Sword to Sword is proud to present our 2025 European Seminar Series!
Each year since 2022 Sword to Sword has endeavored to bring some of the best instructors and competitors from the European HEMA scene to give attendees an opportunity to experience the unique perspectives these coaches have to offer, and to make friends with some of the greatest fencers in Europe!
Our 2025 iteration of the Seminar Series will be no different, offering a total of seven seminars spread out over six months and covering a multitude of disciplines ranging from La Verdadera Destreza to Longsword mechanics to more broadly applicable teaching and training methodologies.
Workshops will range in duration from 2 hours for weeknight seminars to 3-4 hours for weekend classes, and tickets can be purchased for full access to all seven seminars or for individual workshops. Additionally, most instructors will be offering private lessons for the duration of their stay- please contact us for more details regarding scheduling and availability.
Registration details, full seminar schedule and instructor bios listed below. We look forward to seeing you soon!
*Dates are subject to minor change if required by travel schedules/unforeseen complications.
Table of Contents
2025 Instructors
- August 31st/September 6th: Petr Turya- Czech Republic
- October 19th: Ties Kool- The Netherlands
- November 3rd: Silvia Tomassetti- Italy
- November 3rd: Francesco Loda- Italy
- November 16th: Ton Puey- Spain
- November 23rd: Kristian Ruokonen- Finland
- March, 15th (2026): Miro Lahtela- Finland
Petr Turya
Visiting from the Czech Republic, Peter is a fencer, sports therapist, translator, and publisher. He has been practicing historical fencing since 1997, and is the Co-founder of Saint Michael’s fencer’s guild – Guildam gladiatorum sancti Michaelis. Translator and author of historical manuals, published in Czech and English.
Master of the seven knightly weapons – longsword, dussack, dagger, rapier, Stangelin, Staff and Halberd, as well as a skilled wrestler, he is a representative and follower of the German written tradition with a focus on Joachim Meyer as a peak of Lichtenauer’s tradition. Also representative of Citizen fencing – burgher fechten of the Federfechter and Marxbruder lineage with a general focus on Bloss Fechten.
Peter will be giving two seminars this year: the first focusing on both fencing fitness and sparring games, with the second being an introduction the more historical training methods of the Guildam Gladiatorum Sancti Michaelis and their focus on the Blossfechten tradition.
Ties Kool
Ties Kool began practicing HEMA in 2003 after engaging in various other sports. He quickly joined the instructor team, where he was responsible for sport-didactics. In 2006, he organized the club’s first internal tournament and served as head coach for the tournament team, which was a dominant force in the competition circuit at the time.
In 2015, Ties founded HVN – Historisch Vrijvechten Nederland, which has since become one of the leading HEMA clubs in the Netherlands, frequently seen on tournament podiums clad in orange shirts. From 2013 onwards, he began actively competing across multiple weapon categories. His most notable victories include winning the 2015 Nordic Historic Fencing League, the 2017 Longpoint Triathlon, and the 2019 Longpoint Pentathlon. Over the course of his competitive career, he has secured podium placements in nearly 100 tournaments.
Ties has played a major role in organizing several of Europe’s prominent HEMA events, including ILHG, DLC, and Swordfish, and has served as tournament manager for various other large-scale competitions. He has taught workshops internationally, in countries such as Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czechia, England, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Russia, Scotland, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, and the USA.
Outside of HEMA, Ties works as a Personal Trainer and Performance Coach at a high-end gym, where he supports clients with recovery, nutrition, and training. He is also partly responsible for the development and delivery of the gym’s in-house education program.
Ties’ workshop will be split into 3 parts.
– Technical workshop: Purposeful Practising Durchwechseln
o With the Durchwechseln as our set up we will go through a series of exercises from teaching the basics to drilling it as a response to specific queues. While we’re working on this, Ties will take us through the various steps of learning and mastering a new technique. We will touch on concepts like Purposeful Practise, Talent vs Hard work and creating reflexes.
– Sparring workshop: Do what you can’t
o We will go through various sparring games, drills and set ups. The focus is on giving you a chance to practise everything the longsword has to offer, without all the thinking. We will use Brazillian Futboll as a reference, I’ll explain later.
– Free Sparring: Put it all in practise and have fun!
Francesco Loda
Francesco will be giving a 90 minute class teaching maneuvers with the Indian spear, merging both practical application with stage combat elegance and showmanship.
