Whether you are a historian, a martial artist with medieval leanings, or just want to learn how to talk trash like a haughty Italian nobleman of the Middle Ages and still walk away with some knowledge of the art, then a Fiore focused seminar is definitely the way to go!

On the weekend of March 22, 2003, it was our great pleasure to once again host Bob Charron of St. Martin's Medieval Academy. This was actually our third seminar with Bob, two of which we have hosted in the New England area.

As always, Bob brings a tremendous amount of intelligence, energy, humor, and humility to the seminars he teaches. It is apparent that he respects Fiore's knowledge and genius in this combat treatise and it shows in the dedication and amount of personal time that he has taken to bring this Western martial art to the masses.

How many of us have attended seminars on the entire system and have walked away awed, and at the same time, slack jawed and brain fried? I must admit that while the coolness factor of being introduced to the entire manuscript was high, my retention of the presented information was frustratingly low. It had nothing to do with teaching style; it was information overload. You simply cannot live your life in one day, or two for that matter. The purpose of the focused seminar was about quality, not quantity. The focused
seminar was to give students the fundamentals of the Fiore system so that when they left, they would actually retain a lot of that to which they were introduced and be able to start putting into practice what they had learned.

Day one started off with a historical discussion of Fiore dei Liberi and the world in which he lived. In order to understand the art properly, you cannot separate it from its history. Fiore lived in a violent age where one could live or die by the dagger or sword at any moment. Imagine being assassinated in a church before the altar. It was imperative that the noblemen who employed him, know how to defend themselves against brigand and political rival alike. Through this brief history of Fiore, we learned that the man lived what he preached, much to the dismay and subsequent embarrassment of the other masters that challenged him.

After the history, Bob talked briefly about the various existing manuscripts, the Pisani Dossi (Novati), the Morgan Pier Point, and the focus of Bob's translation efforts, the Getty manuscript. He discussed briefly how they differed from each other both stylistically and what sections were not included.

Once the slide and historical section of the seminar was complete, it was time to move into the wrestling section. The foundation for all that follows. Without the foundation, what we learn is only so much speculation and wild flailing of arms and weapons. Fiore's system builds upon the basics. Starting with just the hand and body and advancing into dagger and then larger weapons and finally armour and mounted combat. The entire manuscript as we had learned in a previous seminar was simply too much information even with two whole days.

Once we were ready to begin the hands on portion, Bob started us off with a talk on safety and the importance of listening and stopping when asked to do so. The idea was to walk through each drill so that there were no injuries.

Next he worked us through a series of exercises meant to get the blood flowing and limber up. These were great! No expensive gym or weights, just the use of your own body. Though I have to say that I never realized I had so many muscles that I rarely used.

Once everyone was warmed up, we learned some really basic Italian and applied it to drills in preparation for going through the plays. This gave us the opportunity to work on our 'elephant', balance and footing, passing, staying on and going off the line, and the importance of remaining on balls of your foot for quick movement out of harm's way. Also a recurrent instruction was designed to get students to realize the difference between using one's skeleton vs. one's muscles to make a play.

Control. It applies to everyone using the martial arts. You had to be able to pull a blow or stop your hand/weapon short if things looked to be going wrong. The controlled drills that Bob put us through were designed to teach us the basic techniques and to build trust with our partners. It makes the difference in pulling off a play with finesse or seriously hurting your friends especially when carrying the play to fruition (going to the ground). When done correctly can be a real eye opener. One second you're standing, the next you're on the ground wondering how you got there.

From the point of view of a participant of several Historical Western Martial seminars over the past half decade, the approach of a seminar geared to actually retaining the fundamentals of a system is a refreshing change. I had the pleasure of attending two of Bob's Fiore seminars that were a basic overview of the system - the first a day one seminar, and the second a two-day approach. In both cases, the sheer amount of information was too much to even begin to retain anything but the sketchiest of information. The two day approach did at least allow for some small bit of information to be retained.

To begin to understand Fiori, and to take away any knowledge, one must understand that the core of the system is based on the concepts first shown in his instruction regarding unarmed combat, and that the system itself does not change regardless of how the student is variously armed or armoured. Bob's new approach to teaching allows him to impart to the student the basics of the system.

I highly recommend any student of Western Martial arts - even ones who have studied Fiore dei Liberi previously to take what should, and I believe will become the "primer" seminar for any serious study of the system. I would say I heartily recommend the seminar to the student, but instead I find myself encouraging Bob to make this a core requirement before teaching any more advanced technique.