COVID-19: You are required to be fully vaccinated to join this class.  

Full vaccination is defined by getting the full regimen of shots (Pfizer/Moderna = 2, J&J = 1) and passing the required 2 weeks for full innoculation. You will be required to present your CDC vaccination card on the first day of class as proof.

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This is an eight week class that covers the Northern Italian style of rapier taught by rapier extraordinaire, David Biggs.

He's been researching and applying the historical manuals in tournament combat since 1996. He's been fighting and teaching in the SCA for more than 25 years, and in the WMA/HEMA for more than 20 years. He was inducted as an instructor in the Tattershall School of Defense in 2005, and he's since taught seminars and classes across the U.S. and Canada. His Tattershall page can be found here: https://tattershall.org/david-biggs/

In the first decade of the 17th century, three martial arts manuals were published that demonstrate strikingly similar approaches to the use of the long, thin thrust-oriented sword we now refer to as the rapier. This system has come to be known as the Northern Italian Rapier style. The three published treatises that best encapsulate the system are Nicoletto Giganti’s Scola, overo teatro (1606), Salvator Fabris’ Sienza e Pratica d’Arme (1606), and Ridolfo Capo Ferro da Cagli’s Gran Simulacro dell’Arte e dell’Uso della Scherma (1610). This class will present that system.

He will start by teaching you the foundations of the system – how to stand in protected guards, how to move, and how to attack and defend in various ways. We will focus on good form, conditioning the body to stand and move well and relaxed, and making sure your actions are mechanically correct. We will then move into the actions depicted in plates in the manuals. He will focus primarily on the actions from Capo Ferro’s and Giganti’s treatises. You will learn how to read the actions and the accompanying plates and how to use them to start building tactics.

If you have your own rapier, please bring it. You will also be required to have/have access to mask and gloves.