Guy Windsor
I’m here today with Marine Beaumel, who is a historical martial arts instructor best known for her work with Royal Armouries Manuscript 1.33 Sword and Buckler. She started her historical martial arts career in Toulouse before moving to Finland, like all sensible people, where she co-founded the Tampere HEMA club. She is a member of the board of the French Federation of Historical European Martial Arts. And she has served on the executive board of the International Federation of Historical European Martial Arts. So without further ado, Marine, welcome to the show.
Marine Beaumel
Hey, thank you.
Guy Windsor
It’s nice to almost see you again. What have you been up to since we last met each other in Spain?
Marine Beaumel
Mostly studies. I mean, I’ve been also to train event and to some event in Paris and to Dijon, a couple of weeks ago.
Guy Windsor
Okay, so a busy international tour. Whereabouts in the world are you right now?
Marine Beaumel
I’m in Finland, in the beautiful town of Tampere that nobody knows.
Guy Windsor
Okay, I do have to ask, as someone who lived in Finland for a very long time. I understand why when we moved to Finland, that’s makes perfect sense to me. But why Tampere?
Marine Beaumel
That’s the place where the au pair family was when I came to Finland. I originally came just for one year as an au pair to take care of two little girls and I eventually stayed and never went back to France.
Guy Windsor
How long ago was that?
Marine Beaumel
10 years ago.
Guy Windsor
Bloody hell. Time flies. I remember when you moved to Finland. I think you got in touch with me briefly about sword and buckler stuff.
Marine Beaumel
Yeah. Because I didn’t knew where to go or if there was any groups in Finland or anything besides Ilkka Hartikainen at the time. And yeah, I think I sent you an email about who to go to.
Guy Windsor
Well, I hope it was helpful all those many years ago.
Marine Beaumel
Yeah, I did find some people. Yes.
Guy Windsor
Excellent. So take us back a little while. How did you get into historical martial arts?
Marine Beaumel
Um, well, as a kid, with my sister. We were building swords in the woods and fighting like Lord of the Rings and all these kinds of movies.
Guy Windsor
As all sensible kids do.
Marine Beaumel
I always had a small wooden sword, made by my myself, in my apartment. My mother hated it a little bit, but. And I always wanted to do the real deal. When I was a kid, I don’t want to do choreography or fighting with modern gear and stuff. And I was like, I really want to find something like they do in the medieval time. I didn’t know existed until I stumbled upon Anthony Menting in Toulouse and Roland Firman. And I studied it in Toulouse in their group.
Guy Windsor
And the rest is history. Is that where you got introduced to 133?
Marine Beaumel
Yes, I did one three hours or four hour discovery of HEMA with Anthony and it was great. At the end of those few hours I was like, “Where do I sign up?” Yeah, that was great.
Guy Windsor
What drew you particularly to 1.33, there’s lots of medieval real sort of fighty stuff you could be doing. And I personally, as you know, I love 1.33, I get it myself, but it’s not my primary focus. So what is it about that that speaks to you more than say, for example, longsword?
Marine Beaumel
When I started, I’m not sure why I liked it so much. Maybe it’s because Anthony and Roland were so enthusiastic about it. It was one of the main weapons, there was longsword and sword and buckler in the club. And so, when I tried it, I really enjoyed it. And I just stick with it.
Guy Windsor
Just love at first sight.
Marine Beaumel
That’s it.
Guy Windsor
Yeah. Fair enough. I think longsword is a bit too highly represented in historical martial arts. There’s more of it than there ought to be as a kind of proportion of how much of it was done actually, in the medieval period, I think.
Marine Beaumel
Yeah, a little bit too much. I have to stick with the sword and buckler just to even out.
Guy Windsor
Fair enough. But you also do La Canne, correct?
Marine Beaumel
Yeah, I’m not particularly good at it, but I tried to study it. And I actually started to translate the French manuals in English. So the people with whom I’m training in Tampere can also take a look at it. But yeah, it’s something that I really like. It’s something very natural to pick a stick and start whacking people with it.
Guy Windsor
Very natural.
Marine Beaumel
So, yeah. Also, I’m French, so I have to get French cane, you know?
Guy Windsor
Yeah, well, of course. So what sources are you working with?
Marine Beaumel
Mainly, it’s Leboucher and Charlemont.
Guy Windsor
That’s Leboucher and Charlemont? What’s the difference between them? I think most people who listen have probably never heard of either of those two names. So could you give us a bit of background on them?
Marine Beaumel
Oh, I’m not very skilled on it, like I said. I like to practice but I don’t know much. It’s from the 1840 somethings, ‘48, ’46. They’re roughly around the same time, both of them, so they really look alike. It’s mostly cane for a salle kind of training. Derived from Sabre and stuff like this. It’s a game, unlike Bartitsu, which is self-defence.
Guy Windsor
Okay, so it’s for sporting play for the salle where you whack each other with sticks that really hurts?
Marine Beaumel
Yeah, it can really hurt but you can also use it as a self-defence when you walk in the street with your cane.
Guy Windsor
Yeah. If you walk with a walking stick, like all civilized people would. Okay, so is there a lot of that going on in Finland?
Marine Beaumel
Not at all. I’m probably the only one around. Now Finland is mostly about longsword, side sword.
