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Dr. Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of English Studies at the University of Warsaw. His research focuses on the chivalric tradition of the late Middle Ages, be it chivalric romances or medieval manuscripts and treatises on the art of war, with a special focus on the English literary portrayals of Sir Gawain in the period of the 100 Years War and the Wars of the Roses. His admiration for the Middle Ages goes beyond academia, as he is also a historical reenactor and a Harnischfechten instructor, combining his knowledge of the period as well as his experience in working with medieval manuscripts with a practical approach, in order to reconstruct martial techniques of the 14th and 15th centuries.
We talk about all of this in our conversation, plus Przemysław details his extensive training routine that includes sprints wearing a helmet, and wearing weighted straps on his arms. All excellent practice for fighting in armour.
Przemysław explains the book he is working on, which is a fascinating look at how Middle English romances can serve as a record of English martial arts. He believes they could have been used as a vehicle to translate certain lessons that might otherwise have been found in fight books, which people rarely owned at the time. Some of the romances have very accurate fight descriptions, which can be read as teachings on how to fight as well as Sir Gawain.
This is the armour of Frederick the Victorious Przemysław mentions:
(Picture from https://www.barbarusbooks.de/english/bestseller/collection-of-arms-of-the-austrian-royal-house/)
Links to other podcast episodes featuring people mentioned in this episode:
Dayna Berghan-Whyman (Buhurt) https://swordschool.com/podcast/historical-medieval-battle-nz-episode36/
Beth Hammer (Battle of Nations) https://swordschool.com/podcast/battle-of-nations-episode34/
Toby Capwell (armour) https://swordschool.com/podcast/armour-of-the-english-knight-episode76/
Daniel Jacquet (armour) https://swordschool.com/podcast/is-there-anything-daniel-jaquet-cant-do-in-armour/
Ariella Elema (The Last Duel) https://swordschool.com/podcast/the-last-duel-or-was-it-with-ariella-elema/
Transcript
Guy Windsor
I'm here today with Dr. Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak (and yes, I did practice that name for a little while before we recorded) who is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of English Studies at the University of Warsaw. His research focuses on the chivalric tradition of the late Middle Ages, be it chivalric romances or medieval manuscripts and treatises on the art of war, with a special focus on the English literary portrayals of Sir Gawain in the period of the 100 Years War and the Wars of the Roses. His admiration for the Middle Ages goes beyond academia, as he is also a historical reenactor and a Harnischfechten instructor, combining his knowledge of the period, as well as his experience in working with medieval manuscripts with a practical approach in order to reconstruct martial techniques of the 14th and 15th centuries. His current focus is on studying the traces of medieval English martial systems in the pages of the Middle English romances, and that's a hell of an introduction. So, Przemysław, lovely to see you again.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Great to see you.
Guy Windsor
Just to orient everyone, they probably guessed you're in Poland, but whereabouts in the world are you?
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Poland, Warsaw to be specific.
Guy Windsor
And are you from Warsaw?
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Yes, I was born in Warsaw. I live in Warsaw and I work in Warsaw.
Guy Windsor
Excellent. So it's no wonder that we met in Warsaw then. So how did you get into historical martial arts?
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
There are two parts to that story, really. Because one thing is my grandfather who was the man in my life, the one who really set the standard for what I'm doing now. He was a huge fan of history. And he would read to me stories, novels, books, I remember as if it were yesterday, him reading to me The Teutonic Knights. It's one of the greatest, most celebrated works by Henryk Sienkiewicz, who got a Nobel Prize in literature for another work. But The Teutonic Knights is a story of the struggle between the Polish kingdom with the Teutonic Order. And it is a hugely important work for Poland, because it was created when Poland was under the influence of foreign powers, including Germany. And it was a form of a low key sign of resistance on the side of Henryk Sienkiewicz. And then, it was used by the communist government in Poland, when they made it into a movie in the 50s, to kind of follow up with the narrative of anti-Germanic sentiments and pan-Slavism and so on. So, I was spoon fed history by my grandfather. And the other side of the story is most men in my family are in some way related to the military profession. So my uncles, my father, the men in my family would be our soldiers. They would work in Homeland Security and so on. I was the one who decided to go into the academia. But nonetheless, I was pushed towards martial arts ever since I was a little boy. And as it usually happened in the 90s, I trained the Eastern martial arts, the Japanese Koryu ju-jitsu stuff, but in high school, I met a guy who was a member of a reenactment group, and he told me that they are meeting in the fields of Grunewald, which was this site of the greatest military victory of Poland in the 15th century, and he told me they are putting on armour and fighting with steel weapons. He is actually spending his free time hitting people with an axe on a helmet.
Guy Windsor
So Grunewald to the Poles is maybe like Agincourt to the English.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Absolutely, yes. It's almost the same moment.
Guy Windsor
That puts it into perspective. Agincourt is actually in France, but you actually have developed in Poland itself, so it’s even more important.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
But the name itself somehow ties to the fact that those lands were under the control of the Teutonic Order, which was, you know, a Germanic order because Grunewald is not a Polish name.
Guy Windsor
Right. And so the Teutonic Knights are basically the bad guys? And the righteous Polish knights are the good guys who go and defeat them.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
That's right, exactly.
Guy Windsor
I’ve got to get my white hat, black hat thing right. Otherwise I could make some faux pas, which would alienate all the Polish listeners.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
The long story short is one of the princes of Poland allowed the Teutonic Order to come to Poland and gave them an estate, so that they could launch crusades against Lithuania and the Slavic nations on the eastern border of Poland. But they liked it so much that they coveted more, and they were increasing their influence on the lands around their main seat, which was Malburg. And at some point, what Władysław II Jagiełło who was the King of Poland during that time, he decided to face them down in a battle and that was the Battle of Grunewald, 1410. So, as I said, quite close to Agincourt, and there is kind of a symbolic victory of Polishness against the encroaching power of Germanisation, which was used to a large extent, during the 20th century when Poland had problems with other foreign powers taking away and usurping the territory.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, I mean, Britain entered the Second World War because Germany invaded Poland. And we had a deal.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Yes. Exactly. So when I heard that from this guy at school that he's doing all those things, I decided that I have to get in on this because before that I trained kenjitsu and, yeah, we trained with wooden swords, with bokken, and we will hit one another. But the image of a mass battle between guys in armour going full swing with metal weapons. That was just a dream come true.
Guy Windsor
I know exactly what you mean.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
So that's how I got into reenactment. Then a new fad came around, the Buhurt as it is more known in the West. And I immediately went in because that seemed even a better fun than the normal battlefield reenactment. And that also, at some point, lost its appeal. And I found my way into HEMA, which is currently the source of all the enjoyment in my life.
Guy Windsor
Okay, so you started that out sort of classic reenactment. Went into Buhurt, and I mean, listeners to the show should know about it because I've interviewed two quite high level Buhurt people, Dayna Berghan-Whyman, and Beth Hammer, I'll put links to those in the show notes so people can find them. And now you are doing the more historical recreation of martial techniques as opposed to competitive Buhurt, or the performative reenactment.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Absolutely. Nowadays I'm hardcore into Harnischfechten, so I'm digging deep into the fencing treatises and really working with that order.
Guy Windsor
What are your main sources. What sources do you use primarily?
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
So Fior di Battaglia, Gladiatoria, Talhoffer’s Fecht Bucher, and to a smaller extent, Paulus Hector Mair.
Guy Windsor
And obviously Fiore is the best of those.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
To an extent I would agree with, unfortunately, that the problem with Fiore is he doesn't really devote much space to Harnischfechten in his fight book.
