Today’s (very late) offering is dominated by the Pacific – not exactly the first place that comes to mind if you’re challenged to name the top-three hotbeds of WMA-HEMA activity. However, if you live or work along the Pacific coast or serve anywhere atop it… chances are that you’re going to be involved with a sword sometime sooner rather than later.Prolific and Professional along the Pacific?

TIMES-COLONIST (Victoria, BC) 26 June 12 The sword and the silver screen (Michael D. Reid)

MAPLE RIDGE NEWS (British Columbia) 19 June 12 All hail the mighty sword (Monisha Martins)

Braun McAsh and the ‘Ring of Steel’ WMA Academy are working hard – and uphill – to adjust some islanders’ … and film directors’ …preconceptions of what swords are, are for and how they should be used … properly.

McAsh: "A lot of people get their sense of history from movies, not from books, and they've been shown the wrong way so many times, they assume it's the right way … " Mr McAsh has spent four decades studying, practicing, teaching and consulting on “professional violence”.

“Another Hollywood misconception he passionately dispels is that martial arts is strictly the domain of Asian combatants … "We've been culturally inculcated into thinking that," he said. "Martial arts is a fighting art. The European arts are just as old and have as much validity. The irony is we've been ignoring our own martial-arts heritage, almost to the point [that it has] disappeared …If we don’t understand where we came from, it is very hard to understand where we are going to go."

Right now, the cities of Vancouver, Seattle and Maple Ridge are well able to demonstrate that the Pacific Coast is active with groups of fit people working with medieval texts and renaissance steel in full-contact ‘discussions’. Not bad for a group of granola-swilling, hemp-clothed, ‘lefties’!

Editorial Note: To those that don’t usually work with Canadian-English (eh); a ‘leftie’ is not one who ‘fights left’ … though apparently, some can.

Obscure Swords – err, We meant Obscure Wrestling

THE MORNING BULLETIN (Rockhampton, Australia) 28 June 12 Swords by the side in medieval fun (Austin King)

Sometimes you don’t have to be a ‘hard’ WMA-HEMA group or activity to get mentioned in our press collection … just make sure that the journalist mentions ‘fiore’. We’ll find you.

And just in time to help recognise our southern peers and their Independence Day celebrations today - Swords of Honor … spelled the American way …

WFXL (Albany, Georgia) 01 July 12 Marines take a stab at sword training (Romney Smith) 01 July 12

Most of us know that swords are still used by a lot of militaries as weapons of honour or authority during ceremonial events. But does modern sword drill have anything to offer the WMA student?

How about some experienced guidance on the attitude and concentration necessary to fully benefit from your training time working with swords?

Sword Drill Instructor Gunnery Sergeant Schiess: “Since the Marines are all about precision and detail, they practice the same movements dozens of times during one practice. “Repetition is everything. That’s how you build your muscle memory ... everything is repetition. Repetition is so you can do it without thinking about it … You don’t have to think about it because your muscle automatically gets you there.”

Snippets:

BANGKOK POST (Thailand) 03 July 12 Live by the sword

The trials of trying to maintain a sword-making capacity in a time when social interest in them is declining and traditional blade-forging skills are ‘greying out’.