Episode 208: Swords are where I can be me, with Vera Martocchia

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Vera Martocchia is a professional sword fighting instructor with nearly a decade of experience in historical martial arts. She co-founded the historical martial arts club Swordpunch in London, and teaches a wide range of weapons, including sidesword, longsword, dagger, sickle and more.

 

In addition to her historical martial arts practice, Vera holds a master’s degree in international business, works as a marketing professional in tech and is a certified fitness professional with over 16 years of experience.

 

Our wide-ranging conversation covers how getting pregnant is what got Vera into historical martial arts (in a roundabout sort of way) and the reasons she and her business partner Jack set up their own club. Setting up your own club may not be the practical choice, and we discuss how to manage all the responsibilities of both the club and life – hint: the answer is not to sleep.

 

One of Vera’s driving forces was to create a club that is welcoming and a healthy learning and training environment with professional teaching methods. We talk about how to help vulnerable students, and how to professionalise HEMA teaching. 

 

Transcript

Guy Windsor 

I'm here with Vera Martocchia, who is a professional sword fighting instructor with nearly a decade of experience in historical martial arts. She co-founded the historical martial arts club Swordpunch in London, and teaches a wide range of weapons, including sidesword, longsword, dagger, sickle and more. Drawing on historical sources such as the Anonimo, Marozzo, Meyer and Huntveld, her approach combines historical depth with practical application, emphasizing both precision and flow. Known for her dynamic teaching style and thoughtful instruction, Vera makes historical martial arts concepts accessible to students of all levels. She regularly teaches classes and seminars across London and beyond. In addition to her historical martial arts practice, Vera holds a master’s degree in international business, works as a marketing professional in tech and is a certified fitness professional with over 16 years of experience. She holds advanced certifications in Les Mills Body Combat, Body Balance, Pilates and children's fitness, integrating strength, balance, and body awareness into her sword instruction. Fluent in several European languages, this is a really long introduction, Vera brings a diverse and international perspective to her work, and we'll get into that in a bit. She now lives in London with her family, and her swordsmanship reflects a lifelong passion for movement, teaching and people. Without further ado, Vera, welcome to the show.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Thank you very much. I don't know if there's anything I need to add really.

 

Guy Windsor 

Yeah, pretty much. That was the interview. There we go. We're done.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Thank you. Thank you so much for this thorough introduction, and thanks for inviting me.

 

Guy Windsor 

You're very welcome. Am I writing thinking you're in London at the moment?

 

Vera Martocchia 

Yes, absolutely. I'm not too far off from you. Living in London for 11 years now.

 

Guy Windsor 

Okay, but you're not actually originally from London.

 

Vera Martocchia 

No, I'm not even originally from the UK, so I've quite the diverse background. I don't really know what I am anymore. I want to say I'm European really, because it also doesn't matter. But I'm born and raised in Germany to a German mother and an Italian father, and then during my studies, I lived in Canada, then moved to France for seven years in Paris, and then now I'm in the UK for 11 years. It does sound old. I don't think I'm that old yet, but maybe, maybe I'm old, Guy. I don't know.

 

Guy Windsor 

Well, okay, so, so you speak native Italian.

 

Vera Martocchia 

No.

 

Guy Windsor 

Should we say fluent?

 

Vera Martocchia 

Let's say proficient.

 

Guy Windsor 

Proficient, okay, and German?

 

Vera Martocchia 

German is native. Yes.

 

Guy Windsor 

German is native. And your English is pretty good too. So you actually have like, I mean, you're just missing like, Spanish and Hungarian, and you could basically do pretty much all of the sources.

 

Vera Martocchia 

So yeah, Hungarian, no chance. Spanish, I actually do speak Spanish. I do speak proper French, because I've been there for seven years, so I guess Thibault would be an interesting source to read in the native language.

 

Guy Windsor 

And he was living in Holland at the time.

 

Vera Martocchia 

But he was French speaking, right?

 

Guy Windsor 

Yeah. I mean, he wrote in French, and Thibault is a French name. I don't actually know a great deal about Thibault, the person. I've read his book, and it was very interesting, but not really my sort of thing, too nitpicky.

 

Vera Martocchia 

It's very complex, right?

 

Guy Windsor 

Yeah. Like, who divides the sword into 12 parts, rather than just two or three?

 

Vera Martocchia 

I wonder if he maybe was deep down German, because that sounds such a German move to do. Not back then, but now very.

 

Guy Windsor 

And honestly, a lot of these sort of modern distinctions, French, German, Italian, Austrian, Hungarian, whatever, they meant something else back then. But getting back to you, so you're in London, and you've been there for 11 years. So given that you have nearly a decade of experience in historical martial arts, according to that very detailed introduction. You must have taken up historical martial arts while you were living in London.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Yes.

 

Guy Windsor 

Okay, so why don't you tell us how you got seduced by the sword?

 

Vera Martocchia 

Oh, wow. Should I give you the long story?

 

Guy Windsor 

We have all day. And some people I know are in America driving for like, eight hours to Florida to take their wife somewhere. Hi, Jason, so he appreciates longer episodes, so you just take your time. And if it does get like, ridiculously long, we'll either chop it up into multiple episodes, or we will just edit it a little bit.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Okay, great. I think you first you will have to tell me, if it becomes a bit boring or flat. But that's more my scare. But yeah. So basically, I think if I give you the long story, because it really defines how I got there, and who I am today, as a teacher. When I was young, I wasn't very active. Today, I'm fairly fit, you see, like I do a lot of fitness stuff and so on. But I had a very sedentary childhood, to be honest, and I was quite overweight and everything. So back then, I didn't do swords yet, because that was not 11 years ago, unfortunately. But at one point I said, like, I would like to change that. And I got into fitness. And when I started to do my fitness at the beginning, I was just like, ah, I'm just going to the gym and do the needful. You know, I was like, really bored, but I was disciplined enough to go and to actually change a few things. And then at one point, I kept going because, as I said, I knew it was good for me. I kept doing it. At one point, and that was actually in Paris, a colleague of mine was like, why don't you come to this class with me? And I was like, oh, group classes are not for me, sorry, I know exactly what I'm doing in the gym. I just want to keep doing this and blah, blah, blah. I just like, no, you should come. It's like a mixed martial arts workout, and I think you'd like this. And I was like, huh, actually, I do think I would like that. So I tried, and I actually fell in love with it. And I think this is when my fitness journey really, really started. So I, went to that class. And as I said, I become a real fan. I tried to do every class that I possibly could. And that was, as I said, like back in the time in Paris when I then moved to London. There was another thing basically that in Paris I did, and I couldn't find in London, which was volleyball.

 

Guy Windsor 

You can’t find volleyball in London?

 

Vera Martocchia 

No, I did not. There was some sort of netball, okay, yeah, but no volleyball. There was no volleyball that I could find in London, anywhere like I mean, I wasn't a professional volleyball player, so I just wanted to hit the ball a little bit, and I couldn't find anything like that. So basically, there was a bit of a void in my life, even though I obviously did this whole fitness thing. So I mind my own business, did my fitness classes, and then where it really changed was when I became pregnant. Okay, so hit my 30s, and there I decided to have a child with my partner or my husband at the time, or still, my husband now just FYI.

 

Guy Windsor 

Absolutely none of our business. But you tell us whatever you want to tell us.

 

Vera Martocchia 

I just don't want him to hear it and feel like what I'm the husband. Okay, so I had I was pregnant with my first baby, and probably a lot of women can relate, or absolutely can't relate, but for me, the pregnancy was quite the difficult moment in my life. While it's supposed to be joyful and the most natural thing, and people talk about the glow that you have, and you know you're becoming a mother and you're creating life. I did not at all have that feeling.

 

Guy Windsor 

Okay, can I say my you should talk to my wife about this, because we have two kids, and both pregnancies were absolutely fucking miserable. Yeah, it's great that some women have a really good time with it, but you are absolutely not alone in in finding it really hard.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Yeah. And honestly, the more you talk about it, the more you actually hear that, right? I don't know if it's just something, that you tell people so that they keep reproducing. But it was one of the hardest things I did in my life. And not because I, like my life was so easy and everything is fine, right? But it was really the most unnatural thing that I ever had to do, even though, supposedly, as a woman, this is something extremely natural to do. But I hear you or hear your wife. Because when you're in that situation, you don't know how you feel, because everything changes for you, or in society tells you, like, how you should deal with this or not. And for me, on top of it, coming from that you know, like finding my lifestyle and finding my body and finding my fitness, all of a sudden, having to stop all that, felt like it was not right, and it felt very unfair that all of a sudden I'm this vessel, and I need to make sure that I create this life and I cannot really be me. At least, that's what I thought. I mean, pregnancy and motherhood is a very individual journey, so everybody feels this differently, and there's no right or wrong, but nobody can tell you how you feel or how you don't feel about this. And for me, in my situation, it felt very, very difficult. And I also really would like to mention that there's a huge difference between pregnancy and motherhood. Okay, so I was an absolutely freaking miserable pregnant person, but I'm a really, really happy mother, and I've heard like from a lot of other women who had, like, an amazing, glowing, hormone filled pregnancy and then were really struggling once the baby was there.

