Brains, Biology, and Better Teaching, with Sara Lewis

Photo Credit: Angel Uribe

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to: https://swordschool.com/podcast/brains-biology-and-better-teaching-with-sara-lewis/ 

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Dr Sara Lewis is a neuroscientist specializing in the biology of childhood movement disorders, and a longtime historical martial artist starting in the SCA in 1999, where she is known as Perin De La Serena.

Since 2016 Sara has been with the Phoenix Society for Historical Swordsmanship, where she has written many articles on improving diversity and inclusiveness in historical martial arts, and has written reports on the challenges facing women rapier fencers in the SCA, which we discuss in the episode and are linked below. Sara has also produced a series of videos on applying the neuroscience of learning motor skills to teaching historical combat, again, links below.

We start our conversation, however, by talking about a traumatic injury that Sara received during longsword training. Sara explains what led to the injury, the consequences for her personally, and the (lack of) consequences for the instructor responsible.

Here are the useful links from Sara:

Video play list:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC3Lv55IrIsikIoCLNbnPhHBOuYWBbMhE

Blog articles about improving diversity, equity, and inclusion in historical combat: 

https://valkyriebootcamp.blogspot.com/ 

Study on gender differences in recognition:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LP3tbBdqfMkvQit-jr05zkEqC4reo0XP/view

Study of variables predicting retention and envisioning success:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MFnDP8XiMGPZ4L4XvNbd--vGX4_U36yZ1GBfIhMsxD0/edit?usp=sharing.

The missing stair:

http://pervocracy.blogspot.com/2012/06/missing-stair.html