The Weekly Warfare   Musings martial from across the SCA

We are now at the stage of the rapier peerage where the language for the changes to Corpora has been made public for further comments. Honestly, this feels like it is a done deal, but given the time spent getting here, it is worthy of our attention and consideration. This is a Big Deal, and, […]

“That looks like a lot of fun, but I’m scared of getting hurt.” I’d like to say that the above isn’t a direct quote, but it is. I give it without attribution because it is something I have heard over and over from, by my best recollection, over two dozen different people. These are only […]

Fighting in the Society follows a certain rhythm. This rhythm manifests itself most visibly at fighter practice. People will spend some time chattering on the sidelines & armouring up; then there is a time period of fighting, and then it seems that many of them will take a break at roughly the same time. This […]

Ed. This week Iskender discusses how to live forever, or at least the best approximation you can get.   Once, I knew a gentleman in Falcon Cree named Monsieur Jacques Abaran. Monsieur Abaran was the fifteenth White Scarf in the Academie d’Espee. He was not a garrulous man. Rather, he possessed a quiet, humble dignity. […]

” So how many kills did you get in the Warpoint? ”   I hate this question. Look, I understand why you’re asking it, I’ve got an anthropologist on standby who’s literally working on a documentary about it, the bonding and bragging and no really, I get it. But I hate this question. Because I’m […]

You are all wrong when you say there is no crying in fencing! It’s tough. There is crying and hard work and disappointment and heartache and frustration and confusion and anger and a myriad of other emotions that come with learning something challenging, competitive, and without a single “right” path. (I say this with a […]

Unsurprisingly, it turns out that Bruce Lee might have been on to something here, so today we’re going to take a look at the idea of training a minimalist style with the goal of being highly specialized in one or two areas. This methodology is one geared toward people who are still starting out and […]

Ed. This week Iskender (with an assist from Abbe Faria) discusses how to improve the speed of your actions and reactions.    What Abbe Faria discusses here refers not just to speed, which can be described for swordplay as velocity of movement, but explosive strength. This refers to the acceleration of body mass. Not just how […]

This is a distinction that I find myself coming back to a lot lately, and I think that there’s a meaningful distinction between the two concepts. This is ultimately a matter of skill progression, but I think that there is some nuance worth delving into here. A well-coached person is one who can perform specific […]