Guy Windsor
A bit of rapier.
Marine Beaumel
Little bit of rapier lately. Yes.
Guy Windsor
I did my best to get the Finns interested in rapier and some of them actually were, but like, everyone came to longsword classes and the rapier classes were usually fairly restricted. I don’t know why. It’s it wasn’t the teacher because that was the same person in each case. I think it’s maybe just Finns like longsword more.
Marine Beaumel
I guess it’s more represented in movies as well and video games and stuff. So people get more excited about a sword in two hands than a rapier that looked like a Zorro kind of stuff.
Guy Windsor
But like 20 years ago, just as the Lord of the Rings thing was coming along, that made longsword hugely popular. But I mean, before that, Princess Bride, Three Musketeers. So the generation that I was training in 2001 had more than probably seen The Princess Bride than had seen Lord of the Rings. And still, they seem to prefer longsword. Maybe I was just better at teaching longsword.
Marine Beaumel
Oh, maybe that’s one way to look at it. Or just people maybe like it more efficient, or more visual at first.
Guy Windsor
yeah, it’s flashier, I guess. And also, I think it’s less hard work. Longsword is physically less demanding. Because a 1.7 kilo sword held in two hands is a lot easier to use than a 1.2 kilo sword held in one hand.
Marine Beaumel
It gets more fun a bit more quickly for longsword. Then you need a little bit more work to have fun with a rapier or a sword and buckler, for example.
Guy Windsor
Could be. So you have no interest in rapier yourself?
Marine Beaumel
Rapier? No, not really. I enjoy looking at people who fight well doing it. But myself, no, I would prefer some dagger, Messer, or even the montante.
Guy Windsor
All right, either like little murdery weapons or great big murdery weapons but not the long thin murdery weapons. There’s no accounting for taste. Now, I have absolutely nothing to do with Historical Martial Arts Federations of any kind because I’ve just never found the need for them. So for my curiosity, what does the French Federation for Historical European Martial Arts do and what do you do on the board for them?
Marine Beaumel
So the French Federation is basically insurance for all the groups that we have and also bringing all the groups together, so we have more weight in front of the French authorities, and we can get maybe some easier access to training halls or these kinds of things. And we can help the people around like people who have small groups, they usually look for help, or the group that is starting, they can look for help as well. So we can help set up things in this way.
Guy Windsor
Right. So basically, it’s not a governing body, then, it’s more like an association of clubs that pools together for things like insurance.
Marine Beaumel
Um, yes and no, we also have, as we have the insurance and stuff, we also have recommendations that need to be followed. Stuff like this. We don’t say to people “do this, don’t do that”. We don’t have that power. And we don’t really want to have that power, because then we start to enter in any kind of Sports Federation problem, and we have to cancel some techniques and stuff like that. We don’t want to do that. What we mainly want to do is to bring our practice to a more general public. I mean, you have easier access to training facilities, and just bring people together and make it easier to work together.
Guy Windsor
Okay, it’s a very European thing, like European Union, let’s get all the countries together to work together as one thing. And whereas like Switzerland, like, no, we’re not having a part of that. We’re not having those Europeans tell us what to do. We’re just going to sit here and make all the money.
Marine Beaumel
I guess it works better if we work together, you know?
Guy Windsor
Sure. So is the International Federation the same?
Marine Beaumel
Yes, the idea originally was for countries to talk between each other more easily or exchange more easily. To get interested in each other’s neighbours basically. What’s happening here, what’s happening there and connect as well and exchange and advance on the historical side. Lately, there is the IFHEMA Cup, the international tournament that is being created.
Guy Windsor
Okay, in what?
Marine Beaumel
For now, it’s longsword and there is rapier that will come later.
Guy Windsor
International championships. Okay, so is the International Federation a federation of national federations? Or is it a federation of groups in different countries?
Marine Beaumel
Most likely national federations. You don’t have to be a federation to be part of the IFHEMA, but you need to be a group that represents the country, the groups of the country where you’re at.
Guy Windsor
So like Finland will have one member body inside the International Federation, for instance.
Marine Beaumel
If they applied and if they successfully have a group like this? Yes.
Guy Windsor
Is Finland involved at all?
Marine Beaumel
No.
Guy Windsor
Okay. Interesting. Yeah, I think getting all the Finnish clubs to join in a federation, even amongst themselves will be quite hard. Getting them to do it with a whole bunch of people from outside, that’s going to be even harder.
Marine Beaumel
Well, you don’t have to have all the clubs of your country, obviously. But if you have already few clubs that are grouping together to have some kind of governing bodies, in parenthesis “governing”. But yeah, if you can succeed to have something like this, then you can be part of the IFHEMA.
Guy Windsor
So how do you get around the governing problem? Most historical martial arts clubs really don’t want anyone telling me what to do at all. But if you’re part of a federation, you have to agree on things like safety standards, I would imagine, if you have the same insurance.
Marine Beaumel
You mean for the French Federation side?
Guy Windsor
Yeah. Well, for instance, yeah.
Marine Beaumel
Yeah, we have safety recommendations. They are not too strict. It’s like having a mask. Don’t play around with sharp swords.
