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MATT EASTON
Matt Easton is a martial arts teacher and
arms and armour researcher from London, now living in Guildford. His weekly
class is SG1 in Ealing, West London.
Matt has been involved with historical European martial arts (HEMA) since 1997
and has been teaching since 2000, establishing Schola Gladiatoria in 2001.
Schola Gladiatoria has gone on to become one of the most well-known HEMA groups
in Europe. Matt is the main organiser of FightCamp, one of the biggest annual
HEMA events. Matt was a founding member of HEMAC, the Historical European
Martial Arts Coalition.
Previous to HEMA, Matt studied modern fencing
(foil and sabre) and kung fu, and he has been involved with longbow archery
since the age of 16. Matt's HEMA career started as a student of The Company of
Maisters, later joining The Exiles Company of Medieval Martial Artists, of which
he became co-director. During this time he began his study of Fiore dei Liberi's
treatises, assisting his Italian friend, Eleonora Durban, to produce the first
English translation of the Getty version of Fiore's treatise 'Il Fior di
Battaglia'. Matt started to receive invitations to teach at international
events, and having already established a training group based in Ealing, in 2001
Schola Gladiatoria was officially named and founded.
Since 2000, Matt has
taught his interpretation of Fiore's fighting system at events in the UK,
France, Italy, Austria, Germany, Poland and Sweden. Matt added British military
sabre to his repertoire and started teaching that at international events in
2008. He has presented to a wide range of audiences, from academics and museum
staff to martial artists and the public.
Matt has ranked highly in several major HEMA
competitions, and has won the Glorianna Cup, the BFHS longsword competition and
the FightCamp Assault at Arms.
Matt attained a BA(hons) in Medieval Archaeology from the Institute of
Archaeology (UCL) in 2000, writing his dissertation on the development of 13th
and 14th century armour. He has since lectured on the development of arms and
armour at the Wallace Collection, the Tower of London, the Royal Armouries in
Leeds, to the Armour Research Society, the British Arms and Armour Society and
at two International Arms and Armour Conferences in Florence and Vienna.
Matt is also an avid
collector of antique swords and other weapons.
PAUL BENNETT
Paul is an instructor at SG6 in Bradford and
also runs sessions in Manchester. He teaches German longsword and 19th/20th
century walking stick defence.
Paul began his martial arts career by studying various forms of karate and
aikido from the age of 12 onwards. He found HEMA in 2004, starting with rapier
and quickly going on to study the Liechtenauer medieval armed combat tradition.
He has recently branched out into the cane defence system of A C Cunningham.
He has taught workshops at international HEMA events in the UK and abroad and
runs the annual "Pas d'Armes" tournament at FightCamp.
COLIN
FIELDHOUSE Colin
Fieldhouse is an assistant instructor at SG6 in Bradford.
Colin has had an interest in swordsmanship since his mid-teens. Before finding
HEMA he took up modern fencing (sabre), before also studying Kendo at Bramhall
Kendo Club near Stockport.
Colin has been studying HEMA since 2003, initially with the KdF in Leeds where
he studied German Longsword and Sword and Buckler based on the I.33 manuscript.
In 2008 he was invited by Paul Bennett to help start a chapter of Schola
Gladiatoria in Bradford and became the assistant instructor to the group.
As well as helping teach at the school, he is also studying Fiore Dagger with
Neil Johnson of SG7. During his time spent studying in Bradford he has developed
an interpretation of Le Jeu de la Hache (in conjunction with G.
Richardson), which he presented at FightCamp 2010. He is also actively working
on an interpretation of the 1798/1805 Roworth/Taylor sabre manual which he is
currently teaching to students in Bradford.
Colin took second place in the 'Days of the Blade' longsword competition at the
Knight Shop, Conwy in 2010 and will be competing at FightCamp in 2011, where he
will also be involved in 4 martial challenges.
As part of his day job as a primary school teacher, he runs a weekly
after-school fencing club to teach sabre and longsword to 7-11 year olds.
Colin is currently teaching dagger from the Fiore tradition and British Military
Sabre at SG6.
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