End of an era

It was just shy of four years ago that I had my first encounter with the Society for the Study of Swordsmanship and picked up a rapier for the first time. Since then I've progressed through the grades of Scholar and Adept, learnt how to use daggers, bucklers and cloaks as off hand weapons, played with sabres, cutlasses and bayonets, fenced in ruined castles and fields, and attended more workshops and lessons than I care to count.

Today was the Prof's last workshop with the Sheffield group and it really was a fine way to bow out. Kudos to Charles and Chris who are now Adept and Scholar respectively, and thanks to Anna for giving me plenty of food for thought in the review of cutlass work that we did together. We finished the day with a couple of hours of dagger work, both as self defence against tooled up chavs and also in a more classic duelling context. I was honoured to play demo bunny, so I've been pummelled, arm locked, punched in the shoulder and almost punched in the teeth, and come within an ace of having my throat cut with a wicked looking Bowie knife and enjoyed every second of it.

I raise my blade in salute to the Prof in honour of the past four years, and looking forward to raising a glass at the Sheffield Fayre, Swash and Tortuga for many years yet to come!