 

Guy Windsor 

That actually makes sense, because the hormones that are making you feel so happy, they change as soon as you give birth. I mean, in my wife's first pregnancy, she was sick all day, every day, from conception to birth. Which is miserable. But literally, the moment the baby came out, she was starving, because, for the first time in, well, the baby was early, which was kind of a blessing. So eight months, first time in eight months, she actually felt like she could actually eat something and keep it down.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Yes, oh my gosh. I have to say, you know, my pregnancy wasn't particularly difficult or easy. I think if I had to judge, I was probably in the average, it was just probably more like a mental thing where I was like, this is somehow so weird, and I don't know how to deal with this. That when my daughter, as I said, like, I'm absolutely happy mother, and I did it again, because I have two children. So when my daughter came, I felt kind of happy that I could also share this experience now with my partner. Because right, to be honest, as a man, this probably really only kicks in once the baby is there.

 

Guy Windsor 

Yeah, honestly, I've just felt left out the whole pregnancy, because I wanted to be doing all the parenting stuff, but there was no parenting stuff for me to do. So I was just doing my best to do whatever my wife wanted me to do, basically, and then out comes the baby, and then suddenly I can actually do stuff like nappy changing and bottle feedings and playing with the baby, and which is just absolutely bliss. It is my absolute favourite thing. It is better than swords by 1000 miles. There I said it. I said it in a public forum. Babies are better than swords.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Oh, my God. It took that far longer. I don't know what podcast number this is to get you to find something else than swords. But yes, so when baby then came out, I felt like at least we can do this together. And I didn't feel like this is all on me, and it was a breaking point, because there were two things so because I was so into fitness and everything, and I had that idea, also that my life will change completely now I'm a mother. I'm losing who I was as a woman or as a person, and things will change. I decided also that I will put myself a challenge and some milestones back in. So when I said, like, once baby is there, and when I have the ability, and I have healed from birth and this and that, I want to actually become a fitness instructor. So my fitness class that I did so far and that I loved so much, I was like, I'm going to sign up to become an instructor, and it's going to be there, and because it's signed up, I will do it.

 

Guy Windsor 

So are you sure you're not actually my wife? Because soon after our second baby, she trained as a Pilates instructor and has been working as a Pilates instructor ever since.

 

Vera Martocchia 

I mean, you tell me if I'm your wife, I think you should know better.

 

Guy Windsor 

Just strikingly similar.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Interesting. I really would love to have a chat with her too. That would be interesting. But yes, for me, it was kind of like I want to make sure that I don't come into that routine of like, I'm so overwhelmed I don't sleep, I'm Mum. I want to be I want to find myself. And for me, it was like, I need something to work towards that challenge. So I did that. And, well, it takes some time to heal, obviously. It's a major thing that happens to your body, and you cannot as a fitness professional. Also, I wouldn't recommend, you know, just waiting those six weeks that the GP tells you and whatnot, you need to make sure that you get back in shape healthily and slowly. Now, I'm not the most patient person by far, but I tried. And also, I mean, just FYI, I did do my classes as a member for almost nine months. So I didn't stop during my pregnancy till the end almost I went to just like, enjoy the classes still. Because I was like, no, I need. To do the things that I still enjoy. So I know all this, and we're still not at martial arts. I'm very sorry.

 

Guy Windsor 

That's okay. We are in no rush.

 

Vera Martocchia 

But actually, the real turning point, I mean, I discovered martial arts with my fitness workout, which is not necessarily the same, but there I really understood, like, hey, I should have done this a long time ago. And I really felt like, for the first time, like, this is something that that I love and that I want to do. So when then my daughter was six or seven months old, and I had the feeling that for the first time, I can now leave without breastfeeding or this, and that my child for more than two hours, maybe three hours with my husband, I was like, I want to do something that's only for me and has nothing to do with baby, or changing nappies and whatnot. And also, for the very first time, I actually had time to do this because I love sports and everything. But as you said, like I also have a day job. I work in Marketing, I work in business, so my days were 9, 10, 11 hours long for work, and all of a sudden, I had a year off with my baby, and I was able to think of other things than work.

 

Guy Windsor 

So you took a year of maternity leave? Oh, that's great.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Yes. At the beginning, I wasn't sure how much, but I was like, hey, this is the first, this is actually socially accepted that I that I be home and do something else. And I was like, I'm going to take that. And then, as I said, six or seven months old, I was like, you know what? I always loved swords. I always loved the type of movies. I loved the martial arts around it. I loved the history. I almost studied history and philosophy, but then I went to business because,

 

Guy Windsor 

You can make a living with business.

 

Vera Martocchia 

A little bit more money. I think my parents were like, oh, what are you going to do with history and philosophy? I was like, well, I don't know, but yes. And then I was like, you know what? I'm going to see if I can do this in London. And because in London you can do, we know now, anything you really want, except for volleyball. Except volleyball. I found a club and I went and I was like, okay, this is different than I had expected. And at the beginning, you know, you have these images from, like, Hollywood and stuff, and if you haven't really read at the beginning, and you just look at this, and you're like, oh, this looks cool. And then you go, and you're like, oh, this is hard.

 

Guy Windsor 

I've taught people to shoot pistols before, and boys who grew up on action movies are absolutely fucking terrible pistol shooting students, because they know that you're supposed to, kind of move your hands around and yank the trigger and do all that sort of stuff, and the bullet should just go where it's supposed to go. But people who don't have that background and just do exactly as they're told will calmly and collectively put 45 bullets, 50 bullets on the paper in their first go, whereas I've literally had one very good martial artist hit both the floor and the ceiling in the range.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Yeah, it's always easier to format an empty hard drive. I don't even know, but I think you know what I mean. But I think it's just, I went to the class and I was like, okay, I understood for the first time all the things that interact right? There's pressure, there's mechanics, there's timing, there is so much I find, like the structure, everything plays a role. And all this is so subtle in HEMA, or in in sword fighting, or weapon based martial arts, or martial arts, any little different move can lead to a different action, like your chess moves are planned. And I realized that this is, this is complex, and this is not something that you will learn within three weeks and start just fighting. It takes a bit of time. So at the beginning I was wondering, how do I actually have the time in my life right like right now I do, but I had a young baby, and I loved my combat fitness, and I had my full time job, so I wasn't quite sure, but I kept going, and I really started to fall in love with it. But I think the moment when I started martial arts, when I went to go HEMA, I felt like I was I needed to do something for myself. I needed to do something for me as a woman, and I felt quite vulnerable coming from this journey of pregnancy and being a young mum, and thinking that I have kind of like lost who I really am before, and that this is now my new life, that I just need to accept and forget who I was before. And I think when I came to martial arts and swords, this was my space where I felt like I can be only me. There's no other distraction, and I can focus on this new, beautiful art to learn. So I'm not sure how it would have played out if I actually would have gotten into martial arts without my babies and pregnancies. I would want to say yes, but it's for me, it's a very powerful journey, and how it actually worked out for me to like who I am and who I want to be after my 20s, in my 30s and in my 40s. So not sure if many people can relate. But again, this journey is a very individual one. Yeah, so please don't take any tips.

 

Guy Windsor 

I don't think people are going to rush out to get pregnant, to get good at swords. I don't think that's going to happen.

 

Vera Martocchia 

To be a good martial artist, you need to be pregnant before. That's the learning of the point.

 

Guy Windsor 

That's me screwed isn’t it. Okay, so you start doing historical martial arts, any particular styles took your fancy?

 

Vera Martocchia 

At the beginning, I needed to take the class that was convenient with my lifestyle, right? So that was the Wednesday class that was 20 minutes’ walk from where I lived. So that was my first class. And it was actually I.33, sword and buckler, and actually liked it because it's German, right? It's one of the oldest manuals.

 

Guy Windsor 

It’s the oldest that we have.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Yeah. And also, there's Walpurgis in there.

 

Guy Windsor 

Yeah, like the oldest treatise we have, has a woman in it actually doing sword fighting.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Exactly, yes. Awesome, this is nice.

 

Guy Windsor 

And she's been trained by a priest. So what? Yeah, basically, it undermines an awful lot of assumptions.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Maybe she trained the priest. Who knows?

 

Guy Windsor 

Now, the text is pretty clear. It's the priest training her.

 

Vera Martocchia 

It cannot be like a mistake. Somebody just wanting to override the woman's story again?

 

Guy Windsor 

Don't think so. He's been the instructor all the way through. It’s just the scholar turns into Walpurgis. It's like, I mean, okay, I did English Lit at university. And I did that in the early 90s, when poststructuralism was still a thing and deconstruction was still a thing. And basically you could say any old shit, convincing people would believe it. So you could make an argument. I suppose that actually Walpurgis is the main instructor in the whole thing. And the whole thing is actually a proto feminist text with underlaid by a profound Marxist philosophy. You could make that argument, but you'd be an idiot.

