Program

The presentation on historical European swordsmanship is a combination of lecture/discussion and physical demonstration. We seek to link the correlation between the book and the sword and as such we include material from the earliest known combat manual (MS I.33 from the early 14th century) to Alfred Hutton's Cold Steel (a manual from 1890) covering over half a millenia of the history of the sword in Western Europe and its use. We also tend to tailor the program a bit depending on the audience and the library's interests. The basic elements include:

-A chronological presentation of several different eras of sword use. This includes us physical demonstrating the use of several different types of swords (It is all choreographed and practiced in advance and we only use blunt steel swords. We won't be bringing anything sharp)
-A question and answer/"mythbusters" segment where were discuss the common misconceptions about swords
-Some images from historical works (some powerpoint)
-An introduction to historical interpretation which includes some audience participation (Usually we provide two audience members with foam swords and have them work through a historical combat sequence)

How we set that up depends on the group and we would be happy to discuss that so we can tailor the presentation to your needs. We would also be happy to discuss other ideas. Some groups ask a lot of questions during the presentation, some ask a lot after so we are pretty flexible. We work best with the teen/young adult age range but we can work with groups that are younger or older depending on what works best for your library.