Guy Windsor
So you don’t allow sharp swords?
Marine Beaumel
The insurance that doesn’t allow it, that will not cover it. You can play with sharp swords, just don’t tell them.
Guy Windsor
Okay, so basically, if a club in France which is a member of the French Federation has training with sharp swords as part of their normal curriculum. That would mean that they will not their insurance would not cover them for that.
Marine Beaumel
They usually don’t, or we are not aware of it as part of their curriculum. It’s usually an activity on the side. It’s usually what is called research. It’s usually on the side. It’s a small group of people researching stuff, most likely.
Guy Windsor
Okay. Yeah, I see. Thinking back like 15 years ago, maybe 20 years ago now, when people were coming up with similar ideas. I think it was the, ‘but we’re not allowed to use sharp swords’ was the thing that was like, well, I can’t do that then. I mean, I know in Britain, my local jujitsu club is part of a kind of larger group that has insurance for everyone. And the reason they’re part of that specific group is because it’s the only group of martial arts clubs in Britain where the insurance does cover sharp swords. Yeah. So that’s why they’re with them. Because occasionally for their traditional jujitsu stuff, they have to bring the sharps out.
Marine Beaumel
Cool. Yes. Yeah, we need that too.
Guy Windsor
I should probably start an insurance company, precisely for providing insurance to people who want to play with sharp swords.
Marine Beaumel
I’m pretty sure there will be takers.
Guy Windsor
The only reason the insurance companies don’t allow it is because they don’t understand it. And they have no access to data that allows them to make reasonable calculations as to how safe the thing is.
Marine Beaumel
Well, that goes for any kind of our training. Most people don’t understand it. So they’re like, oh, you’re going to kill each other? Not really. But so yeah, insurances are usually a little bit frisky to go with us.
Guy Windsor
And I think the issues people have had with insurance companies in the past have been largely, if they can find something they already insure that feels similar to them they’ll cover it under the same sort of terms. So they have to have some sort of existing, like, I think some Canadian friend of mine was telling me that they get their insurance from an insurance company that insures people who do ice hockey, which has pads and blunt weapons. Right, we know how to ensure that.
Marine Beaumel
Okay, yeah. Close enough.
Guy Windsor
So you serve on the Board of these things. What does that actually entail?
Marine Beaumel
Well, taking part in everyday decisions on a club coming in. Helping a club with questions or dealing with some paperwork.
Guy Windsor
Glamorous.
Marine Beaumel
Oh, yeah. also preparing national events, this kind of things.
Guy Windsor
What national events have you been part of?
Marine Beaumel
I was working in with the IFHEMA on the tournaments, before. Because the French Federation was a curator. So I was in between. But now I’m focusing on the French side, because I’m not part of the IFHEMA anymore. So we try to create dynamics between events and people and try to make things go forward. Not long ago, we had a team of fighters that went to the Night of the Martial Arts in Paris. It’s every year. Many martial arts present their stuff in a kind of a show for the night. And you have a few minutes, where you demonstrate and show what you what your martial art is about. There are a few comments and stuff and it’s transmitted live on internet and TV.
Guy Windsor
Oh, cool. So you got historical martial arts in there for the first time.
Marine Beaumel
That was the second time this year.
Guy Windsor
Wow. Excellent. So getting over the recognition beyond the normal Facebook groups?
Marine Beaumel
Yeah. That’s what we’re trying to do.
Guy Windsor
It does seem like a lot of work for not a lot of glory.
Marine Beaumel
Yeah, it doesn’t matter. I’m happy with it. I like to help around and try to make our martial art move forward.
Guy Windsor
But good, well done. Alright, so when we were chatting in Spain, you mentioned something about what you actually study. And it sounded fascinating to me. So my next question is, what exactly is an Environmental Engineer?
Marine Beaumel
It can be many things depending on the field that you are going to. So I studied Environmental Engineering, and now I’m studying Plant Science. Environmental Engineering, for me, it’s someone who tries its best to make companies and people around realize that they need to be more environmentally friendly, in their everyday process. So it can be someone who works in a company that tries to reduce the energy costs or energy saving, or someone can work in forest protection, nature protection, rehabilitation of natural habitats, there is a wide range of jobs that you can do. And for me, I’m more on the plant side, I’d like to work mostly on the natural habitat rehabilitation on plants level.
Guy Windsor
What does that involve?
Marine Beaumel
Taking polluted sites and try to decontaminate the soil and water using plants, and plants that are locally implanted already.
Guy Windsor
Okay, so taking plants that are already there and encouraging them to take over the polluted area. I mean, are there plants that are particularly good, like getting rid of heavy metals?
Marine Beaumel
Yeah, it does exist are some plants that are used in heavy metal polluted areas, they are planted and then they are harvested to get the heavy metals back, actually. It takes quite some time. But it’s actually natural way of doing it, it works like this.
Guy Windsor
So are they actually recovering the heavy metals to use them again.
Marine Beaumel
It takes an extreme amount of time. It’s not very easy, but it can be done.
Guy Windsor
All right. So for places, I don’t know, polluted this area with lead or mercury or something, you can plant plants in there that will get the metal out of the ground, and then you can get the metal out of the plants.