 

Vera Martocchia 

All right. Look, I will happily live in my head, and see Walpurgis for whatever she was. I don't think she was. I mean, it's interesting, right, how she then was considered to be the witch or whatnot later on, but we're going down a totally different tangent. But yes, it was I.33 that I started with. I enjoyed it a lot. But I think this, I don't want to discriminate against swords, really not. I think there's so many different cool swords out there, and I cannot say I have an absolute favourite.

 

Guy Windsor 

For the listeners who can't see I just gestured at my sword rack which has on it, foils, sabres, falchions, longswords, back swords, arming swords and rapiers. Why stick with just one?

 

Vera Martocchia 

In my child's room I just have those two.

 

Guy Windsor 

So, yeah, a very, very nice longsword, and just show me the other one? A second, yeah, sort of like a Schiavonesca sidesword.

 

Vera Martocchia 

It's a sidesword, yeah. I love the hilt.

 

Guy Windsor 

Who made that?

Vera Martocchia 

That's a Quertin, okay, yeah, this is Pavel Moc, still my favourite longsword. I have to say.

 

Guy Windsor 

Do you know Pavel Moc used to make longswords for pretty much my entire school in the early 2000s. He makes, very nice stuff.

 

Vera Martocchia 

What changed?

 

Guy Windsor 

Availability. He was pretty much the only game in town, and then he got super busy, and so it's difficult to get our orders in, and other manufacturers became available. And so, he still provides a lot of swords to my students, but he's no longer like pretty much the only person making longswords for us.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Yeah. Now, absolutely, I love longsword too, but I do like my single-handed swords. I think if I had to pick a favourite, had to it probably would be sidesword, and that's also how I went more into the Renaissance masters.

 

Guy Windsor 

I mean, with sidesword, if you feel a bit rapier, you can do rapier stuff. If you feel a bit longswordy, you could do hacky, slashy stuff. And you feel a bit sword and bucklery, well, you have bucklers, because it’s sidesword. So it's really, it's the Swiss Army knife of swords. You can make it do anything.

 

Vera Martocchia 

And if there's one thing to be said about me, then I love diversity. So again, I don't discriminate against swords, but I love the versatility of sidesword for sure.

 

Guy Windsor 

Yeah, okay, so why did you start Swordpunch?

 

Vera Martocchia 

Yeah, that's not going to be as long as my personal journey, but so yeah, so Swordpunch is mine and Jack's club. Jack Parkinson, you have met him before, too, and it's not a very old club. We started it a year ago, and we have been training in the same club together for many, many years, like all our HEMA career, really, and at one point we just wanted to create something different from what we knew we basically had, like a different conception about learning culture and class culture and how we feel HEMA should be instructed and what a HEMA club should consist of or should look like. So we decided to leave our club back then. While there are, like, a lot of good clubs out there for sure, it's not that there is no option, especially in London, we have amazing clubs and we have amazing teachers. We felt that we needed to do our own thing with the work that we've put in, with the training that we've put in, with the perceptions and the beliefs and the value system that we adhere. Hence, we weren't, basically, we weren't quite sure what to do. We knew that we needed to leave the current setup. And then basically there was the choice between, was that it? Was that HEMA for us and swords and we just going to stop here. And we were both kind of like, well, we've put so much hard work and effort, and we absolutely love this. So the alternative was like, okay, shall we try our own thing? Shall we go ahead and try to create what we envision? And even though, believe me, Guy, it wasn't a very practical choice.

 

Guy Windsor 

Don't forget, I helped to co-found a historical Martial Arts Club in 1994 in Edinburgh, before we had sources, really. And then I opened my school in Finland in 2001 and that was my entire profession. So practical is not a consideration. Like, why would you even use the word? It's a sword club in the 21st Century? No, that's not how you make a living, and that's something that anybody should reasonably do, but if you confine your life to reason, then it'd be miserable.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Yeah, for sure. I started a new job in 2023 new jobs are always crazy, right?

 

Guy Windsor 

Honestly, I wouldn't know I haven't had a new job since 1999.

 

Vera Martocchia 

See you make it work, your practical sword fighting business.

 

Guy Windsor 

Yeah, I got made redundant in 2000 and started my school in 2001, and I haven't actually applied for a job since that woodworking job back in like 1998 or 1999. Yeah, I have no experience of this.

 

Vera Martocchia 

But look, we all do what we need to do and how we can be happy. And I think it also depends a little bit how your life is set up, right? Because we obviously, we're in London, or more or less greater London, and we have a place here, so there's a mortgage attached. Unfortunately, when you grow up, there's so many stupid responsibilities that you have, and then when you have children, there are even more responsibilities.

 

Guy Windsor 

Sure, but running a club and you don't have to make a living from it, is actually easier than running a club and you have to make a living from it.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Yes, except for time.

 

Guy Windsor 

Yeah, but the time is the same either way.

 

Vera Martocchia 

I don't know, because for me, the biggest challenge was really, when we knew, like, we wanted, we want to do this I was like, Where the hell will I find time to this?

 

Guy Windsor 

I see what you mean, right? Because you have a day job, you don't have time to run the club properly. Yeah, that's, that's fair. I honestly don't understand how people do that, because I don't have a day job, and it still takes all my time.

 

Vera Martocchia 

I tell you, I have a very structured life, very, very structured, like, every five minutes of quite planned out, not planned out, but are very interesting. But I think the biggest challenge was that, how do we get this passion project on the road with everything that's already on? And it was clear that I couldn't let go of my day job. It was clear that I couldn't let go of my children. Never.

 

Guy Windsor 

Speaking from experience, you will have to let them go eventually.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Not yet.

 

Guy Windsor 

No, no, and it comes really fucking quick, and it's not okay, but it has to be done. And for context, for those who haven't listened to me moaning about this for the last couple of episodes, yes, my eldest child left for university, and it's okay, honestly.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Is it okay? Is it really?

 

Guy Windsor 

It's okay. Yeah, it's okay. I keep saying that it will become true.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Yeah, I'm not at that stage yet. I am at the stage where I'm, like, quite requested by my children, but, yeah, no, it's absolutely lovely, for sure. And I'm out of the of the baby phase also, which was lovely too. But you know, I can actually start sword fighting with them now, which is great. So, yes, so doing this next to work, next to family, and also, I never gave up on my fitness gigs.

 

Guy Windsor 

When do you sleep?

 

Vera Martocchia 

Yeah, that's the problem, right, especially with kids. So I have a very tiring life right now.

 

Guy Windsor 

I can imagine, yeah.

 

Vera Martocchia 

But you the good thing is, you always think things will get better, right?

 

Guy Windsor 

And they do, they get easier. Like, if you look at my publishing history, it's basically averaged like a book a year since 2004. But no publications between 2007 and 2010. My oldest child was born in 2007, my youngest in 2008, they became old enough for me to actually get time to write, sufficient mental space to write, yeah, that's for that day job when the youngest was about three. And so out comes the next book.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Yeah, I think Guy, you've just been smarter than me all the way along. Because I think there is a time in life for everything, and I feel like often, people should try to embrace that. To say, look, I have a young baby now, maybe I cannot do Body Combat and start sword fighting and do this and that. But somehow that didn't feel like me. So I still needed to do that. Or, yes, you still have two young children, and you have a mortgage, and you have a day job and it’s probably not the right time to found a club, but sometimes life just plays that way, right? So I feel either you're smart enough to just say, hey, I'm going to focus on this, and when it's time, I'll do these things. Or you try and you see where you land. So no, I don't know how we how we came there, but why did I found Swordpunch with Jack because we wanted to create something that's truly meaningful to people and a space where people can learn safely.

 

Guy Windsor 

Okay, so what's different about Swordpunch that makes it worth doing all the effort to actually create it and run it, as opposed to just going and training in a different club?

 

Vera Martocchia 

So for us, the most important thing was to combine, I need to add Jack is also a fitness instructor. And I actually got him into the same workout as me while we were like co-training HEMA and I feel what I was missing a little bit, is the pedagogy. In the teaching, so I felt, and I think this comes back to my story, like when I felt really vulnerable in my life I started HEMA, and I think we had a quick discussion around this too. I feel like when you when you look around in the HEMA population, the students you deal with, there are often a lot of vulnerable people. And I think this is not just HEMA. This is martial arts in general.

