About
About the Book
Interested in real sword fighting as it was taught in Europe during the medieval and renaissance periods? Intrigued by the history of fencing, both in illustrative quotes and explanatory illustrations? Already a sword sage, but looking for insight old and new? Wise’s Historical Fencing is the book for you.
This is a textbook for Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA), based on the ideas of tempo and measure. It covers longsword, rapier and dagger, and sword and buckler. Such a thing has not yet been attempted, and it quavers on the border of heresy to combine multiple disparate disciplines in a single practical guide. It has now been done, and for your benefit.
Vouchsafed by classical fencing legends like David Coblentz alongside current HEMA leaders like Alexander Brindley, approved by your favorite online HEMA thinkers Robin Swords and Federico Malagutti and judged worthy by instructor/competitor paragons Patrick Rance and Connor-Kemp Cowell, this book has been shown to many and earned their kind praise.
About the Author
This book comes to you from Derek Wise, a proven tournament luminary in the HEMA scene and longtime aspiring writer. Derek holds a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Brandeis University, and it was during this struggle he took up the blade. He’s currently ranked highly in the competitive HEMAratings system, having won many events across many formats of swordfighting (saber, rapier and dagger, smallsword, rapier alone, high-tier longsword, dagger, sword and buckler), and faced off against some of the best in the sport in every discipline. He has taught many excellent students at his beloved Boston Armizare in collaboration with his coaches, Mike O’Brien, Steve Massaroni, Ian Carmichael, and Sean You. This is his first book, but that has only driven his desire to make it exceptional.
About the Art
This book exults in art. It loves the superb panels made for it by Jon Kutzer (Moose Historical Fencing), a tattooist and excellent historical fencer himself, who outdid himself in crafting the cover and chapter headers for the book.
Further, artist William Zolla (Boston Armizare) has provided a few original pieces in watercolor, in the style of ancient texts but having fun with the premise that the added plays posited in this manual fit in to this tradition.
It loves, so deeply, the little woodland critters and strange boogins in the marginalia of medieval texts, and the fanciful Ella Rose (Black Cat Historical Fencing) has contributed a set of strange and darling little munchkins for your delight.
If you like this art, please consider commissioning something from them or grabbing some of their other art! They're so damn good.
Explaining Cost
Both the book and some of this merchandise is more expensive than I would like it to be. This is because both have had to be print-on-demand for this initial offering due to my limited resources as a private individual.
For all copies of the full book, I am charging the same amount of profit after cost (~$20 bucks per book). The rest of the unfortunate cost comes down to the book being long and the nature of print-to-demand. It's my view that the Premium Color is much nicer than the normal color, but it's expensive for this many pages in hardcover. Your call, reader, and I hope to offer some bulk-printed and higher quality versions in some bookstores in the future.
For the merchandise, I am splitting the profits 50/50 with the artists. They were already paid for their work at an agreed-upon rate (though Will did it pro bono) but I'd like to increase the value of their time and defray my own costs - and I populated the store here.