Marine Beaumel
The plants will not necessarily look super healthy, but they will second of all the heavy metals, or part of it at least.
Guy Windsor
Okay, so that’s the sort of area that you’re going into, correct?
Marine Beaumel
That’s the area I’d like to work in.
Guy Windsor
So what are you actually studying?
Marine Beaumel
Right now it’s a Master of Plant Science. Okay. So it’s biology, ecology, microbiology, combined for plants. Agroeconomy as well.
Guy Windsor
So, from au pair in Finland to Master of Plant Sciences is an interesting career development. What drew you into that?
Marine Beaumel
Ah, well, once again, I always played in the woods with my sister, swords and stuff. So I grew up quite a bit close to nature, in forests in France. And I studied also six years of landscaping. When I was younger, before going for au pair, I was a landscaper. I’ve always been close to plants and nature.
Guy Windsor
So you’re by nature, basically a gardener? Fair enough. And so you want to apply that to like, building garden type things that will improve the environment that they live in?
Marine Beaumel
It’s part of it. I also like the agroforestry. Getting rid of this one type of plant field that covers kilometres and go back to trees, shrubs, and then ground covering plants that can be used for food.
Guy Windsor
Okay. All right. So again, we wandered into something where I think the average listener is going to have no idea what we’re talking about. So when somebody thinks forestry, like in Finland, there are these farms, which are basically trees planted like wheat and every 10 years or 20 years or whatever it is, this machine goes in and cuts them all down. And it’s a monoculture. It’s just these pine trees and they grow very fast and harvested for like, wood pulp usually. But a natural forest has a huge variety of species and there are trees and bushes and all those other things.
Marine Beaumel
It’s going to depend on where you are. In Finland, naturally, you have birches, pines, spruce.
Guy Windsor
Alder.
Marine Beaumel
Not so much. A little bit. But there’s not much so the natural forest’s going to look like pretty much what they plant anyway. But if you if you go more like to France, or the middle of Europe, you have more variety. When I speak about agroforestry it is mostly using a plant’s natural ability to help each other to help farm what we need.
Guy Windsor
Can you give us an example?
Marine Beaumel
So for example, every 10 meters we’re going to have trees, lines of trees, that will provide shade for the shrubs and the lower plants, right. And they will also keep moisture, so we don’t have to bring so much water in irrigation system in. You can even have systems where you have animals passing in between that will eat the undesirable grasses or plants and at the same time, leave some of the fermentation on the ground for the plants to use.
Guy Windsor
What would you what would you be growing? What sort of crop are you interested in in that sort of situation? That is, you can’t grow weed like that, I assume?
Marine Beaumel
Oh, yeah, you can. Really you can, but it’s going to have to be trees and wheat. So every 10 meters, you have rows of trees. And depending on the area, depending on the soil, it will change, basically.
Guy Windsor
Is it not massively less efficient to harvest in that environment?
Marine Beaumel
Depends how it’s billed, once again. Because you can think of the entire system as you need to have machineries to go in between the trees or in between the shrubs. So you can make the system in a way that will reduce the water use. And also you will have the trees that you can harvest for either fruits or branches for heating. And then in between you have your wheat, for example, that doesn’t need so much water or your corn that doesn’t need so much water anymore. And then you can harvest the same way.
Guy Windsor
So why do you think conventional agriculture came about when this sounds better?
Marine Beaumel
It’s because you need to wait first for the trees to grow. So you need to pay attention for a longer time. And it takes longer to see the results. Also, when you grow trees and shrubs, it’s not a year on year. You have your plants at the end of the season and you can sell them. Like if you plant the trees, you have to buy the trees and wait for a certain amount of time before you can get something out of them.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, I mean, in Britain, firewood was a seven year crop. So they would coppice the trees. And then every seven years they’d go around and they’d cut the shoots down. A crop of firewood took seven years to grow.
Marine Beaumel
So it takes some time but with the test and studies that have been done the past 10 years. Farmers are pretty happy about it. The only problem is that they usually need help to start because it costs a little bit and also you need to study a little bit the area to know exactly what to plant.
Guy Windsor
So you imagine at some point in the future, you’ll be going around to farms and going okay, well here, we should grow this, this, this and this and you’re going to need this much money from the government to kind of get it all started and there we go. And then we get a much more ecologically sustainable agricultural system.
Marine Beaumel
There are already systems that are going like this even in France. Especially, for example, in Africa, a lot of small farmers are doing this this way. Because it’s a way to feed their family more efficiently, they get more food, more wood out of the system than what they get in conventional agriculture.
Guy Windsor
I guess also, conventional agriculture, developed in an age when there were far fewer people and therefore proportionately, much more land. So you could sort of go from place to place and just do it this way. And it just grew. And as we got more population dense, the farms got bigger, and they got far more sort of mechanically. So there wasn’t originally a need to do it this way.
Marine Beaumel
Not necessarily. It was easier. It was the lazy solution, I guess. Because when you have only one stuff to care about, it doesn’t matter. It’s easy. And actually the agriculture was done like this, not monoculture. Before, like, some 100 years ago, it was already a system where you had different plants on the same plot.
Guy Windsor
I have no idea. Well, I know absolutely nothing about farming. So this is fascinating for me. So as a plant scientist, can we call you a botanist? Is that fair?
