Talk:Peter Woodward

Filmography
Well, the Filmography part should start with the earliest films, and end with the most recent. You can restructure it if you want! :-) XavierTheGreat 01:57, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

We need a picture. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.226.182.163 (talk) 16:31, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Weapons
The Historical Arms Community does NOT consider him an expert in the field of historical weapon use, though his ability in the very different field of stage combat is not at issue. Conquest has been discussed to death on all forums dedicated to the subject of historical weapon use, and very little of what has been show on the show has proven to be accurate.

An example is as follows. During the show on the axe: As there is no surviving documentation on the techniques used with Viking Axes, (as there is with other weapons, such as the German Longsword, in the form of more then a dozen fencing manuals,) Woodward declared the axe to be a purely offensive weapon. He has no evidence for this conclusion, and the small amount of avalible evidence is contray to his conclusion. Viking Sagas specially mention the use of the axe for defense. They did not however, record the technique used. In such a case as this, the correct thing to do is to declare that an absence of information prevents reaching a definitive conclusion about how something was done, and not to declare that it was not done. In the same show, The Danish axe was provided to his followers, in a form which much have been more then three times as heavy as a historical axe.

Woodward has never been invited to teach at a seminar in the Historical Martial Arts Community, and has never been invited to submit an article to one of the peer-reviewed journals of the Historical Martial Arts Community. Stage fighting and Historical Martial Arts are very different fields of study, and expertise in one has little to do with expertise in the other.


 * Not sure why you posted this in both the article and the discussion page without any comment; in either event you may want to check out the wikipedia policies on original research and neutral point-of-view (WP:NOR)). --Thessaly 05:34, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

HEMA - Practitioner?
"Woodward's dramatic combat training inspired him to study historical weaponry and combat techniques, an area in which he is now considered quite knowledgeable." There is no reliable source which proves this statement. Peter Woodward is known as a actor and fight arranger, also an expert for stage combat in general. But there is no sign of studying him Historical European Martial Arts or being an acknowledged expert of medieval swordplay. It is nothing new that modern stage combat and HEMA are often confused, but they are different things. His TV-show Conquest just shows that he has been never engaged in work with medieval and renaissance fighting manuals. So he can not be considered as a competent person relating to HEMA. There is almost no sword myth existing, which was spared at "Conquest" - heavy clumsy swords, strength and not skill, bashing at armour with the cutting edge, etc. Perpetuating myths does show ignorance, not competence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gladifer (talk • contribs) 10:56, 10 April 2010 (UTC)