Marozzo.com, a project that has been long in planning, will replace this website. My blog will from now on function also in the new website, as I don't wish to update two different sites.

I hope nobody finds this change upsetting, and there really is no need for farewells for this website, even if the domain name might become available etc., as the function of this website will continue in the new address.

The focus will be more Bolognese, however, as the name of the new site suggests!

I hope to see you all at Marozzo.com!

:D

I apologize for the lack of updates lately. There are things going on in my life and mind, that I simply need time to think through. Writing them here, however interesting they might be, would not be very beneficial..

I can, however, write about something very dear to me. Something that I wish I could devote more time to right now, and perhaps it will even work out somehow.

I bought Girolamo Mercuriale's 1570 work on gymnastics (order here). What a magnificent peace of writing it is. The whole work is a study of ancient texts on Greek and Roman methods of gymnastics, and what we could basically today term as physiotherapy. Some of the information is obscure, and I wished there was more, but the book still communicates a beautiful picture and an idea of the things that were practiced in those times.

Drawing strongly from Galen's list of exercises that has been discussed elsewhere, a long list of exercises and methods can be extracted from the book, ranging from walking and running to various ball games, from wrestling to weight lifting, from acrobatics to breathing control. Evident is how everything has been observed in nature and systematically analyzed.

The most important is the division into three types of gymnastics: military, medical and perverted, or athletic gymnastics. I find it interesting that these authors called gymnastics for gymnastics' sake, with the aim for competition and sheer bulk and strength perverted. I personally think it still applies, at least the division, without going too deep into the perverted nature of sports.

For the historical martial artist there is descriptions of the differences between wrestling, boxing and pankration where these two acome together; boxing and cestus, where they strapped their hands with leather studded with copper rivets. The wrestling is divided into standup and ground, both of which can be done friendly and healthily or so that they are damaging to the body (and mind as well). There is shadow boxing, shadow fencing, practice with sharp and blunt swords and so on - all not too detailed but enough to at least confirm some thoughts that we may have been wondering. A beautiful piece of work.

Last night I went to the Salle to do some solo training (since no one else was there at the time). It has been a while since I did it before.

I started off warming up with the punch bag. Some people say that the punch bag is not good practice (for various reasons that I partly agree with), but I think it serves as a tool of analyzing your accuracy, and seeing what actions naturally follow others from your body. I don't really look for 'hard hits' when I work with the bag. Rather than that I look for fist or palm placement, moving around the bag and working with footwork and relaxed motion, looking for different ways of punching. Not standard, but I find it effective for my purposes.

I followed that with walking with breathing exercises, and doing different sorts of walks on my feet: lifting the knees to sides, front and back; expanding the pass and contracting etc. Then I walked on all fours, doing similar exercises with the arms. Great fun!

I proceeded with dall'Agocchies solo forms with the spada da filo, what I find especially nice is repeating the second, longer form (seen here) five or more times in a row. Good for the arm, body and soul.

Finally I went on to practice free-form strikes and thrusts, and footwork against the pell. I was able to perform most of the Bolognese footwork in a relaxed flow, working back and forth, around and straight in against the wooden target and actually felt the sword work in connection with the feet. Lovely stuff. I also noticed how the body can automatically do two things: align the point of the sword towards the target, and extend the arm towards it. The combination of these two provided extremely accurate thrusts. Trying to simply stab the target was not nearly as accurate to me as pointing and extending the hand was. Interesting.

I received the Gaci facsimile, and it is not directly related to our art, but since I paid 60 pounds for it, it better be worth something. I'll write more of it as I progress.

I have lately been looking to Agrippa, who provides a concise and complete, superbly accurate description of his art. I have fallen in love with it, and I honestly can't help but shifting my focus from the Bolognese to 16th century swordsmanship in general. Learning and understanding it all will eventually guide me to my own style... but first I wish to learn their methods. I love the natural flow of the Bolognese, and their craziness at times. While their footwork is simple and natural (as is, in a sense, everything else), they switch hands on the sword, they slap the opponent's thrusts away with bare hands, they kick, they use the sword with both hands, they cut downwards with the false edge and use their weapons in all imaginable ways and beyond. Agrippa, on the other hand.. is crazy as well in the amount of avoiding blade contact he does, but he is extremely scientific and pedagogically sound as well... and his illustrations are the most beautiful I have seen. There is no way he got those wrong in any way. HE also provides interesting allegories, displaying how light comes from books, and a contradiction between a man of practice and a man of knowledge; one sitting on the knowledge of the earth and the other sitting on earth itself - one with knowledge, one with experience. In the image he shows what Capoferro later states: practice alone is good, but without practice the knowledge is nothing. I'm so much in love with this stuff!

