2005
(Scheduled)

Gulf Wars
REVIVAL booth
Mar. 15-20

Norman Medieval Faire
Apr. 1-3

Poleaxe, Dallas, TX
Apr. 9th - 10th

Soda Springs, ID
Fiore Longsword
Apr. 15th - 16th

Equestrian College
Exchange of the Thrust
Fiore dei Liberi
Apr. 22-24

Fiore Longsword
Birmingham, AL
Apr. 30-May 1

Kalamazoo, MI
May 6-8

Newark, NJ
Fiore Longsword
May 21-22

SE Wisconsin
Fiore Longsword
May 28-29

Pas d'Armes
Study & Play Weekend
DFW
June 2-3

MA Training Camp
Chicago, IL
July 29-30th

2005
Austin, TX

2004
KWAR 2004
Ochs, Germany
West Collegium
Day on the Green
Pennsic 2004
Hall of Fame, 2004
Poleaxe in Denver, CO
Helsinki, Finland

2003
 SSG Symposium
Pennsic 2003
Selohaar / Poleaxe

Want a Seminar?
Cross-training is a fantastic way to develop skills--and we LOVE TO TEACH!  Currently we offer several seminars in one- and two-day configurations. Contact us for scheduling information

• Spear & Poleaxe: This is a full weekend course, designed to build solid kinesthetic skills through two extremely fun weapons, and the material is drawn from a variety of sources, since there is no single text containing the foundational elements. Sources include Hans Talhoffer, Jeu de la Hache, Paulus Kal, Gladiatoria, Fiore dei Liberi, Filippo Vadi and Pietro Monte. I generally tailor the course for the target group--if your group is working within the German or Italian systems, we will focus on those elements. It can also be tailored to an SCA audience, since all of these fundamentals and nifty tricks apply directly to the SCA field as well. We will cover fundamentals of balance, stance, grip, footwork, and distance, and lline using the spear (day 1), then move on to power generation and more sophisticated looks at binding, hooking and redirection on day 2 using the poleaxe. If equipped, we can spar with the rubber poleaxes and spears as well. 

• Longsword Fundamentals: Based on the Schola "Elephant" class curriculem, and instensive 2-day "Get Started!" seminar that focuses on the development of a strong fighting platform through Fiore dei Liberi's longsword poste. The course covers balance, stance, footwork, grip, the unarmed poste and first four abrazzare plays, the importance of the segno and the longsword poste (day 1). On day 2, the course works to refine the combatants movements through emphasis on transitions between the poste and on efficient delivery of colpi and punte, plus fundamentals of incroisade play. This course is designed as an entry for those who want to refine their fundamentals, whether in a martial arts or SCA context.

• Progression & Promotion  Seminars: For study group affiliates, Schola instructors are available to travel for "helper" seminars for the cost of travel plus a very modest stipend. These seminars are designed for study groups to bring in a teacher inexpensively to work within the school. Promotion testing is also a part of these seminars, and calibrated free sparring is usually included as well. To become a study group, check out the study group affiliate page here.

• One- to Three Hour Seminars: Schola instructors are available for teaching at training camps, SCA events, symposiums and the like. Contact us for more information about how to schedule. In general, we prefer to teach focused classes that aim to develop a specific skill set, but sometimes broad surveys are appropriate. Here are some of the courses we have offered in the past:
• Introduction to Medieval Longsword (Brian R. Price, Robert Holland)
• Ponderous Cruel & Mortal: The Medieval Poleaxe (Brian R. Price)
• Falling Fundamentals (Colin Hatcher)
• Royal Armouries MS I.33 (Robert Holland)
• Longsword giocco stretto plays (Brian R. Price)
  
• Longsword giocco larga plays & principles (Brian R. Price)
• Exchanging the Thrust on Foot and on Horseback (Brian R. Price)
• What is All This Medieval Fighting Book Stuff, Anyway? (Brian R. Price, Robert Holland)

SSG Instructing (Highlights)

Fiore Longsword seminar in Austin, TX, Jan 29, 2005
The first event for the first Schola study group, Patrick Owens organized a superb one-day eight-hour session held at the Footworks Dance Studio in SW Austin. We covered the Fiore longsword material including the core stance based upon Fiore's unarmed Porta di Ferro, the footwork including acresare, dicresare, pasare and tornare; the longsword poste, transitions between the poste; throwing the colpi and punta, and several core defensive plays, including slipping the leg, making cover with Posta Frontale; deflecting incoming strikes using sotani and mezani; and a few fun ones, including Fiore's Third Play in the giocco larga. A great time was had by all, and a special salute to our youngest students, Vicky, who even knew enough to take Posta Longa at the right time in a play. Well done Patrick and SSG Austin!