 

Guy Windsor 

It attracts people who are looking to feel safe, because they don't feel safe. Like kids who are bullied and kids who are mistreated in some way or another, and they feel that if they go and learn karate or whatever, not speaking from personal experience at all. Then then they'll be able to look after themselves and the bad stuff won't happen. There's a lot of that that goes on.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Yes, and I felt that very much with the population of or my fellow students in the people that I saw in HEMA, and often the teachers have, like, similar experience too, and that creates this weird spiral of not always the healthiest environment, people that are vulnerable and teachers that are vulnerable, and then these vulnerabilities, like just spiral up. What we wanted to do with Swordpunch, is to create a welcoming environment and a healthy learning and training environment of HEMA with professional teaching methods, okay, so understanding that everybody is different, and people learn differently and that, just to show it one way will probably not cut it for all. And I mean, this is just a very tangible principle that I'm bringing out there. So for Jack and I, we wanted to use that experience and the trainings that we had in our let's call it ‘outside HEMA’ life and bring that into HEMA and bring people in and build up their confidence. As you say, they come in and they try to be someone. But I feel, I mean for people. I guess most people who listen to this will be from the HEMA clubs, but thankfully, in the students and the people that are met in HEMA, even though they come and maybe they want to, you know, take care of themselves and be able to defend and stand up for themselves. I haven't met a lot of assholes just wanting to hurt people. Have you met a lot?

 

Guy Windsor 

Not with swords, no, they tend, they tend to go to other things. I have certainly encountered a much higher proportion of those sorts of people in some of the grappling and punching and kicking stuff, because then you actually do get to punch and kick people, and you get to enjoy it.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Yeah, same. And for HEMA, I feel people are really quite respectful, and they want to do that. It's because it has also this meditative aspect. It's a very strong feeling, and it's just a beautiful art. And you have the thought, it can be very powerful and empowering, but people are still respectful. And I think these are the values that we wanted to teach and to transmit to people. And the most important for me is a student should come into class and when they leave, they shouldn't feel sad, or I can't do this, or feel like, oh, I'm not able to do this. I mean, so often I walked out of a HEMA class and I thought, when I was a student still, I thought like, I'm just not good enough. I will never get this. I will not understand that. And that's not that's not true. It just needed a way of being explained, you know?

 

Guy Windsor 

And it's not only that, it's also, if the instructor has a very clear idea of the one way they want it done and that happens to be right for them. And they may be, I don't know, six foot two and a bloke, or five foot three and a woman, or whatever range it is, and they want you to do it the way they want you to do it, and you are measured against their performance. That's the problem. Because firstly, you may need to do it slightly differently for it to work, but also you should be measuring yourself against what you could do six months ago, not what I can do after 30 years of practice. That makes no sense at all. I had a bit of this when I started out, because of my martial arts instructors. They weren't all like that, but some of them were, and I sort of picked up some of that unconsciously. I got a lot better, but it's an easy trap to fall into. Because you know what it should look like. You can do it. And you sort of forget that you can do it, because you've been training for a long time and they haven't. And you forget also sometimes that the right way for them to do it isn't necessarily going to look exactly the way you would want it to look.

 

Vera Martocchia 

And you also forget that like people, there are not a ton of people that have a lot of HEMA experience, so they come in and they see you as this almighty knowledgeable person who must be right. And I think this power dynamic can also be really, really difficult at times where you're just like, all right, this is the master, and this must be the absolute right approach, where you always start questioning yourself, instead of, like, questioning the surroundings, maybe.

 

Guy Windsor 

I use, particularly if I'm teaching with and I have the assistance of some very experienced students, will set it up so that I fail, so they can see me not able to do the thing, or the thing not quite working, and then I fix it, and no big deal is made of it. But let's say my student punches me in the face because my parry fails, or something happens, and it's like, oh, well done. Okay, now let's do that again, and then show them what went wrong, and then show them how to fix it and whatever. And the subtext, the unspoken lesson, isn't the technique. It's to get as good as the people you are watching, you have to be comfortable making mistakes, figuring out what went wrong and fixing it. That is the process. But if you make that too explicit, you can sort of glorify mistakes. But if you just set the example of, you know, failing sometimes, right? And particularly if I've got someone who's six foot five, and they've been training 20 years, and it's a wrestling thing, I'm fucked. They'll tear my head off. So I'll demonstrate something, and we'll be doing some sort of semi competitive, playful drill, or whatever, they'll wipe the floor with me. That's fine

 

Vera Martocchia 

100%. And I think, you know, like, especially if you do a long exchange, no matter how good you are, if dagger, for example, you're bound to get hit. So it doesn't matter how good as an instructor. I don't think there is any instructor that would never fail.

 

Guy Windsor 

But the trick is to do it in front of the students and make it normal, yes? So they don't get frustrated when they fail. They just think that's part of the process.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Yes, I agree. I agree very much with you. But I think as instructors, and this is something like that, I learned as a manager, and I learned from my fitness classes, where I had extensive training in teaching group classes, right, like so the fitness class, obviously, is like a group class environment where you have a bunch of people, and you need to get them through the workout. And while the workout might be predefined, it's up to you and your energy, how you get them there. And I think what really is important, and this is something with Swordpunch that we do, is what do you want people to walk out with after your class? How do you want them to feel? And if you know what you want them to feel, you will adapt your teaching. And I want people to feel empowered and confident and saying, I can do this. This may be hard, but I can do it. I don't want them to become dicks and hit people, no, but I want them to have that feeling I can do this. And this is worthwhile my time. Because, I mean, what is really, really important to me is that, and this is also something that that you see a lot with teachers, the students are not there to feed our egos, they're not there for us. But if we you go into, not you, but if teachers go into a class like this is my show, we're going to do whatever I want, and everybody's going to follow me, and this is what I do. It's not right. We are a service provider and an important one to these people who dedicate their money, their time. They may have busy schedules. They come to our class, they make it. They maybe not have a lot of cash. They pay the class. Maybe this is their one or two hours per week where they can escape their life, which is, I don't know, good, bad or shitty, yeah, and they come into our class, and who are we to make them feel bad in that little time.

 

Guy Windsor 

I'll tell you exactly who we are, right? If I am Fiore de Liberi, my student is the Marquis of fucking Ferrara. Because the martial arts instructor, historically in Europe, was not socially superior to his students. He was massively inferior socially to his students. They were Dukes and princes and knights and Squires and whatever, and very often, the Master at Arms wasn't noble in any way. I mean, Fiore was the son of a knight, but he wasn't even knighted. All of his students were knights. There is absolutely no question who is fundamentally in charge there. Salvatore Fabris, his most famous student, Christian IV, King of fucking Denmark, right? Who's in charge in the room? Fabris comes in and says, yo, King, drop and give me 50. No, it's like, Your Majesty. I hear you'd like a fencing lesson today. What is your pleasure? Oh, you'd like to work on the parry. I highly recommend it. Wonderful. Let's get cracking. Might I suggest that you might try it this way, Your Grace. Oh, you don't like that. Well, let's do it some other way then.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Yes, before I get decapitated. But yeah, no, no, I agree. I don't believe in general, no matter where, not in business, nor in fitness, nor in HEMA, about this, and this goes a bit against of what you said in this, like this inherited title. Okay, they were knighted. But they were knighted because they had the money or the ancestry. They weren’t knighted because they were especially good martial artists.

 

Guy Windsor 

Some were.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Yes, there are exceptions, for sure, but I feel it's just obviously, if we go into a teacher situation, we are leading that class, and we are in this power position. And it's up to us what we what we do with it, and we may recognize, or we may not recognize the responsibility that actually given to us and maybe how people perceive us. But I have seen, and I know for a fact that one shitty word to your student can ruin their whole session, the evening, or maybe even their week, because you don't know what that person is going through. And maybe that one thing that you do completely throws them off. And I feel this is a responsibility that everybody who is leading groups or guiding groups, should be very clear. And in our club, this is something that is super important to us to have like people there and work together and switch the ego off and learn in a healthy environment the thing that we're actually there for, which is swords.

 

Guy Windsor 

As an instructor, if you do it for long enough, you will end up making mistakes in this area. Once I posted something about teaching and whatever. And one student emailed me and said, do you remember five years ago when this thing happened? And basically, maybe I shouted them, and I shouldn't have, I don't remember exactly what it was. So how does that square with what you've just said? I said I made a mistake, and I apologize. And he was like, oh, okay. And it was fine going forward. So you don't have to be perfect, but there has to be some way for the student to communicate. I mean, honestly, it's sad that it was like five years later, because I posted something that he actually said anything. Ideally, if you if, when you set up the club, you have structures in place so that if someone is intimidated by you, they can go and talk to Jack. Or if they're intimidated by Jack, they can go talk to you, or whatever.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Yes. And I think this might, this should probably be even an overarching thing, like from different clubs, some sort of idea that you can go to a safeguarding board or something where you just say, like, hey, this this is odd. Can you mediate or talk? I feel this is something that we should probably put in place for HEMA. But you are bound to make mistakes as an instructor, for sure, because also we all come from different backgrounds, from different cultures, right? Like jokes are different, all the diversity that we have.

