About

Steve Kemp

Co-founder & Instructor

Steve has been studying and practising the fighting system of Fiore dei Liberi for over two decades. He discovered the world of Historical European Martial Arts around 2000, at a time when a broken hand was keeping him off the mats. A friend handed him a stack of literature about medieval European fighting systems, and something clicked immediately:

“It was this whole world of European martial arts that no one knows about.”

He began training in HEMA around 2003 and has been immersed in Fiore's system ever since. He can walk you through every section of the Fior di Battaglia: from the unarmed wrestling through the dagger, longsword in two hands and one, spear, and pollaxe. He knows how to read the manuscript illustrations — where the crowns and garters mark the masters, scholars, and counter-masters at each level of the art — and he understands how Fiore's plays flow from one position into the next.

Before HEMA, Steve spent years in other martial arts. He has practised since the age of ten, holds multiple black belts, and trained in Wing Chun, judo, jujitsu, and karate. He used to teach self-defence to doormen in London. That breadth of practical combat experience gives his teaching a directness that is hard to find elsewhere. When Steve teaches you a technique from the manuscript, he is not guessing whether it works. He has tested it against resisting opponents across multiple disciplines for decades.

In those early HEMA years, Steve trained the members of The Exiles, the HEMA network that has since grown into the largest in the UK with clubs from Bromley up to Carlisle — all of them, like us, studying the system of Fiore. The connection is one of family.

He co-founded HEMA Penzance in 2014 with one aim: to teach Fiore's complete system as a real, living martial art. Not a re-enactment hobby, not a costume exercise. A martial art with real contact, real pressure, and real intent. His philosophy is direct:

“When we train, it is 1410.”

Steve has a gift for making the art accessible. In a 2023 interview on BBC Radio Cornwall, he explained Fiore's grappling-based sword system by referencing the moment in a film where two swordsmen are locked face to face: “This is the bit where Fiore teaches you to beat this man.” Then he taught the radio presenter a dagger disarm live on air. That is Steve: encyclopaedic knowledge of the source material, real combat experience to back it up, and the ability to make you understand it in thirty seconds.

Steve was interviewed by Julie Skentelbery on BBC Radio Cornwall in July 2023. You can listen to the full interview on BBC Sounds.

Andrew Elcox

Co-founder & Instructor

Andrew co-founded the club alongside Steve in 2014. He is an exceptional swordsman and one of those rare people who lives and breathes the art completely. Ask him about any passage in Fiore's manuscripts and he will quote it back to you virtually word for word. That kind of knowledge does not come from reading alone. It comes from decades of putting steel in hand and testing every word on the page.

His deep understanding of the source material is what gives the club its edge. When Andrew teaches a technique, he can tell you exactly why it works, where it sits in the system, and what the master was thinking when he wrote it down. The difference between learning a movement and understanding a movement is everything in martial arts. Andrew teaches understanding.

Fiore's system is built on principles that connect across every weapon. The same concepts that govern the unarmed grapple govern the dagger, the longsword, and the pollaxe. Andrew sees those connections instinctively and teaches them in a way that makes the whole system come alive. When he quotes Fiore in a session, it is not for show. It is because the master's own words are still the best way to explain what you are about to learn.