What Is Formerlyme?

FormerlyMe.com presents “Sword Fighting Sessions”

WHAT IS FORMERLYME?

Jim West

FormerlyMe is an online movement to motivate and inspire people to become the best version of themselves by showing them my journey and experience in trying a new workout and lifestyle regime every 30 days. Every post, update, and video is ‘formerly me’ as I endeavor to become the best version of myself and become FormerlyMe. Each month CP Magazine will showcase a part of my journey to becoming the best version of myself. I hope that in turn this inspires and motivates you to start your own journey as well. For this month’s story we will focus on the “Sword Fighting Sessions” days of my journey.

From the 80’s Highlander films and TV series to Star Wars to just about every samurai movie, I have always imagined being a sword fighter and swinging cardboard tubes or sticks around like I was the heroes on screen. I came across Sword to Sword of Houston and schedule six classes to learn German Longsword. I was excited to imagine myself in epic battles against knights in shining armor and duels to the death.

My private lessons were given by Nathan Grepares who began studying German Longsword at Sword To Sword in 2009, and since then has travelled to Europe a number of times for training and competition. Nathan is an internationally renowned fighter with good standing in the world HEMA scene. In 2014, he placed fourth in Swordfish, the world’s most prestigious Longsword competition. We started with footwork and fundamentals of cutting. Nathan was able to have me slicing and dicing in no time at all. The lessons really become super fun and tiring when we would do sparring drills. Sometimes we would only use gloves as try to hit each other. It was very challenging because Nathan is so swift and dexterous. When we switched to using swords, it was nearly impossible to land a hit on him. Yet I eventually managed to get some lucky cuts in in our last session.

What made the lessons very special was not only the act of sword fighting itself, but the wealth of knowledge and history that Nathan was able to teach me about this art. How the old German transcripts were meticulously translated to preserve the techniques and style of fighting. It really opened my eyes to the beauty and brutality of the art of sword fighting. Find out more about Nathan and Sword to Sword at SwordToSword.net.

Follow my journey online at FormerlyMe.com and on the YouTube channel. Next month I will cover my return to Legacy Barbell and Gene Labrada for more weight training. Until next time that has been FormerlyMe! facebook.com/FormerlyMe twitter.com/MeFormerly instagram.com/formerlymeofficial