Your instructor

John Dickens

John founded Buffalo Historical Fencing to bring a particular style of historical fencing to the Buffalo area. Before moving to Buffalo he founded and led HEMA Lexington in Kentucky, building the program from the ground up.

He's studied historical fencing since 2012. He started in the Liechtenauer tradition — the Ringeck, Pseudo-Peter von Danzig, and Lew glosses — before making Joachim Meyer's 1570 The Foundational Description of the Art of Fencing the core of his early period studies. He cannot decide if he likes Marcelli's or Fabris' rapier treatise the best. He has a long standing interest in late 19th-century fencing, particularly Gustav Arlow's Italo-Hungarian system of saber.

That study is grounded in a broad athletic background: he's cross-trained in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, kickboxing, sanda, tai chi, and Olympic fencing. He's also been influenced by the coaching work of Winkleman and the coaching Ecological Approach of Robert Grey, while keeping the best of the traditional fencing training. John is very lucky to have been guided by Travis Mayott, Stephen Cheney, Frank Thomisizer, Russ Mitchell, Sean Franklin, and many, many others.

He's the first to say he's a better coach than competitor — the medals he's proudest of are the ones his students have received, including Michele Gulley and Addison Foley. His teaching philosophy is simple: have fun and get better at fencing.