"The Sword in Two Hands by Brian Price" review wan

[Thorsteinn Raudskeggr]

I have a B&N gift card and I was thinking of picking up a copy of "Sword in Two Hands" by Brian Price. I own TOMAR and The Book of the Tournament, and I like both so I figure I should like this as well but...

Has anyone read it?

What did you think?

On a side note: I was told today that there is some controversy about Brian Price of the 'John Clements' level of infamy. What is that all about?

-Ivan

[deflagratio]

I personally enjoy my copy. It's well constructed and designed to lie flat though paper weights may be needed sometimes. The material is well presented and I love the full color layout along w/ the photos of drills w/ added in lines for greater clarity. I think there is some controversy over the fact that Mr Price also runs a business selling all the equipment you need to study but I have personally found he has good products and from my little interaction with the man found him very personable. I happily recommend his book.

[Kel Rekuta]

Its one long ad for Revival sports equipment with a few images from manuscripts dotted throughout. If you want an overview of what Price thinks is important to have to practice in his study groups or cross over from the SCA... its right on the mark. TOMAR is a very useful book. This - not so much.

To study medieval martial arts - buy Guy Windsor's longsword book. Its more useful for training tips.

[Marco-borromei]

What is your goal in buying the book?

If you're looking for an intorduction to Price's Schola Saint George, then its a good book for that. It contains everything necessary to pass the first belt test, but little more. I used this when we started a local study group of the SSG and it provided about 4 weeks of material for folks with other martial arts experience. It provided some of the clues and groundwork to properly interpret the actual source material, but that source is not included.

To keep the study group fed with new material and exercises, I had to fall back to translations of Fiore's manuscripts and manually pair them with the appropriate tracings from other sources online.

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/f ... ia/5364635
is spectacular, but LACK and diagrams

There's a published version of the Getty manuscript [the most detailed of all Fiore's leavings] available, but its in modern italian

http://www.amazon.com/battaglia-Liberi- ... B000OWDFHY which you can sometimes find elsewhere for anywhere from $50 to $500

So, if you are looking to begin THAT sort of journey, Price's book is a good starting place.

But, if you are looking for a workbook of Italian longsword drills which you can translate directly into C&T or Rattan combat, you won't be as happy.

[Thorsteinn Raudskeggr]

What is your goal in buying the book?
.......
But, if you are looking for a workbook of Italian longsword drills which you can translate directly into C&T or Rattan combat, you won't be as happy.

Well, I am a long time SCA Heavy and also study a bit of Fiore on the side.

I was looking for a book as useful as the Tao of Jeet Kun Do to my Longsword/ Dagger/ Rapier studies as well as my SCA heavy studies.

I also know that it's a bit hard to do some of this stuff if you are early to mid period, but it seems to be helping me a bit.

Basically I have a $25 giftcard and am looking for a nice book to buy. I own 2 of Brians other books and hoped this one would be as good. Guess not.

What would you recommend?

[Marco-borromei]

Sadly, and inexplicably, these are more than $25:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Sw ... 416/?itm=2

I swear I bought this for maybe $20 new, and it has a lot of drill content.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Be ... USRI=sword

I've not read this, but other work from Fick is good.


Now, not as specific, but an excellent read AND it fits your price...

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/SPADA- ... 55/?itm=17

Otherwise, I'd recommend you buy a nice book for your mother, as B&N.com's catalog has nothing else of particular interest to longsword or earlier historical swordsmanship.

[SirOlafr]

I have it. I like it overall. He does suggest equipment that he sells, but I didn't find it excessive. The material is specifically geared to the Schola of St. George but I think it is useful even if not participating in that.

You aren't going to just read it and turn into Super Crusader Ninja.

Olafr

Edit: Book recommendation REMOVED.

[Peikko]

You aren't going to just read it and turn into Super Crusader Ninja.

Damn

[Kel Rekuta]

You aren't going to just read it and turn into Super Crusader Ninja.

Olafr

No, you gotta buy the badges too. Then you are set!

[Thorsteinn Raudskeggr]

Truth is that I actually started studying Fiore 'cause I had no bastard sword game.

Thanks to the school I have learn a whole new fun hobby, not as fun as Heavy fighting, but still very fun.

I can tell you I really hate the HEMA Emo Politics, but there are politics everywhere. I get the same political poo when dealing with the West Kingdom Rapier community (AND heavy fighting), though I do notice that the same factions exist in the SCA rapier folks as exist in the HEMA Folks (whiny 'That's not what the book says' vs the 'shut up & fight' crowd; and lets not even get into the argument on force levels and follow through ).