Guy Windsor
You’re supposed to read the whole book, you're supposed to do the whole thing. And a lot of the stuff that you do in armour is actually in the other bits, in the other sections of the book.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
I absolutely adore Fiore. But I use Gladiatoria as kind of a supplement to Fiore really, because, as you surely remember, the very beginning and the introduction to the Flower of Battle, he actually says that he learned the wonderful art of combat from numerous masters, Italian and German. And he also among his students had German students. So I thought to myself that, given the fact that between the Fiore di Battaglia and the earliest known version of Gladiatoria, there’s around 20 years, it's impossible to think that the techniques represented in Gladiatoria are in no way shape or form similar to what Fiore was studying.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, I mean, my feeling is that basically, all the differences we find in the medieval systems, if you want to call them systems, is almost invariably in the unarmoured stuff. Basically, if you looked at just the armoured combat, and you didn't know where the sources were from, you would probably say, oh, it's all the same thing. It's all from the same school. I mean, there isn’t a lot to choose between it.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
There are certain instances where you see differences that were most likely dictated by the differences in armour used. And at some points, you can see that certain techniques are either phased out or they change slightly. I think the best example here is in Gladiatoria, you have a couple of techniques where you aim Mortschlag. So hitting the opponent with the pommel or the crossguard of a sword held by the blade, you hit them to the sides of the joints. So you either go for a couter, so the cover of your elbow or to the poleyns, so the cover of the knee, but then Talhoffer uses similar techniques, but instead of advising a hit, he goes for a hook. So you go deeper, you hook the crossguard behind the knee of the opponent and you then try to topple them. So you can see how most likely the development of the armour used during Talhoffer’s time and made it less likely to actually inflict any serious injury on the opponent because what I found is when you consider Gladiatoria, the first manuscript is dated to around 1430s. And if you look at the styles of armour that were popular in Germany during the time, especially the Kastenbrust style, that you can see in the paintings of Konrad Witz, for instance, and there is a brilliant effigy of Friedrich von Knippenberg, dated 1435, that represents the complete style of Kastenbrust. And what was quite popular during that time was an assembly of couter and poleyns that had a single plate rondel that was riveted with a single rivet to the side of the elbow or to the side of the knee. So my original idea is given the fact that that was probably the popular type of defense that Gladiatoria was created for, hitting someone on to a plate held by single rivet, with a powerful stroke or powerful hit the like of Mortschlag was very likely to either damage or completely shear off the defense of the joint. But then when you look at Talhoffer’s manuscript, you have both the elbows and the knees made with a plate that is encapsulating the entire part of either the knee or the elbow. So hitting on the side and we tried it. We tried it with three or three different types of armour, with Italian, with German, and with Italian expert, and we really hit them very hard with metal swords using Mortschlag. Nothing happened. So to that extent, I think Talhoffer was conscious of the earlier technique, and just thought to himself, you know, it's a good idea, I can still go into the knee, but I can't damage the armour. And that way, it's better to hook the opponent and to topple him, and for instance, mount him or do something else than try to hit a well armoured part with my sword.
Guy Windsor
Right. So basically, the change in the technique is driven by improvements in the armour.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Yes. And that some as you can see a lot.
Guy Windsor
And Fiore is the oldest of these sources. So one would expect his armour is the least technologically developed.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
No, it's not. Because we can't forget that Fiore was using Italian armour as his basis. And Italian armour is obviously as certain shorthand, but Italian armour was much more protective than German armour, oftentimes. So if we consider the armour of the early 15th century used in Italy, you would never find the same ideas that you find in German armour. Even when you look at the illustrations, accompanying techniques of the Flower of Battle, the protection of the upper and lower limbs is much more complete than what you can see in many Kastenbrust styles. So even though it was earlier, it was more protective.
Guy Windsor
Because Italian armour is better than German armour, and that’s just a fact. I can't argue with that. But here's a question then. Shall we say the culture of chivalry, the chivalric classes in Europe. They pretty much knew each other, and they communicate with each other all the time. And there are examples of like a king in Portugal ordering armour from an armourer in Germany. So the question is, if, say in 1400, Italian armour was dramatically better than German armour. Why aren't the Germans ordering Italian?
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
They are. Everyone is ordering Italian armour. But that doesn't mean that everyone is. So you have people from around Europe ordering Italian armour because Italians, especially in the 15th century, they started dominating the armourer game. There is a lot that goes into that. But long story short, they were capable of producing the most armour at the lowest price. So that Toby Capwell writes about it in the third book on the English armour. And he says, yeah, sure, English armour was great. And it was very distinct, but it was also incredibly expensive in comparison to Italian armour. So the thing is, yes, you would most definitely see people in Germany using Italian armour, or rather Italian made armour, because we know that Italians had this alla Tedesca type of armour that wasn't made for people from Germany.
Guy Windsor
Did that has the same sort of technological superiority as the German style armour? Because if it is made in the same style, surely it would be equally protective to armour made in Germany of the same style. What you're describing about the knee joint is a difference in the design of the knee joint making a difference to protectiveness.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Yes, it's more protective.
Guy Windsor
But if they are making it in the German style wouldn’t they be copying the German design?
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Not really. In the German style was more stylistic. So for instance, you would see the use of sallets instead of armets, in the German style. Or you would see the use of spaulders of equal size instead of asymmetrical pauldrons, like in Italian style, or you would see more fluting in later stages. So it was stylistic. However, it followed the basic ideas and designs of the Italian armour. I think the best known example is the armour of Frederick the Victorious, well known with grand bassinet and equal sized spaulders.
Guy Windsor
We'll put a picture of that in the show notes for people who can't just conjure up a precise image of that particular armour.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
What I think we should remember is, many people nowadays have this false idea about armour because they we are conditioned to think in terms of modern production, where you go to a store, and you have a number of set models that are mass produced, and you could you just choose from around those. Whereas in the Middle Ages, what you chose was very much up to your wealth, but also your personal choices. Very often, they had ideas that were failed, like, I'm sure you know about this short lived fad, especially in Germany, where they had chains that were attaching weapons and helmets to the breastplate. And you have a very short period of time, where effigies and art of the time show a knight who has a sword on a chain, a helmet on a chain, a dagger on the chain, all of it dangling from his chest.
Guy Windsor
What was that about?
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
I think the idea here was not to lose your weapons in the heat of battle.
Guy Windsor
So if you drop it you can just pull on a chain.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Absolutely. But you know, as a practitioner of martial arts, you can surely imagine that the first thing that comes to your mind when fighting against someone like that is why don't I just grab the chain and yank it?
Guy Windsor
Exactly, yes. You're basically giving your opponent all sorts of handles and throttling devices.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
You can imagine how horribly cumbersome that would be in wrestling. And we know that Harnischfechten to a very large degree is wrestling. Most plays end up with you struggling on the ground with the other guy playing the game of who gets to the dagger first.
Guy Windsor
Right, and, you know, armour works. So anything I could do with a sword from normal striking distance isn't going to do anything to somebody wearing armour. I mean, you might scratch their helmet, but it's not going to do very much.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Yes, and no. Because once again, we have to remember the people who are wearing armour weren't always wearing the best type of armour available. So if you think about common soldiers, or even Men at Arms who didn't have the full protection or chose not to have full protection, because still in the 15th century, you can see for instance people who have full vambraces so the full coverage of the arm, but the shoulders are only covered with mail so here you can imagine that a really solid strike to your shoulder with a sword, it's going to hurt and it can actually break something.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, I mean you're not gonna cut through, but you might break the clavicle.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
The blunt trauma especially if you use something like the murder stroke. So, I think that we need to remember also you know, you have kettle hats, a very popular type of helmet, but if you get cut in the face, while wearing a kettle hat. Also you have the patience of people going into battle for instance without gauntlets. So all the strikes to the hands still count. You have very often foot soldiers.
Guy Windsor
I've lost fingernails while wearing gauntlets. Yes. So I mean, you're not going to get your fingers cut off very easily, but you certainly get a finger broken through it.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Absolutely. Absolutely, with a powerful strike. The last thing we have to remember also is the quality of armour varies horribly. So if you had a very well made sword, hitting a very shoddy mail, then it could go through.
