# Embodying martial arts in an aging body, with Jess Finley

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-sword-guy-podcast-1265225/embodying-martial-arts-in-an-aging-body-with-jess-finley
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-sword-guy-podcast-1265225/embodying-martial-arts-in-an-aging-body-with-jess-finley.md
Podcast: [The Sword Guy Podcast](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-sword-guy-podcast-1265225)
Published: 2026-01-23T08:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://theswordguy.podbean.com/e/embodying-martial-arts-in-an-aging-body-with-jess-finley/
Audio file: https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/hv8rewe6yktk426b/211_Jessica_Finley_3.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-sword-guy-podcast-1265225/episodes/embodying-martial-arts-in-an-aging-body-with-jess-finley
Duration seconds: 7001

## Resource

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to: https://swordschool.shop/blogs/podcast/episode-211-embodying-martial-arts-in-an-aging-body-with-jess-finley To support the show, come join the Patrons at https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy The inestimable Jess Finley is back on the podcast! If you’re not aware of her work, she has written a wonderful book about medieval wrestling, starred in several of my online courses, and we recently collaborated on an online course about Von Baumann’s wrestling. On her Patreon account, she produces translations, interpretations, previews of books in progress and videos. She also teaches swords around the world. We start by talking about travelling with knives and guns, before moving onto the main topic, which is looking at the ways to mitigate the downsides of aging as we train and get older. One of the main things to work out is understanding the difference between discomfort and dysfunction, i.e. is this pain OK, or have I catastrophically injured myself? And at what point should I listen to the fear? We talk about what lessons a long term martial arts practice has given us in our daily lives, especially when dealing with life’s big moments. Links of interest: Jess Finley on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/jessfinley/ Books and publications: https://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Jessica_Finley Von Baumann wrestling course: https://swordschool.teachable.com/p/medieval-german-wrestling-the-twirchringen-of-von-baumann How Emotions are Made, by Lisa Feldman Barrett: https://lisafeldmanbarrett.com/books/how-emotions-are-made/ The book that Jess and Guy discuss about the Olympic athletes was Howard Schatz’s Athlete.

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## Transcript

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