The School of the Sword held it’s first “have a go day” last Sunday, and had a great turn out.
People who attended took advantage of the doughnuts and coffee, got to hold swords, learn techniques and have fun with swordplay. It was a great success and we plan to hold more of these open days in the future.
Pictures by Sarah Wells
The School of the Sword was invited to take part in a preliminary motion capture study by Portsmouth University animation department.
A small group was selected to attend on two days to help with the study. This involved wearing motion capture suits and lots of markers whilst trying not to knock them off with swords. It was great fun and those who attended put on a good display.
We will continue to be working closely with the department. The ultimate aim of the study is to capture and record the physical movements of arts such as dance, boxing and swordplay.
The students of our Godalming salle were settling into the new larger hall for training on Wednesday night with a number of training streams on offer.
Lizzie continued her stream on Alfieri rapier, Fran continued hers on sword & buckler tempo and second intention, whilst Pim worked with the beginners working toward their safety test.
As always, our studente finished the evening with some sparring to put into practise some of the techniques they had learnt.
Last Monday saw our regular training session in Reading with three streams for our students to choose from.
Lorcan lead the bolognese stream through counter attacks from Manciolino, Stewart continued his stream on Giganti rapier for beginners, and Fran worked with the beginners working toward their safety test.
With a number of tournaments looming in the not too distant future, Sword of the School members took advantage of our regular weekend sparring sessions to get in some extra practise on Sunday morning.
In Godalming on Wednesday night, the students celebrated moving permanently into the bigger sports hall.
They took advantage of the larger space with some lunging practice in rapier, continuous flow drills in the two bolognese groups and finished up with a usual serving of sparring.
School of the Sword instructor, Piermarco ‘Pim’ Terminiello, has added another medal to his impressive tally, after competing in the rapier & dagger tournament at HEMAthlon in Greece.
Pim took gold in the rapier and dagger competition after a dramatic final. Congratulations to Pim. The school will be looking to congratulate him in person upon his return home.
On Sunday students from both Reading and Godalming got together for a morning of sparring.
Not only was this a good opportunity to get in a bit of additional sparring and training, but it was also a good way to practise ahead of a number of upcoming competitions.
A number of our students attended the May Melee in Bath at the weekend. With a mix of sparring, classes and two mixed weapon competitions the event has seen a growth in popularity.
We’re pleased that our very own Jay Maxwell managed to take silver in the Steel Open competition. By all accounts it was a fun weekend and even those who returned without any medals said they had a brilliant time.
A busy night in Godalming on Wednesday when our students gathered for another night of training,
Beginners worked on voiding and movement. The bolognese training stream carried on with work on tempi whilst the rapier group focused on the cavazioni.