KWAR Event in Austin, TX, Oct. 2004
This was a great event, a weekend of seminars  hosted within the SCA for the rapier community. Despite that, I was invited to teach Fiore dei Liberi's longsword, for which I taught for 3 hours on Saturday (fundamentals of kinesthetics, longsword poste) and 3 hours on Sunday (throwin the colpi & punte, elements of crossed sword play). This was the first session held in Ansteorra proper, and it was well-organized and well-attended: roughly 170 people. Walter Robin taught two classes also, good preparation work for the January rapier course, one in the rapier within Pallas Armata and the other for backsword, also from Pallas Armata. The longsword class was strongly attended--18 people--and I had the opportunity to meet and to learn from many fine students, including Tattershall's "Dr. Bill". It was also a fine thing to spend time with Jherek Swanger and Allen Reed, and a few more publishing projects were launched!  There was interest as well from several individuals in Dallas for a weekend Schola class, as well as a potential chapter in Austin. We shall see! All in all the weekend was a great time and offered a lot of historical coursework for those interested in the rapier.  

SCA WEST KINGDOM COLLEGIUM, CA, Oct. 2004
Robert Holland is scheduled to teach...need details of how it went! :-)

Brian gets to an Ochs class, Bonn, Germany, Oct. 2004
In Germany on Chivalry Bookshelf business, I thought ahead sufficiently to throw in a gambeson and training gear. This was good, because against all odds I was able to spend some very fine time with Jorg Bellinghausen of the German school Ochs, and to attend his Thursday-night training. Besides this excellent opportunity to compare notes with another renowned practitioner and scholar of the German system, I also met and was able to get to know a Hans Heim and Alex Kiermeyer, also of Ochs and also extremely talented and dedicated martial artists (and all-around great guys!). I must say that Ochs seems very much to be "on the right track" and is very much like our own Schola Saint George group in terms of seriousness and thoroughness. I was able to see elements of the new Ochs training video, and to conclude a deal that promises to see the development of some Schola videos in the future.

For those who might not know Jorg, he is (rightfully) extremely well respected and well known in Europe, very much a combination of scholar and martial artist. He was a member of the European Company of Saint George, the most-respected 15th century re-enactment company perhaps in the world. Although he and his lovely wife no longer pursue reenactment, Jorg is active in the European WMA and has provided countless scholarly contributions to students on the continent; sometimes he might even be found on SwordForum. There is no doubt that he is one of the most important scholars and practitioners of the Liechtenaeur school in the world today.

One of the many things we seemed to agree upon was the need for more trans-Atlantic cooperation, since much good work is being done both in Europe and in North America--not to mention those guys "Down Under".

PENNSIC SCA Event in Slippery Rock, PA, August 2004
For the third year in a row, Schola instructors have taught classes at the SCA's Pennsic War in Slippery Rock, PA. This year was no exception, although the very warm reception indicated that it was time, perhaps, to seek out the acquistition of a tent of our own on the battlefield for next year's classes.

This year, Robert Holland taught, for the first time, a course on I.33, the earliest known personal defense system in Europe. Robert has for some time been extremely well-thought of with the buckler, and his study of the form predates the release of Hand & Wagner's book, Medieval Sword & Shield. Robert's class was well-organized and seemed to go well, taking place just after the Asbjorn's poleaxe tournament (which was also interesting, albiet small owing to scheduling foul-ups with the usual shuffling of battle-times).

Earlier in the day, I fought in one of the most hard-pressed engagements I've ever been in within an SCA context--the Allied Champion's Battle at the Bridge. This was a one-hour long resurrection bloodbath where the objective was to hold the center of a 30' wide bridge at the midpoint every five minutes. The caliber of fighting was as high as I've ever seen it in a battle, with no room for unskilled combatants. Although Robert fought on one side and I one the other, I only saw his shield drive over the top of the press from time to time, and I had a GREAT time working through Fiore's throws using a pike to catapult opponent's off the bridge (since it was too tightly pressed to use the pike as a pike, most of the time). This was what the accounts of the Combat of the Thirty read like to me, and I count it as a great honor to have been allowed the opportunity to play.