 

Guy Windsor 

Honestly, when I was when I was in Mexico last year and hanging out with a bunch of swordy people in Mexico, they were making jokes, which, if they said them anywhere I've ever been in Europe, it would have just been an absolute disaster. And I was like, you can't say that. “Why? It's funny”, but honestly, I am so socialized in this direction, I can't even repeat them here, knowing that I could edit them out later. But it was perfectly fine in Mexico. No one was taking any offense. It was all just funny. But that same thing here would have just, yeah, it'd just be a disaster. No.

 

Vera Martocchia 

I mean, there's so many aspects of this, right? Like, again, cultural sensitivity is a big one. Then there's also the language barrier of some people. Like, we're such an international crowd, and everybody has the same level of English or understanding and already, I mean, hey, everybody who has been in a relationship or a friendship, message sent and message received with the different intents. It's just crazy, right? So I don't want people to get overly cautious and think about everything, because you need to be yourself too in the classroom, and you cannot, 10 times rethink, like, did I say something wrong? And this and that, and this is why mistakes will happen. And I mean, you probably didn't even remember that instance. But look, your student five years after did right.

 

Guy Windsor 

I remembered it when I was reminded of it, yeah, yeah. Probably because somewhere in the back of my head I thought, oh, you shouldn't have done that. Again, I started doing this for a living in 2001. We didn't know any of this stuff back then, right? It was the Wild West and all sorts of things which we can take completely for granted now, like code of conduct. What's a code of conduct? I mean, you know, that's completely normal in most clubs now, but I think I probably heard of a code of conduct for the first time after I've been teaching full time for about a decade.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Yeah, it makes sense. Look, we all try to kind of do our best. I mean, there are a few pricks out there who just know exactly what they're doing, being shitty. But I think you apply what you learned also, and what you went through right like, so if you had a martial arts teacher, and you were young, and they were, like, treating you in a certain way, so you probably thought like, oh, this is how it is, and this is how it's normal and this is what we do. But I feel you just need as a teacher and in charge, it doesn't matter of manager or parent or teacher you need to consider the responsibility that you have for these people, and if we then add the vulnerability of the people that we have in HEMA, I feel like we really need to be fucking careful what we do with those people.

 

Guy Windsor 

Agreed, but also, one of the things they are coming to us for is, should we say productive discomfort. I mean, exercise doesn't get easier. You just get better at it, and so you do more of it. And training martial arts, it's a very specific and controlled environment in which some really very uncomfortable things can happen, like you can get clunked in the face. You can get stabbed a bit hard. You can have someone literally trying to hit you with a four foot long bit of metal, which, I mean, I've had students who had serious issues around any kind of physical contact, and getting them to the point where they could do normal training stuff wasn't always possible because I'm not a therapist, and I'm running a school which literally can't provide the service to absolutely everyone. Some people need to go away and do some therapy and some conditioning. If they want to do this thing, then they have to get ready in these ways first, because the school is not a mental health institution, but at the same time, the discomfort has to be productive, right? And that is a really difficult trick to pull off, I think.

 

Vera Martocchia 

I agree, but I think it comes back to the fact that, like, why are these people actually coming? The first intent is like to learn swords. But when you dig a bit deeper, you also know that a lot of people come for the community. Some come more for the historical aspect. Some come more for the exercise aspect, because maybe they don't do any other exercise, and that's the only exercise they get, right? So I think you really need to understand, what does your student want out of it? Because everybody wants something else. And I also really want to say it's not just all on the teacher either. I mean, students play a big role too. There needs to be a conduct code of conduct for students also, 100%. It's not just the teachers that can always be held accountable, but because we are put in that guiding role. There is a certain way how we have a certain role to play, but I think it's something that I can keep talking about forever. But I feel we just need to be good human beings, to train good human beings in a very aggressive, not very aggressive, but in a martial art, yeah, in a martial sport.

 

Guy Windsor 

And I think having a clear idea of what you want the outcome to be, is the critical thing. And you've explicitly stated you want them to feel a certain way when they leave class. So it's actually relatively straightforward to know whether you're hitting that target or not. Primarily, do they come back?

 

Vera Martocchia 

Yes, but they could also, you know, if that's not the feeling that they're looking for, they may not come back to my class, but they might go somewhere else.

 

Guy Windsor 

So I had one student who came from a Japanese martial arts background, and she trained me for quite a long time, and she quit because I wasn't strict enough. She wanted a sensei who tells her what to do, and that isn't me. That's not my job.

 

Vera Martocchia 

And I think this is also, this is especially with HEMA. It's a bit different, because there's not so much choice. But when we go back, for example, to fitness right, like, where in the specific fitness class there are 1000 instructors teaching the same thing. But there are still some that are more popular than others, and not everyone needs to be the same one. So if somebody comes to my class but doesn't like the way I teach, I wouldn't take that personal, because I'm the teacher who I am also, right, there's only so much I can bend and change. I'm still the person who I am. But the thing with fitness is that they would just go have the same class with somebody else, that maybe they can accept more, they get more out of. With HEMA, we don't have so much choice, I find, especially if you love swords, really, and we're not this huge body yet. So it becomes a bit more tricky.

 

Guy Windsor 

It's an awful lot easier now than it was, yes, a little while ago. But you know, just because you might be the only game in town, if you live in a small town, you're never going to be able to please everyone all the time. Doesn't matter what you do,

 

Vera Martocchia 

No, and that's not the goal. I think the goal, what you said, and I wanted to add on to this, is that you are allowed to make mistakes, and you will make mistakes. You will just need to assess if that mistake is okay to be repeated or not, in the sense of, like a really, really bad mistake and I actually need to learn from this or is this just the interaction with that individual that for them, it's really, really bad. I don't know if that was actually quite. Did you understand what I mean?

 

Guy Windsor 

I think so. Okay, and yeah, one of the best bits of advice I ever got was from a guy called Jari Renco. Just when I started my school, I'd been in Finland for a few weeks, I was at the shooting range, and happened to meet him there, and oh, you're teaching swords and chat, chat, chat, massive traditional karate background, right? And he said, you may be tempted to water down your art to get more students, but if you do that, you'll end up with no art and no students. And now, I was never seriously tempted to water down the art to get more students, but you can be too careful, and you can sort of water down the intensity that you're willing to give your students. And so I didn't really consciously come up with this, but after I'd been teaching about five years, I sort of noticed it was the case. Some of my students called me sir in class and sir outside class. Some of my students called me sir in class and Guy outside class, and some of my students called me Guy all the time. And I had no opinion about any of it. And some even changed from one mode to another. And what it was them telling me what kind of teacher they wanted. Some wanted more of the kind of traditional, more sensei-ish sort of Sensei is always Sensei, it doesn't matter if you're getting drunk in the pub or in the salle training. Sensei is Sensei, some people wanted more of a kind of collegial relationship where, yes, we're all into swords, you just happen to know more about them than I do so I'm coming to your classes. And what it did is knowing how they addressed me gave me an idea of what kind of service they wanted, and it actually worked pretty well, even though it was never explicitly stated anywhere, and I didn't even realize it was happening until it had been going on quite successfully for quite a long time.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Yeah, and there is obviously lots of stuff out there in teaching, like, the four quadrants of like how people are and what they expect from the teacher in the exercise environment. And it's really interesting. One really wants, it's called, like, the dominant director, you know, they want to go down on the floor, like, 50 push ups, blah, blah. And the other one's like, yeah, you can do a bit more. I know you can. And it's, again, you cannot cater to everyone. And HEMA is a bit different to fitness, but I think you just need to realise that everyone obviously works differently, and that everyone will get a different kick out of it in that way, and that we're not here to ruin somebody's day.

 

Guy Windsor 

That's a fair summary. Now I did want to ask you about your business experience, because although the club is not how you make a living, it does require money to operate. So I'm curious as to with your business background, how it has informed the structuring and running of the club.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Yeah, I mean, again, there are lots of parallels. Obviously, I think you can always learn from the different aspects in your life. And having the whole business studies and having worked in business and marketing for 20 years, when setting up the club, there's the financial aspect for sure, right? There's like an initial investment. And then how do we break even? And what do we need to do to break even? We're not really trying to be profitable, and I'm not trying to sell the business in five years’ time to Google for I don't know how many million.

 

Guy Windsor 

Oh really? Google offered me 500 million for my club and I told them to fuck off.

 

Vera Martocchia 

That's why you haven't applied for a job in 20 years.

 

Guy Windsor 

I turned them down. Until we're talking billions, I'm not interested.

 

Vera Martocchia 

So you never know what the future will bring. But I think when I first started to really look into HEMA and having had that background, I was like, there's something we can do. We can run this more efficiently. We can make this a bit more structured, and maybe we can grow. But then founding my own club, we decided, that it's more of like a passion project and really working with the community, and also keep going in that art, and making sure people enjoy the ride and learn how to be good sword fighters and the sword fighters they want to become. But what really helped is when you when you start structuring, and you see, like, what do we actually need, and you start negotiating with the venues, and you get your gear and all that. So I have obviously, a lot of experience to talking to suppliers and seeing how we can get that in. But I think the most important one, similar to what's your goal of your class? And again, you should set a goal for every single class you teach is like, what is the goal and what is the objective for your club. So generally, when you found a business, or you create a business, you need a vision. And ideally, you're so passionate about what you're doing, but the vision then becomes a mission, and the mission becomes tactics, and it should cascade down to deliver that purpose for you, for the people that work with you or for you, and then also for the students. So I think that was giving that structure and that idea and that basically, I don't know how you say that in English, you know, like in French, they call it Ariana’s thread through the labyrinth. Is it the red line? In German it is the red line.

