Five Hours of Open Sparring!

The day is an open hall for all fencers to partake in open practice against other fencers in the room, get your fights in and compete against your friends. Or, even better, make new friends and then fight them!

Instructor seminars and team games will feature within the day, but if these do not interest you, there will be room to continue sparring in the hall.

Guest Instructor – Benjamin Hamilton

About the instructor:

With a love of swords that started before he could write, Ben started with Olympic fencing and stage combat as a young teenager. After walking into a HEMA club on the day of his 18th birthday, he has spent the last 9 years training and competing with his primary love, the Scottish broadsword, medalling over 30 times in British tournaments.

Ben started Saorsa alongside Victoria Clow in 2021 and been has been invited to teach at home and abroad.

Best of Broadsword-Principles to improve your fencing with Benjamin Hamilton

Distance management, reaction time and hitting without being hit. While these pillars sit at the bottom of pretty much every fencing system, they are usually some of the first things we lose under pressure. This class aims to give you some simple rules that you can add to your arsenal to help keep these Principles consistent in your fencing.

We will be exploring a selection of the core fundamentals of the Scottish broadsword tradition, with a few key exercises and games to help us beat our opponents reaction time, increase their sensitivity to feints and picking the right distance to each target to avoid afterblows.
Then we will build a tactical framework around these exercises that you should be able to use with most weapons.

Full kit and a one handed cutting weapon is ideal.
But you could get away with just a mask, glove and forearm guard and still get a lot from the session.

Admin Bits

The day is open to all those who have valid insurance for the practice of Historical Fencing. Please be prepared to present evidence of such if asked by a member of staff. Those who do not have insurance will be required to purchase it through the Order for the day, for a £5 surcharge.

After Party

A fter the day of sparring, we will be heading up the road to a pub called the Boat Inn, address below. There we will swap exploits of the day and grab some food and drinks before the drive home!

Boat Inn, 31 Shilton Ln, Coventry CV2 2AB