The Art and Science of Sword Fighting: A Complete Instructional Guide

Well put together, a nice addition to my carafe collection

We purchased this as a gift for my son. He creates comics and stop-motion videos, and wanted a resource to help him more accurately portray sword fighting scenes. The detailed explanations, diagrams, and photos all have been a great help. As an added bonus, he has enjoyed the references and quotes from well known sword fighting scenes in movies.

The book is really amazing, I've only had for a short bit and barely scratched the surface, but already amazed at the amount of material covered. There are enough exercises and drills that if using as a training guide every day and learning and practicing 3-4 new lessons/drill each day, would take you several months to cover them all .. and that would be at a fairly break neck pace. Easily could take a few years to really absorb all of the lessons laid out in this book The drills aren't presented as just rote description of moves or steps to memorize , or list of steps in a "kata" like many Martial Art books are; rather each section and drill is packed with tons of nuance and details that really go into the "why" of each technique, what is and is not effective, and theory of when/why you'd chose one technique over another. The material is very well laid out and you can tell how passionate the author is about the subject matter , and that he has given alot of time and thought into how to best lay out the sequential lessons in an easy and informative manner. Whether you are a beginner, solo practioner, or vetran Martial Artist I guarantee this book will help you improve your weapon skills with a sword.

Straight-forward, no frills, leveled for anyone, I highly recommend this book. Like all of Joe Varady's books in the Art and Science series (Staff Fighting, Stick Fighting, and Self-Defense), this one follows a logical progression of skill sets, each building upon the one before. Well-written all around, and with well-considered pictures to go along with the text, there's plenty here to build upon from beginner- to expert-level training. Highly recommended! I would also highly recommend the DVD to accompany the book. Having the techniques demoed for you as you read gives perspective on angles and movements that you might otherwise miss from still photos.

If you’re looking for a good training manual, I suggest you buy this. It’s good if you want to learn just a little brief history on swords with how they differ and what type of stains you can use for.