 

Guy Windsor 

You could call it a red line, the thread that runs through it.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Okay, thank you. So the guiding thread, right? So anyway, when you have that, you have that measure to bench things again, so you can see like, okay, this is working and this is not working because you will have to experiment quite a bit. And I think the hardest thing is really to say like, okay, you know, you run a few classes, and even though you absolutely love teaching that class, you see like, ugh, it's actually not working. So you have to at one point say, like, no, we're not going to continue, or we discontinue, or we do it differently. So this is really difficult if you're passionate about something and you're in it, but when you have your overall goals and when you try to take a step back. I think that really, really helped from the business experience, and also like things like dealing with the accountant, yeah, best time ever in HEMA talking to accountants, yay.

 

Guy Windsor 

But let me just say I like my accountant. It’s possible one of them might be listening. And Tommy is a jolly good chap, happy to talk to him anytime.

 

Vera Martocchia 

I love my accountant too. Is it the most passionate thing about sword fighting and running a club? I don’t know. Sorry. You’re great people, accountants.

 

Guy Windsor 

If there's a spreadsheet involved, I get somebody else to do it.

 

Vera Martocchia 

I'm not scared of spreadsheets. I'm also not scared of data. But I think it comes more down to the fact of, like, how do you run a team? You know, how do you run people? And this is something that, as I said, I learned as a fitness instructor, I learned in my job, I learned as a mom, running a household. So it's that cross pollination that helped me more than, like, one particular thing. And I mean, look, you never know, yeah, where, where Swordpunch will lead, or maybe we revolutionised together this sword fighting industry and make it as big as Thai boxing, I don't know, or mixed martial arts

 

Guy Windsor 

As big as soccer.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Oh yeah, it will lose its edge. That's the problem.

 

Guy Windsor 

Honestly, is the problem with anytime you turn a martial art into a sport, you have to have consistent rule sets and consistent equipment requirements. Once you have serious prizes, Olympic gold medals or $100,000 purses or whatever, once the prizes are kind of life changingly big, you have to make sure that the competition is absolutely consistent and fair. And you know, eventually we're going to have, like, doping tests at tournaments. And it's not a world I particularly want to live in. I'm happy for it to exist, because the serious tournament scene is a massive benefit to the rest of the historical martial arts community. Like it's huge. I mean, there was a Wessex league event in Colchester, near where I live a few weeks ago, and I went along to pick up a sword from a friend who brought it over for me. And it was amazing. There was, like, there must have been 120 people there, something like that, on a two-day tournament weekend, and everyone had all the gear and if you think about the amount of travel time, money spent to get their money spent on equipment, all that sort of stuff. These people take it pretty seriously, and they spend a lot of time and a lot of money on it. And that creates a market for equipment and for all sorts of other sort of related things. And, you know, sometimes people get into the tournament side of things, and then they look for something a bit more academic, or they get into the tournament side of things, they look for something a bit more martial arty, or vice versa. You start out an academic and end up an athlete. These things happen. So it's a fundamentally good thing. I just had enough of it with sport fencing in the 90s.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Yeah, I did not go through that, but I can see how it's difficult at the one hand, you want some things to be more regulated and more stable, and for that, you need, as you said, the rules and in the regulations and the governing bodies, but HEMA is such a cool niche thingy that it would lose that character for sure. It's a double-sided sword, haha, to go down that road, but yeah, I don't have the clear answer to that either.

 

Guy Windsor 

Just out of curiosity, though, if you were to do this for a living, or you were advising someone who does this for a living, I know at least some of the listeners are in that situation. How would you advise them?

 

Vera Martocchia 

on what specifically? In general?

 

Guy Windsor 

Running a club, running the business, I mean all the stuff. I mean, honestly, if you, if you want to tell me how to sell more of my books, that would be good. I don't mind.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Marketing. Well, I'm a marketer by trade stuff. Well, look, the question is, what do you want to get out of it? Like, I mean, a lot of clubs are run charitably, or nonprofit, or this is like your first setup, right? You need to decide the structure of your club and what you want it. Do you want it as I said, like a nonprofit thing, then you have a whole different setup from when you say, like, I actually want to create a company which will also get you in whole different tax brackets and so on. So this is decision that you very upfront need to do. But if you say this is going to be my main income, and then the next question is, what does this income need to cover? Is it just me and my expenses? Is it my family? Is it a house and so on? Then you need to be very clear of like, okay, so what are the costs? What is the money that needs to come in? And what can we afford, right? And what are we working towards this? So, very clearly, this is the cost. This is what I set up. How many students do I need to break even? How many students do I need to then actually scale this? And I think you need to understand, first and foremost, what you want to get out of that club, and then structure it accordingly. Then the pricing issue. How do you set the prices? What is the growth that is expected? So it's like the whole business plan around it.

 

Guy Windsor 

So I just maybe tell you that I started my school with no business plan whatsoever. Vision, yes, passion, aplenty. Business plan, nothing. If you build it, they will come. And I built it, and they came. So it sort of worked out okay, but that's why I'm asking you.

 

Vera Martocchia 

That was your mind that said then, and absolutely, this is your mindset. And you're just like, hey, I'm just going to give this a shot and see what happens. That's great. I feel like this is when you, when you say, this is, like, my passion, you know, but if you say, like, this is going to be a serious business, and I'm going to need to pay myself, and I'm going to pay like, a few employees, then you would need to kind of structure this differently. Now I really want to flag here that Swordpunch is not created like this at all, right? Because, as I said, we went down the passion in the community.

 

Guy Windsor 

Is it a nonprofit?

 

Vera Martocchia 

No, it's not nonprofit, but we're not we're not really making money, like I draw no money out of this club at all.

 

Guy Windsor 

okay, but it's set up as a company?

 

Vera Martocchia 

It is set up as a company. But more actually, because I didn't really look into the different things, and this is from my background, something that I knew how to do, you know what I mean?

 

Guy Windsor 

And honestly, starting a company is dead easy. Starting a nonprofit is hard.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Ah, okay, then you know more than me, you see.

 

Guy Windsor 

In Britain, at least. In Finland, it's the other way around. It's harder to start a company than to start a nonprofit, and in Finland, I was set up as a company, and after I about a year or so, on advice from various colleagues and friends, my students organized as a nonprofit association. So my school was an emergent property of a nonprofit group of students and a company, and the nonprofit bought services from the company. So, the nonprofit could actually sign a lease with the company, which meant I could go to the bank for a mortgage, because I had a contract with a legally constituted institution that was going to be paying me this much money every month. So I could actually show them that my very young company would actually have an income stream so I could pay my mortgage. And also, the nonprofit organisation could apply for grants, which it got quite a lot of grants, and that helped them do stuff like pay for seminars and pay for rent on the salle and all that sort of thing. In Finland is a bit different, but, yeah, it's curious the difference between a nonprofit organization and a company, just from the setup and the expectations and the legal obligations you have to live up to, to actually have one or the other.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Yeah, I think sometimes it's also good just to not overthink it, you know, like just to give it a shot. As you say, like many, many big companies now, and maybe not in the HEMA space, have started like that too. I think there is no rule, but you need to see what is the right setup for yourself, really. But I think it does help to give it, as I said, like a vision, a mission, goal, and some strategies around just to make people understand, like, hey, this is actually well run. I think it needs to be well run for people to feel safe and happy, to train and come.

 

Guy Windsor 

I can think of, I think, one occasion in the 15 years I was living in Finland where students showed up to the salle and it was locked, and that was because it was a student-run class, and the student who was supposed to be running the class, something happened, and they basically forgot, and that's obviously on me, it’s my responsibility, but it was a point of failure that occurred once. And it was sorted out, and it was fine. We didn't really lose any students for it. In the grand scheme of things, it didn't matter. But, yeah, it's the reliability aspect is one of the things that makes the students feel safe.

 

Vera Martocchia 

And again, mistakes will happen, right? It's just these things will happen. But if there's the overall sentiment and knowledge that this is a well-run club, then these things will be forgiven, no problem. And again, it comes back to the fact that, yeah, people want to feel like they're taken care of or taken seriously and I think this is just a certain way of professionalism that that is that is valid for any business and any club where you have people.

 

Guy Windsor 

Yeah, one question. You started a club a year ago in London, which is relatively well supplied with clubs. Okay, so what did you do specifically to get students to come to your club?

