Monthly Archives: March 2018

31 03, 2018

By the Sword 2018 – women’s HEMA weekend

2018-03-31T09:03:44+00:00March 31st, 2018|Events, Godalming, Rapier, social|

Senior Sots instructors Fran and Lizzie held this event for its second year in Godalming on 17 & 18 March. It was attended by over forty women – several Sots members among them – and all the classes were led by female instructors, including Emilia Skirmuntt who has taught as a guest instructor in Reading (and will soon be teaching rapier again in Godalming) and Maria Makarova: also from the School. Other instructors were Steph West from 1595 Club and TerryAnn Towers St Amand, who led the warm up and cooldown. There were classes in Fiore Longsword grapples, Saviolo Sidesword and Italian rapier.

The second day started with a Q&A panel with the instructors, chaired by Fran, followed by a novice tournament using boffers, and a steel tournament. In each competition there were randomly chosen but paired weapons.

Next year’s event is already in the can, with ten instructors and speakers! Watch this space.

30 03, 2018

English Sidesword Open

2018-03-30T21:01:14+00:00March 30th, 2018|Dagger, Events, Godalming, Trophies|

The inaugural English Sidesword Open took place in Godalming on the 24 and 25 February. We had so much fun running it and taking part that plans are already in afoot for ESO2019: it’s going to be even bigger and better!

The event consisted of workshops and tournaments: we were honoured to have guest instructors in the form of Devis Carli and Pietro Bruzzi from Sala d’Arme di Achille Marozzo in Italy, Rob Runacres from Renaissance Sword Club UK, Aaron Coode from KDF Bournemouth UK, and Chris Chatfield from 1595 Club Brighton UK.

There were six tournaments in all, a nylon and a steel stream in single Sidesword, sidesword and dagger and Sidesword and Rotella. Thanks to a dedicated army of volunteers largely made up of Sots members, we were well staffed and everything ran on time. We saw some beautiful fencing throughout the weekend.

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