Something that will make you even more irritated is that when he says "pretentious historical role-playing societies", or something like that, he's usually referring to the SCA. Otherwise his article starts off telling the truth, just with that sort of snide implication that he always carries, of him being right, and the rest of the world automatically being wrong, by virtue of the fact that they're not him.
As you correctly point out, he's isolated himself from the rest of the WMA/HEMA community, and vanishes when anyone challenges him to back up or prove his points. The problem with this, is that when he's right, it's still hard to take him seriously. I feel that he expects his name and number of years invested in the subject to be enough to maintain his academic integrity, but it's this sort of isolationism, single-minded interpretation, and use of derogatory attitudes to put everyone else down in nearly everything he writes that really damage his credibility. So he only comes off as credible to those
outside the community and don't know any better.
This article is written in his typical way. Instead of taking the opportunity to truly teach you something, instead it seems to carry the goal of being self-aggrandizing, and diminishing to everyone else. I mean really, what was the point of completely digressing into this:
Despite the many people now claiming to be studying the historical teachings on Medieval and Renaissance swordsmanship, in their practices the majority invariably don't employ the correct postures, don't use the proper movements, don't apply the central tenets, and instead typically reduce it all down to adolescent sword-tagging games.
Really? The whole community is doing "adolescent sword-tagging"?
Realistically, I know he's very skilled and athletic, and would probably mop the floor with me in a fight. But that doesn't mean that they way the rest of the community (a community he used to be involved in and has now vanished from) is reconstructing things wrongly. Quite the opposite, I think, since I've seen over just the last 5 years all sorts of really wonderful things get discovered and interpreted better. Things which he's made statements about in other articles, and the rest of the community has had some VERY good rebuttals for.
Some of his students will defend him and argue endlessly on the forum. And frequently when they're trying to pick apart some other group's interpretation, they'll look at photos and videos of a
beginner student as their example, or something that doesn't even relate to the point they're making. That part I find sickening.
Despite his skills and knowledge, I have a hard time reading his articles without getting really, really mad, just because of the attitude. He thinks he's the only authority, and he's not. No humility whatsoever.
He makes valid points about TV, movies, and stage shows (ignoring the fact that they're meant to be entertaining, not educational). But it's really disingenuous to lump the rest of HEMA, WMA, and SCA into that.
/rant.
