Russ’ goal in writing this book was to create a primer similar to the Spaulding sports pamphlets of the early 1900s and boy howdy does he succeed. If you don’t want to read this review then simply BUY THIS BOOK (links at the end). In full disclosure, I was one of the group of folks who spoke at length with Russ while he was developing this book.
For the other two who will actually read my review, here you go:
The greatest strength of this book is what it does not do – aside from one paragraph Russ doesn’t spend time on the history and context of the spadroon. There are no chapters and chapters worth of research on the word, the various types of spadroon we see, etc. He just jumps in teaching you the bare minimum needed to pick up a spadroon & fence with it. Its 50 pages are packed with information that is not written in an intimidating way – this is Russ talking to you about a cool sword and dropping nuggets of wisdom like “It’s much less important to make a long lunge than it is to do a QUICK one” (p 23). Russ takes a system agnostic approach here focusing on basic footwork (advance, retreat, pass forwards, pass backwards, and lunge), cuts, thrusts, and four guards. This allows enough room for a newcomer to the spadroon to be able to play or for an old hand to be able to find confluence with their system of choice. Most importantly, what Russ provides here is a basic set of terminology and language that will allow people across systems to communicate.
10/10 would recommend