About Lancelot

I, Lancelot, have been practicing swordsmanship since 1994 and started practicing with real swords since 1998. Test cutting for me began around late 90's (1998-1999) from the last century, probably being the first person to use an European longsword to cut Japanese tatami mat, a Glen Parrell custom made bastard sword, which failed miserably. On the other hand, previously I had cut with a Howard Clark 1086 loaned to me by a dentist friend alright.  

https://web.archive.org/web/20020406201337/http://www.vikingmetalworks.com/footsoldier.html

The euro-swords made back then could not handle such target. They do not have the understanding of what I was up against. When I asked for an edge that can handle realistic target, Angus Trim even accused me of planning for mall murder on SFI.

I have been teaching swordsmanship since 2004 and become a full-time teacher as well as sparring sword maker (Realistic Sparring Weapons) since 2005. I was the first person in the world to teach German Longsword swordsmanship in Chinese.

Over the years, I have done full body targeting, full speed, freestyle sparring with many proficient weapon users across the globe. Many of them were national or even global champions of their respective disciplines, while some others were full-time swordsmanship teachers. It is because of this extremely high-level and realistic cross-disciplines sparring experience, using realistic simulators that simulate the actual swords’ shape, weight, balance, length, and momentum, that allows me to have a unique, not-by-the-book understanding of combat situations. Such understanding would differ a lot from dojo style one on one face to face equal setup situations.

Besides unequal weapons setup, I also trained students in various modern scenarios like home defense, corridor defense, multi vs multi, 1 vs multi, staircase combat, protecting VIP, etc., all in various environment with different kind of grounds like cement floor, grass ground, sandy ground, wet muddy ground, in total darkness or rainy stormy days, and more.

Combining my background in European swordsmanship, and later Chinese swordsmanship, I progressively developed my own style of swordsmanship that could handle various situations and weapons that may not have existed in historical setup. This style is called Universal Swordsmanship, the one style that use them all, because it can be applied to any kind of swords, polearms and even unarmed.  

In addition to combat training, I emphasize very much into realistic cutting training, for this is essential to one’s combat ability. I have cut a very wide spectrum of targets, from pork arm to water bottles, from bamboo to tatami, and finally settled on PPR cored soaked newspaper roll with occasional fabric covers, with swords from various historical cultures to fantasy designs, to gain insights on their performance.

I am also a professional sword sharpener due to the necessity and have developed my own method of sharpening using diamond plates along the years, with reference to many top sharpeners’ research. Through a lot of experiment performed at the cost of my very expensive swords with modern alloy like CPM3V at high hardness (61HRC), and exchanging notes with top smiths, I have finalized the angle and grit I would put on the swords so that they can cut even kevlar and still withstand the impact of cutting through living bone hardness material.