Basically I am seeking the truth that lies outside of all systems, and am taking what works for me and leaving what doesn't.

So keep them book recommendations coming!

-Ivan

[Marco-borromei]

Ivan,

I love the Fiore tradition, so it pains me to say this... there are no good books for what you want.

Sadly, there are more books on the German tradition [Liechtenauer] available in english and written for practical drilling. Christian Henry Tobler has 2 books on the Liechtenauer tradition, one a how-to that may be useful.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Fighti ... ian+tobler
Sadly, B&N.com doesn't have it. But they DO have his Secrets of the German Longsword, which is more about the source material. Eventually, serious students of both the Italian and German traditions agree that its the same STUFF with different names... after all, there's a limit to the number of possible body positions while both hands are holding a stick.

I'll branch out a bit here into my own Fiore opinions which may or may not be supported by the work of actual historical combat scholars.... How's your balance? Fiore appears to have a progressive system which starts with unarmed grappling as a necessary foundation for all later weapons. I've demonstrated to fellow students before that all the sword technique imaginable in 1410 won't save you if you're off balance, and that minor shifts in body position make it possible/impossible for me at 220lb to push over a 95lb opponent. Fiore uses the elephant as his symbol of a strong fighting platform... perhaps you should look for resources on balance, grappling, or things like that.


[I hate the polictics too... every group has them, and WMA group vs. group tends to seem worse than intra-SCA politics ust because the WMA groups don't often have a common rule set through which to "settle" their differences. Insular groups who COULD be working together.... ]

[Thorsteinn Raudskeggr]

@Marco: 1st- I love your site, though it doesn't display well in Firefox, and I want to make a fencing helm like you do someday.

2nd- My balance is fine, after 11 years of heavy fighting, 3 years of low level studies in various arts, and 7 years of Tae Kwon Do I feel I do well. So yeah, any HEMA books, from any style you can recommend would be great. Like I said, I'm not terribly attached to any one longsword tradition, all knowledge is potentially useful, plus my roommate (& fellow student) told me that we are already studying Liechtenauer so that should be fine.

After all didn't Bruce Lee say "Using No Way as Way. Using No Limitation as Limitation"?

-Ivan
Proud West Kingdom armoured Brut.
Player, Noble Science Academy.
Former Red Belt, West Coast Tae Kwon Do.

[Kel Rekuta]

Truth is that I actually started studying Fiore 'cause I had no bastard sword game.

Thanks to the school I have learn a whole new fun hobby, not as fun as Heavy fighting, but still very fun.

So keep them book recommendations coming!

-Ivan

Okay, aside from my personal dislike of BP for business reasons, I've got nothing against his schools. Some of his people, like Bob Holland, are at the top of the game.

Since you want to pick up some new stuff to broaden your horizons, I urge you to look deeper into the material you are studying. Maybe Tobler's training book will help you if your school follows the Liechtenauer tradition? There aren't many good books on the Fiore tradition yet. Tom Leoni's translation of the Getty MS is really helpful to interpret the plays.
Sorry about the B&N credit - they just don't have useful HEMA texts.

If you have a good grounding in TKD, transitioning to western grappling studies should be a snap. Look into older "catch" wrestling texts freely available online. Catch is quite similar to the efficiency of medieval wrestling without the artificial limitations of modern competitive wrestling. You'll enjoy the combative, realistic aspects which, like stick fighting, are visceral and authoritative. The material may not be useful for SCA but it will improve the depth of your fight.

Finally, set aside some time to attend the Combat-Con in June. Its practically in your backyard! Meet other people in the HEMA community, take some classes, browse through the books. They always seem to be available at events. Although the event was targeted at LARPers and stage fight folks from what I've heard; this year the HEMA community is expanding the event with the sort of programming normally seen at ISMAC or WMAW events. We do have to provide some content for the other interests as part of the gig but our focus is historical studies.

I am not sure when details will be available but its in the works. It sounds like you might be ready to see what is going on outside the local study group.

[shinyhalo]

On a side note: I was told today that there is some controversy about Brian Price of the 'John Clements' level of infamy. What is that all about?