a special mention, and it's own post is dedicated for Ken's visit during the last month. It was nice to have him here again, even though we didn't have that much time to talk and practice. Ken has improved since last visit, he is very relaxed and good to train with, and of course a superb chap otherwise as well!

I hope to see him soon again, either here or in Singapore should I visit them instead!

Hello!

The end of the last year saw no further posts - a combination of time issues and me feeling like there was no thoughts that had formulated into a shape ready for being written down for everybody to enjoy.

This is changing, and has already. But before I go on writing about all of these new discoveries I'll recap the events from last year since last post.

After my assistant instructorship's (which I don't yet have given that I keep failing to finish my essays - I'll get to that later) practical examination many light's went on in my head, I can say that I changed. That event itself did not change me, it rather made me more sensitive to these changes... more honest.

Some realities of life are hitting in heavier than before, different things dip the scale than before. At the same time swordsmanship, yes, it's about to blossom and carry me forwards like never before. Differently.

I now have my thing, I have my very own thing, in the sense that I am firstly and foremost depending on myself in my progress, in my practice and in my understanding of the art. Not to say that I had the answers, but I have a broad scale of tools for getting them. I have people I can ask, I feel like I know how to formulate good questions and most importantly: I have the texts that have become so dear to me.

The process of learning Italian, reading, re-reading, reading again, analyzing, comparing, reading again and somewhere in between swinging the sword around has shaped my personality, shaped my understanding of swordsmanship and given me an inner smile of confidence.. the direction is right and my place along the road is clear to me.

Every word I read from the 16th century texts brings me closer to understanding swordsmanship. Pieces fall together and for most questions I have I can actually find answers in the texts. I think about the material, I become better at it. It may sound strange, but some of the examples and ideas I read of I can apply straight away without lingering through babysteps of trial and error. The way the texts are written is that you are given a simple set of actions, in it's essence a turn of the wrist, which performed with the correct attitude gives you strikes and defenses of diverse sort in itself. As you then read through the examples your thinking expands and you find yourself practicing different things, differently, and with practice the body control, smoothness and relaxation increase.

At the moment my theoretical understanding, however incomplete and flawed it may be, surpasses my practical experience with the material. I am hoping for this to change soon as this year progresses, through teaching a complete beginner's course in 16th century swordsmanship in March (more of that to follow).

I visited Swordfish and ran four different classes, teaching falling, spear, freeplay methods and finally Bolognese swordsmanship. I enjoyed the event, but felt my energy starting to run out after all the work on Sunday evening's Bolognese class, and the students were worn out as well. On the happy side that is a sign of an enthusiastically attended event.

A week after Swordfish I travelled to Denmark to see the Russian Systema head instructor's Vladimir Vasiliev and Mikhail Ryabko teach a seminar. I left with overall happy feeling afterwards since I got to play with many nice people, but the seminar was expensive (especially with the travel expenses added in! :) ) and overly crowded, leading to little actual 'teaching'. But that is their way... they show things and aim to inspire, and let people figure out them selves. There is good to that approach as well, and Vladimir is every bit as impressive live as he is in his videos. Co-operative or not, his understanding of how (and when) to use his and his opponent's body is beyond anything I've seen anyone else do. One remains silent, if not laughing at times, when watching him. There is no other who I had seen do anything like the things he does. Mikhail is impressive as well, but different. His body type is different from mine, he moves 'differently' in that sense. I'm not too excited about some of the punching-stuff as I find it normal that you get different effects with different punches.. not that I was able to do that, but I am simply not interested in all of that. The way they do it and receive the hits is very good, though. I liked watching Mikhail teach Vladimir, a most humbling experience for him I am sure, and especially Mikhail suddenly cranking Vladimir's neck from behind him and tossing him to the ground with no warning. But enough of that.

