Removed post 2

Many years ago Sword Forum was the place to be. The discussions there were in depth, they were relevant and they involved some of the most educated and experienced practitioners and researchers from around the world. These days it would seem that it is a different story altogether.

If you want to worship at the altar of a select group of “names” (I include the word in quotation marks because it is a word that has been used on that very forum to describe the people in question) and bask in their reflected glory then it is the place for you. If you want to find out what the difference between two almost identical production swords is when used to practice Ringeck’s system as described by Christian Tobler, then it is the place for you. If you want to discuss (at length) what sort of footwear you should be wearing if you dedicate your life to Viggiani’s system then it is the place for you.

If however you want something other than idol worship, or mundane trivia then I’d stay away. Not that there are many better places to be, they all have their clique, but the select group on SFI has had much more time to evolve and become irreversably entrenched. They reflect many different schools and traditions, but together they work as one. It didn’t used to be that way, there were many big names. But they have been whittled away one by one.

First the HACA were removed (now the ARMA for those of us who are new to this game). Almost to a man the SFI clique closed ranks on John Clements, then slowly but surely all his closest disciples were banned. Anyone who vocally supported what the ARMA were doing and stood by the man who started it all for them fell by the wayside. Lots of others followed over the next few years. Matt Easton left with the Schola crowd following on behind him en masse. Bob Charron used to a regular but is now hardly every to be seen. Milo Thurston has vanished, and almost every person who is entitled to the description “Maestro” now stays away. Scott Brown was the latest casualty to fall to this cleansing.

People like David Rawlings, Martin Austwick and Colin Richards still post every now and again, but over the last year they seem to have been effectively sidelined and labelled as trolls who don’t want to be part of the great love-in that is SFI.

So now we just have Greg Mele, the one true authority on all things Italian, or all things renaissance, or maybe just all things period.

We have Christian Tobler. The Lichtenauer guy. A man who is doggedly publishing every manuscript every written.

We have Terry Brown. He rarely posts, but question anything to do with English Martial Arts and his opinion will be stated for you. Normally by Greg.

We have Stephenpaul Wagnerhand, the amorphous Australian duo who have so far managed to get I.33 wrong, Silver wrong and are currently working on getting the collected medieval English manuscripts wrong. Did I mention Page?

There are also a few groupies, hangers-on like Steven Reich and Sean Hayes. They float around and point out that they are cleverer than you, they also like to point out that Guy Windsor is cleverer than you too.

Now I could be doing them an injustice, they could truly be a nice group of guys who have, by a freak of chance, been involved in every major split in WMA since the birth of the internet. They could indeed be the guiltless parties in every falling out that has occured.

Or perhaps maybe not.