Marine Beaumel
Sure. Yeah, that works.
Guy Windsor
I guess you’d be like, like, the specialist in what species to put where? And what species play well together, that sort of thing.
Marine Beaumel
Yeah, that’s the engineering side of it.
Guy Windsor
Do you have a favourite plant?
Marine Beaumel
It’s called Cercis Siliquastrum.
Guy Windsor
Okay. What is it?
Marine Beaumel
It’s a beautiful small tree. It’s called Judas tree. It’s a beautiful small tree that has the flowers coming before the leaves on the branches.
Guy Windsor
How does it do that?
Marine Beaumel
I have no idea how it does it. But it does it. And it’s really wonderful. It’s not very tall. I think it’s 10 maximum. And it’s kind of bushy if you let it grow. And it has pinkish, very bright pink to white flowers on the trunk and branches. And then there comes those heart shaped leaves, after the flowers. It’s very lovely.
Guy Windsor
Where does it grow?
Marine Beaumel
Oh, well, in Europe. I have seen some in Northern Europe as well. They don’t do well, but they are here.
Guy Windsor
So I guess you don’t have one in your house?
Marine Beaumel
No, no, I have an apartment.
Guy Windsor
Well, maybe a bonsai one.
Marine Beaumel
I could actually do it. But as I’m quite often away for HEMA reasons.
Guy Windsor
Fair enough. So why that particular plant?
Marine Beaumel
I don’t know. I love it. Just beautiful.
Guy Windsor
Fair enough. I mean, my favourite animal is the elephant. And I couldn’t really say why except they’re obviously the best animal. Well, if you could send us a photograph of the Judas tree, I’ll stick it in the show notes. That’d be great.
Marine Beaumel
I can. No problem.
Guy Windsor
Excellent. All right. So there are a couple of questions I ask everyone. And first is, what is the best idea you haven’t acted on yet?
Marine Beaumel
That’s a difficult one, because I usually act pretty quickly on my ideas. Well, I probably should get a job.
Guy Windsor
Honestly, I can’t recommend it. I mean, I have not had a proper job for 25 years.
Marine Beaumel
I need to buy new swords and I don’t really have a lot of money as a student. There’s a motivation there. But more seriously, I’m working or I just started to work on a project about body maintenance, body mechanic knowledge about how to maintain our body in HEMA. So that’s a project that I’m doing for the French Federation. But that can be shared.
Guy Windsor
Tell me about this because I’m actually working on a similar thing right now myself.
Marine Beaumel
So I made a team of a physiotherapist and a chiropractor as well. And I still need a personal trainer that is close to HEMA or actually knows what it is.
Guy Windsor
There may be one listening, do they have to be like in France for this to work?
Marine Beaumel
That’s easier as my primary work is for the French Federation. And the French people in general, but it will be accessible to everyone in the end.
Guy Windsor
Okay, so I know that there are people listening who are personal trainers, because I have had messages from listeners to the show who have told me they are personal trainers. So there’s a good chance there are personal trainers listening in who think, oh, I can help with that. So my question is basically, does it matter whether they live for example, in America? Or in France?
Marine Beaumel
No, but the people I’m working with, I’m not sure about their English level. That’s the main thing. But I have no problem with it.
Guy Windsor
Okay, so should I suggest anyone who is a personal trainer, ideally has a bit of French to get in touch with me and I will pass on their details to you.
Marine Beaumel
And if they don’t have any French background, it’s okay. I still speak English. So, the goal for this is to make some easily understandable leaflets that trainers, and interested students can look at. And get back to whenever needed, because there is a growing need of understanding our body. Apparently, a lot of people do not know how to move, they do not know how to take care of their body after a hard session or something. And I noticed a huge demand on this subject.
Guy Windsor
Okay, so you’re going to be producing just a leaflet?
Marine Beaumel
Many, on different subjects.
Guy Windsor
I see. So like there’s a leaflet on I don’t know, warmups or looking after your knees or looking after your ankles or preventing concussion or what to do if your legs hurt after training or whatever.
Marine Beaumel
This kind of things. Yes. Okay.
Guy Windsor
Why leaflets?
Marine Beaumel
It’s something easy to, to read, like it shouldn’t be more than two or three pages, otherwise, people will never read it.
Guy Windsor
Well, actually, as a writer of books of like, 200, 300 pages, I think, yeah, a lot of readers do seem to treat my books as a collection of leaflets. And they’ll dip in and read that chapter and dip in and read that chapter. They don’t actually read the whole thing.
Marine Beaumel
Yeah, that’s usually what happens. And so whatever they need, they can just take here and there. It shouldn’t be too much in detail, because people are not health professionals. So they should just understand the why and do and don’ts. And then if there is even more demand later, we can dig a little bit deeper and actually have longer writings.
Guy Windsor
Will these leaflets involve like specific exercise recommendations?
Marine Beaumel
It can. I haven’t decided or it hasn’t been decided yet what we are going to put in there, but there will definitely be some exercises, somewhere.
Guy Windsor
It occurs to me that video is probably a better medium for communicating the exercises. So if you have them in the leaflet, I would recommend having a video and link to the video in the leaflet, too.
