This week’s practice

[fbhjr]

It was an excellent day out today. Sunny & warm, but not hot, with a slight wind. Perfect day for sword practice.





About half the group didn’t make it, so we worked on teaching the folks who were there some things a few of us know, but many don’t.

The first was Andre de Liancour’s 1686 small sword. This was material my wife and I worked on 10 years ago with a couple of other friends who had been part of the Higgin’s museum historical research group. We tried to add it to the historical show back then, but it didn’t stick.
(IF you look at my "Womps" tag you’ll find the entries from 10 years ago…)

Robin knew it at one point too, so last weekend we were able to practice it between shows and add it to the last day’s demos so we could say we had new things each day.
So, we taught it to the folks there today.


Maybe it will stick this time…

Then we spent some time reviewing the 1300’s I.33 sword and buckler one with folks. Maybe having siblings working together isn’t the best idea, but it seemed to work out with them.



Maybe it’s better to have Ian work with this son on it…


Finally Casey wanted to see some of Nicoletto Giganti’s stuff from his lost manual from 1608. We were willing to do it with somewhat sharper than normal swords as we’ve been working together more than 2 dozen years and have a level of trust there.




He didn’t think much of the idea of stepping around and stabbing me in the back as the manual says, but I managed to convince him if he did it any other way I could stop him and turn the attack against him.




We didn’t really break new ground on that as the Boy of Glass and I had been doing that demo since last year, but it’s new to Casey. And, the BOG has promised to go through the copy of the book I bought him to look for other material we can use.

Casey indicate he’d like to add more historical stuff to the show, but isn’t as familiar with the manuals, so there will need to be some thought about which to do.
We have dozens of manuals, and usually only use one or two things from each. So, there is a LOT more to be had, even with the books we’ve got.
My wife and I are the only two who have read any substantial amount of any of them. The current show is our picks. But, it would be nice to have folks choose other things.

Comments

[palusbuteo]

Is the small sword the "Bestocade" manual?

[fbhjr]

It’s the one we were doing in my living room with Amy 10 years ago.
Back then we had a bad on line translation of the French, but they have since come out with a better one:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09NRF23JR?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

[palusbuteo]

aaaah so that's the same one I was thinking of