Guy Windsor
Sure. And Fiore has a bit in the poleaxe section where he claims to be able to put the point of the poleaxe through a breastplate, right? And writing in about 1400, there's about a 50/50 chance that that breast plate was made out of iron rather than steel. And so actually, you can do it.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Yeah I mean, there was this this brilliant, two parter made by Toby Capwell and Todd from Todd's workshop, where they were shooting recreations of 15th century armour with a longbow, to kind of test the limits and in that they tested two the different breastplates. But they still recognized the fact that the first one was, the higher end available and even the second one was kind of upper middle tier. But we have to remember that there were still people who couldn't afford this level of protection. Plus, even if you have a breastplate, the breastplate is actually only covering you from your neck to your navel. But below that very often people will just have an arming jack, or a mail skirt. And even if your poleaxe doesn't go through the breastplate, it can slide to the side or down and it will sure as hell go through mail. We also tested that.
Guy Windsor
So why were the Italians able to make such high quality armour so cheaply?
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Because you had a number of families were given special dispensation, special rights. They were for instance, owners of the mine s from which they would get ore. And to some extent they would have something close to monopoly.
Guy Windsor
So monopoly and vertical integration.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Yes. Plus, when you think of, for instance, England, some of those makers would have special treatment, they wouldn't be forced to pay additional taxes, they would be able to move their armour quickly to England without any extra costs. So their workshops were just amazingly big in comparison to what English armourers could manage.
Guy Windsor
So they had a very well organized organization. With vertical integration between the ore production and the smelting, and then the rough work and then the finishing. So they owned the whole process. And they got tax breaks.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Yes.
Guy Windsor
How very modern. Obviously, you're mad about Middle Ages, you're mad about armour. And there is a ton of material in Europe on that subject. What drew you to the English chivalric literature?
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Well, the big thing about England is I absolutely love it.
Guy Windsor
That always surprises me when I hear that.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
I was always enamored with England, with English literature, especially English Middle Ages. I adore Edward III. Edward of Woodstock. I think that the way in which they managed to translate the romantic ideas of chivalry into a well-organized system that produced knights and Men at Arms capable of showing up a much more numerous French army and the whole idea of the Order of the Garter, of how they managed to create this amazing industry, wherein the latter part of the 14th century and throughout the 15th century, we talk about something called the English alliterative revival, where you have a whole lot of English chivalric romances in alliterative verse, which it's something we can look back for and to be off. And they were creating this huge drive in the artistic expression of the English, to create stories that had a real life influence, not only on people within the military profession, but also regular people. Thomas Hahn, he wrote an incredibly interesting introduction to a book that is a collection of chivalric romances featuring Sir Gawain. And he said that even during the Tudor era, you can see in the inventories and wills of wealthy merchants, that they actually had books of those chivalric romances on their shelves. So something that was started during the reign of Edward III was leaving cultural nodes that permeated throughout the rule of Plantagenets and still managed to grasp the imagination of people during the Tudor era. And I think that's amazing.
Guy Windsor
I hadn't quite realized that. So basically, they were writing these stories, which became like the mythos of the knightly ideal? Which persisted for centuries.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Absolutely. And Edward III, he actually had his group of knights that he would meet with annually. And they kind of play acted the Knights of the Round Table. So that was going to connect it to the Order of the Garter. And the idea behind that was to create a kind of elite club for the foremost of English knights who would espouse the virtues and values of the Arthurian mode of chivalry that Edward was so fond of. And you can imagine how something like that was a huge influence on the young members of the order of chivalry, because you know that there is this club for the best of the best. And they meet with the king, annually on the day of St. George, who is not only the patron saint of England, but also the patron saint of chivalry itself. So in that regard, it was a brilliant PR move. And it worked so brilliantly well, that we know that the King of France wanted something like that. And he actually tasked one of his greatest knights, Geoffroi de Charny, with creation of the Order of the Star, which was a copy, straight up copy, of the Order of the Garter. And what's interesting is we have La Livre Chivalry, I think it's called. So we have a book written by Geoffroi de Charny, which is kind of a manual on how to be a good knight. And we know that it was a manual created for something that was a copy of the English original.
Guy Windsor
Wow. One question occurs to me. Edward III was obviously massively taken with the Arthurian legends. So what version of those legends was he exposed to? Do we know?
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
We don’t know what exact version because we have to remember that the Arthurian legends would be something very much alive, part of the lived experience of people in the 14th and 15th century so it's not even that he read any particular version. We have to realize that during some feasts, parties, tournaments, he would have troubadours, poets, entertainers reciting those stories.
Guy Windsor
So they have the same sort of sort of generational power as like fairy tales or nursery rhymes.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Absolutely, yes. And we know that it was still popular during the reign of Elizabeth I. People were still very much entertained with the stories of Arthur and his knights. And obviously, we know that Henry VIII was bonkers about chivalry. And I think that it really all started, as I said, with the efforts of Edward III and how he wanted to incorporate all those brilliant ideas into his mode of kingship. And I think he really did something with how amazingly his son Edward of Woodstock, was represented in the English sources, but he was also quite respected and feared by the French. So that that's something that that was a huge inspiration on me. And I was absolutely fascinated with it as a kid.
Guy Windsor
It reminds me a little bit of the sort of hero worship that Navy SEALs, and SAS and stuff get these days where you have this sort of elite group. All sorts of stories get told about them, not all of which are true. And you get people pretending to have been in such groups who actually weren't. And also some of the things that they managed to pull off are us just astonishing. So there’s a bit of fact there's a bit of fiction, but most importantly, there's a whole lot of myth.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
I mean, to some extent, I'm sure there was some PR move and propaganda on the part of the Plantagenets. But on the other hand, there are certain things that are verifiable, like Edward of Woodstock was 16, when he fought in the Battle of Crécy. And we know that he actually led a contingent of dismounted knights. There is a story, a brilliant story, kind of an anecdote that Froissart tells about how one of the knights from his side, ran to Edward III to tell him that they are severely pressed by the French and there's a huge group of French knights assailing them and that young Edward, a 16 year old boy is there in the thick of battle. And Edward says that he won't send any more fighters, because he wants the boy to win his spurs.
Guy Windsor
Wow. That is hardcore parenting.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
We know that Edward was knighted at the beginning of the campaign. Obviously, he had to be because you can't imagine a squire leading a group of knights. But you could imagine that Edward, through that, wanted to showcase even if it didn't really happen. But there is a reason why the story got recorded. So probably he just didn't want it to be seen as an act of nepotism. And instead, I see Edward of Woodstock as his little pet project. He wanted his little perfect knight. And he wanted to show yes, I gave him the distinction, I knighted him, but then he actually had to prove that he was worthy of that, or die trying.
Guy Windsor
That puts exam pressure placed on my 16 year old daughter into some pretty sharp relief.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
I actually used that story a number of times when teaching high school students. When they said, you know, that's so hard with the exams and so on. And I said, listen, Edward won his first military victory at your age.
Guy Windsor
He would have had good armour and had good knights around him, absolutely. But he absolutely could have got a spear through the face. No problem.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Yes. I mean, let's just think about Henry of Bolingbroke, before he became Henry the Fifth. He got hit in the face with an arrow in the Battle of Shrewsbury. There is the whole brilliant story of how the king's physician had to create a special pair of pliers to remove the arrowhead from the face of the young prince. So the danger was always there, you could have the best armour your money could buy but not to look further from England, Richard III, I'm sure as the King of England had the very best armour you could get and yet he was butchered.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, and buried under a car park. Well, it wasn’t a car park then. So why Gawain in particular? What draws you to Sir Gawain?
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
So, in my studies I have noticed that Gawain was a pop cultural icon for the English, whereas the French adored Sir Lancelot, the Germans were more interested in Percival. Gawain was most definitely the English Knight. And I think that the best proof of that is the sheer number of chivalric romances surviving from England that focus on Sir Gawain. And I think there's a reason for that, because, Gawain to my mind, he represents the performative mode of chivalry. He is the guy who does the fighting. Because Lancelot he is this romanticized lover knight, you have Galahad who is the Miles Christi, he is the defender of faith, he is the soldier of Christ. But Gawain is the guy who gets things done. And one of the most significant things about Gawain is in most of his outings, he's fighting someone. And very often he's fighting in formalized modes of combat. So judicial duels, for instance. And he does so either in his own name or a very often as a champion of King Arthur. I'm sure that people who are not very much into medieval literature still recognize the little romance called Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Guy Windsor
Yes, everyone has heard of it. And there's even a movie about it now.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
There's a number of movies, none of them is good.