-Ivan

Hmm infamy? Is this the brian price who stole thousands of dollars from people wanting to play in the SCA and then never delivered the armor? It happens often it seems.
I read that one angry customer finally tracked brian down and then brian was all acting apologetic as if it was all a mistake. He refunded the angry man, but in the end he still came out ahead if he only refunded one customer.

I wouldn't buy anything this shit wrote (if it's the same guy).

On the second page of this thread you can read some details about brian price's scam:

http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/ ... 8&start=35

[mackenzie]

Its one long ad for Revival sports equipment with a few images from manuscripts dotted throughout. If you want an overview of what Price thinks is important to have to practice in his study groups or cross over from the SCA... its right on the mark. TOMAR is a very useful book. This - not so much.

To study medieval martial arts - buy Guy Windsor's longsword book. Its more useful for training tips.

Guy Windsor has finished writing his second book on the longsword and will hopefully be publish later this year. (Only one of the useful things I learned this weekend at VISS) Personally I would wait for Windsor's new Fiore book rather then spend your money on Price's longsword book if you are interested in learning Fiore.

mackenzie

[juan]

I have a B&N gift card and I was thinking of picking up a copy of "Sword in Two Hands" by Brian Price. I own TOMAR and The Book of the Tournament, and I like both so I figure I should like this as well but...

Has anyone read it?

What did you think?

I have studied with Brian and have a number of Fiore longsword titles on my shelf, most of the published by him.

I like Brian's Sword in Two Hands, but I find it unfortunate that he relied so much on his line of products for the illustrations, as it gives the book a bit of a feel of a revival.us catalog which can be off-putting. Then there is the issue of Brian's sometimes erratic spelling and the lack of proofreading that is sometimes evident with his books.

Overall, I think that Sword in Two Hands will be most useful to you if you are part of the Schola Saint George or are interested in following it's line of study.

Guy Windsor's The Swordsman's Companion is probably the best introduction to Fiore-style longsword. I'd recommend you start with that one.

[Christian H. Tobler]

Hello all,

Hmm infamy? Is this the brian price who stole thousands of dollars from people wanting to play in the SCA and then never delivered the armor? It happens often it seems.

Ok. I've been holding my tongue on this for a long time now, but I see more and more inquiries about the state of Brian's business and I can no longer remain silent in good conscience, despite the possible personal fallout.

So, here's a former Chivalry Bookshelf author's perspective.

I have not seen one dime from Mr. Price in the form of royalties in over three years now. I stopped trying to extract said monies in 2007, after it became clear that any attempts at either getting paid or even receiving copies of my own books were going to simply be ignored. Phone calls and emails went unanswered, and the books and cheques stopped coming.

I am not alone in this experience. Mr. Price continues to reprint and reprint my titles without any form of remuneration. He's done this to other authors too, some of whom have *never* received royalties.

Regardless of what we may think of his book that is in question here, in doing business with the man, you're supporting a dishonest person who has betrayed the chivalric principles he claims to support while lining his pockets with ill-gained money.

It truly pains me to have to do this. I worked with Chivalry Bookshelf for several years, and once considered Brian a friend. But this kind of behavior has nothing to do with chivalry, and even less to do with friendship, and it's time to start looking out for others so that they don't go through what I and others have gone through.

Yours most truly,

Christian

[Thorsteinn Raudskeggr]

OK Christian,

I still have $25 gift card to B & N and can go about $25 more beyond for a total of $50.

So, for $50 are there any of your books on B&N you could recommend to further my purpose?

-Ivan

BTW As to your issues with Mr Price, as the son of a rather successful lawyer I must ask, if there are all these problems with him, why has he not been served?

[Christian H. Tobler]

Hi Ivan,

Here's the thing: my current book "In Saint George's Name" isn't yet carried by B&N, though Amazon does have it. It can more directly be ordered via the Freelance Academy Press website.

My other three books are CB titles, so that puts money in their/his pocket. So I'm forced into the unenviable situation of having to 'not' recommend some of my own books. Yes, irony.

As for legal action and Mr. Price, let's just say I'm not at liberty to discuss this matter here. I will just say this: when you're down several thousand dollars, this must be weighed against the fact that you might have to spend as much retrieving it.

If however you question my honesty in this matter, please do contact other Chivalry Bookshelf authors, such as Greg Mele, Guy Windsor, John Michael Greer, etc. for their own report of CB's business practices. I believe you'll find some startling similarities.

