Henrik Gyarmati and Dreywunder Historical fencing kindly invited me to hold a lecture on the history, development and possible use of the scottish twohanded sword, called Claidheamh da Laimh, commonly, but incorrectly known as Claymore (even though I use the term, because modern people are used to it).

 I was very happy to get the chance presenting some of the Cateran Society´s work on it, which is described in the book “Scorners of Death”, which I co-authored with Chris Thompson, Randall Gustits and the late Ken Pfrenger. I could also add some of my own additional theories on details. It was a great chance for me to write it all down in a longer article, which I filtered then and transfomed into an 1 h presentation, which was a new experience for me.

Heading to Bielefeld in east Westfalia was quite a trip by car and unfortunately due to work, I could not start as early as I wanted, so I arrived in the afternoon, missing some interesting classes by the famous Ton Puey from Spain and my mate Jan Gosewinkel from Bonn. But I was happy to meet my groupmember Gabi, some old friends and many new.

Nevertheless my presentation worked quite well, I think and the attendants were very interested, asking very good questions, which made me think about some details of the topic. In the aftermath I had the chance for a longer chat with Ton Puey on my presentation and theories and he had some very helpfull ideas and informations for me.

In the evening many participants headed to a nice restaurant for some good food and beer. Sleeping in the smaller of two available, very modern training halls was comfortable and cosy and I enjoyed some more chats with my companions from Norway, Sweden and Germany. I was especially happy to meet Daniele Cicero again, whom I´ve already met the weeks before at my Broadsword & Targe Seminar in Cologne, as well as at the Noble Science II.

The next morning, after breakfast, the Advanced Montante class by Henrik Gyarmati and Martin Lümkemann started. Henrik is a very nice guy and hosted the event with his group Dreywunder. Martin and he are great instructors and made their class as entertaining as it was educational. The topic was advanced situational rules by Dom Diogo Gomes de Figueyredo with the Montante. These were amazing plays, i.e. fighting against multiple opponents in a narrow street, bodyguard a person or object or cleaning a galley plank from enemies. I had great fun and learned a lot, using my scottish twohanded sword, which gave me some advantages and disadvantages depending on the situation.

After Lunch break a lecture on portuguese Staff fighting, known as Jogo do Pau followed. Emil Andersson and Sebastian Woxell presented an interesting insight on how training with the Montante can benefit from training Jogo do Pau, how they are connected and what the differences are. After the theory they were putting it into practice with the participants. In the meanwhile, I had an interesting longer chat with Ton Puey, who is a very nice guy and we talked about towhanded swords, scottish history, Rapier and HEMA in general.

The final lecture was by Jan Gosewinkel on the use of double swords (so two onehanded swords at the same time), which is related to the rules of the Montante. In the meantime I was giving a private lesson on Highland Broadsword and Broadsword and Targe to Emanuel Meyer from Switzerland and I also did some sparring versus Sidesword and Dagger, which was a good and entertaining bout with nice exchanges.

In the late afternoon, Gabi and me had to say goodbye and headed back to Frankfurt. I want to thank Henrik and Dreywunder for the invitation, especially I have to praise the amazing organisation of the event, it was taken very good care of us all by the busy little helpers 🙂 I also want to thank all participants and instructors, especially for the interest in my lecture and the positive feedback by many. See you next year 😉

Video-impressions of the IMS 2018: