I'll be doing some Fiore related stuff over the next few months:

  • LEAFS, April 26, Fiore basics and equestrian
  • Return to Sherwood, May 10, Laurel elevation
  • University, June 14, Fiore dagger & SCA YouTube classes
  • Pennsic, July & August, Fiore dagger

See https://atlantia.sca.org/calendar/ for event details. Please join me if you can.

YouTube video thumbnail for recording of "SCA Classes for YouTube" video

I will be teaching two classes at Atlantia's February 2025 Winter University on Saturday February 1, 2025. Attendance is free and open to anyone, but advanced registration through the University website is required. The classes are:

  • Creating SCA classes for YouTube - Do you want to share your energy and excitement about your SCA interests beyond your local area? YouTube is an excellent way to do that, even for folks with no plan to become famous social media influencers. This class will discuss planning your video, equipment that you can use, and how YouTube works.

The class slides/notes will be added to this post before the classes are taught so that students may refer to their own copies. The classes will be recorded live and then posted to the Learn Fiore YouTube channel shortly afterward. Links to those recordings will also be added to this post.

I just posted a two new videos to YouTube. Both are Fiore-adjacent. By this I mean they describe non-Fiore ideas but they can be applied to a study of Fiore. Also, both videos use a Fiore play as an example of the concepts.

The first is about a fencing drill called the Chess Drill. A pair of unarmored fighters take turns moving. The moving fighter takes a single tempo action to make themselves safe and put the opponent at risk. In other words they take themselves out of check and put the other fighter in check. Then they switch roles and the other fighter gets a turn. The passive fighter should watch the moving fighter's actions, make suggestions if asked, and provide feedback if the movement would have been foolish in a real fight. The video shows examples of good and foolish moves. 

The second video is about the topic of feints and creating multi-intention combination attacks.

 

I am teaching a class on Fiore’s system at Emerald Hastilude III, an equestrian focused event, on Aug 31, 2024. The class will give a sampling of plays from across Fiore’s manual including a dagger play, a variety of sword plays, and then some work trying to figure out some of his horseback plays. Because Fiore’s manual describes a consistent system, many of the non-horse plays can be directly adapted for use on horseback when at appropriate range. So, understanding the system is a much better approach than just understanding the 36 horse plates from the manual. The techniques will apply to the SCA’s Rossfechten ruleset which is about mounted sword play. We will probably make a video recording of the class that I will link here once it is ready.

Here are links to various slide sets, videos, and web pages related to the class:

I will be teaching two sessions of Introduction to Fiore’s Italian Longsword at Pennsic 2024. The two identical sessions will be on Thursday, August 1 and Friday, August 2 both at 10am on Rapier List 3. If you would like to take either class, there is no need to sign up, just put the class on your schedule and join me on the field! The class will cover the plays in the video and documentation slides below but will be interactive instead of a lecture. No armor is necessary; everything will be slow, controlled, and choreographed. If you have a longsword simulator/waster please bring it. I will have a half dozen or so available for use during the class.

  1. New video: Visualizing the Wall
  2. More new videos!
  3. February 2024 University Classes
  4. New Article Posted

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