If you can find someone to indirectly purchase one of my CB titles from, let me recommend, given that you're looking for a training book, "Fighting with the German Longsword". If you're more interested in the tradition of Fiore dei Liberi, you can't go wrong with Guy Windsor's "Swordsman's Companion" - a truly excellent volume.

Yours,

Christian

[Greg Mele]

All,

As Christian said, we can't get into too many specifics here, specifically because of the possibility of pending legal activity, but I can indeed state that there is a good reason that CB production schedule ground to a halt. Besides the two printers that Mr Price defaulted on paying while I was associated with CB, there are the royalty issues that Christian mentioned. Here's a few specifics:

1. To date, I have received exactly zero dollars for Arte Gladiatoria: 15th century swordsmanship of Filippo Vadi and my co-author one statement of $350.

2. Mark Rector received one payment of $300 for Highland Swordsmanship and nothing for Highland Broadsword. Seeing as the former has gone into at least three printings (meaning Brian has sold at least 3000 copies of the book), and the later into two printings, that is no more than 1/15 th of what he is owed.

3. Tom Leoni received one royalty payment for [Art of Dueling[/i], which has since gone out of print. His royalties amount to less than $0.30/copy, or about 1/10 of what they should have been.

4. When I last spoke to John Michael Greer, last year, he had never received a royalty payment from Mr. Price.

5. Stephen Hand has never received a royalty payment for English Swordsmanship, and only one or two for his previous books.

Simply put, Mr Price has not fulfilled his contract obligations at best and has flat out robbed the intellectual property of his authors at worst. You add to this his launch of his leather goods line by replicating products that he did not design, nor had permission to use, his alleged failures to pay Westland Crafts for tens of thousands of dollars of leather goods, and his history as an armourer and the picture presented is not very pretty.

Customers should do as they wish, but they should also know that the authors/designers are not and have not been receiving any compensation for their work, and that any claims made my the Prices to the contrary is a blatant lie.

Let's just leave it that "Chivalry Bookshelf" would perhaps be better named Caveat Emptor Bookshelf

Like Christian, I hate having to write these things, and have held my tongue for years, but enough is enough.

Best wishes,

Gregory

[Vitus von Atzinger]

Here are a pair of spring steel gauntlets that Brian sold to my squire. This armour failure made me furious because my squire's hand could have been utterly destroyed. He has refused to refund the money or send another pair. After years and years of hearing about Brian ripping people off -and thinking that it was just people griping because they liked to gripe- I can say that he has finally ripped off somebody I know personally.

[Vitus von Atzinger]

Another pic.

[Nissan Maxima]

Incompetent tempering.

[SirOlafr]

Wow, to the books and to the gauntlet.

[GenericUnique]

Wow. Although this did encourage me to order "Fighting..." second hand.

[Greg Mele]

Wow, indeed, and sadly only the tip of the iceberg. I also forgot to add that Brian has never compensated Steve Muhlberger (Duke Finnvarr) for Jousts and Tournaments or Deeds of Arms.

To all of this, we can also add:

1. failure to pay authors for foreign language editions (or even inform them that such existed), again in violation of the CB contract. This has been done with German language editions of Swordsman's Companion and Fighting with the German Longsword;

2. failure to provide authors with copies of their own work;

3. failure to return manuscripts to the author, even after two to three years had passed without publishing the manuscript (again, in violation of the contract);

4. failure to provide the promised number of copies of facsimile editions to the holding museums who provided the images in the first place - again in violation of written contracts.

5. failure to provide one cent of compensation to Agilitas.tv for the Messer or Longsword DVDs, and failure to return the master-copies they have provided Mr Price for replication. That is why Agilitas have now placed their products with Freelance Academy Press.

To be clear, this isn't being "disorganized" or guilty of being "a terrible businessman". This is called theft. Whether one supports author rights or not, each time one of those German swordsmanship DVDs is bought through the Revival.us shopping cart, Mr Price is making money on a product that cost others thousands of Euros to produce, while he paid virtually nothing.

All of this are just the issues with Chivalry Bookshelf/Revival.us from the author's side. For several years after I had severed all connection to the company, I continued to receive emails from Sirivitana, Mr Price's first printer in Thailand, and Midpoint Distribution Services, his distributor, looking for back payments they were owed. In the former case, it was in excess of $10K of printing fees.

Brian Price always has his apologists, and he is always swift with an "explanation" for the "misunderstandings". No doubt some will step in here to defend him. I know the feeling, I've been one of them in the past. But you add all of this to the experiences of past armour clients, the problems with payment experienced by Revival Clothing, Westland or Past Tents, and at some point it can't be everyone else who is dishonest, can it?

