User:Stephen Hand

Stephen Hand was born in Hobart, Tasmania in 1964. In 1979 he joined a medieval re-enactment group and soon came to the conclusion that medieval swordsmanship must have been more sophisticated than the made up style being used by re-enactors. For several years he studied modern fencing and kendo before discovering that there were surviving historical fencing manuals. Moving to Sydney in 1989 Stephen joined an Early Modern re-enactment society where several members had been following the same path.

Coming to the conclusion that there were no worthwhile secondary sources Stephen decided to analyse two historical manuals, George Silver’s Bref Instruction Upon my Paradoxes of Defence and Vincentio Saviolo His Practise line by line.

A series of articles by Stephen, analysing the latter manual was published in the magazine Hammerterz Forum between 1997 and 1999. In 1998 Stephen founded the Stoccata School of Defence along with Andrew Brew and Peter Radvan. Since 2000 Stephen has travelled internationally on a regular basis to teach historical fencing where he has been a popular teacher at swordplay symposia and in his own seminars. He won the rapier fencing tournament at Western Martial Arts Workshop in New York in 2001. Stephen was the editor of two volumes of SPADA, collections of papers on various historical fencing topics and has published Medieval Sword and Shield (with Paul Wagner), an analysis of the combat system of MSS. I.33, the world’s oldest fencing manual and English Swordsmanship, an analysis of George Silver’s works. Stephen has also published a number of other articles and book chapters.

In 2004 Stephen returned to his native Tasmania where he runs a branch of Stoccata and choreographs swordfights in local stage and film productions. In 2015 Stephen was Head Judge at the resurrected World Broadsword Championships, held in Sydney for the first time since 1891. His current students gained second and third place in the senior division, only being beaten by Stephen's former student (now fellow Stoccata instructor) Paul Wagner. Stephen's son Lewis won the junior division.

Stephen is married with two children, the eldest of whom now regularly beats him in bouting.

Wiktenauer contributions

None.

Publications

Stephen Hand has produced or contributed to the following books and journal articles.

Author

• Hand, Stephen (2002). "Spanish Influence in the Rapier Play of Vincentio Saviolo." Spada: Anthology of Swordsmanship 1: 132-149. Union City: Chivalry Bookshelf. ISBN 978-1-891448-37-9.

Editor

• Hick, Steve (2002). "Dom Duarte and his advice on swordsmanship." Spada: Anthology of Swordsmanship 2: 65-71. Ed. by Stephen Hand. Union City, CA: Chivalry Bookshelf. ISBN 978-1-891448-37-9.