I promised to update on my essays... I am falling into the pit where I can't finish them as new stuff comes in all the time. The moment I write something I already find more evidence and want to change the text... But it is a bad excuse.

This year, apart from the course on Bolognese, or 16th century swordsmanship, I have projects underway. After the course the classes will continue running. I have a video project coming, explaining the fundamentals of the Bolognese school, a DVD perhaps, a start of a series explaining various aspects of the art. I have new information of a few 'new' fencing texts and have one microfilm in the post office waiting, I'll post more on it if it turns out to be swordsmanship related, and will post anyway. :)

Good to see you here again!

It is great too see new fencing texts surface. Matt Galas has done excellent work on surfacing two such works, namely that of Girolamo Lucino from 1589, titled Dialogo di Girolamo Lucino, da Casalmaggiore, del vso della spada, ristretto a maggior vantaggio, et brevità di quello che sin'hora sia stato scritto da qual si voglia auttore. Nel quale diuiso in tre parti si introducono a ragionamento esso auttore, & il signor Mutio Vicenza., which roughly translates as "Dialoque of Girolamo Lucino of Casalmaggiore, of the use of the sword condensed to most advantage and shortness of this that in no time was written as wanted by the author. Divided into three parts, introduced as discussion between the author and signor Mutio Vicenza.

According to Matt this work may belong to a Milanese tradition of fencing, as most widely known from the works of Camillo Agrippa, which Lucino refers to in his text. Caslmaggiore resides in a curious location right between Milan and Bologna, rendering the connection between both of these traditions possible. In his work, Lucino refers to a certain "Crasso" as well, but we do not know who this person actually is.

While not listed by many fencing historians, we have records of this text from the late 19th century. A google search provides us with, for example this where we can see some background of Casalmaggiore and the particular work. According to it, the work was dedicated to marquis of Vasto, Alfonso Felice d'Avalos(1564—1593). This is interesting, as Vasto is to southeast, all the way to the coast of Italy, and as such quite far away from Casalmaggiore. What was Lucino's connection to Vasto?

The other is an undated work called Discorso del Gioco di Spada dell'Orafo di Cremona, probably from the late 16th or early 17th century. See here for more details. This work seems lovely, and Matt provides us with a partial transcription probably included in the Vatican library record. The conclusion of the treatise reads as (roughly translated):

Et è da notare che è necessario ch’ il buon giocatore sia così pratico nel giuoco stretto come nel largo; è ben vero che l’huomo si accomodar’a più facilmente al largo che al stretto. Nondimeno de harà contra un giocatore di giochi stretto e sappia anco del largo, si diffenderà difficilmente. Si chè conclude che fa bisogno essere pratico nel’uno e ne l’altro. Ma veramente si farà più facilmente uno Dottore che un buono giocatore. Perciò che li bisogna lungo tempo e pratica; cioè giocare con diverse persone.

"And it is of note that it is necessary that a good fencer has practice in gioco stretto as he has in gioco largo; it is well true that man finds more easiness in largo than in stretto. Nevertheless having gone against a fencer of gioco stretto and knowing only of largo, he defends difficultly. So it concludes that it does well to be practiced in one and in the other. But truly one becomes more easily a doctor than a good fencer. Because of the length of time and practice; that is to practice with diverse people."

This conclusion really makes me want to access the whole text. Firstly, this may be the first text to actually define what is meant (or what he means) with the wide and narrow play – a thing we basically all know but would like to read more about, and it seems that he has a very practical and realistic attitude towards fencing. According to the index and the opening of his text, he seems to define his guards simply as dritto and roverso, as ending positions of strikes and he defines the two thrusts that emerge from these. Additionally he had a guardia alta di diritto, which I assume corresponds to prima, or becca cesa or guardia d'alicorno. How lovely sweetly simplistic. I would truly love to read the whole text.

Pace yourself... pace yourself...

Finally, see if you can find Cremona in the above map as well. Cremona is in the same line between Milan and Bologna as is Casalmaggiore, just slightly closer to Milan.

Some photos from the seminar can be found here. Orava and Janka were kind enough to write their thoughts on the seminar as well.

Yesterday saw my assistant instructor's practical examination. The test was a full six hour workshop on my own research into the Bolognese tradition.