 

Vera Martocchia 

So we had a big network already in the HEMA community, and this is like people that have been training with us before and liked our approach to culture and running the class and what we wanted to build in that sense. So with Jack and his partner, and also other people we had created, even outside the school we were attending a big, big community of people who enjoyed swords and enjoyed spending time with each other. So a lot of people have dropped out along the way. New people came in. But when it was then time for us, I mean, to be quite honest, I mean, it's not like some weird martyr story or something, but there were a lot of people who were saying, you guys should build your own club. You should do your own thing. We would totally come and love what you do, right? Or at least when we kind of stopped in our previous club, they were like, what's next? We would really love for you to continue. We don't want you to stop. And this also really helps to keep going. So right now, I'm definitely not advertising. There's so much more that we should do, but it's just a time play. I cannot, we cannot. So this is also why, again, this is not the idea to like, scale this and 10x growth and million-dollar business. We want people that want to become good sword fighters. You know, pragmatic sword fighters, also in the sense of like, yes, this is what we do and how create a healthy and welcoming environment for them.

 

Guy Windsor 

Okay. So if you build it, they will come. So it's not just me. I feel better.

 

Vera Martocchia 

We were kind of like, let's see what we make out of this, right? Because would I love to quit my day job and just do this? Probably, but for that, the numbers don't add up.

 

Guy Windsor 

Yeah, the I mean, one of the best things that I did to prepare for a sword fighting career is I went to university to study English Lit. And then I graduated from university, and I went and apprenticed as a cabinet maker in an antiques restoration place where my first salary was £450 a month, which was significantly below minimum wage at the time. And after a couple of years or so, I was on closer to like £800 a month. It even got up to £1000 a month, which is a bit of maybe at minimum wage at that point, maybe slightly above. So when I started my school, I had no expensive addictions, like a mortgage, like a big mortgage. I mean, I managed to buy an apartment in Edinburgh, because back then, you could buy an apartment in Edinburgh for not a huge amount of money, and, you know, mortgage and whatnot. So I managed to get all that sort of stuff sorted out. So I did have a mortgage, but renting out the place when we moved to Finland, more than covered the mortgage. So that was okay. It didn't really provide an income, but it more than covered the mortgage. So the fact that I didn't really make much real money for the first 10 years, I didn't really care. Because, I was still getting to, like, fly to America or Singapore or Australia or whatever to do I wanted to do, and I didn't particularly want a fancy car or a fancy watch or a fancy house or whatever. I could provide a reasonable standard of living for my wife and then children doing what I was doing. But not having expensive tastes really helped. My tastes are getting a lot more expensive now, and it's very frustrating and annoying, of course.

 

Vera Martocchia 

I mean swords are kind of also a bit of an expensive taste.

 

Guy Windsor 

No, no. Oh my God, no, right. Okay, my most expensive sword did cost more than my most expensive car up until the last car I bought. So it’s a question of priorities, well, right, yes, but, but a really expensive sword, if you can actually fence with it. Leave aside stuff you're going to collect with, whatever a really expensive sword is, shall we say, £1000 pounds, right? Talk to anyone who owns a motorbike, right? Talk to anyone who is, as I have recently become, well, not that recently, but dead into watches, right? I am massively obsessed with watches. I love them, right? I literally, I went to the British Watchmakers’ Association Day in London, and I spent four hours in this place, like handling watches, talking to people who made watches, and then the bell went because they were closing, and I was like, where did the time go? Which is very ironic when I'm surrounded by timepieces. And, yeah, I mean, my watches are, none of them are expensive, and I got all of the more expensive ones at a bargain somewhere or another. But you know, I know people who would say, oh, my God, £300 for a watch. Are you insane? I know people who would say, you really can't get anything good for under five grand, for sure, right? Which is bullshit. I mean, some of the absolute best stuff is, is being made in the kind of £300 to, should we say £2000 range, which is sword territory, right? So I have to be very careful, because thing is, swords for me, are tax deductible. Watches are not. This is really frustrating.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Yes, I would like to add however, that if you're a runner, then your expenses for your passion is not as high as if you're a sword fighter.

 

Guy Windsor 

Unless you're a serious runner, who will spend hundreds on shoes and then spend 1000s flying to marathons.

 

Vera Martocchia 

That's true. But on the other hand, for example, my daughter is, she is an Irish dancer. Yes, the dresses can be expensive, but she can also dance without these crazy dresses. So swords are still more expensive, and there is an expense to it, for sure, absolutely.

 

Guy Windsor 

But like, compared to golf.

 

Vera Martocchia 

You can compare it to all these things.

 

Guy Windsor 

Yeah, I mean, and you can do swords for really cheap, like in my salle. One of the best things we ever did was once I had a permanent space, three months after I moved to Finland, students could keep their weapons in the salle. And the rule was, if it was dusty or rusty, it got cleaned and moved on to the beginners’ rack, and anybody could borrow it. And then when you came back to the salle you could reclaim your sword from the beginners’ rack and put it back on the private racks, but if it got dusty and rusty again, it will get them moved back. Or you could, of course, just take it home. There was no obligation to keep it in the salle. Do what you want with it, it is your sword, and everybody knew the rules. So no one was surprised when they came back after six months of not training, and their sword was in general use, but that meant that within about a year, we could equip a beginners’ course of say, 24 people with a steel long sword and a fencing mask, having spent no money on equipment.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Yeah, I think this is something that we need to consider when we run a club, because there is an entry barrier to it. Like, at the beginning, of course, everybody borrows, and then the question is, like, okay, am I going to spend for some, like, expensive cash, or am I going to stop, like, how much is that passion worth for me, right? So yes, we I like what you what you did there with your club. I think this is good advice.

 

Guy Windsor 

We never had any requirement for people to buy anything. They could keep on using the club equipment for years. And some students, the person I'm thinking of when I say this was actually a student at Helsinki University, so had no money at all, used club equipment for five years. No problem, that's what it's there for. And you know, we had some people who would show up and on the first day, buy a nice, shiny sword, and then they'd probably quit after a week, because for a lot of people, what they wanted was permission to buy a sword. And they can't just buy a sword, that would be weird. But I've taken up this new hobby of sword fighting, so I need to buy a sword, oh, no. And as soon as they bought the sword, the itch was scratched, and they didn't need to come training any more, which is not what we were there for. But, you know, it's a service we were happy to provide.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Absolutely, and an easy one. That makes absolute sense.

 

Guy Windsor 

In a well-run club, swords do not have to be expensive, but compared to other common hobbies, they are relatively cheap.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Let me say yes, I kind of agree.

 

 

Guy Windsor 

Okay, woodwork. I do woodwork, right? I used to be a professional cabinet maker, right? All the wooden stuff you see behind me is stuff I made. And an entry level woodworking plane. You can get one for, like, let's say, if you're buying new you can get one for like, 25 pounds. That is absolute shit. And you can maybe make it work if you know how to tune up a plane really well, right? So it can be done. A good, solid professional plane of the same size and type, 250, 300 quid. Most cabinet makers have, I would say somewhere between four and 40 planes, right? I have 13 hammers. They're all different. They're cheap. Compared to planes, hammers are really cheap and sometimes people think that's a lot of hammers. But honestly, for someone who uses hammers a lot, you want different hammers for different things.

 

Vera Martocchia 

100%. If you want to be efficient, you need your tool.

 

Guy Windsor 

So, you know, as a hobby, I mean, let's say you spend 300 quid on a sword and you spend another 300 quid on protective gear you can certainly equip yourself for your first tournament, if that's the way you want to go, for under £1000. And you spend that once, and most of that equipment should last you. Well, you want to replace your mask at least every five years, I would say, five years, something like that, right? So that's £200 a year for five years.

 

Vera Martocchia 

But you still need to have that initial £1000 pounds in your bank account.

 

Guy Windsor 

Oh, absolutely. But again, you don't need it all at once, right? Maybe you get the mask first and then the sword. Most people get the sword first because it's the shiny thing and, yeah, you don't have to get it all at once. You can start out borrowing everything, and then over time, borrow less and less and less until eventually you end up lending out your older stuff because you've got newer stuff now.

 

Vera Martocchia 

I think the key is, really to have this available, this library of swords, where people can borrow. This is absolutely important for a club at the beginning. And may not every club have that, but you're right. It's also that culture of borrowing, and students bringing swords and spares. I think this is really something that I've seen like so far in all the clubs I've been in. It works really well, and it's a very nice thing also to share their stuff.

 

Guy Windsor 

I mean, it would be super nice if, if it could be truly accessible to truly everyone. But that isn't true of anything, including, like, you know, reasonable quality food.

 

Vera Martocchia 

And also, like, quite clearly, with swords, not everybody wants to do swords. Hey, I don't understand these people, I have to tell you. It's a fact, huh?

 

Guy Windsor 

Yeah, this is how I know for certain that you're not my wife, because my wife has no interest in swords whatsoever.

 

Vera Martocchia 

My husband doesn't have any interest. He supports what I do, but that's it.

