The Association for Renaissance Martial Arts

No worries, just shout when you know and we'll sort you out with someone.

Whereabouts in London are you going? There are a few of us in the area covering different systems.

Schola Gladiatoria, The Exiles, Boars Tooth and The Company of Maisters are all London based.

The Company for Historical Combat, The Linacre School of Defense and The School of the Sword are all ...

It's certainly an interesting discussion.

Personally I wonder if there might be some connection between the name of the weapon "quarterstaff" and the technique "quarter".

Nothing to back it up with though.

To me that is the joy of Silver. Unlike a lot of systems that provide you with a long list of techniques from which you can infer a system, he provides us with a set of rules that describe a system into which we can place all sorts of techniques. The few he describes simply give us a starting point ...

I do think they can be lyings as well as active defences (the high and low guards of staff are both). I'm not suggesting that "wards" are strictly active defences, just that they are positions that cover you directly. So TG is a ward, but Open is not, nor is Stoccata. But of course you can use TG ...

Hi Jon,

Didn't mean to leave this as long as I have but I supidly moved house in the middle of a thread!

Wouldn't you say he uses it to mean both?
Yes, especially in Paradoxes, but not in this context. IMHO, anyway. Of course I could be wrong.

Well we all could, that's the fun bit ...

IMO by "wards" Silver means parrying/covering positions rather than general guards (look at how he uses the word in Brief Instructions).

Wouldn't you say he uses it to mean both? "bear it with true guardant ward" & "bear this with forehand ward" as a couple of examples

My guess is that the four ...

Thanks for all the replies to this. I have one more question. This is from the published version (pg. 304):

"The short staff hath four wards, that is two with the point up, and two with the pointe downe."

Any suggestions?

I have always assumed that these wards are possible on either side of ...

I teach True Guardant as roughly this position, what you can't see is that the sword is held to the left of the face thereby giving you a clear field of vision. The important things imho are to keep the hilt higher than the head, and to keep the point towards the left knee (not forwards or upwards ...

It's a pleasure. Of course the tricky bit is getting a workable translation, but that is only a question of time. Keep me posted if you manage to do anything interesting with it.

Don't know if this is news but I found this site when I was searching for Monte's treatises.

http://www.juntadeandalucia.es/cultura/ ... miniaturas

Nice quality scans of the entire book.

It would seem that hemaboy.blogspot.com has spawned a sequel.

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Well... quite an interesting blog. It seems a bit crude and edgy, yet is somewhat entertaining. I like the poems about I.33 and Silver (though I still think I.33 is a viable system, maybe ).

I suspect it isn't designed to be ...

It would seem that hemaboy.blogspot.com has spawned a sequel.

http://www.hemaman.blogspot.com

If you're going to be in London then the Museum of London is an absolute must. Some great medieval finds and an interesting selection of weapons from Bronze age to Renaissance.

Where exactly should I start to learn?

It would be helpful to all if you could provide a little detail about what it is you wish to learn. Are you interested in Longsword? Rapier? Backsword? How about Wrestling? In or out of Armour? How does Poleaxe sound? Do you have a preference for any ...