Hello,

Speaking Window Productions was kind enough to send me a finished DVD preview copy of thier upcoming release: German Medieval Martail Arts; Volume 1: The Poleaxe by Christian Henry Tobler and the Selohaar Fechtschule. It is not was I had expected. With 20 plus years in Eastern Martial Arts and 12 years in the study of Western Martail Arts I have many "how to" videos of both areas. This DVD is much more than that.

The DVD is wonderfully formatted with first; a well filmed judicial duel of the medieval knight and then a very nice welcoming introduction by Christian Tobler. After which the DVD begins with a documentary on not only the poleaxe but the history of the Leichtenauer tradition, the roots of the weapon itself and the time period of the 14th and 15th century.

From here we venture into not only the nomenclature of the poleaxe, so to speak, but the term pollaxe, poleaxe etc., of many different countries....German, Italy, and France etc. In the documentary portion we have three pillars of the historical Europeon martials arts community discussing and displaying antique polearms; Dr. Jeffery Forgeng, Dr Lee Jones and Christian Tobler. These interviews offer an excellent insight into this subject by well known and researched authorities for not only the beginner but advanced students as well.

Chris Valli, owner of Speaking Window Production, set up the chapters in the dvd for the western martial artists themselves. Being an instructor in western martial arts, Mr. Valli knew what the student would want. Instead of timed chapters, Chris has set up the chapters by "techniques". The techniques displayed are crisp, easy to follow and easy to learn. Starting with the nomenclature, to the wards, then on to basic and advanced techinques. The techniques themselves are not "over done" and don't over burden the viewer with too much information. Instead you simply watch a technique and then apply the technique which is set up in chapter format such as "changing through" for example. With these chapters and a partner at your side a school can quickly and easily add the pole axe to thier school's or study group's lesson plans.

The DVD is not over done with silly and useless CGI or hollywood sounds. It's all natural, the way medieval martial arts should be displayed. Throughout the DVD you will discover many plates from many fighting manuals. The plates themselves are inserted in the right times and the right places throughout the dvd with caption telling you what book the plate is from.

The music score itself is one of kind. An original composition. Composed by Paul Butler Consort himself for just this DVD series. A real treat for the Western Martial Artist.

Speaking Window Productions is a breath of fresh air for the western martial arts community. Thier first DVD is a most have and I certainly look forward to Volume 2. I hope that in the future other pillars of the western martial community will perhaps tap this resource and put forth a DVD on rapier, bolognese swordsmanship, bartitsu, and I.33.

The DVD itself will be available by Freelance Academy Press at: http://www.freelanceacademypress.com/videos.aspx

All the best,

Todd Sullivan
Lake Ontario Fechtschule
Central New York

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hrm, I wonder if it'll be available to play in all regions?

Any idea when this will be available? Will they be on hand at Chivalric weekend?

I'd love to get a copy.

I'm glad that this is coing to fruition! I happened to be lucky enough to be visiting Christian during the time he was interviewing Dr. Forgeng for this DVD, so I got to sit in on that. The interview was fantastic. I also got to see some of the pre-production footage, which I could tell was going to be great, but I haven't seen any of the finished product of course. I'm glad to hear you like it so much, Todd! I'm definitely going to be purchasing a copy, and likely will be recommending it to all my students.

Will Mr. Tobler cover the hand-and-half sword and the zweihander sword in a particular volume too?

I must get volume one!

Thanks again, Todd, for the fantastic review. Between hosting fantastic annual events and your general largesse, I thought you deserved it (and that specific disc had a few menu button issues I was fixing, sorry ;) ). Christian and I have spent the last six months working on this project, so I hope everyone is as big a fan as you.

Just to let everyone know, the DVD is currently being replicated by a company in New York. The master copy was mailed out last friday. I spoke with a sales rep and he informed me they started full production runs yesterday and the expected turn around would be about ten to twelve business days. At which point, Freelance Academy Press will have several boxes :D

Trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qcGV9NIWW0
Sample http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJuNgXUi-Bk

JG Elmslie wrote:

hrm, I wonder if it'll be available to play in all regions?

Yes, I know the WMA community is international, so I made sure to make it playable in all regions. If you are outside North America, just make sure your television and DVD player are NTSC compatible (95% PAL DVD players have a built in converter). If not, it should still be playable on a computer or laptop with a DVD drive. (if theres still issues, contact me personally and we'll see what we can do)

Craig Shackleton wrote:

Any idea when this will be available? Will they be on hand at Chivalric weekend?

We'd estimate about the 15th of June, but that won't be set in stone until we hear they have shipped from replication. They will definitely be available by CW along with some t-shirts for sale :)

Dustin Faulkner wrote:

Will Mr. Tobler cover the hand-and-half sword and the zweihander sword in a particular volume too? !

Christian and I have talked in depth about where we want to go with the series and right now we are looking at between six or seven volumes to cover the German system. Future videos will cover longsword, sword and buckler, wrestling, dagger... I don't want to give everything away ;)

And Bill, thanks for the support! It was great having you out that day filming, even if it was bone-chilling cold out.

Great news! It was about time someone did this, and I am looking forward to getting my hands on one of those DVDs.

Fantastic! I started doing a happy dance, but then realised that made it hard to type. Thanks to all involved for the work they've put into it.

Thanks Chris! Good of you to anwser questions and concerns.

For those attending CW, with Christian's permission, I can show the DVD under the stars on my en-focus machine on a big screen for those that haven't seen it by then.

I got to see some of this in the early stages of development and I have to say, Chris Valli did an amazing job putting this DVD together. Really professional stuff. If one man can do this, it puts the pros to shame.

Todd and Mike, I couldn't have made it without a cool company name and logo ;)

As for a public showing, I can't speak for Christian, but I love seeing my work shown on big screens :lol:

Hmmm... this is going to be tough. If I wait til CW I can save on shipping and maybe duty. But if it is available on the 15th of June, that would mean waiting almost a month after release. I'm not sure I have that kind of willpower!

I'd love to do something like this for I.33. In fact, I've been slowly planning it for a few years. I really like the format of working by technique. This is what I've been working on, since that's largely how I teach it. The sample video shows exactly the kind of decision making during action I work on too; once you have completed x action, if you find yourself in situation A, use variant 1, if in B use variant 2, if in C use variant 3. I guess that's pretty obvious, but I've received a lot of training that hasn't really accounted for situational differences like that.

Anyways, this looks like a great series, and I'm anxious to see the videos!

Now that this is up for sale and some orders have even been shipped, I'm both excited and nervous to hear feedback from the community as a whole :D

I just ordered mine. See how long I held out there? One whole day almost! :eek:

Hi Craig,

I won't accuse you of a lack of willpower, but instead thank you for your patronage! :)

Cheers,

Christian

And Craig, your "lack of willpower", which I am going to call "fine sense of discretion", has been rewarded - your DVD is off to the post office *today*. :)

Thanks guys! I really look forward to watching it! I got a couple of purplehaeart "polehammer" heads and built a couple of trainers a few weeks back, and I've been working through plays from a few manuals I've got. Hopefully this week I'll get to preview Jason Smith's Jeu de la hache seminar, and this video will certainly be a welcome addition to my resources.

Can't wait!

Well, I had no willpower at all. I'm embarrassed to admit to how quickly I placed my order. :blush:

This looks to be another fine product from Freelance Academy Press.