Keith Farrell is one of the senior instructors for the Academy of Historical Arts. He teaches HEMA professionally, often at international events, and has an interest in coaching instructors to become better teachers. His main area of expertise is fencing with the two-handed longsword according to the teachings of 15th century masters in the Liechtenauer tradition. However, he also enjoys fencing with the Scottish basket-hilted broadsword, with the sabre, and with a variety of different swords!
Keith has authored several books for Fallen Rook Publishing, including Scottish Broadsword and British Singlestick and the award-winning AHA German Longsword Study Guide. He maintains an active blog, posting at least once a week, and has also had several articles and interviews published in a variety of magazines and journals.
He teaches regularly at Liverpool HEMA, and helps behind the scenes with running HEMA in Glasgow at the Vanguard Centre.
He has been a member of HEMAC since 2011 and was awarded a HEMA Scholar Award for Best Instructor for research published in 2013. Although not a competitive person by nature, Keith has won several medals in karate and historical fencing tournaments around the world.
Read my recent articles
- Trust and the fabric of society
What a grand title. Trust is really important for people to share in many aspects of life – that should not come as a shock to anyone. But how much of a role does it play in martial arts clubs or other shared-interest communities? In this article, I would like … - Swords, sex, and the GDPR
(Possibly a contender for the most interesting title of an article talking about the GDPR?) This is going to be an article about consent and “opting in” when participating in martial arts, using examples that we are familiar with (or should be!) from everyday life. It is something that I … - Can you wear medieval armour to a longsword tournament?
A few months ago, there was an interesting question on Reddit, which I attempted to answer. I would like to expand upon my answer a little and to preserve it here on my website, because it is a question I see every so often, and I do like to have … - Matt Galas on the history of HEMA – reposting a summary from c.2005
Here is a write-up on the history of HEMA that I did back around 2005, to give a bit of perspective on where we are and where we came from. Please note that this is a copy & paste of the article that I wrote at that time, which was … - Thinking about success and failure during training
When we are training martial arts, or any other challenging endeavour such as a sport or a musical instrument or some form of DIY or craft skill, we experience both success and failure. What is a healthy way of understanding these experiences? Sometimes we have more successes and those practice … - Saying yes and no to things
Something that I have been thinking about a lot recently is the duality between saying yes to one thing and saying no to another. Simply by saying yes to one thing, I must necessarily say no to another, and vice versa. Therefore, deciding or agreeing to do something requires a … - Pressure, threat, and stress in martial arts
People often use the word pressure when talking about martial arts. It is quite a useful word, and it can be used to mean many different things. However, that also means that it can sometimes confuse matters slightly, when the instructor uses the word pressure to mean one thing and … - Sparring with different levels of intensity
A question came up on Reddit recently (thread) about fencing with synthetic or steel swords, and I made my usual reply that I don’t think it matters much from which material the swords are made (from the perspective of safety), but that it is much more important how you act …