Martial arts

Alan Woodard · Post by **Alan Woodard** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 12:16 pm

Where do you go to learn these techniques? Are there any professional teachers in this subject matter in the souther california area?

Gene Tausk · Post by **Gene Tausk** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 12:51 pm

tyrist wrote:Where do you go to learn these techniques? Are there any professional teachers in this subject matter in the souther california area?

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Alan Woodard · Post by **Alan Woodard** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 12:59 pm

Just to clarify my user name has to be my actual name? When I did the registration I did not observe anything to that effect. Could you please direct me to where the forums rules are listed?

Seth Halsell · Post by **Seth Halsell** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 2:19 pm

Hello Alan welcome to the Arma forum. Our rule about using your real legal first and last name can be found here:

http://www.thearma.org/forum/index.htm

It is above the "Go on to the Forms" link in white text.

To answer your question we members of Arma go to primary source Fechtbuchs (fight books) to learn techniques that were written down by masters starting in the late 13th century. We study sword fighting manuels and that is where we get our primary knowledge of how to fight with swords. There are no professional teachers who teach what we do in California because unlike some eastern martial arts European sword techniques were passed down for a while oraly but stopped at the beginning of the 20th century due in part to the use of firearms. Some eastern martial arts had their fighting arts passed down oraly even to the present day but European sword fighting had its art transformed into sport fencing like in the olympics with rapiers or were forgotten in some areas entirely. We are trying to relearn the use of swords as a real martial art again as it was taught back in the Medieval and Renassiance periods of Europe not as a sport or as in role playing. Since we are trying to learn this art as a real fighting art we rely heavily on the words of the men who actually knew how to use these swords as fighting weapons back in the Medieval and Renassiance periods since no surviving masters exist today. That said, we form study groups all across the United States and Internationaly as well in other countries to study the words and techniques of the last men who knew how to use these swords and weapons as they were intended in a martial context. The only offical study group that we have for Arma right now in California that I know about is the one in Tustin, CA which I am a part of. If you would like to learn more about us visit our website here:

http://studygroups.thearma.org/%7Eorangecounty/

We practice every Friday at 10:00 a.m at the sports park on the site. If you have any questions feel free to message me here on the forum or post a thread asking your question as there are a lot of extremly knowledgable people here on the forum that I'm sure will be happy to help you out. Welcome again to the forum.

Alan Woodard · Post by **Alan Woodard** » Fri Jun 13, 2008 11:22 pm

Where exactly should I start to learn?

Alan Woodard · Post by **Alan Woodard** » Fri Jun 13, 2008 11:46 pm

Where exactly should I start to learn?

Martin Austwick · Post by **Martin Austwick** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 12:57 am

Alan Woodard wrote:Where exactly should I start to learn?

It would be helpful to all if you could provide a little detail about what it is you wish to learn. Are you interested in Longsword? Rapier? Backsword? How about Wrestling? In or out of Armour? How does Poleaxe sound? Do you have a preference for any specific culture or time period? The style practised in C16th Italy differs hugely from that in Germany in the C14th...

Take Care

Oz

Sal Bertucci · Post by **Sal Bertucci** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 9:16 am

Oh! to learn them all! :idea:

Alan Woodard · Post by **Alan Woodard** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 9:17 am

Ideally I would eventually like to beable to learn all subjects. However I am sure there must be some that are more complete than others. This would probably be a better starting point. I do have the strongest interest however in long sword currently.

Stewart Sackett · Post by **Stewart Sackett** » Sun Jun 15, 2008 9:45 pm

The longsword is a great weapon to start with. I'd also suggest trying to pick up some grappling. If you find a HEMA group with 1 or more experienced grapplers then you can just learn from them but taking classes on your own would help. Greco-Roman Wrestling, Freestyle Wrestling, