Swords in the Time of Corona

Book excerpt: When this coronavirus, SARS-CoV-19, emerged at the beginning of 2020, I didn’t worry too much about it, because I recognised it as being outside my area of control. There was nothing for me to do, so I just ignored it. Then bit by bit things started to change—the twin threats of death by plague and economic ruin came front and center into our collective awareness. As lockdown progressed it was soon obvious that many of my students were struggling. Things they depended on for their physical, mental, and economic health were simply gone. I realised that I had to focus on my core mission, which is to help my students. Normally, that means help them with their sword problems, but the whole point of practising swordsmanship is to improve your quality of life. And not all the help they needed was directly sword related. Then I thought of the things that were working for me: the mental postures learned from swordsmanship training, that were easing my way through lockdown with minimal stress. I started blogging these ideas as they came up, between March and June 2020, and before long was getting requests from readers to create a book of them. So here it is. Guy’s Lockdown Survival Guide, or, Swords in the Time of Corona. Some of the advice here is lockdown-specific, but most of it is applicable to all sorts of crises. I hope you find it useful.