Guy Windsor
The really new one, you've seen that? You hated it.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
I hated it. I hate it.
Guy Windsor
Oh, thank god. Okay. I know so many medievalists who absolutely fucking loved it and I was bored rigid.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
I detest it. Because I think it's completely missing the point of the original romance. Making it into this kind of unrealistic dream vision like thing / bad trip. It's completely not what it's supposed to be. I think, above all, this is actually a teachable piece of writing. And that's also why I think Gawain is very noteworthy, because very often, stories that focus on him, teach lessons. Teach lessons in proper behavior and proper conduct in battle. And you might recall that at the very beginning of the romance of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the Green Knight comes into Camelot. And first he wants to challenge Arthur, right? But Sir Gawain who says, no, no, no, I will go in your place, because I'm not that important. And there are so many stories with Sir Gawain doing the exact same thing, someone coming to challenge Arthur, and Gawain, off his own volition, deciding to represent the king. So he is the epitome of loyalty, of this bond between the king and the warrior knight, the defender of crown. And even Sir Thomas Mallory, who was very obviously influenced by the French romances instead of the English, because he favors Lancelot deeply. He still has certain traces of the real Gawain, because we know the French didn't like Gawain, also the monks didn't like Gawain. The reason for it is something I will mention in a moment. But even Sir Thomas Mallory has certain glimpses of the original Gawain. And one of the first times is when Gawain is engaged in a duel against Sir Morholt. He's known as the guy fighting against Tristan. So they fight and say going unhorsed and Morholt wants to keep on fighting from horseback and Gawain says to him, you can't do that. It's not how you do things. If you are fighting a formal duel against someone, and you unhorse them, you have to continue fighting on foot. And if you don't do that, you risk harming your horse. It's absolutely atrocious. And what's interesting is Morholt apologizes to him, gets off his horse, and says, thank you for reminding me of the proper conduct. Thank you for the lesson. And that's why I think that you have the whole story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight where he is tested basically on his loyalty to his host, on his proper behavior, on his gallantry, on his chivalry, and he's deeply ashamed when he cheats. And what is interesting is the very last sentence that goes in the original manuscript is the very motto of the Order of the Garter. Let him be ashamed because he’s wrong in that. So to that extent, I think that if you want to understand the thought world of the English knights Sir Gawain is the is the best entry into that. And the other thing I wanted to say is, I really enjoy Sir Gawain because I think of him as kind of a medieval James Bond. He very often gets things done and gets the girl. In the chivalric romances featuring Sir Gawain and you have Lancelot pining after Guinevere. And other guys like Tristan dying for love, but not Gawain. Gawain has a new girl in virtually every story. There's an entire cycle of romances that are basically about how Gawain is such a ladies man, that he needs to be taught a lesson. There’s too much womanizing going around. So you can imagine how, for English knights, he was probably their favourite character, right? He is the knight’s knight. This butch guy who just loves fighting, he loves the ladies. He loves the attention. And he uses every opportunity to show everyone that he is the best at what he is doing.
Guy Windsor
Right. Okay, so that's probably why the church didn't like him so much.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
No, no, no, they detested him. Absolutely.
Guy Windsor
Their favourite would be probably Galahad or Tristan.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Yes. That's right. Tristan not so much because you know the whole thing with King Mark and you know, sleeping with his wife.
Guy Windsor
But then there's an awful lot of adultery in the Arthurian romances.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
That is correct, but that's the French addition, I would say. The English they had the proper approach to chivalric romance, right? Fighting, adventures, conquering going on a quest. None of this lovey dovey chasing after someone else's girl stuff.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, fair enough. How useful are these romances to a historical martial arts person, someone who wants to learn more about armoured combat itself.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Some are completely useless, like Sir Thomas Mallory, to a large extent, because we have to realize that many of those were either written by people who probably never saw combat in their life, or were very much generic. So they were repeating the same types of standardized descriptions over and over again. And yet you have a number of brilliant Middle English romances. A good example is for instance, the Knightly Tale of Gologras and Sir Gawain where you have very detailed descriptions of armed combat. You have descriptions of mass battles, you have descriptions of formals deeds of arms, and it's literally blow by blow. It almost reads like a fencing treatise, because you have this one delivered a sword stroke to this part and the other covered on high and deflected and cleft him on this part of his armour. And in doing so he sheared 50 of his mail rings. And you have an entire brilliant description with the entire index of armour parts that are being targeted and destroyed in the course of battle. You have descriptions of the exact types of attacks that are being delivered between the knights. As we all know, unfortunately, there are no originally English fencing treatises from the 14th to the 15th century, surviving. We don't have English Fiore, Talhoffer, or we haven't found them yet. But my deep belief is that if you look at the sort of entertainment that was created for the benefit of the military class, of the warrior class, and you wanted them to enjoy those, and we know as I said that the English absolutely love those stories that focused on the military exploits. You can't defend an argument saying, I think that those very detailed, amazingly intricate descriptions of armed combat are just pure imagination of the author.
Guy Windsor
It's like, okay, I am the worst person in the world to go watch a swordfighting movie with unless you come too, I think we'd be terrible. And, you know, I saw The Knight's Tale sat between JT Pälikkö, who's one of the world's best sword makers. And Lasse Mattila, who is a really, really good conservator of arms and armour. Who knows more about armour than I ever will. And we really enjoyed the film, because it made no attempt whatsoever to be in any way serious. But if that film had been aimed at us, specifically, they would have got the details right, in the same way that they do in some areas in other films. So if these people are writing for the knightly classes, for experts in martial arts, if you wrote, go back to Special Forces, if somebody wrote a book about special forces soldiers aimed at special forces, they were the target audience, you would get a special forces person who knows what they're doing to check the book for you before you send it out to your readers. So you don't get humiliated. So I mean, how can how can it not be accurate?
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
And as I said, we have to remember that Sir Gawain was the embodiment of the English chivalry. So if he is praised in those romances as the best fighter, the embodiment of all knightly virtues in the performative mode, and you add the lessons to that, as I said, because in that romance I mentioned, he is preparing for an armed single combat with the best fighter of the enemy camp. And there is an elderly knight in the army of Arthur, and he actually teaches him and he said, listen, if he attacks you in this way, then remember do this thing. But if he wants to do the same thing against you, then use that against him. So it's exactly how fight books were written. So if you wanted the original audience or audience who surrounded Sir Gawain with almost cult hero status, if you wanted them to buy into the idea of Sir Gawain being the best fighter, and him being at some point in dire straits, because he's fighting against the very best of the opposing side, and you want to sell them on this dramaticism. It has to be realistic, they have to recognize real plays, real actions and attacks for the whole thing to be entertaining.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, of course. And how does that stuff line up with what we find in the fight books?
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
It lines up amazingly. I have found literal translations, almost one to one of a couple of plays from a Fiore and from Gladiatoria in those romances.
Guy Windsor
So I have to ask, have you published this?
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
No, I'm currently working on a book.
Guy Windsor
Okay, well, I was going to say, so what are you working on at the moment? Okay, tell us about your book.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
So, I have published a couple of articles, actually, written a couple of articles, because a number of them are still waiting to be published. On a side note, I'll just say that it's really hard to find someone in modern academic journals, who would be actually interested in publishing that sort of stuff. Because you have the division between history and literary studies. But if you walk in and you say I'm reading those romances, and now I'm going to show you how I compared them with information from fighting treatises, and documents on records of actual formal combat, I get responses of yes, that's very interesting. However, we will not pursue publishing it, because it doesn't fit the idea of our journal.