I passed the test, which is great. I'd rather have someone of the 20 students present write a summary of the class, as Auri has done here.

The test involved a few special tasks I had to accomplish, like sudden private instruction given in different weapon styles.

I'm a bit numb after the experience, I'll probably write more about the experience, and the material I presented as well, later when I regroup my thoughts better.

Pictures will follow, and the whole seminar was taped and will be made public in one way or another at some point in the near future, since the examination process in our school is completely public. The requirements for AI rank, and finally instructor rank can be read here.

I still need to write two essays to qualify, the one on the Bolognese tradition is finished, but will probably need a complete rewrite and a lot of added footnotes before it will be passed. The other one is about Fabris and Capoferro, and I haven't even started. These will be public as well, when finished and passed.

Continuing on the previous post about the simple shifts from laying on the back to rolling on one side and to the other, these motions can be easy, and beautiful examples of efficient flow from a position to position.

There are many training systems out there built on the concept of flow, and positions that stretch muscles, contract muscles, teach balance, stimulate the nerves and so. Many are built around the concept of these positions, and/or the transition between them.

My approach is, perhaps not original given the vast amount of material out there, but slightly different.

The concept of the exercise is built around movements that are absolutely natural to every human being without serious deformations or other traits that would need heavy adaptation to the basic process. Laying on the back, laying on the sides, standing up, sitting on the ground (in a few different ways), kneeling, laying on the stomach and squatting form the base for most if not all the movements. These all being things that we all know how to do already, in one way or another.

The catch is in

• Discovering the potential movements for each position, the optimal ways in which we can transition between these positions in order to accomplish a goal. The goal can be, for example, reaching an object, avoiding collision, moving an object, displacing oneself in order to do one of the above and so on.
• Using key structures, which are common to each of these positions and work as gateways for more efficient and free movement. These are very few, which makes learning very easy, and the most important for overall movement is bringing the knee to the hip and the palm to the knee.
• Utilizing the movement against external pressure, or applying it to falling, or changing circumstances. Applying proper motion to avoid injury.
• Expressing oneself inside the flow for extra gains in strength, endurance, mobility and body control. The idea here is to bring the feel of the natural positions into other, more challenging positions, like a handstand or a bridge, and learn to apply the same transitions and movements from there – there is no one limited pattern that needs to be used, and the sign of the method lies in building from a common foundation, that can be directed to different areas as necessary.

The key structures in themselves are better described as motion, since it is in reaching them that the potential for movement is generated. The less of them there are, and the more uses for each can be found, the better. Each position should not include various key structures, but instead share as many as possible.

The more expressive positions should be seen as variations to the simple ones, since the simple positions are all positions of very little muscular effort; these positions can be held my most people comfortably for extended periods. The feel should be the same with others. Holding a pushup position is useful in many ways, but it is not included in the list of basic postures. A pushup as a method of transitioning from laying down on the stomach to standing up, however, is very natural. Practicing the midpoint is very useful, and learning to do other transitions from the pushup position even more so. You can experiment by bringing a knee to the palm and hip to the elbow from a pushup position and see what you get, I will illustrate this in a video later.

To shed more lite to the previous post of rolling to the side, if tried, you will notice that you need to get the hand closer to the ground to the other side in order to roll all the way to your stomach. If not done over your head, you will have to lift your torso to push the hand under to the other side.

If you simply reach the key structure of placing the elbow to the hip (and hand to knee), you will notice how this by itself lifts your torso off the ground, or at least makes way for the hand. The same idea can be utilized in many situations.

This practice will benefit an athlete of any level, but is in it's basic form developed (or rather, being developed) to benefit absolutely anyone, regardless of shape and size, or strength. The initial postures and movements are done with minimum effort from relaxed and natural positions, and the more challenging bits are built in gradually according to one's needs and personal progress.

Later on, added to this practice are exercises that

• Gently prepare the performer to impacts of all sorts, falls, hits and strain caused by utilizing different tools
• Actions designed to enhance joint mobility in the arms and legs
• Strengthen the whole body by introducing ways of movement with the full body, that can be tied into walking rather than rolling
• The practice of all these together using partner drills context-specific exercises as well as more advanced kinetic chains

I come from a martial arts background, so it is obvious that my motivations and aims are related to that field and the needs issued by martial arts practice, but I have found these exercises to be beneficial for anyone, and the practice of falling, receiving contact (in a co-operative environment) and conditioning the body and enhancing movement are good for absolutely anyone to study and practice, and for the martially inclined, a context of martial application can be added to most of the exercises if wished for.

