At the Vanguard Centre in Glasgow, we have several members of staff, including some incredibly talented instructors. We like to bring modern teaching science into our lessons, to provide the best and most effective learning environment for students.
Meet our team below!
Chief Instructor & Venue Manager: Jonathan Spouge (he/him)
Jonathan is the manager and chief instructor at the Vanguard Centre, working his way up through the ranks since the Centreโs founding in 2015.
He has been interested in military history and armed combat for most of his life, and began his HEMA career in 2010 while at university in Dundee, helping found a student society there. Before the Vanguard Centre, he took part in several university HEMA groups, ran demonstrations for charity, and also founded a youth group to teach children broadsword and singlestick.
Jonathan has taught and fought across the UK, as well as notable trips all over Europe representing the Scottish HEMA scene abroad. He has a box full of medals, several fancy certificates, and just enough head wounds to forget how many head wounds he has suffered.
In addition to his core preferences for German Longsword and British Military Sabre, he dabbles in most HEMA disciplines like a flittering butterfly of brute force and ignorance. Helpfully he learned to shoot a bow as a child, and spent some hazy summers as a younger man playing with longbows in the woods, and has used that experience with Vanguard Centre archery range.
Outside of the Vanguard Centre, he pursues various artistic endeavours, paints toy soldiers, listens to what can generously be described as โmusicโ, and tells appalling jokes. It has been 9/10/11/12/13/14/15/16 years since he last painted himself green.
Instructor: Thierry Flekier-Wathen (he/him)
Thierry began his HEMA journey in 2014 and has focused almost exclusively on British military swordsmanship and English martial arts.
Studying almost every British manual of the single-handed cut-and-thrust weapons of the British Isles. As an antique weapons expert, he also has a focus on historical accuracy and source-based combat.
Having belonged to HEMA clubs up and down the country, he has trained with a wide variety of styles of fencing and has been introduced to many schools of thought about interpreting the single sword. He joined the Vanguard Centre instructing team in 2023.
Previously having taught beginners to British military swordsmanship, he also enjoys blending styles, taking the best parts from a variety of sources to teach interesting “false play” to appose an orthodox “true play” in competitive sparring and tournament settings.
As well as the broadsword, smallsword, and sabre, Thierry has a keen interest in rapier fencing, knife fighting, grappling, and the psychological elements of combat sports!
Instructor & Operations Assistant: David Pharis-Darlugdach (he/him)
David works largely in an administrative capacity within Vanguard, so if you need anything scheduled, ordered, or arranged, he’s your guy! Additionally, David provides some educational services with both Fencing and Archery.
Originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, David helped found the Queen City Sword Guild in that city where he was a lead instructor for beginner fencing for some years.
Primarily interested in Longsword from a German perspective, David’s more recent studies have involved some of the teachings of Phillipo Vadi. Additionally, David is interested in Bolognese Sidesword as written in the Anonymo Bolognese, and some slightly source-agnostic Dagger and Polearm fighting.
He has also been known to spout off at length about Harness combat and horsemanship, and can be found clanking loudly in the Paisley countryside on occasion.
Instructor: Iain Murtagh (he/him)
Iain has been having fun rotating the fighting arts in his head since 2019, beginning with longsword and finding particular enjoyment in the up close and personal of shorter implements, such as rondel dagger and messer.
Being left-handed he brings a delightful twist to body mechanics in grappling and close plays, enjoying the readings of Fiore and Leckรผchner.
Before The Vanguard Center he was a volunteer instructor for the Glasgow University club and found great enjoyment teaching new faces how to move people or not be moved by people.
In his off time he dabbles in all kinds of hand crafts, carving, leatherwork, model building and painting, brewing, and baking.
Instructor: Angus Dingwall (he/him)
Angus started his HEMA journey over 10 years ago in ลtepoti/Dunedin in Aotearoa/New Zealand where he joined the renaissance rapier group that was starting at his university. were he fell in love with Capo Ferro’s rapier. From then on as he travelled the world Angus trained with a few other clubs. After a stint in the Metropolitan Bartitsu club in London and then came to Glasgow where he joined vanguard.
While his love for rapier has never died out, Angus’ current interest is I.33 Sword and Buckler, but also holds a great fascination for early modern sources from Italy, and talking about the more mental and tactical sides of sword fighting.
When not at Vanguard Angus works as a chef, and enjoys video games, table top gaming, and a bunch of half-started crafting projects.
Instructor: Adam Gill (he/him)
Adam started shooting with us in 2016, and joined as an instructor in 2024. Adam is a purist archer, but we don’t hold that against him, and specialises in Olympic style shooting. He has learned the process of shooting and bow maintenance over the years, happy to help with anyone who needs advice on shooting style or kit maintenance and never far from his wax stick for a dry string.
Adam has, so far, been an IT consultant, ran a nightclub for a few years, worked as a nurse during a historic pandemic, now working as a research nurse on the next generation of medical interventions. A consumate nerd, he’s always happy to learn something new, keen to promote archery through the club and take it to competition level so we can bring home some medals to compete with the sword fighters.
Director: Keith Farrell (he/him)
Behind the scenes, Keith does most of the paperwork and admin to keep the organisation running. It’s not a fun job, but someone has to do it! He has been involved with the Vanguard Centre since it first opened in 2015.
He has been the chief instructor at Liverpool HEMA since 2017, and makes trips up to Glasgow from time to time to visit the Centre and to teach some lessons. His main area of expertise is fencing with the longsword โ but he also enjoys several different martial arts and HEMA disciplines! His background is in karate and he received a 3rd Dan from the Shoto Budo organisation.
Keith has authored several books and articles, and runs Fallen Rook Publishing. He creates and hosts a variety of helpful resources on his website at www.keithfarrell.net