Guy Windsor
Which is funny, because interdisciplinarity is so fashionable these days, that surely, like literature and history. Most history comes from literature. History is mostly based on written sources. So what the hell? So, okay, so tell us about your book.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
I decided to collect all those findings. And I'm still very much in the course of research, I haven't finished. I'm reading into those things. I have found a lot of interesting things and I have already started writing. But basically, the whole idea is trying to show how those Middle English romances can serve as a type of record of English martial arts. Of how they could have been used as a vehicle to translate certain lessons that might otherwise have been found in fight books, because we have to remember that even though we have a plethora of surviving fight books, it was still something that was incredibly rare. Once again, if we come back to Fiore, he himself said that he didn't even think about writing any of his teachings down, it was one of his students. Galeazzo da Mantova, who came to him and said, Listen, Master, maybe you should write all those things down.
Guy Windsor
I had the same experience. The only reason I wrote my first book is because one of my students asked me to. Not to compare myself with Fiore, of course.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Fiore says that actually, this student of his was the only student he had, that owned a fight book. And he taught a number of knights, probably well socially situated individuals who could afford to have a book like that, yet, they didn't. So my thought is, especially given strong connections between England and Italy. And, to a lesser extent, England and Germany, it's impossible to think that English knights didn't know about those martial systems. And I'm sure some of them studied them and brought them back home. So, to my mind, the best, easiest way to spread the awareness, to spread those teachings to the widest greatest audience of the time was to incorporate them into those narratives into those popular stories, because, if a member of the court of King Arthur teaches Sir Gawain who was the greatest knight how to deal with someone who is attacking you in single combat or in mounted battle scenario in a given way and that actually makes sense, right? Because when you compare it to what Fiore, for instance, shows on Rossfechten, so fighting on horseback, it's very much interlocks. So my idea basically is to find all of those traces, to compare them with known fight books, but also known records of actual single combat we have from the time period and show how that that combination of literature and martial arts could help us do something more for the understanding of English chivalry. To some extent, I was inspired by the work of Toby Capwell who wanted to shed more light on the English style of armour. So I would like to do the same for the English martial arts.
Guy Windsor
Fantastic. So I have to ask, when do you think the book is going to come out?
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
That's a very complicated question. I mean, I want to devote the next two months to working on it the but then it's a case of finding a publisher of all the technicalities behind publishing a book. And as it is going to be my first book, there is a lot of testing to go into that.
Guy Windsor
Of course. Okay, I have a question. Do you want the book to… Okay, if you're going to use it to kind of further your career, it needs to be published by an Academic Press. But if you want to actually make money from it, you should probably publish it yourself,
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Actually, my idea was first to publish it through an academic publisher for the requirements of my academic work. And tweak it, add maybe a couple of things that are of more interest to people who are very much into historical martial arts, but maybe not that much into academic stuff, and publish a second version for the general audience.
Guy Windsor
I just had a thought. My thought is, you can write it up as a second PhD, because that gives you the structure and the external assistance from academia, and all the pushback you get from supervisors, and they would help you craft the scholarship. And it will give you a super easy way to get it technically published, because like, all PhD theses are published by the University that grants the degree.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Not in Poland.
Guy Windsor
No? In Edinburgh, I had to supply the university with two or three copies of my thesis for their libraries. I don't mean they actually publish it and sell it in bookshops. I mean, it's recorded as yours, and it's in a library somewhere. I don’t mean they put it out as book. And then you have basically all the scholarship, all the work is done. And you know it's done to the necessary level because it has been properly examined. And then yeah, then just smooth it out. Re-write it a bit, tweak it about, make it a bit more accessible. And then you have your thing that you could publish yourself.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
That's more or less the plan. Yes.
Guy Windsor
Okay. Yeah. I think you need to get on with it, though. Because I want to read it.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
I’m really giving it my best. I never had trouble devoting myself wholeheartedly to writing. So I am capable of writing eight to 10 hours straight every day.
Guy Windsor
Wow, I'm not. I max out about three or four.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Okay, so I hope that I will manage to finish this year, hopefully, before the summer's done, but we'll see.
Guy Windsor
Well, if you need any help in any aspects of the book production side of things, I do all that stuff myself. Do. Absolutely do. Anything I can do to help midwife this book out into the world I will be doing the community a favor. Also doing myself a favour, because then I can read it.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
I will absolutely take you up on that.
Guy Windsor
Good. Do and yes, and listeners, you can thank me when it comes out. Because it sounds really exciting. How cool is that? You have these sources that should give us a picture of medieval combat in England. 14th century stuff, it’s just genius. It's a window we didn't know is there.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
And hopefully shows certain parts of the academia there is a real merit to marrying academic research with hands-on practical experience in HEMA.
Guy Windsor
That's another thing. I had to sort of wiggle about a bit and sort of be inventive in my approach to get Edinburgh University to accept, as my PhD is basically based on three of my books and is explicitly about the reconstruction of practical art, not just the academic stuff, but the Okay, how do we incorporate this information we get from getting stabbed in the face by our friends? And yeah, they are… I used the word ‘interdisciplinary’ a lot. And that apparently was quite helpful, I'm told by my supervisor. So it's obvious to us that the practice informs the research, the research informs the practice. And if you do it right, you get a virtuous cycle that just perpetuates, and the practice will tell you where to go to look for the next thing, and the research will tell you what to practice next, and round and round and round it goes. And that's obvious as to do it, but not so obvious to people whose entire world is a library,
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
You know, that kind of goes against the typical traditional approach to the academia. I think some people might laugh at seeing an Indiana Jones complex.
Guy Windsor
Okay, okay. Let me just show you this right here. Okay. Here's a proper bullwhip, and here is my jacket. And my jacket was made by Peter Botright who made the jackets for the movies. So this is same material, same design, this is the proper Indiana Jones Raiders of the Lost Ark jacket from the factory where they made them for the films. You think academics think that's a bad thing?
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
I mean, yes and no, right? Because I have met with a very warm reception, especially in my university, where the people I work with are really welcoming to new ideas, and they are really happy when someone comes up with something new. And I'm met with the only positive reception and people cheering me on. But when I talked to some of the Western academics, there was a conference last year that I attended a medievalist conference. And there was one notable American scholar who, upon learning what I do, said that it's very curious. However, he thinks it would be frowned upon at his universities, because people there look with suspicion on academics who are too practical in their approach.
Guy Windsor
They honestly haven't met Daniel Jacquet. Do you know Daniel?
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Unfortunately not.
Guy Windsor
He's a Swiss academic. He's the guy that did an assault course run with him in armour and a fireman in full firefighting gear and a soldier. He's the guy in the armour. I interviewed him for this show. And he does academic research into the practical uses of armour. Like for instance, they did this study on the on the forces involved in wearing armour and running in armour and doing various things. And he actually demonstrated that in certain circumstances, there are ranges of motion that the armour allows that you can't get without it because of the weight of the armour creates the range of motion, stuff like that. I will very happily introduce you when we come off the interview, because I think you guys would get on really well.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
A little confession here on how I'm received my University. Recently, literally, last week or two weeks ago, I learned that behind the scenes, behind my back, the Dean, the people you know, who work at the university, they all refer to me as ‘the Knight’, they don't even use my name. So yeah, to that extent, I think I found the right place, the right University, to practice what I do.
Guy Windsor
Okay. I'm just making a note to email Daniel, put you guys in touch, because you have so much in common. And particularly, like, he has a PhD in this stuff as well. And he is doing academic research and using the structures of academia for historical martial arts purposes. Well, I mean, imagine, if you show up at a conference, and you're the only guy in armour, you look a bit odd. But if you both show up to a conference in armour, from two separate universities, it starts to be less of the lone weirdo and starts being oh, actually, there's more than one university that tolerates this sort of stuff. Maybe we should.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
I actually did that once. Turned up at a conference in my armour.
Guy Windsor
How was that received?
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
The was an uproar, but positive one. There was a lot of interest. At some point, I was actually asked by one of the panellists to teach her the basics of longsword fighting. She was really into that. And she absolutely loved it when I told her that she can bash the sword I gave her anywhere she wants on my armour to show her that it really works. She loved that, she was giggling all the way.