For a conditioning perspective, the actions of pushup, squat and a situp are the most basic actions that share both a movement and exercise application. In the Russian martial art most of the physical conditioning is built on these three movements, with the addition of lifting the legs while laying on the back and touching the ground behind one's head. The last one is partially covered by a backwards roll, and I have put up a sequence that is a good indicator of how smoothly one can flow. This is not a kinetic chain in it's purest sense, where a continuous movement was present at all times, but is a very good way to level the body after working out in a way that all muscles do not feel balanced.

1. Step back with one foot in to a pushup position, lower yourself down in one continuous movement and as you go down, push the other leg back as well.
2. Push up, and in as smooth movement as possible step one foot up and on it's support come up to standing again.
3. As you bring the last foot next to the other, and place it on the ground, immediately squat down, without any stop in the movement.
4. Squat up and squat down again. As you lower, kick one foot in front of you so that you can place your buttocks on the ground. Feet relaxed, lie back.
5. Sit up, and lie back again.
6. As you lie back, lift your feet off the ground, do a backwards roll and smoothly stand up without wobbling.
7. Take a step forwards, if you are short of space, and if you wish to, repeat so that you take steps with the other foot and do the roll over the other shoulder.

That's all for now. I am getting a new camcorder and will be posting clips of these exercises when I get it.

For a small child the motivation to move comes very early. Looking for ways to interact with the environment the child finds ways of moving to interact with hands and feet, and ways of moving close to the objects of interest.

The initial movements are of the torso, as that is where hands and feet are attached to. Only a little later comes the idea of moving the torso with hands and feet to get moving.

As adults we become so accustomed to these movements that we stop paying attention to them, and all sorts of habits crawl in, we get tired of these actions and become lazy in the movement. We wish to learn new things, new actions and new ways of moving, but often forget these very fundamentals.

Now we will take a brief look at them again.

As I have discussed earlier, I find that rolling and walking are the two most natural movements we perform every day. In a sense they are modes of movement.

By laying on the ground on your back the most natural thing is to curl up slightly, turning to one side or the other. Getting to this position, the process of lying down is also important, as it forms the base for all falling practice. We can take the shifting to one side or the other, and see how this can be done in three ways: so that we halt in a relaxed position where we stay on our side, or to a position where we halt in a way that by relaxing we roll back to our backs or in a way that by relaxing we roll to our stomachs. The last one reguires the leg that becomes above (for example left if you turn on your right side) to end up overlapping the one beneath it, and the lower hand to be shifted across under the torso in order not to lay on top of it. This can then be repeated to transition back to the initial position and done on the other side.

Next we will enhance this by controlling which parts of our body are touching the ground. The feet can be coordinated so that they stay on the ground throughout the exercise, only coming off ground from the knees. The hips can be lifted up to give the arms and hands freedom to move under the torso by supporting yourself with upper back, shoulder and chest. Head can either rest on the ground or be held slightly elevated for comfort.

Finally this can be transformed into a kinetic chain by staying in motion, going from stomach to back, and vice versa without stopping at any point. The body moves smoothly, and the smoothness is easiest acquired by breathing smoothly and relaxedly, inhaling when the body expands and exhaling as the body contracts. Slow speed is essential. I will post a video of this exercise later. Next we will see how this relates to walking, as in essence this exercise is a combination of rolling and walking movement. With the feet we can add purpose and context to the exercise. Notice also how the rolling motion is done over different body parts in this exercise.

There are many things that you can do to help yourself learn new things, and retain what's been learned all the time as you go through your daily activities outside training time. Here are a few ideas you can use.

For general fitness avoid escalators, seats and the like, but instead always take the stairs and if possible, stand in a bus or a tram or the underground, without holding on to handles and such. This is a great way to improve the condition of the legs and balance, sensitivity etc. Of course you shouldn't stress about it, sit if you wish to, but consider the alternatives. Sometimes this can make you feel much better.