Later, I taught a dei Liberi longsword class, and assisted with Christian Tobler's German longsword class, contributing mainly kinesthetic advice as the class took the students through Christian's well-honed structure. A highly recommended class, if you get the chance.

Efforts within the SCA seem to be bearing fruit, and as it is the biggest pond within North America, we will continue in our efforts to interest talented combatants in this material. We don't expect to change SCA combat fundamentally, but there are many, many things that the marriage between SCA power generation and sense of timing coupled with historical techniques can offer ina two way exchange between the young WMA and SCA's martial art.

US MARTIAL ARTS HALL OF FAME, Nashville, TN, July 2004
Here I was honored to be inducted as a "Master of Medieval Weapons", had the opportunity to train with many extremely accomplished martial artists, and was able to spend quite a bit of time demonstrating and introducing other martial arts instructors to the Western martial arts.  This is an annual "training camp" and awards ceremony; next year the event is scheduled for Chicago, and with any luck we will be able to demonstrate there. See the complete report and more pictures here! 

39TH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON MEDIEVAL STUDIES, Kalamazoo, MI, May 2004
Once again, the Chivalry Bookshelf, organized by Anna Marie Kovacs, delivered papers at the Kalamazoo International Congress of Medieval Studies. Brian's paper, Birds of a Feather: Thematic Parallels of Chivalric Invocation in Ramon Lull and the Fighting Treatises of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, was delivered to an apparently appreciative audience, establishing linkages between the language employed in the fighting treatise prologues. In a sense, the fighting treatises are a kind of chivalric literature, as they always take care to use the almost formulaic invocations to emphasize that the martial arts taught are to be restricted to those with good judgment and character. Striking parallels of terminology occur that at least echo the chivalric traditions of Europe. Perhaps the fighting masters and their probable middle-class student base was trying to raise their stars by adopting the trappings of nobility?

ROCKY MOUNTAIN SWORDPLAY GUILD, Denver, CO, April 2004
At the kind invitation of James Byrnes and Norman Kidd, I had the pleasure of travelling to Denver, Colorado to teach a seminar on spear and poleaxe play. The Rocky Mountain Swordplay Guild proved exceedingly kind hosts. On Friday evening, I conducted the "instructors" mini-seminar, ensuring that everyone was on the same page and getting an advanced look at the group's kinesthetics. To the group's fortune, Keith Jennings of the Chicago Swordplay Guild had relocated there not long before, and the group was pursuing their swordplay with several distinct study groups. Over the course of the weekend we looked at the fundamentals of the spear, at Fiore dei Liberi's treatment of the weapon, then moving on to the poleaxe, chiefly fundamentals recorded in Talhoffer, Jeu de la Hache and Pietro Monte.

SCHOOL OF EUROPEAN SWORDSMANSHIP, HELSINKI, FINLAND, March 2004
Guy Windsor, author of the popular Chivalry Bookshelf title The Swordsman's Companion, invited me to teach spear and poleaxe at his School of European Swordsmanship, Helskinki. For those of you who remember Sports Night, Helsinki would be...in Finland! This was an excellent opportunity to learn from a great body of students, and everything that we'd heard about Guy's approach was borne out in Helsinki. His students were extremely dedicated and had a very, very firm fighting platform. Although there are differences between our approaches to cutting, Guy's students were able to follow the seminar material (Spear on Saturday, Poleaxe on Sunday) and had absolutely no fear of drill, drill, drill--which is what we did. We left a pair of poleaxe simualtors for the school, and I think many good contacts were made. The students could see that the fundamentals that they'd been working so hard to develop were did in fact serve them well with alternative weapons.

SELOHAAR FECHTSCHULE, 2003
One of our sister schools, the Selohaar Fechtschule is Christian Tobler's group, an exceptionally fine group of chivalric students pursuing the German arts of Johannes Liechtenauer, but with an emphasis on the chivalric virtues equally with aspects of technical prowess. This was an intimate but very rewarding seminar where we went over fundamentals of the polaxe and spear. Out of this session came some techniques you can find on the Sources and Photos pages.

