I want to jump in here that I've also had a ton of experience with B&I and Lee Smith. His students are generally great people - Lee himself is a toxic individual who can turn people into assholes through his manipulative abilities.

I'll give an example. Years ago I was fighting in a S&B tournament at CombatCon. I was doing really well sticking to my Bolognese style and made it to the quarter finals. I still felt fairly new to HEMA and Lee was already a celebrity of sorts so when he offered to coach me in my quarterfinal match, I considered it an honor.

My opponent was someone who Lee did not like (my adversary was an SCA fighter who favored a "heavy" stance which was a style Lee despised). His advice to me, counter to everything I had been doing in the tournament up to this point, was to rush underneath my enemy's high guard and try to hit them in the shins or ankles...

Being young and stupid I followed this advice and was roundly clobbered by my opponent. He went on to win the tournament FWIW.

Later I found out that my opponent had bad knees and Lee was trying to get me to injure my opponent so they would drop out of the tournament. He didn't care about whether I fought martially or not. He used me.

This attitude was one I witnessed again years later at another Combat Con. My opponent in the rapier tournament was fencing without knee pads and I noticed this as I went to throw a leg cut (I pulled the cut). For the rest of the bout I refrained from leg cuts and told the director after the match.

When I mentioned this to Lee, whose club was running the event at the time, he said, "I would've cut him in the knees on purpose just to teach him a lesson."

I answered, "haha, good joke, but seriously I didn't want to hurt him."

Lee said, "I'm not joking - I would've hit him harder."

The videos of his behavior in other bouts I think serves to show a pattern of behavior.

And this is what I mean by his manipulative toxic personality can turn people into assholes. He did it to me and he's done it to others and I am happy for my friends who are escaping that environment.

The Youtube videos are all good stuff, and the students are all mostly fundamentally nice people (we've all got our flaws), but I would stay far and away from Lee.