Squat every now and then. This is old advice but generally not paid enough attention to. Squatting is often considered a funny thing to do. Drop it, squat when queuing to the movie. Squat when lifting something. Squat when waiting for your friends to arrive at a meeting point and so on.

Breathing is a natural process we all know how to do, but it is also something that we all can improve. So keep it natural, but pay attention to it. Notice how you breath when you take a flight of stairs. Can you do it with one, constant exhale? Or with a constant inhale and an exhale? What about the squat? Did you hold your breath as you did it? Control the movements with your breathing and they will become smoother, along with other benefits.

When going through doors notice them closing, and slip through without hitting yourself into the door. If you use your hands, instead of grabbing the handle make smooth contact and guide the door as you go through, without a sound and without resisting or hitting anything. This teaches timing and sensitivity.

Practice your eye. Consider any view you see at a given time. Consciously recognize what your eye finds interesting in the view. Then notice something that was not initially interesting, and connect the feeling of interest into that object, and then try to look for the same object elsewhere and automatically consider how it is different, and in what way it is in a different environment.

Body awareness can be easily practiced at any time. If you chose to sit in a bus instead of standing, concentrate on an arm for example. See how you can relax it, and try to feel your blood flow through it. Try to gently contract the muscles in it and then smoothly relax them again. Do the same with other body parts.

As you sit in the bus, make an effort of estimating how many people are in the bus. Keep track of the number as people go out and come in.

Do things you normally do with your dominant hand with the other.

Stand still in a crowded place. Close your eyes for a while and try to be aware of people around you, and don't let anyone surprise you! This sharpens your senses other than the eyes.

I have received interesting feedback regarding my posts about the process of finding treatises, and freedom of information.

These topics should have been dealt separately without causing confusion and ill-feeling among some of my readers. I am thankful for the comments, as they have brought the problem to light and help clarify the issue.

Now attempting to separate these two topics, I will say about the treatise find, that I am excited about everything relating to it, and only hope to see such findings emerge in the future as well, and encourage the people who are doing the actual work of digging through records to keep the work up, it is well appreciated! As an example, the newly found Florius MS has been around in published records, available even online (at least for some time) from at least the seventies. It's not like it was hidden, up until Mr. Mondschein doing so there simply was not anyone who had done the work.

Wording it badly, I wished to and still wish to make it known, that there is a large bulk of people excited about these finds, who are more than willing to pay, help, travel and do whatever they can to help in the process - I believe for everybody there are ways of helping. This is my plea to the people with the power to feed the community with new source material to make it a standard to keep us updated on the progression.

On the second topic, freedom of information is an ideal I subscribe to, and try to exercise it in all work I do myself. I expect to be compensated for the work I do that benefits others as well, but I believe in it being the norm that the compensation exists, and not that the compensation comes by forcing it. And this relates to the world of business and all publishing as well as to any singular event. I also make a great distinction about what is private use and what is used for profit when it comes to copyright issues. These are guided by the law, however, and personal opinion can be voiced but not followed.

This is my final word on this topic, and I apologize any misunderstandings, hurt feelings or other offenses I may have caused. This was not my intention. For any questions or further rebate on any of these topics, I hope to be contacted by email at ilkka.hartikainen@gmail.com.

I would wish to bring this into discussion in the more well known forums than my blog, but I figure it's better to vent here for now - since this topic is so dear to me that I might end up expressing some frustration that is ok here, but is perhaps not elsewhere.

I find there are a few key elements that are seen wrong in the way we relate to the whole of WMA practice, from finding treatises to translating to interpreting to actually practicing. Perhaps for a reason, but I still think it is wrong.

Whenever we discover a new treatise, we immediately feel that it will be taken down in the next six hours or so, whenever progress is made we fear something will diminish it somehow. Stephen Hand, in a private correspondence was speaking about how easily all of this knowledge born in the last ten years or so, is again lost. And indeed, it doesn't take that much. It is more secure now than it was five years ago, but still it is delicate. And there's also the constant fear of swords being banned here and there, which I find utter nonsense.

