By the Sword 2019

This year I taught my very first workshops at an all-women’s HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) event called By the Sword. This was a huge opportunity for me and would not have been possible without the faith and support of Fran Terminiello (The School of the Sword and founder of By the Sword).

I gave two workshops on the Dagger work of Fiore di Liberi, using his First Master and Ninth Master plays to give an introduction to women from all over the globe. For some women, this was their first encounter with a bladed weapon (other than cutlery).

I was very fortunate as the groups I taught were friendly, keen, and very eager to learn from me and I was overwhelmed by their enthusiasm and subsequent feedback.

My goals were: for them to learn something and to have fun. If they didn’t do both of these, I had failed. I was pleased to say that they all came away with something and had a lot of fun along the way.

What does this have to do with acting? Not much, except I had to play a more confident version of myself (more along my director lines), but we were creating something by working together and were building a rapport. By the end of the day, I had made many new friends and earned some converts for Fiore dagger!