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Lenny states, “This book explores the sociological norms surrounding the Italian concepts of honor and the duel, and provides a context for many of the manuscripts we study. I think these concepts are central to helping understand some of the unwritten assumptions we find in those manuals and I hope you might find this as interesting as I do.” Click here to view the transcription.  Cody Duty / Houston Chronicle Learning European traditions Noah Gilliam, left, practices with Allen Foster in a cane-fighting class Sunday held during Fechtschule America at the Lutheran High North Community Center, 1130 W. 34th St., in Houston. The event — now in its third year — stages tournaments and brings in local and visiting instructors to teach students European martial arts. “They come here to learn martial arts that are not practiced today,” said instructor Maxime Chouinard. “They learn how to fence, fight with a walk- ing stick, a dagger and even wrestle.” Practicing in the background with Gilliam and Foster are Jonathan Mayshar, left, and Bennett Chabot.
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The Royal Armouries have teamed up with specialist publishers of military manuscripts Extraordinary Editions to produce a full-size facsimile of the manuscript in a limited edition. Each copy of the manuscript will come complete with a companion volume containing a full transcription and translation of every page and a new introduction by Dr Jeffrey L. Forgeng. Dr Forgeng is the Paul S. Morgan Curator at the Higgins Armory Museum in Worchester, Massachusetts. He rediscovered the manuscript lying almost unknown in the Royal Armouries’ library at the Tower of London and set about translating it. He became the world’s foremost authority on the manuscript and his original work published in 2003 sold out quickly and has been sought after ever since. He now adds nearly a decade of research to that original text. Click here to learn more. Three posts in a week’s time! I’m spoiling you, children. Today we’re going to discuss a practical element of working out. Conditioning is an important element of the martial arts – if you don’t have the physical conditioning, you aren’t going to be able to perform. I don’t care how good your technique is, you aren’t going to learn as much if you’re sitting out every third match because you’re winded (I speak from experience). So here’s a short post with a practical tip – learn to work out in your gear. If you have a gambeson, great. Do your drills each day wearing it. You’ll get used to the way it restricts your motions, be comfortable with the heat buildup that comes from wearing it, and get more used to performing under pressure in equipment. If you don’t HAVE a gambeson, cheat. Buy a cheap denim jacket (you can get them for under 50 bucks just about anywhere, go do it), and pack the pockets. Fill them with sand or rocks or ice packs or something weighted, and do your workout drills in your new demi-gambeson. Conditioning yourself in this way will give you a definite edge in competition and in practices, and allow you to learn more for longer periods. If you have access to a fencing mask, practice while wearing that. It will help you get used to judging distances through a mask (trickier than it sounds) and used to the weight of it on your head. Practice with your gloves or gauntlets as well, for the same reason. Most of us do not feel we are modern day knights, I for one do not. However, we can draw inspiration from them – they trained in their gear so that when the time came for war, they were as used to fighting in it as we are used to breathing. Make your gear a part of yourself, and your sparring and conditioning will improve conmeasurately. As always, practice proper hydration so you don’t end up explaining to the ER how you got a heat stroke while playing with swords. If this happens to you, I will disavow any knowledge and this post will have mysteriously vanished from the internet. Yours fraternally William Cain Kron Martial Arts In keeping with my role as an aid to beginners, I wish to provide a series of practical meditations on the portions of the Art that I study. Thus, this series of posts will focus on excerpts from various manuals we have access to, with my thoughts about the elements contained with in and what they have to say to the beginner. This time, let’s take a look at Sigmund Ringeck, a 15th century fencing master who provided one of the best manuals we currently have access to. Continue reading Audacity – Practical Meditations on Ringeck Sports in general are an interesting place to look at the science of superstition. We’ve all heard of it, athletes who wear the same set of garments without washing them, demand certain seats on planes every time they travel, or have a modest little activity or lucky charm they embrace each time they get ready for a game. We laugh a bit, and dismiss it as silliness, but there’s actually some science behind the mentality that these things create.
Toward the end of his life, di Grassi seems to have transplanted to England, where he opened a new school in London and spent the remainder of his days. In 1594, a new edition of his book was printed in London under the title His True Arte of Defence, translated by an admirer named Thomas Churchyard. While di Grassi’s teachings were arguably designed for the side sword, the English translation substitutes “rapier” for every mention of the sword. Click here to learn more.
While you’re at it check out these other articles and texts: |
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Giacomo di Grassi was a 16th century Italian fencing master. Little is known about the life of this master, but he seems to have been born in Modena, Italy and acquired some fame as a fencing master in his youth. He operated a fencing school in Trevino and apparently traveled around Italy observing the teachings of other schools and masters. Ultimately di Grassi seems to have developed his own method, which he laid out in great detail in his 1570 work Ragione di adoprar sicuramente l’Arme (“Explanation of Striving Safely with Arms”).