Now even if there is reason to be careful and thoughtful, it doesn't mean we shouldn't be positive about it. The fact that more stuff comes available all the time than gets taken down is not generally seen. We should ask libraries to scan their treatises and share them, especially those with an educational motivation. We should contact private collections and let them know that the information in the treatises is dear to us, and that we are attempting to re-create the arts described therein. We are not interested in the scans so that we can sell them and make loads of money, such market does not exist, but we wish to study, learn and apply.

It should be generally understood, that on this date and in this world, the free spread of information only serves to increase the value of the original copy.

The treatises were made for private ownership and many of them remain so, and this is of course all right. It is very rare today that a treatise gets bought with great sums of money because of the information it withholds. Instead, their physical value is separate from their informational value, and, here comes the catch: in a truly developed information society the information is freely available, and those who need compensation for creating that information, sharing it and so on get their pay indirectly or directly through the application of that information. This is my utopia, where I referred to in the previous post.

Now what is private, is private. But in a bigger scale that involves something aimed at the general public in one way or another anyway, it ought to be open source and available. Just imagine a world where, instead of attempting to reach personal benefit, discoveries and r&d was done honestly to help people, where all the information gathered (or at least the bits that are today considered the greatest secrets) were made public and available to everybody, and that the compensation would come from everybody as if it didn't, such r&d could no longer take place. If it wasn't driven by greed it would self-adjust itself.

But, people often are driven by greed, and it would never work. Or could it? There's already quite a lot of successful open source projects out there, and in a sense martial arts are open source. The time spent in teaching needs to be directly compensated, but the information itself is without copyright, and often (not always) freely available and freely passed on. What a beautiful thing?

My point is: sitting on top of almost any information is backwards thinking. Fear that everybody will commit crimes if they get access to files publicly available on the website of a community owned library is backwards thinking. For anyone to own a treatise and intentionally withholding the information of it's existence and contents is reality, but still backwards thinking. Yes, they can do it, but letting them know that we would appreciate the knowledge, and again a please in the form of just that, or paying for scanning and so on, or paying a compensation for the inconvenience we may cause is in place. But I seriously don't see what anyone would gain from withholding the information. And even more so, I seriously don't see why anyone would get angry at the community for wanting this information and shut their doors completely, as referred to in the SFI thread on the BNF MS. If that was to happen because of us inquiring, then there is no hope left and we need to make some conclusions. That sort of fear should not exist at all. It has no basis apart from the issues with Getty and Morgan Pierpoint libraries, which I don't know closely... but as I said, even if that was the case, then what we should do is try to make a change in the thinking of everybody, not least the inflexible academic world, which seems to aim for very questionable goals in the light of the past events. I'll stop here. One can dream..

My blog is probably the right place to voice my opinion on a few issues raised by the "recent", or recent discovery of the fourth Fiore MS.

"Recent" or recent because the knowledge of the existence of this treatise was already had by people with active links to the whole community some six months ago, yet this knowledge was kept non-public until now, and who knows for how much longer had the BnF not automatically put their scans online in low-res and for sale in a higher resolution, and had Fabrice not by accident stumbled upon them. It is still recent since in the academic world six months hardly count as much, but if we consider how quickly the WMA community has grown over the last decade, six months actually is a significant time period. And what do I mean by community? I mean the fact that five days after Fabrice announced the discovery in two public forums the existance of this MS has become common knowledge, talked by and considered by at least every researcher, instructor and teacher of these arts that I am aware of, regardless of them studying Fiore or some other traditions. That is community.

You may get the feel that I am criticizing, even if (until now) I haven't been too direct about it. Yes I am. The whole concept of reviving these long lost martial arts and traditions is solely based on one idea: the preserving and sharing of information. Had it been kept in secrecy and past on just by spoken word, we would likely have nothing at all to practice and study today. Yes, the masters did teach in secrecy at times, but they also made the effort to let their art survive them, and most of the Liechtenauer tradition, for example, is other masters glossing the otherwise cryptic verses of the grand master. They wanted to make it available, we are unsure of the audience, but in any case as much as there was discussion of secrecy, there was also that of sharing.

Now this newly discovered Florius MS or however we will settle to nickname it, remains what we consider Fiore's work. That's the closest we can get, regardless of whether Fiore ever laying eyes upon it or not. It is still his, in one way or another, and what it clearly is not, is the work of anyone or any institution in existence today.

