The School of the Sword is in Switzerland this weekend, after Oxford head instructor, Emilia Skirmuntt, has been invited to present a workshop on the side-sword of Giovanni Dall’Agocchie as part of the DEON event being held in Zurich. Hosted by Swiss HEMA member HADU, DEON23 is a dedicated rapier and side-sword event that features both workshops and tournaments.
Oxford head instructor, Emilia Skirmuntt, was in Monks Kirby this weekend teaching at the Swordpunk event. She gave a class on Bolognese fencing, aka fighting like a noble!
Swordpunk is an, inclusive, out-of-doors, into nature, outside of the office world alternative festival of edged weapons and circus skills like no other. Their mission is to allow everyone to join in the fun and adventure of learning combat based and circus skills at their own level and intensity.
Last weekend, Oxford head instructor, Emilia Skirmuntt, was invited by Tremonia Fechten to teach Fiore’s dagger and unarmed lessons in Dortmund, Germany. It was friendly and relaxed event in a beautiful location. The students seemed to have a lot of fun as well
After a busy first day of workshops and sparring, what better way to unwind than a cruise down the Thames. Attendees from all four chapters at our Coming of Age event this weekend, boarded a boat and set sail for an evening of food, drink and conversation.
It was a jam-packed day of workshops on the first full day of our Coming of Age celebration event. Students from all four of our chapters gathered on the banks of the Thames to partake in a wide range of workshops put on by our instructors.
Lizzie gave an introduction to Spadone, Dan looked at Alfieri humors, Apollon gave a Rapier masterclass, Kirstian taught an introduction to Longsword, Adrian gave a masterclass on use of the buckler, Simon looked at Godhino’s Montante, Luis introduced us to grappling, and Mark gave a workshop on Agrippa. All were well attended with lots of happy students enjoying the perfect weather.
We ended the first day of workshops with Simon and Josh from our Reading Chapter completing the final piece of their Spadaccino grading. Spadaccino is the most senior rank in the school and as part of it, they have to engage in a number of fights including a weapon they’ve never used before which in their case were peasant flails. Congrats to both of them for a well deserved honour. which has required huge number of hours of dedicated training as well as written pieces.
Our Oxford students were in fighting force today, e fighting at the Midsummer Fight’s Dream competition in Oxford (organised by our friends from Oxford Sword and Staff Club).
Everybody did brilliantly with four students attending and all of them getting out to eliminations – and even one bronze match. We’re all extremely proud of them.
Godalming head instructor, Fran Lacuata was at Imperial College London today to give a HEMA taster lesson to a bunch of students.
They were introduced to sabre, sidesword and spadone and were , in Fran’s words. “all absolute champs!”
Eight members attended FightCamp Skirmish at Ripley in Surrey, this weekend. It was very hot but I think we all had fun and learned new things. It is always good to meet up with fencers from other clubs, two guys even came from Sweden just for the event.
Godalming Senior Instructor, Fran Lacuata, also taught a class on Bolognese Sword & Buckler
Oxford Senior Instructor, Emilia Skirmuntt headed to Poland this weekend to teach at the International Rapier Seminar, where fencers travelled from all over the world to learn from renonwned instructors. Emilia sparred with new and old friends from around the world and taught a (very experimental) workshop entitled ‘Rapiers in the Dark’ during which participants learned how to fence with cape and sword, and cape and lantern. She also helped as a referee during the single rapier tournament.
June will see the return of Fightcamp Skirmish 2023 and an awesome class line up of some of the country’s best HEMA instructors.
Fran from our Godalming chapter will be in attendance teaching Bolognese Sword and Buckler.
For more details, check out http://fightcampevents.com/
