Jessica Finley has been involved in swordfighting for seventeen years and has been practicing German medieval martial arts for twelve years now.  Her favorite weapon is “probably” the longsword, but she has come to adore armoured fighting. She finds that weight and reach deficits are much less important in armour. A recent demo of her armoured fighting at Longpoint:

Her home Club is Selohaar Fechtschule; she is in the process of starting a new club in her new hometown of Canton, Georgia. Jessica also makes awesome medieval gambesons, wrestling jackets and other historical attire. Check out her website. We are finally able  to buy her book on German medieval wrestling here.

An amusing sidenote: At a recent academic conference her upcoming book was mentioned in her speaker’s introduction. The lady who introduced her added the editorial statement quote “She looks entirely too feminine to have authored that.”

We beg to disagree, you can’t possibly be too feminine to be that badass!

Here is Jessica’s story in her own words:

My first sword instructor was for a type of stage combat that was closer to what the reenactment groups in Europe do… limited target areas, no choreography (and no armor) but we weren’t trying to injure one another either.  I found out about this group starting up that my boyfriend had been invited to and I demanded that I go as well.

I was nineteen years old, weighed 115 pounds, and loved to wear clothes from the sixties and seventies.  I showed up to my first sword practice wearing bell bottoms, a midriff top, and clogs.  But I loved it, and kept showing up.

Photo: Roland Warzecha

My instructor and friend later told me that when I first came to practice, he had thought to himself “I’m going to hit this little hippie real hard one time and she’ll quit.  But Jess,” he said, “you outlasted us all, and did more with it than we ever did.”

So I would say to anyone in pursuit of this Art:  keep hunting for your expression of the art form.  Nobody ends up where they started from.

Photo: Chris Valli

Kastenbrust, arms and legs are by Trilobyte Armoury The helmet is from Windrose Armoury.
The wrappenrock and pourpoint are made by Fuhlen Designs.