A Weekend of Sword and Dagger

We had the pleasure of hosting Luca Dazi and his assistants Devis Carli and Eleonora Manoni from Sala d'Armi Achille Marozzo(opens in a new tab) for a weekend seminar on sword and dagger. The first day focused on the systems of Giacomo di Grassi and Antonio Manciolino, while Sunday was dedicated to Achille Marozzo himself.

The weekend seminar marked a few firsts for our historical fencing club. It was the first external instructor workshop held at our new training hall, and it was the first time in our five-year history that we had invited an instructor to teach us Bolognese swordplay. Given our strong focus on sidesword without accompanying weapons (largely due to my personal preferences), it was a natural choice to invite an instructor capable of delivering quality content beyond just spada sola.

On Sunday we went through all fourteen of Marozzo's plays for sword and dagger, which was a great way to build on what we had done the previous day. I loved Marozzo's material — every choice he makes in his techniques speaks of a deep understanding of the art. Practicing them gives me a sensation I only really get while working with his text and the Anonimo Bolognese.

This is of course only a scratch on the surface, and the real work has to be done in the years to come. But for me this seminar was a good kick-start, and for others in our club who have done more work with this weapon combination it was a huge confidence boost. Since they had earlier worked mainly with Giovanni dall'Agocchie's material, they now had working knowledge of four masters' work in total instead of just one.

We finished the day with a few hours of free fencing and then headed off for dinner and drinks. Luckily our guests did not have to leave until Monday, so there was no rush after the workshop. We were able to enjoy more discussions, mental sparring and an exchange of ideas on the Bolognese tradition and HEMA in general. Besides being a great help with sword and dagger, our discussions led me to rethink some of the ways I had done things before. I came away with a lot of great new ideas on classification of the cuts, the invitations inherent in the guards, cutting mechanics, footwork and other subjects.

If you get a chance to attend a workshop by Luca, you definitely should. His insights into the art and his practical experience enable him to deliver workshops that are useful to all participants regardless of previous knowledge.

I wish I could have kept them here for another weekend, going through some other weapons in the Bolognese repertoire. Luckily I believe I can catch up with Luca again in Italy.

A big thank you to Luca, Eleonora and Devis for taking the time to come to Helsinki to share their martial heritage with us!