Evolution
500 Years of Hand to Hand Combat
The Instructors
Neil Johnson
Neil Johnson grew up in a rural area of East Yorkshire. Unfulfilled by the passing of the seasons and the grim reality of finding a job in Hull when he left school, he decided to study sports science at college. After passing the city and guilds course, he joined the Coldstream Guards and served tours of Northern Ireland and spent the rest of the time travelling the world observing other cultures.
Neil has trained in Karate, Judo, Aikido, Kickboxing and amateur boxing. He spent 3 years training with Matt Easton of Schola Gladiatoria studying Fiore longsword and dagger.
His passion now lies with Dagger and wrestling from the Fiore manuscripts and he is constantly working to improve on perfecting techniques within these sources.
At EVOLUTION Neil will be teaching C15th Grappling and dagger fighting.
Dr Milo Thurston
Dr. Milo Thurston is a practitioner and instructor of historical fencing and pugilism, specialising in an interpretation of Sir William Hope's New, Short and Easy Method of Fencing, c. 1707. He started fencing seriously in 1989, beginning with the modern sport and then moving via classical singlestick, as taught by Professor Bert Bracewell, to historical fencing whilst working at Edinburgh University during the late 1990s. His pugilism experience is based on his own study, since around 2001,
of primarily English but also French historical texts, with some tuition from Terry Brown.
In 1999 Dr. Thurston founded the Linacre School of Defence in Oxford, now based at the university's staff club, in order to continue his study and promotion of these arts. Since that time he has presented seminars in the UK, US, Canada, Germany, Sweden and Australia. He is an certified instructor with the British Federation for Historical Swordplay.
At EVOLUTION Milo will be teaching Classical Pugilism
James Marwood
James Marwood has been involved in martial arts since childhood. For the past 15 years he has focused on practical modern applications, geared towards effective street self defence. He has studied European and eastern arts including boxing, Jujitsu and military combatives, and has been an invited instructor at a large number of international events. James is a member of the Historical European Martial Arts Coalition, the Bartitsu Society and the British Federation for Historical Swordplay.
At REVOLUTION James will be teaching the unarmed combat system of W.E. Fairbairn as taught to Allied Commandos in WWII