For anyone to acquire a MS like this and sit upon it, while knowing that there are many who dream of such discoveries night and day, is what to me feels like not very respectful towards the community and not towards Fiore himself either. This is not to discourage efforts in the hard work of finding these sources, having them scanned and eventually bringing them (hopefully) into light, quite the opposite, but the right thing to do in my humble opinion is to inform about the discoveries to the public right away. There is no way around it.

And what comes to one's academic work, and making money and getting paid to be able to commit such research, well, I don't see how being open about the research takes anything away from it. Again, as I said, the original work is not done by anyone alive today, it was made 600 years ago and it is not means for anyone to directly capitalize on it. Write a book, if it is any good I will buy it and pay for the research and production costs and your precious time. Interpret a working martial art out of the text, teach it, and I will happily pay to learn your discoveries, again paying you for the time it took to learn it and the time it takes to teach it. Ask for donations to get a MS scanned. I will pay and so will others. But in the name of peace in the world let the knowledge of new discoveries of source material become available, this will give you name, it will market whatever work you may do with the source later on, it will boost the research as a whole as everybody interested gets to contribute to the work. It is not for any of us alone to have the nerve to sit on a text written 600 years ago, and to decide what gets done with it, if we in any way can effect the situation. This is my opinion on the matter.

Now some people have been quite loud about this in the internet fora, and I agree with those asking to ease it up. Let's look to the future and be grateful about this particular discovery. Let's discuss this issue of openness outside this single incident, and try to persuade the people who have the choice to be more open in the future. Instead of being impolite, I believe if we say please our point will come across. In the end, we all should be heading to the same general direction, right?

I am not sure how many are likely to first hear about this discovery by reading my blog, but I can't help but to comment on the recent discovery of a new Fiore manuscript in Paris. For more details, check this SFI thread.

Credit to Finding this goes to Fabrice Cognot, who stumbled upon the image bank while searching other things. However there's more to the story of how this was discovered and what was done to get it online by Ken Mondschein, but I'm not quite sure how the story in fact goes at this point in time.

From the lowres scans available online we see that this MS is a rather complete one, painted in color and with short verses and perhaps some more information on occasion, written in Latin. It follows more the Morgan structure, beginning with horseback and ending with wrestling, but actually includes these parts that are missing from the Morgan MS.

An initial look at the MS brings to mind a resemblance to Vadi in that the artwork seems to be similarly colored, the layout is the same with two pairs of swordsmen on each page and in that they have ground to stand on drawn behind the figures.

The MS begins with a segno with the seven swords and four virtues, as well as some guard names drawn in like in the Pisani-Dossi, although in these scans the text is illegible.

Some people have commented on the illustrations as being similar to those in the PD, but that is simply not the case. This is much closer to the Getty and perhaps even closer to the Morgan in style, looking at the length of the positions and so forth. Further analysis will reveal more.

There seems to be efforts on the way for publishing this, but from the image bank the scans are available adding up to around 1500 euros in total, which is quite a lot of money, but if nothing else works we could raise money as a group and by the scans for the whole community's personal use?

In the material itself, unlike some have said, there are new techniques not previously seen, although most of it unsurprisingly is familiar Fiore style techniques. The abrazare and the dagger material are pretty much the same as elsewhere, though a bit shorter. With the swords there are a couple of curious positions and actions, and for example a wrapping around the opponent's sword wielding wrist not seen in Fiore, but if I recall right (sorry, I didn't check) is pretty similar to what we see in Vadi.

More importantly, however, we have a new picture of the bicorno, which seems to be a form between the ones shown in PD and the Morgan, but not like it is shown in the Getty. Also the crossings are different; the one in tutta spada seems to be what I would think of as mezza, and the latter one happens in what I would call tutta di spada. Also the first crossing is done with the right foot forward and the strike therefrom with the left in front. Both parties wear crowns in the crossings. I wish I could read the text!

From the next crossing we have a srike to the arms as expected, but with knee-twisting footwork, and the next one seems to be the exchange of thrust. Here the hands are much higher than in the other manuscripts. Right after we have the handle gripping done under one's own arm, as described in the Getty but not shown.

Oh I could analyze much more... but without further making you wait, if you hadn't already seen this, follow the above link and download. Matt Easton has made an accessible .doc document with the pics, you can find it on the same thread.