Guy Windsor
Fantastic. And I think real medievalists, given the chance to actually handle armour, they love it. Who wouldn't? Okay, so, speaking of armour, there are quite a few people listening, I would imagine, who would quite like to get into armoured combat, and they see a beautiful suit of armour, they go, oh my God, I want that. And then they look into what it's going to cost. And they realize that that's like a year’s salary. And so they're put off from the whole project. So how would you suggest people get into armoured combat if they don't happen to have a trust fund and a Bentley and a Rolex.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
So first of all, my current armour that I absolutely love to bits, it's my fourth. And that's the first one I'm really satisfied with. So it only goes to show that there is a lot of work that goes into assembling a proper kit. But to those people who would like to get into fighting in armour I would say just go into a club that teaches you fighting in armour. Because we, in our club, for instance, we allow people who have just the basic soft kit even the Bloßfechten one to come to classes, and to start the movement, to learn the movement. And you don't have to have the entire armour straightaway. No one needs that. The first thing that everyone needs is as I said, a soft kit, a foundation garment. One properly made. Don't the buy one of the rack. Because you know, for Bloßfechten, for unarmoured combat, the off the rack things are a okay. Like most modern sports gear, they are very good. But you have to remember that how well you move in armour and how well the armour works, is largely dependent on how well the foundation works. And it has to be tailor made for you. Sidenote, it's a brilliant incentive not to gain weight.
Guy Windsor
Do you know, I'm going to Kansas next week to do wrestling stuff with Jessica Finley and I am going to wear my arming jacket I got made. When I bought armour, the first thing I bought, as you recommend, although we didn't know each other then was a tailor made army jacket for hanging the armour on. And basically it fits so tight it’s like skin, but I can move pretty much the same as I can move without it on. And it’s got all these attachment points for the armour and particularly the waist is super tight. So anything hanging off the jacket is hanging on my waist. It's fantastic. I got that made about 10, 12 years ago, something like that. And I tried it on last weekend. Oh shit, I have got a week to lose about six kilos. That fucking thing does not fit around my waist anymore.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Yeah, that's one of the main things that leads my physical workouts. I try to keep fit and to keep my body at peak condition, but without gaining anything or losing anything. So as I said, the foundation garments, absolutely the most important part, then you get helmet and upper limbs protection. Why those two? One, fencing mask is good to begin with and not to get hit in the face, but it tells you nothing about the limitations of vision and respiration that you have to face in the helmet. So a properly made helmet, incredibly important. And upper limbs: gauntlets are the most important part because I see many people trying to use those plastic gauntlets.
Guy Windsor
Horrible. I hate those things so much.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
They are overbuilt.
Guy Windsor
And they are shit even for unarmoured longsword stuff. They have no place. Just use steel gauntlets. I have a pair of steel gauntlets I have had since about 2004. And they're fantastic. I've replaced a couple of leather bits and replaced the gloves a couple of times. But yeah, they last forever and they cost me about 250 euros.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Gauntlets are incredibly important is one thing you have to realize is contrary to Bloßfechten, because if you enter a longsword tournament, rapier tournament, sabre tournaments, whatever, you fight with this one weapon. Harnischfechten, no. You have your primary weapon, that would be a polearm, usually, but then you either lose it, you discard it, you throw it at the opponent, then you use your sword. And then you have the dagger. So you have to be capable of indexing your weapons quickly, of grabbing them, of changing the way you hold them. Because especially in poleaxe, you have a lot of changes in how you grasp the pole, how you have thumbs facing the same side, the thumbs facing the head, all of the gymnastics that go around with and if you don't have properly made gauntlets, if you have this huge bulk of plastic, it's impossible to do anything properly. And the vambraces, because you have to learn how armour makes you move. I think that you know you can train Harnischfechten a long time without leg harness, because it doesn't really change that much. But the way that the biomechanics change with a full arm, upper limb protection is incredible, as you said, it weighs you down, but it also adds certain things. The way you operate weapons, but also the way your body reacts to grappling, to holds, to arm bars, what you can and cannot do with the opponent and the opponent's weapon. It's all very much connected to upper limb armour. So I would say that if someone wants to start training first go for soft kit, the foundation garments, and train the very basics, the movement, because you have to learn, for instance, how to use half swording, it's not something that everyone just gets instantly. Then get yourself a helmet and gauntlets and upper limb armour without the shoulders. Because even in Fiore, you have techniques shown with guys have protecting the shoulders only with mail sleeves. So you can train for a long time with only mail sleeves covering your shoulder and no plate there and it's still reflective of how many Men at Arms use those techniques. And then, torso, shoulders, and the lower limbs are the last thing. So, yes, a properly tailored armour is expensive. But hey, you don't have to go for high Gothic, or for full Milanese armour. If you consider for instance, the armour worn at the end of the 14th century, it's much more affordable. It has smaller pieces, simpler pieces. So things that are much less expensive and are easier to collect. That's what I say.
Guy Windsor
That's good advice. I know that some people are going to be like, Guy, you've got to ask this question, because I know my listeners quite well. And some of them are thinking, okay, so what the hell does he do to train to stay the same shape as much as possible? Could you just briefly survey your training routine?
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
So the funny thing is, when I was an MA student, I got really into physical fitness and I actually got certified as a fitness instructor. So I have my own diet, I have my own workout routine in the gym. And I have devised a kind of a workout scheduled that is created for the requirements of armoured fighting. I have used certain bodybuilding techniques, modified others, added some conditioning that is purely connected with armour, like running intervals in my helmet. And it has proven to work very well throughout the years.
Guy Windsor
Okay, so what is your week's routine?
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Okay, so usually on Mondays I do gym, sometimes on Tuesday too, but different. The thing is, I never do the same exact workout twice in a span of a week. But also, I try not to repeat this the same things in the span of two or three weeks. So I focus on the same parts of the body. So for instance, shoulders or chest or back, but I attack them with different sets of exercises, because I don't want to get used to certain exercises.
Guy Windsor
Okay, so you don't want to become accustomed to the exercise.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Yes, that's right. So our to improve hypertrophy and to challenge myself for the requirements of armoured combat. I mainly train with weights, I don't really do machines. And I combine intervals such as kettlebells are amazing. And I think it's very important that there's this protocol called reps in reserve. So basically, instead of thinking to yourself, Okay, I'll do eight movements every time when I do this exercise or ten movements in four reps, you never do that. When you do the reps in reserve, you work out up to a point when you feel that you would probably be able to do two or three movements of the same type. And that would be the limit of your capabilities. And in every rep, you do the same thing. So the first rep when you're fresh could be 16. The second could be 14, the third could be 10. The fourth could be 8.
Guy Windsor
So each set has a number of reps that leaves you a little bit in the tank. That's interesting.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
It's a protocol that is well researched, because I try to keep afloat of the latest research. I read what they publish on the topic, and it has proven to be a good protocol for hypertrophy, but also, I think it's safer. Because if you monitor yourself and instead of pushing yourself because you feel you need to do those two additional movements to fulfill your plan, you work with more of a sync with your body. And you think to yourself, Okay, so that I'm tired. That's how much I can do in the last rep. And it's good, because the fact that I feel soreness in my muscles means that the previous reps were challenging enough, and my muscles did the work. So that's the basic protocol I follow.
Guy Windsor
So that takes us to Monday, what happens on Tuesday?
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Okay, so Tuesday is usually more of an interval. I love the Tabata protocol. So 20 seconds of very intensive workouts, 10 seconds of break, 20 seconds of workout, and so on and so forth. And I add to that interval boxing and interval running. When I run, I use a breathing mask.
Guy Windsor
Because you're a masochist.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Yes. Those are quite funny, because I remember years ago, they were advertised as something that would be comparable to you working out in the mountains. It's absolute bull crap. They don't. But if you want to prepare to the oxygen exhaustion that you experience in a helmet, they are brilliant, because basically, you can cut off oxygen intake. And also you have to breathe in much harder and much deeper for the mask to let some oxygen in. So it teaches you to have a more regular deep breathing. And you don't hyperventilate, because many people who start in armour, who are not experienced, after a couple of minutes, they start choking and they gasp for air. And that's not something you should do in armour. And sometimes if there are not many gym patrons, and I don't scare many people, I actually take a helmet in my gym bag and I put it on and I run intervals with it.