Marine Beaumel
Yeah, that can be done. That can be done, but it demands a little bit more work.
Guy Windsor
Well, I mean, I’ve been working on my, basically how to look after your body. I mean, I call it prehab. And conditioning. So prehab and conditioning for historical martial artists. It’s been burbling away in my head for three years. And the reason it’s not done yet, is because I can’t see the edges of it. There is so much stuff. And the problem with if you put everything in, you might as well put nothing in because it won’t make any sense. It’ll be an overwhelming deluge of stuff.
Marine Beaumel
And people will just give up.
Guy Windsor
But when I get the sense of the edges of it, for what topics I will not be covering and the structure of it so I can see how it fits together, then producing it is going to be fine, because this is stuff I do all the time anyway. But I learned it sort of bit by bit here and there, over the last 30 years or so. So I wasn’t taught it as a curriculum, so constructing it as a curriculum is proving to be really hard. Do you have any suggestions?
Marine Beaumel
It is very hard. But we have to keep in mind that most of the people who are practicing HEMA do not know anything about their body.
Guy Windsor
That makes it worse. That makes it harder. Where do you start?
Marine Beaumel
It’s actually easy. On the basics. Just the basics.
Guy Windsor
How to breathe.
Marine Beaumel
For some that would be very useful.
Guy Windsor
Honestly, that is the basic. I think that’s the one of the one motion that can be brought under conscious control that absolutely everybody does absolutely all the time. And almost nobody does it right.
Marine Beaumel
Even I don’t. Yeah, this project, is, I’m going to have something like for warmups, something for how to take care of someone who is coming back from an injury as an instructor. How to develop your strength, how to develop speed. I’m going to cut it in small pieces like this. And then having enough information that people can understand and not too much, so they’re not overwhelmed. It’s usually on the level of a workshop that I’m doing. That’s plenty enough. It doesn’t have to be super precise. You don’t have to go into details of which muscle fibre is doing what or what’s the name of that fibre. It doesn’t matter so much as the moment that you stay on the body mechanic aspects. And you tell them, okay, if you do this, these will happen in the big picture. And then if there are people that are more interested, then on a later addition, you can go a little bit further.
Guy Windsor
That’s an interesting way to think about it. I mean, one thing that I could probably do to get this project actually moving, is just create videos of all the exercises I actually do in no particular order. I just have like a video or write up or whatever, of every single exercise, and then seeing all of that go, well, okay, why don’t we put these together? Why don’t we put those together? Here’s a five-minute warm up routine. And here’s a 10-minute warmup routine. And here’s a warm up routine that emphasizes your shoulders and forearms. And here’s one that emphasizes your hips and knees. And here’s one that emphasizes neck strength to prevent concussion or whatever. So there’s maybe organizing it that way.
Marine Beaumel
There are many ways of doing it.
Guy Windsor
That’s the problem. If there was only one way to do it, I’d have done it years ago.
Marine Beaumel
You need to find a way that suits you. If you do something that you don’t like, it’s going to be terrible in the end.
Guy Windsor
True. Okay. So you have your physiotherapist on board, and you have a chiropractor on board. You’re just looking for a personal trainer to add to the mix. Do you not need a doctor?
Marine Beaumel
We shouldn’t add too many people on the first try of this project, we can always build up on it afterwards. Because there’s one thing I know it’s working with too many people doesn’t get you anywhere. It’s way more trouble. I’ve done that plenty of times in science and in engineering. It is terrible. So if we’re limited to three, four people, it’s already pretty good.
Guy Windsor
What stage is the project at at the moment?
Marine Beaumel
I have the people, they know what we’re going to work on. We just need to get the information in.
Guy Windsor
So you need to decide what your first leaflet will be.
Marine Beaumel
It’s probably going to be warm ups.
Guy Windsor
Okay. When should we expect it?
Marine Beaumel
No idea. I’m actually working on my Master’s thesis right now. So I don’t have much time.
Guy Windsor
Yes, I’m familiar with that problem. So after the MSc is done then that’s the next big project. DO you have a name for the project?
Marine Beaumel
No, not really.
Guy Windsor
Well, we need a name for it.
Marine Beaumel
Oh, I don’t know. Well,
Guy Windsor
I mean, the working title of my similar project is Jumppa which is the Finnish word for like calisthenics and gym and all the exercises stuff you do for like fitness and health and not the actual sport or whatever itself. Which is a great name because it has that kind of slightly grumpy sound to it. Because a lot of people feel a bit grumpy about having to do Jumppa anyway, it’s true. So is there a French word that’s similar?
Marine Beaumel
Oh, no. So I’m losing my French as I speak English and Finnish most of the time.
Guy Windsor
You speak Finnish?
Marine Beaumel
Some kind of Finnish not wonderful, but some kind.
Guy Windsor
Okay, well done you, my Finnish is terrible. My Finnish was never good. But I mean, when the tax office sends me a letter, I know whether I need to call my accountant immediately, or whether I’ve got some time. That’s the level of my Finnish.
Marine Beaumel
That’s normal because they use a terrible office Finnish, it is terrible. Even for Finnish people, it’s like what the fuck? I need to find a title for this stuff.
Guy Windsor
Yeah. What are you hoping this will actually accomplish? What do you want to do?