I must make it clear that everything Christian Tobler and I have described can be independentlyverified by Guy Windsor, Stephen Hand, Jeffrey Forgeng, Stephen Muhlberger and Tom Leoni. The other business dealings can be confirmed with Wan Noppawan at Sirivitana and Hendrik Perro at Agilitas. I am sure that there are others I am not even thinking of.

Again, caveat emptor.

[Vitus von Atzinger]

I've done enough. Good luck, everyone.

[chris19d]

From what I have heard of his behavior that, to me indicates shows intent, greed, and that he is knowingly defrauding people. I have one of his helmets, dealing with him was a PITA, and was repeatedly lied to about when the helmet shipped, when I finally got a tracking # it showed it was shipped a week and a half after he claimed to have shipped it. That incident made me fairly hesitant to deal with him again, but now that I heard of his other misadventures I will have no further dealings with him.

[Vitus von Atzinger]

I have known Brian a long time, and after finding out that he made a good chunk of cash writing D&D modules for TSR back in the early 1980's I realized something. His great dream has been to somehow get rich doing something related to this hobby.

Think Toblar or any of the other writers thought they were going to make any real money off these books? Nope. All they wanted was to get paid just enough to feel like they hadn't been completely screwed over. Not too much to ask.

[Rodney]

I am truly shocked and saddened at hearing this news.

... If you can find someone to indirectly purchase one of my CB titles from, let me recommend, given that you're looking for a training book, "Fighting with the German Longsword".

I just recently started German longsword under Craig Johnson of Arms & Armor (one session e.g. I'm a pell). He has recommended your titles for study. Can I purchase a new copy of "Fighting with the German Longsword" and ensure that you get royalties? If so, where should I purchase it?

Thank you.

[Leo Medii]

I am truly shocked and saddened at hearing this news.

... If you can find someone to indirectly purchase one of my CB titles from, let me recommend, given that you're looking for a training book, "Fighting with the German Longsword".

I just recently started German longsword under Craig Johnson of Arms & Armor (one session e.g. I'm a pell). He has recommended your titles for study. Can I purchase a new copy of "Fighting with the German Longsword" and ensure that you get royalties? If so, where should I purchase it?

Thank you.

Ditto. There are several titles I want to pick up about this topic.

[Christian H. Tobler]

Hi folks,

Unfortunately, there's no way for me to realize royalties on any of my CB titles, which are:

Secrets of German Medieval Swordsmanship
Fighting with the German Longsword
In Service of the Duke

I do have one title, In Saint George's Name, plus a DVD on poleaxe combat, German Medieval Martial Arts Volume 1: The Poleaxe, available from Freelance Academy Press. In a month or so, I'll have a second book out there, Captain of the Guild, which is a facsimile/translation of the Peter Falkner fechtbuch (really fun stuff!).

And, there's a downloadable video/pdf combo on an anonymous messer fighting treatise, Messer Fighting from the Glasgow Fechtbuch. This is essentially a quick course on the messer (which I truly love).

So, no, there's no way for me to get paid a nickel on my older titles now, because only Brian can make good on that. But there are more fresh goodies available, and more on the way. And, as a principle of Freelance Academy Press, I get to work toward ensuring that not only do I get paid, but that no one else's hard work goes unrewarded.

Yours most truly,

Christian

PS. We're at work right now on a second volume of the video series, this one on "Sword, Buckler, and Messer". As I said above: there are lots of goodies in the pipeline right now.

[Leo Medii]

plus a DVD on poleaxe combat, German Medieval Martial Arts Volume 1: The Poleaxe,

Got this the day it was released. We use it all the time in our study group. I highly recommend it, and hope there are other volumes in future. The DVD format makes it very easy to recreate the techniques quickly.

[Christian H. Tobler]

Hi Leo!

I'm very happy that this has served you well. There's surely not a lot of money in this activity (hence my day job!), but this sort of feedback makes every second of time I invest into it more than worth the effort.

Thanks!

Christian

[Leo Medii]

It is things like your video, the Ochs titles I have, and all the books on the subject that I got interested in this and not just "sport fighting". Now I work with Josh Little and Ars Gladii here in Michigan. Not only is it rewarding, but it also improves my "sport combat" in the SCA. So, it is totally appreciated when the scholars give us more material to enjoy!