Guy Windsor
Excellent. Okay.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Yes, that's Tuesday. Wednesday is Harnischfechten classes. So it's about an hour and a half in armour. Depending on the week, we either focus on pure technical training, or we mix it up with some light sparring, but still we do all of that in full kit. And I stress fighting in closed visor. As much as possible. We pretty much only open our visors to discuss things because we know that communicating effectively wearing a closed visor is not the easiest thing in the world, but we are conditioning ourselves with the closed helmets. So that's Wednesday evening. Thursday morning is weight training. Friday is rest. Saturday is the sparring day, not every week, unfortunately. But you know how it is trying to organize a group of guys, many of whom have kids and so on. Not that easy, but we try to meet at least once a month, sometimes twice a month. So we get to the club at around nine or 10am, we don the armour and we fight duels as long as there is anyone capable of remaining standing. It's up to three hours in harness. And then we really go through the whole thing. So we use spears, poleaxes, swords. We do grappling, we do dagger fighting, everything that goes, and Sunday is either weightlifting or a rest.
Guy Windsor
Okay, so how is that weightlifting different what you do in the gym?
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
So, the weightlifting I do, as I said, it is a combination of regular gym lifting. But as you, for instance, have shown me your collection of kettlebells. I do certain compound movements and certain collections of sequences of movements that are meant to activate the same muscle groups that go into fighting. Such as, for instance, I take a barbell, this kind of a lighter, not Olympic barbell, not something you would use to train.
Guy Windsor
That’s a twenty kilo bar.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
No, no, no, no, no, the ones I use are, I think 12 kilos. And I put around two and a half kilos on one side, I grab it as I would a poleaxe, and I practice movements from poleaxe techniques in a controlled manner, not swinging wildly the way I would with a weapon.
Guy Windsor
Go slowly through so you're supporting the motion. Yeah, that is fucking brutal. I've done similar things myself. It's great fun.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
So those things are all… for instance, I put weight bands on my forearms. And I take a sword, I add a weight band on to it. And I go slowly through techniques. Both half swording and Bloßfechten.
Guy Windsor
By weight band you mean the kind of thing that they sell to put around your ankles as you go running? Not that you should do that, but that sort of thing, like a weighted strap.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Yes. Because putting on your entire harness just to do 30 minutes of slow practice wouldn't make much sense. But if you're not swinging wildly, but you are doing that in a very slow controlled manner, controlling the tension in the muscles and so on. I have discovered it to be very helpful.
Guy Windsor
I mean, you said you used to do Koryu stuff. I've seen similar things done by Koryu practitioners, with a special waited sword that was deliberately built to be twice as heavy as the real thing.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
I have my Buhurt sword.
Guy Windsor
Which is already twice as heavy as the real thing.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
As you probably know, the weapons in Buhurt, I wouldn't really call them weapons. They are bars of metal crudely shaped, glorified bars of metal. So the story that I used for Buhurt it weighs almost three kilos. So it's ungodly weight. And actually, at some point, it broke. So it's shorter than it used to be. And also lighter.
Guy Windsor
Do you maintain this sort of training regime pretty much every week through the year?
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Yes. I haven't had a week's break since I don't remember when. Even in the COVID pandemic, I would do the same things in my apartment.
Guy Windsor
Right. So that's a pretty intense physical regime. If you had to pick one element of it, what would you pick?
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
To recommend or to keep doing?
Guy Windsor
Almost nobody is going to go, oh, actually, that sounds like a totally reasonable program, I'm going to do that. But if we can get started with maybe one of those things, and then get used to that and then they might add the next thing and then the next thing and the next thing. So if you're going to pick one thing, and I'm thinking, I would probably go with the sprints with a helmet on, that'd be my go to thing probably.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
I would, if we are dealing with someone who is already used to wearing armour, because if someone just got a helmet that way is the best way to lose consciousness on a treadmill. Not a good idea. If I were to choose anything, of all the things I told you about, it would be the sparring. That's something that I would highly recommend to anyone because I think many people, be that in living history, be that in Buhurt, be that in Hema, they too often focus on going to an event and only then using the armour, whereas they should live with it. Get used to it. The armour should be your second skin.
Guy Windsor
Back when I was training with my armour, in Finland, I would wear my cuirass and arms to teach classes, including like rapier classes. It doesn't matter what I was teaching, I'd be wearing that to get used to wearing it.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Absolutely. And when I say sparring, I don't mean going full on because as I said, two, three hours, you wouldn't be able to keep it up if you were using your entire strength and power throughout. What I mean is go out there with the other guys or girls, and just go through the motions. Start light, maybe choose, for instance, two or three techniques that are only allowed and focus on a very technical sparring, where everyone is looking for the opening, and then you are learning not only how to use the openings of your opponent, but what's even more important you learn about your own openings, because that's hugely important. And that's something we have to remember because very many people, when they look at medieval armour, they think to themselves, it makes no sense, why would they fight with a gap here? Or why would they fight with a raised visor? Well, they knew that's the opening. So if you know that you know how to protect it. And what's even more important you know how to use it. Because there are techniques, especially armoured fighting techniques, where you actually want to trigger a certain response from your enemy. And for instance, you raise your arms to show your armpit because you want to provoke the opponent to try to stab you there. And you have a ready counter for that.
Guy Windsor
You’re using the gaps in the armour as invitations.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Absolutely. And this is very similar to boxing. Like when you think of the filly stands, with the uncovered chin and your left hand grasping your torso. You are inviting the opponent to hit your face, right? It's here, it’s open, go for it. But you’re prepared. It's a trap. And as those things you can only learn if you practice in armour, if you spend a lot of time in it.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, that's very true. Okay, now I have a couple of questions that I asked almost all of our guests here. The first is, what is the best idea you haven't acted on yet? Other than your book, which you are acting on.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Yes, I’m very much acting on it. Two things that come to my mind. One is somehow connected to my deep love for English Middle Ages. So I had this idea years ago and I was actually trying to do that. I really wanted to visit the Canterbury Cathedral in full armour. I've been on a couple of occasions. The first time I went there it was a tremendous experience. Because as I said, I idolized Edward of Woodstock. So being there next to his to his effigy, that was a brilliant thing, but I wanted to make it more chivalric and I wanted to you know, go to him in my armour. Unfortunately, things fell through. And I didn't get acceptance from the powers that be, I couldn't go there. They just didn't allow me.
Guy Windsor
Did you ask first?
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Yes, yes, I did.
Guy Windsor
Oh, huge mistake. If you just show up in the armour, and you just walk in, what are they going to do? If you ask them for permission, and they grant permission, and you turn out to be a lunatic who does something inappropriate in the armour, then they're liable. But if you just show up as a member of the public wearing these clothes, and just walk in, so long as you behave in a calm and respectful manner, which I've no doubt you would, what are they going to say?
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
I might just try it someday.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, I'll tell you what, if that happens, let me know. And if I can make it, I'll come with you. And if somebody asks I’ll say I’m Dr So-and-so and this is Dr So-and-so. I can distract them with English bullshit, while you go off and have a gentle word with Edward.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Okay, sounds like a plan. I love it.
Guy Windsor
But it's always better to get forgiveness than permission.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
All right. All right. And the second thing is, I think I mentioned that when we last talked, I really want to one day, collect a set of armours representatives of the harnesses used in all the major fight books, and recreate every single plate from those five books in correct armour. That's my dream.
Guy Windsor
That may take a while. And Assistant Professors of English Literature don't make that money. So you can't just buy it. But I mean, there may be ways to do it that doesn't involve necessarily buying all that armour. I mean, that'd be nice to have. But there are lots of armoured combat people that are madly interested in the treatises, you might be able to organise it piecemeal, like, you've got this armour, they have got that armour. So you get together one weekend and go through these things and take photographs and stuff.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
That's true. However, I think having all of those is critical.