Marine Beaumel
That people will have a little bit more knowledge about how to use their body, move their body and what not to do and avoid injuries or reduce the risk of injuries?
Guy Windsor
So like injury prevention for historical martial artists? That’s a good subtitle.
Marine Beaumel
I need to put it in French now.
Guy Windsor
I will not do the translating into French for you, because that is definitely not my area. But if that’s your subtitle, then something that kind of summarizes the key point.
Marine Beaumel
I usually call it mechanics and prevention.
Guy Windsor
Hmm. There’s more than just body mechanics.
Marine Beaumel
Yeah. Because it’s knowledge is also about how the body is working. So there’s some small biology knowledge.
Guy Windsor
How about this? A user’s guide to the human body. All right. It’s not my job to give you a title. But I quite like brainstorming titles and stuff.
Marine Beaumel
I’m terrible at it.
Guy Windsor
It’s hard. And I’ve even gone so far as to change the title of a book a year after it was published, because I didn’t get it right the first time.
Marine Beaumel
I always do that. Changing titles of my articles and stuff.
Guy Windsor
Okay, so maybe in a year or so, we should expect something.
Marine Beaumel
I hope to have something by December.
Guy Windsor
All right. Okay. Excellent. All right. Well, as soon as you do, let me know. And I will send an email out and let everybody know that they can go and get this leaflet.
Marine Beaumel
If they speak French.
Guy Windsor
Well, there’s Google Translate for everything. And honestly, by December, you’ll probably wave it at your webcam and Chat GPT 27 will translate it for you and inject it into your face.
Marine Beaumel
It’s a bit scary.
Guy Windsor
Okay, now, my last question. Somebody gives you a million euros, Francs, not Francs, they weren’t worth very much. 100 million Francs, maybe, to spend improving historical martial arts worldwide. How would you spend it?
Marine Beaumel
We’re still in euros in France.
Guy Windsor
We are now, but you weren’t back when I was a lad. I remember going to France and spending Francs. They were worth about 10p if I recall. So, lots of money. What would you do with it?
Marine Beaumel
I think I’ll spend it on research in HEMA. And looking for manuscripts, of acquisition of manuscripts and this kind of stuff, sponsoring people who are actually working their ass off without getting any money for their HEMA research.
Guy Windsor
Like a grant giving body for historical martial arts research.
Marine Beaumel
So that’s the best I can do. Because otherwise I’ll build myself a very nice training hall with places to sleep and stuff so I can have seminars going on all the time and invite people. That’s the other idea.
Guy Windsor
You can do that too. And you don’t need a million euros for that because my salle in Helsinki, people slept there many times. And it’s not particularly comfortable but it’s reasonably safe and warm and dry. So you’d basically build a fancier one?
Marine Beaumel
A great one, a comfortable one. When we can have cooks and stuff because usually we don’t eat very well during seminars.
Guy Windsor
True and where would you put this?
Marine Beaumel
No idea. Like a floating castle? Can I have it?
Guy Windsor
Well, I mean, you’re a scientist, you come up with the antigravity technology for a floating Castle, which is a historical martial arts salle.
Marine Beaumel
I know only plants and they don’t move around.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, so maybe not. I mean, you could spend some of the money on your unnamed project to improve people’s body awareness.
Marine Beaumel
True. Could have a little bit of that too.
Guy Windsor
I do like the idea of a grant giving body for research because it makes all the difference to how much time people put into things if the time is paid for.
Marine Beaumel
Yeah, that’s usually what’s the problem when we wanted to have results. We lack time.
Guy Windsor
Yeah. So what area of historical martial arts do you think is under researched?
Marine Beaumel
The training with actual sharp weapons. I don’t think we have enough people for that. I’m doing it. And it’s very difficult to find people trustworthy in front of you, so you don’t die.
Guy Windsor
Pretty much everyone I trained in Helsinki once they got past a certain level had sharps experience.
Marine Beaumel
It’s quite different than cutting bottles.
Guy Windsor
No, no, no blade on blade and blade. Absolutely. We did loads of it. It’s essential for understanding how the thing actually works. Okay, I mean, if you like, after the show, I can maybe put you in touch with one or two of my students who have a lot of experience in that area. And maybe Helsinki is not that far from Tampere.
Marine Beaumel
I go there twice a week.
Guy Windsor
So go along and get some sharps practice. It’s one of those things where, like, for people when it’s not their job, it’s quite difficult to make the case that you really need to do sharps training. I don’t think everyone needs to do it.
Marine Beaumel
No, but if you want to understand properly what you’re doing, I think it’s a necessity at some point.