Silvia Tomassetti
Silvia Tomassetti, designer and elected politician, is an Instructor-at-arms and former State Police judo athlete, and assistant stunt coordinator.
After the Judo career in the “Fiamme Oro” Police team, Silvia embraced her passion for the Western Martial Arts in 2011. She placed consistently in national and international Longsword and Rapier competitions, gaining 5 Gold, 4 Silver and 13 Bronze medals and being selected for the 2nd European Games (2019).
She studied fencing and Hema under the tutelage of M° Francesco Lodà, graduated as an Instructor in 2017 with a thesis on teaching historical fencing to the youth (6-17 y.o.). As a sport executive, in 2018 she became Managing Partner of Accademia Romana d’Armi, and has been one the main organizers of Italian AIMA ROMA and ACE (2016-2023), respectively among two of the biggest european clubs and events dedicated to Hema. As a researcher, she lectured about the connections of Family Marcelli’s fencing in Rome, Queen Christine of Sweden and Papal politics during the end of XVIIth Century.
Silvia will be teaching a 90 minute lesson on wrestling according to HEMA sources, beginning with basic principles and ending with takedown techniques. As the German master Hanko Döbringer wrote: Everything is Wrestling!
Ton Puey
Ton Puey is the technical director and Master of Arms of Academia da Espada, focused on the study of la Verdadera Destreza with the weapons of greatest splendor of the discipline, such as the rapier, alone or combined with dagger, buckler or rodela, and polearms in addition to work in the interpretation of the rules of the montante of the 16th and 17th centuries and the study and interpretation of the other fencing of the Iberian peninsula, especially the only known preserved treaty not belonging to the Verdadera Destreza, the “Art of Fencing” by Domingo Luiz Godinho.
In addition to his usual work as an instructor in A Coruña, Galicia, he has taught seminars in France, Austria, Italy, Holland, Ireland, Greece, USA, Mexico, Australia, Poland, Russia, Sweden, China, Portugal and Spain
In 2015 he is recognized as Mestre de Armas by HEMA Portugal and in 2018 as the first Non-Italian Historical Fencing Master by the Italian Fencing Federation.
Ton will be giving classes on the usage of the rapier in the Spanish tradition of Destreza for fencers of all experience levels.
Kristian Ruokonen
Kristian Ruokonen started sport fencing at the age of 9, fencing epee for 10 years before switching to HEMA.
He has been involved in historical fencing for the past 15+ years. Kristian’s main interests is German longsword, though he dabbles also in “funny weapons = everything else” He has participated in competitive HEMA in Europe & the US with some success.
Kristian also is one of the instructors in Espoo Association for Historical Fencing (EHMS), Finland.
Kristian will be giving a workshop on Rivalry Drills, during which you will look at drills, where both you and your opponent are working on opposing tasks. You will learn how to practice both first intention attacks and feints, so that both of you are maximizing learning time and performing real actions, instead of having a scripted drill.
Miro Lahtela
Miro Lahtela is a distinguished HEMA practitioner with an impressive decade-long journey in historical European martial arts. Specializing in German longsword and wrestling, he has established himself as a world-class competitor and instructor.
Competitive Achievements
– Currently ranked #3 globally in Longsword
– Top fighter in multiple weapon disciplines:
– Sword and Buckler (#7 worldwide)
– Sidesword (Top 1%)
– Rapier & Dagger (Top 4%)
– Sabre (Top 1%)
International Experience
Miro has competed, medaled, and taught across Europe, bringing a wealth of international expertise to his instruction. His comprehensive understanding of various weapon systems makes him a sought-after instructor in the HEMA community.
Teaching Philosophy
Known for his technical precision and deep understanding of historical combat techniques, Miro offers students a rare opportunity to learn from a top-tier practitioner who bridges academic research with practical martial arts skills.
Workshop- Distance and desicions the Lichtenauer way:
Often, the main problem we face when adapting source based fencing into competitions is usually finding the correct technique to the correct situation. Happily, the Pseudo-Von Danzig and Ringeck manuscripts give us some great tools to simplify these decisions. From distance, we’ll be looking at assaulting various guards with different masterstrikes. At the bind, we’ll look at winding our sword to gain advantage. And from cross to cross, we’ll decide between wrestling and cutting around.