 

Guy Windsor 

Exactly, yes. Okay, now you've clearly done a lot of stuff, and you're clearly very busy. So what is the best idea you haven't acted on yet?

 

Vera Martocchia 

I think, yeah, really, to go a bit along with what we've actually said, and the whole ethos of my journey and everything, I think I would really, really like to have a sort of professional pathway to become a teacher also in HEMA and along the way…

 

Guy Windsor 

That would have been very helpful.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Yeah, helpful. And I think really, really important. We were talking about, like, setting roles and this and that, right, and it's obviously less fun if there's this governing body. But I think, in order for teacher training and for being responsible, even if we're normally responsible for adults, mainly, and everybody obviously, is over 18 and has their hopefully freedom of choice and whatnot. What I'm coming down to, there are a lot of good sword fighters out there, right? And normally a really good, passionate sword fighter at one point becomes a teacher. But just because you're good player doesn't mean that you're a good coach, right? If you look at soccer or football, in Germany, obviously, huge, huge sport, there are these coaches. I haven't even heard the names of when they were players and they're fantastic. And then there's these amazing players, and they never become coaches. And I'm not saying that anybody who's a good sword fighter will never be a good teacher and vice versa.

 

Guy Windsor 

They are different skill sets.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Exactly. And I think for that, if we could have training to really sensitize people about what it actually is you're doing when you enter that class of like 20 people who are there to learn a skill from you and who see you in a certain way. I think that would be really, really important, especially because we have a fairly vulnerable population.

 

Guy Windsor 

I’ve tried to solve this problem in several different ways. When I was running my school in Finland we had a process for beginners to go from the beginners’ course to being able to teach their own classes. It was a pretty well established pathway with various milestones on the way that they could meet in their own time. It was fine. Worked very well within the school, because we weren’t to make the qualification, if you like, in any way valid outside the school. Because one of the biggest hurdles is certification outside of your own club. It’s a problem. And of course I’ve produced an online course on how to teach and a book on how to teach, which seems to help some people but it’s not the same thing as a supervised training programme with experience in teaching. I mean, one of the most important things about the in person teacher training stuff is you watch the student teach and you guide their teaching practice, in the same way that you guide their sword practice. And you can’t do that through a book or an online course, sadly. So my curiosity is how would you fix the problem?

 

Vera Martocchia 

We would need to get all together and create this super body of HEMA mega something.

 

Guy Windsor 

Never going to happen.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Exactly. I think there are a few things. To make it mandatory is going to be difficult but there are a few things if people are really serious about it that I think will help, because these courses do exist.

 

Guy Windsor 

In what? Courses in what?

 

Vera Martocchia 

For me, for example, as I said, it was the fitness instructing. Becoming a group exercise teacher I had to qualify and I had to do exams. I had to do practical exams, I had to do theoretical exams then I can teach in a British gym, or internationally in a gym, or run group classes with Les Mills. So there was some sort of guidance. I mean in the end do they check every time if I still do that? No. But it is then up to me also to see if what I learned actually makes sense and if I want to apply that. But I think if you want to enhance in general, as a teacher or instructor, you can still obviously self-anoint and appoint you to become a HEMA instructor. If you're good at swords and you're passionate. But I think it's if you want to look a bit further, then you can go do some manager trainings or teacher trainings from different industries.

 

Guy Windsor 

But the thing is, there is a relationship between having some teaching experience like, you know, I've had teacher trainees who were already qualified high school teachers. They didn't have much trouble learning how to run a class because they already knew how to run a class. They did it every day. So there's lots of more or less relevant experience that a student can have, but I don't think we can say to people, okay, you need to go and train as a Pilates instructor or a fitness instructor or whatever else, it needs to be within the sword world, because people who want to teach sport classes don't have to go and do sword training to teach sport classes. So why should it be the other way around?

 

Vera Martocchia 

I'm just saying while we're missing this, if people are looking for more, this is something that they can do and then apply it to swords. But I agree, that's what I'm saying, the idea that I haven't acted on is to actually, truly create this HEMA teacher path.

 

Guy Windsor 

Okay, so what do you need to create it?

 

Vera Martocchia 

What do I need to create?

 

Guy Windsor 

What is not available, that you need to create it, other than time?

 

Vera Martocchia 

Okay, there needs to be standardization and supervision. It's not okay if I just come up with my training from like, this is the Vera Martocchia HEMA teacher training. And this is going to be now for everyone. And this is exactly right. We need different people, different experienced teachers, to go together and say, like, hey, this is what we saw, and we need to conglomerate that and create, actually, a course out of this.

 

Guy Windsor 

Over 20 years ago, us historical martial arts instructors were talking about the same problem, and the rock that our ambitions broke against was interpretations. Because the thing is, to have a consistent teaching method, you have to have a consistent syllabus. And to have a consistent syllabus, you have to have a consistent interpretation of the historical source that your syllabus is based on, right? And there is absolutely no way I am going to fuck up my footwork in the exchange of thrust from the Getty manuscript to suit that person's interpretation? No. That's what it broke against. I am not going to execute my attack by disengage like that. I'm going to do it like this, because that's what I think is in the book. How do you make a, I'm not asking you for a definitive answer, how do you make a teaching method that is relatively style agnostic? That's the trick.

 

Vera Martocchia 

We need the UN of swords. And then we need to discuss this very clearly. But I feel maybe we need to start with something, and it defeats a bit the thing that you said at the beginning. But I feel like we probably need to start with not syllabus and swords and more like, what do we expect from a HEMA teacher? Okay, so how do you teach a group class? How do you motivate people? What is the different way people learn? You know, visually, acoustic, audio, like all the different things. And this is not necessarily particular to Thibaut or Fiore or whatnot, right? It's like, how do we teach people, and how do we bring HEMA and this specific like, how do swords work to these people, and how do we as teachers need to behave in order to get most out for the students? And then how you teach your particular style, that's your interpretation. That will always be the case, because never, ever will we agree on this, unless we find this very long, forgotten and buried video of Walpurgis, the monk, all her stuff. So I think we need to start there more than in the details.

 

Guy Windsor 

Yeah. And that's exactly you know in my book on how to teach, that's exactly what it is. The general principles of how you teach a class, how you teach an individual lesson, what you should be looking for how you plan a class, how you deliver the class, how you know whether the class went well or not, all that stuff, right? And not, not a single bit of it is dependent on executing a specific technique a specific way.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Okay, so this is, I guess, a start, and now like different people need to come together, and if that's the base, then we need to look at this and see, like, yes, is this what we all agree to, or can we enrich it with this? I haven't read it. I'm very sorry.

 

Guy Windsor 

Have you not read every book I've ever written? And memorized them all?

 

Vera Martocchia 

No, maybe I think I need to go pick up the kids now, Guy. Anyhow, I think it is a start, but at one point it needs to agree to a certain method. And again, this is just the experience that I have, similar to management or fitness, that many different styles and things. But there are a few things that everybody agrees where you teach, and then it doesn't matter if you teach, like yoga or HIIT or core or boot camp, but there is a specific training that you go through also, for example, how is the body built? Which muscles are you using? What is used more with swords? How do you make sure that this is healthy and sustainable. You're not always just using the right arm or the left arm, depending on what your main is, but it's more around this than exact prescriptive “this is what we got to do”.

 

Guy Windsor 

So the best idea you haven't acted on is creating a professional teaching path so that students can become teachers in a structured and effective way.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Yes, but not me alone. This is not something I want to do alone. And this basically goes together also with the code of contact. You do the training, and then you say I adhere to these teaching methods and these teaching values, and you can be held accountable against it.

 

Guy Windsor 

That's an interesting point. Yeah, okay, so if somebody gives you a million quid to spend improving historical martial arts worldwide, is that how you would spend it?

 

Vera Martocchia 

I think so. I think I would. I mean, it goes along that idea, but I probably would want to pay a salary to all those amazing people out there who cannot, you know, don't have the time to go into depth of these things in HEMA, and I would like to pay them to then have the time to actually come up with something really good.

 

Guy Windsor 

It would be a lot easier to solve the teaching method problem with a million quid in the bank. But I don't think that's necessary.

 

Vera Martocchia 

No, but time will be necessary.

 

Guy Windsor 

Yeah, and it's easier to find time if you're paid for it.

 

Vera Martocchia 

I think this is just a bit my dilemma in general. There’s so much we can do! So much we can do!

 

Guy Windsor

Just quit the day job, Vera. Swords need you.

 

Vera Martocchia 

I did do a prolonged maternity break with my second baby to do this a bit more professionally, but then eventually I needed something that paid the bills again. Bills, Bills, Bills.

 

Guy Windsor 

I hear you. Okay, well, I think we have covered an awful lot of ground. And you have been very generous with your time. So thank you very much for joining me today. Vera, it's been lovely seeing you again.

 

Vera Martocchia 

Absolutely. Thank you so much for your time also, and, yeah, it was absolute pleasure chatting with you.