Guy Windsor
It’s part of it. Yeah, it's gateway drugs. If you have a goal that is yea high and hard to reach, if you can find the next small step that takes you in that general direction. That's more likely to lead the step after that. And then eventually, the step after that. In fact, the whole business of people getting into armour, they don't start by spending the cost of a decent car, brand new decent car, on harness, they start with an arming jacket tailor made. And that's maybe going to take you six months to save up for, but that's where they start. And then the next piece is a helmet. And maybe that's probably going to take them a year to save up for but in 18 months’ time, they've got the jacket and they've got the helmet and they're super happy. And now they're thinking about gauntlets, for instance.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
I think one thing we should add, because I forgot, but it's immensely important. If someone wants to have a proper harness for proper historical combat. Don't go for so called sports optimized. That’s a euphemism used in Buhurt for armour that is subpar, and a-historical and overbuilt and not made to be remotely representative of the historical originals. So it's better to save up and have a proper thing done. One that is representative of what you actually see in museums or in historical art rather than buying something cheaply that has a high probability of actually hurting you.
Guy Windsor
Funny story. My first suit of armour I have made by Czech smith who had done other stuff for me in the past, I won't name him because the story doesn't turn out too well for him. And I sent off my measurements and everything. And because of the way things are done, I ended up getting sent the armour without actually having a proper fitting. You know how greaves fit your leg like a skin. So the whole weight of the greave is held on the calf muscle, pretty much. It doesn't kind of fall down onto your ankle. I could fit a bottle of wine down the back of each greave. That's how badly it fit. And I took it to a friend of mine in Finland who is a very good armourer. And the metal was so shit that he couldn't weld it properly. I mean, he managed to make a few adjustments, but he couldn't really work with it properly because there was too much sulfur in the steel. So fortunately, I ended up selling it for about what I paid for it to the opera house in Helsinki. So if you see a suit of armour on stage in an opera in Helsinki and no one's wearing it, it's just like standing on the stage, it is probably my old armour. And then I started then going for piecemeal, find a good armourer and get one thing made. And then the next thing made, and so on like that. So, yes, I've done it the wrong way. So I know you're right.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
That's part of the reason why I object to calling most of what you can see in the Buhurt armour. I think sports defenses, sports protection is something you could call it.
Guy Windsor
Buhurt armour. The armour on an armoured car is an armoured car. That's not confusing. And the armour the soldiers wear like sniper plates and whatnot. That's armour. It's what soldiers wear and the armour that Buhurt fighters wear to do Buhurt, that’s Buhurt armour and that's its own thing. And then there's historical armour.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
I wouldn't fully agree because the problem is it's a bit predatory, I think sometimes, because there are many people who just don't know the difference. And if you are a complete beginner, a Buhurt armour is close enough to your mind's eye image of a knight that you could be duped into believing it's proper armour. That's why I don't like calling it armour very often. Because I think if you call it protection or defenses or guard or whatever, it has this sports association that is much closer to what Buhurt actually is. And I did Buhurt for a very long time, I started in 2007, I was a part of the Battle of the Nations and INCF from the very beginning. And I really enjoyed the sport, but as a sport. And what I really don't like is people conflating history with Buhurt. Buhurt is very much a modern sport. It's a great sport, very entertaining. I think for many people, it could be a great entry into historical combat. It sure was for me, because I didn't know about HEMA when I was starting. But trying to sell it as a representation of medieval battle just rubs me the wrong way.
Guy Windsor
I feel the same way about like SCA heavy combat stuff, the rattan sticks, and whatever. It is its own thing, it is a great thing. It's a fantastic gateway drug into historical martial arts. I'm super glad it exists. And I'm just sorry I didn't come across it until I was into historical martial arts because if I found that much earlier, I'd have had a great time bashing my friends with these rattan sticks. But the moment someone refers to it as medieval combat, I get very irritable, because it’s not the same thing. Okay, so leaving that aside, my last question, somebody gives you a million dollars, euros, pounds, gold coins or whatever. And, unusually for this podcast, I'm actually going to place a restriction on what you can spend it on. You can't spend it on armour for your collection. You can spend it on improving historical martial arts worldwide. So with the “you can't improve your armour collection” caveat. How would you spend it?
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Well, I actually have a couple of ideas because some time ago, I started working with my armourer, Radosław Ciszewski, a friend, who is a brilliant expert. He is one of the absolute foremost armourers in the world, bar none, Radoslaus The Armourer, to the Western public. And I started working with him on accessible Harnischfechten kits. So something that would be representative of the kinds of munitions grade armour you could expect from a medieval Man at Arms, but something that would be easy to manufacture and that could be bought by clubs. For the time being, I want my club to buy a couple of sets, to have something to offer to a newcomer who wants to try it. Because when someone comes to our club and says, I would like to try longsword, I would like to try sword and buckler, rapier, we have a bunch of fencing masks, we have a bunch of safe training weapons, some padded jacks, and so on. And they can get into that much quicker. And I think that if the was an available set of easily adjustable armour, because even in Middle Ages, the munition grades armour would come in small, medium and large. And so you can use the basic idea that existed back in the Middle Ages, but have something weighting there. So that someone comes to your club, they already start training with armour, they feel the weight of it, they feel the limitations, they can have something that is a proper helmet on their head, while they are working their way up to their own kit. So I think the first thing I would invest in is developing something like that and offering it to clubs around the world. Because I think that would do wonders to people coming in and staying in. And the second thing that comes to my mind is to promote historical fighting, to promote it in two ways. I think that I am sure you are aware of a group, I will probably butcher their name, but I think it's Adorea. They have they have a YouTube channel. And they have a bunch of very entertaining videos, choreographed fights with different historical weapons that they kind of dramatize, but they use historical fighting techniques. And they present those in those cinematic choreographies that they had the brilliant one with longswords, and so on. So I would make a couple of well-produced videos of this sort, showing the potential of actual historical armoured combat. Because I think that if people saw how brilliantly visceral and entertaining the real stuff, not what you can see in Renaissance fair or Buhurt tournament, how the real stuff looks like, then people would respond to that, more people would want to do that. And hopefully even Hollywood would they think to themselves, that actually looks splendid, why not add that to the next movie? Because it looks much more entertaining than people just bashing their heads with bars of metal like the atrocity that was The Last Duel.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, yeah, that's let's not even go there. I mean, I interviewed an expert on that duelling period called Ariella Elema, in episode about 99 or 100. And yeah, there were one or two historical inaccuracies in that film. One or two slight inaccuracies. Wouldn't it be nice if Hollywood producers afforded the same respect to historical martial arts as they often afford to Asian martial arts? Like when Tom Cruise was training for The Last Samurai he was getting this proper Koryu swordsmanship instructor coming to his house regularly and giving him lessons in how to swing a katana properly. And that why don't they do that for things like The Last Duel?
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
It comes from the love and devotion of Akira Kurosawa because he created the brilliant series of movies that stood as a monument to the Japanese martial arts and that ignited the West's interest. And that interest was later translated in how Asian martial arts are still perceived in the West, but HEMA never had its Akira Kurosawa, we didn't have someone who was such a devoted student, someone who so lovingly crafted a representation of proper European historical martial art into a movie.
Guy Windsor
So your short movies would be intended to inspire that future historical martial arts Akira Kurosawa. That’s a genius idea. Brilliant. Well, if I had the money I'd give it to you. Although I will probably I'll probably put it in an escrow account and have it filter through, so it wouldn't end up in your armour collection, because I know what you armour people are like.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
I would probably find a way to explain to you that it's absolutely vital to the project that I get at least one armour.
Guy Windsor
That’s fair enough. Thank you so much for joining me today, Przemysław. It's lovely to talk to you again.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
It's been an absolute pleasure and I hope we get to do it again in the future.
Guy Windsor
Well, when your book comes out, you're definitely coming back on the show.
Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak
Thank you very much. Goodbye.