SCA PENNSIC WAR, August 2003
For 2003, Robert Holland and I taught two very full classes, our Fiore dei Liberi longsword course and the poleaxe class. Both had 24-30 people and seemed to be well received. It was on this occasion that we were able to meet with Jeremy O'Neil for the first time, a very pleasant encounter. Christian Tobler also taught his Liechtenauer longsword course, againt to a very full tent of students. During the combats, Robert Holland participated in the I.33 sword and buckler tournament, and while only a few of the combatants attempted to use techniques from the historical manuscript, but the tournament was interesting in that they counted blows to the hand, which did force the bucklers over to guard the hand.  

SSG INTERNATIONAL SWORDSMANSHIP SYMPOSIUM, June 2003
For the third year running, the Schola hosted one of the largest Western martial arts symposia in the world, this time at Benicia, California. More than 175 students attended, and we had 30 instructors from as far as Helsinki (yes, you guessed it, Guy Windsor) and Australia (Stephen Hand, who presented I.33 and two other rapier classes). At this premier event, Brian & Robert taught a 2-hour poleaxe class, while Schola instructor Colin Hatcher taught an extremely well received class on "How to Fall".

38TH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON MEDIEVAL STUDIES, Kalamazoo, MI, May 2003
For the second consecutive year, the Chivalry Bookshelf sponsored a track on medieval martial arts, this time separated into two tracks. On the first, Ramon Martinez and Bob Charron delivered papers on Fiore dei Liberi and the Spanish Rapier, while Brian gave a practical overview of the poleaxe and Christian Tobler did one on the Liechtenauer system. Both were very well received, and the papers should appear in a future SPADA.

WMAW RACINE, OCT 2002
This was the Chicago Swordplay Guild's turn to host the rotating WMAW event, and Brian was invited to teach a three-hour course on the poleaxe. This class was *huge*, 51 people, and Steve Hick was on hand to assist. See the complete event report here. Brian also had the opportuntity to participate in both the armoured and unarmoued tournament as a defender, crossing swords in some memorable fights.

SCA PENNSIC WAR, August 2002
This was the first time that we offered classes at the Pennsic War, this year including a formal class on Fiore dei Liberi's longsword system and a bunch of informal sessions on the poleaxe.

SSG INTERNATIONAL SWORDSMANSHIP SYMPOSIUM, Livermore, CA, June 2002
Once again meeting at Livermore, amongst the many distinguished course presenters, Brian and Robert presented a course on Exercises for the Development of Fuhlen. We went through many different variations on the staff drills, eyes open and closed, and focused on the foundational elements of focus, balance, and awareness. This was also the year when the tournament combatants had so much fun, as the Schola defended in the pas d'armes.

SSG INTERNATIONAL SWORDSMANSHIP SYMPOSIUM, Livermore, CA, June 2001
As organizer, Brian gave the keynote address to open the conference, and ran the tournament, a pas d'armes in the 15th century style, featuring four defenders, each representing one of Fiore's animals. An extremely fun tournament, the Schola defended and accepted challenges from all comers, although the action was a bit while and wooley, representative of the very early state of equipment and sparring standards of the time.

WMAW TORONTO, OCT 2000
Brian was invited here to give an address at the opening ceremonies, which argued that Chivalry is the most important safety rule in the practice of Western martial arts. He also was the head judge for the armoured tournament, serving alongside Paul MacDonald, Ramon Martinez, and Andrea Lupo Sinclair.

HOSTED BY SSG

TAMSHIGIRI CUTTING PRACTICE, Livermore, CA Oct 2004
Need details! :-)

DAY ON THE GREEN, September 2004
In the tradition of the Company of Saint George, and since there was no International Symposium in 2004, the California branch decided to hold a "Day on the Green," where courses were taught by the Schola instructors Robert Holland, Michael Canfield and Colin Hatcher, plus a I.33 course taught by Chris Vivo of the Schola Solis. Steaphen Fick of the Davenriche Academy taught a course on the Saber, and the combatants met for an armoured tournament using longswords and sword and buckler.

MAESTRO SEAN HAYES TEACHES GEORGE SILVER, 2003
We were very interested in bringing Maestro Hayes of the Northwestern Fencing Academy  to the Schola because of his well-learned classical fencing background. Although Sean's favored tools are classical fencing blades, we thought that Silver might have sufficient crossover as to bring his considerable expertise in fencing line, distance and timing to bear with what amounts to a medieval format. Graciously hosted by the Steven Fick of the Davenriche school, Sean taught an all-day seminar that covered the fundamentals of Silver's approach. All enjoyed his expertise and of course we played with the forms after the class. Maestro Hayes must be highly recommended for any group interested in working on subtleties of timing and line.