[Bill Grandy]

For those of you in the area, there is an event this upcoming Saturday (July 14) called Sword Fest in Alexandria, VA. The event is primarily focused on Japanese sword arts, and will have a number of groups demonstrating their arts. I was asked to do a demo on Liechtenauer's longsword, and will be doing that with my student David Rowe at 9:25am. We also plan on demoing a little bit of Italian rapier as well. Also, Scott Rodell will be there representing Chinese swordsmanship (and his work with historical Chinese swordsmanship is awesome).

For myself, I am very much looking forward to seeing Naginata do practiced!

There will also be some sword vendors there. I don't know if any European-styled wares will be there, but I'm certain there will be plenty of Japanese styled sword. Scott may possibly bring some antique Chinese swords, too.

The website is here:

http://capitalareabudokai.org/swordfest.html

I believe the order of the groups will also be the order in which they will present.

Thought I'd pass the info along for anyone interested.

[Bill Grandy]

SwordFest was a blast. To meet and see so many highly skilled and dedicated practitioners was nothing short of inspiring. It was in some ways for me a little bit intimidating being the only one there (besides my partner, David Rowe) who was presenting a non-Asian martial art, but not only was everyone there very open to the idea on Western Martial Arts, I had people coming up to me all day long who were not only very excited to know of it's existance, but also who were fascinated to talk shop with me about the long list of similarities between our art forms. In fact, throughout the whole day I was able to clearly understand what was going on with most of the techniques being presented despite coming from a completely different background: I just knew the techniques by different names.

It was also fantastic getting to talk shop with people, and to hang out with everyone afterwards. We all went to one of the practitioners homes afterward to have a big BBQ, and we went through roll after roll of tatami there as well. It was really a great time, and I hope to take part again next year. I have to thank Dave Drawdy for inviting me, and to all of the people who put their sweat and backbones into putting the whole thing together.

[Nate C.]

Sounds like it was a fun weekend. Strangely, it's not really that surprising that the forms and styles exhibited were very similar. It seems to me (take that for opinion, nothing more) that there are only so many ways you can do something like swing a sword. It stands to reason that the best/most successful basic techniques would rise to the top no matter where you live.

Cheers,

P.S. Pictures

[Bill Grandy]