Guy Windsor
One of the most interesting things I ever did was Ropecon, the Games Convention in Helsinki, which I used to talk about every year, and do a demo. One year for the demo, we did a bunch of sharp stuff. And then anyone in the audience could come and have a go sharp on sharp. And I was expecting two or three brave souls, and I got about 30 people. It was fantastic. But I had it set up so that behind me, so I was looking out towards the audience. Behind me, there were four of my students kind of just standing there, keeping an eye on things, watching my back, basically. So the person I was with, all they could see was me and my students behind me, they couldn’t see their friends. And when they queued up, they would be given a sword by a person. And basically given a like, very quick, 10 seconds, this is how it handles, then they would do a very basic drill one on one with one of my senior students. And when they’d done that, then they came and did the same drill with me with the sharps. So it was a very controlled environment. And there was enough structure there that it would filter out most lunatics. And the psychology of it was they were basically very much stepping into my space. And all they could see, when they were actually doing the sharp on sharp thing was me and my students. So psychologically speaking, they were entirely inside my space. And they’re much more likely, therefore to do what they’re supposed to do rather than mess about. For me as an instructor, it was a really useful day. Because the level of attention and awareness that I had to bring to it was extreme. Because there’s a bunch of people I’ve never met before, who are suddenly holding a sharp sword right in front of me, and poking it at me.
Marine Beaumel
You have to be a bit careful.
Guy Windsor
And maybe one in 10 students, in my experience, don’t have that, “it’s a sharp sword. I must not run my face onto it” instinct. They have the “oh, I’m in a safe environment, therefore, nothing bad can happen and Guy knows what he’s doing. So he’s not going to stab me.” And so when training with someone for the first time, oh, they’re one of those people who will just run their face on to the point. Let’s deal with that now, shall we? It was quite fun.
Marine Beaumel
Please don’t do suicide.
Guy Windsor
People, honestly, with a sharp sword literally, like poking right at them, especially if they have some blunts training. They’re used to doing it with blunt longswords and masks. Just a small proportion of the total, but a significant proportion, will not realize the sharpness. And they will let that point get within an inch of their eyeball as they come blundering in for some stupid pommel strike or whatever. Because that’s what they know what to do.
Marine Beaumel
I’ve seen that happen.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, yeah. It’s like, are you fucking insane?
Marine Beaumel
Yes, yes, yes.
Guy Windsor
Well, no, but it’s not insanity.
Marine Beaumel
It’s just awareness, I guess.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, they’re dealing with a different data set. They are missing the critical bit of data. Because even though it’s in front of them, they haven’t recognized it, which is that point will go right through you without you even noticing. So yeah, it’s an interesting psychological phenomenon. Actually maybe some of your research stuff for that. I mean, you said, more research with the sharps.
Marine Beaumel
Yeah, I’m working with a friend who has spent like 20 years on it. Frank Sinato.
Guy Windsor
Okay, I’ve heard of Frank. I don’t know him, but I’ve heard of him.
Marine Beaumel
So I’ve been working a little bit with him. With the sharp swords. We actually do some sparring. Like, we don’t go crazy, obviously. But there are some stuff that you realize pretty quickly that oh, I don’t want to do that. Something that you do with a blunt that you’re like, oh, no, that’s really a bad idea.
Guy Windsor
And funnily enough, some things that feel super dangerous and stupid with a blunt feel perfectly safe with a sharp.
Marine Beaumel
Because you have more of a feeling, the feeling is better when you have a sharp sword. So yeah, there are some stuff like this moment where you know, when you can go, you feel it more easily. You are on the bind and all of a sudden you’re like, oh, that’s now. It’s the feeling that you don’t have when you have a blunt.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, it’s just quite a different environment, some way of making that more accessible to people would be good.
Marine Beaumel
I know there have been some tries about training weapons with the wavy or denty edges. I don’t know, I don’t remember who is doing this.
Guy Windsor
That doesn’t make them sharp, no. More likely to bind. But for the psychological stuff, you need the point. You need a sharp point in your face, which will go through your eyeball if you screw up.
Marine Beaumel
You need to actually make your students realize it and repeat it often enough that what you have in your hand can kill you or your opponent.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, my experience has been that people who have done the sharp on sharp stuff a lot, and done the blunt training stuff a lot, it doesn’t actually matter what they’re holding, they can fence as if it was sharp. I mean, for example, last time I was in Kansas training with Jessica Finley. It was too bloody hot to put all the gear on. And so we fenced each other with plastic longswords, which she has for some of her kids classes and whatnot. And the thing is, with most people, that would be a complete waste of time. Because it will just devolve into a boffer fight. But with her, with her experience, and me with my experience, we behaved exactly as we would have done if we’d been fencing each other with sharps apart from we actually made a bit more contact on the actual strikes. It struck me when we were doing it that this is really unusual. It’s unusual to be fencing someone with a completely not a sword, but they’re actually treating it like it completely is a sword.
Marine Beaumel
Yeah, it has to come from the mindset of the person as well.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, and that requires the experience of knowing what a sword actually is.
Marine Beaumel
True.
Guy Windsor
So, I guess also, one other use for the money in this regard would be producing the research in such a way that the insurance companies can then act on it and insure people to do sharps training.
Marine Beaumel
Oh, yeah. Wow that would take some time.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, yeah. What else we have got to do with the time? And the time will pass no matter what we do.
Marine Beaumel
I mean, I’m happy to have the time and do it. It’s just quite a bit of a project.
Guy Windsor
Well, yeah, well, I think if I had the money, I’d probably give it to you.
Marine Beaumel
I would love it. Just contact me when you do.
Guy Windsor
All right, fair enough. Well brilliant, thank you so much for joining me today Marine, it’s been lovely to see you again.
Marine Beaumel
It was very nice, thank you.
