teaches dagger, rapier and beginner longsword classes. She has competed across the US and internationally, and she has won medals in multiple weapon categories. Ella is the lead tournament organizer of […]
Armoured Martial Arts, with Jenny Häbry
Jenny Häbry is an armoured martial arts competitor who has crowned UK’s best female fighter in both 2022 and 2024, and again in 2025. And since 2024 has served as the Women’s National captain. She has founded her own team, and her favourite discipline is pro fighting, where she remains undefeated. In 2025 she secured […]
Embodying martial arts in an aging body, with Jess Finley
The inestimable Jess Finley is back on the podcast! If you’re not aware of her work, she has written a wonderful book about medieval wrestling, starred in several of my online courses, and we recently collaborated on an online course about Von Baumann’s wrestling. On her Patreon account, she produces translations, interpretations, previews of books […]
Medieval European Body Culture, with Dr Maciej Talaga
Dr Maciej Talaga is an assistant professor at the University of Warsaw. His research interests have revolved around premodern European martial traditions, with particular focus on late medieval, Central European and the so-called German School of fighting. His goal is to elevate HEMA studies into a legitimate field of research within academic history and archaeology. Maciej […]
The perfectly rational fencer? With Martin Höppner
Dr Martin Höppner has been involved in historical martial arts since joining a local reenactment club, “Berliner Rittergilde” in 2008 before getting into historical fencing in 2015 studying classical sabre and rapier at the University of Berlin club. He then moved into sword and buckler, inspired by Roland Warzecha’s work (you can hear from Roland […]
Staying Fit for Fencing, with Dr. Elizabeth Scott
Elizabeth Scott is a historical martial arts and armoured combat practitioner on foot and on horseback, which is extremely cool, as well as being an orthopaedic surgeon, which is arguably even cooler. Her latest venture is Sprezzatura Sports, a company providing health and fitness training for sports fencers and historical martial artists. Of course, her […]
Kinesiology and Concussions with Jane Strange
Jane Strange represented Team North America at the 2019 European games in Minsk, and she is a competition medallist at longsword in both open and women’s competitions. She is currently teaching and training at Edmonton Historical Martial Arts but is mainly focused on pursuing her degree in kinesiology. We talk about what kinesiology is and […]
HEMA and heresy, with Xian Niles
Xian Niles is a fencing instructor, martial artist and the founder of Spada, a recreational Bolognese fencing study group in maritime Canada. He’s also the founder of The Niles Fencing Academy in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In our conversation we talk about his move from representing Barbados in sport fencing to getting into HEMA in Canada. […]
Swords for all humanity, with Janna Datahan
Janna Datahan was born and raised in the Philippines and is currently living in the United States. She’s a mother, a published poet, a fibre artist and an aesthetician. Janna discovered Historical European Martial Arts in late 2019 and found her way into the supportive arms of the sword community during the pandemic. She is […]
Messers and More, with Bob Brooks
Robert (Bob) Brooks is one of the original generation of historical fencers, who began training with me in the Dawn Duellists’ Society in the early 90s. He founded the Hotspur School of Defence in 2003. So it’s turning 20 this year. He has been teaching primarily German historical martial arts and he has taught in […]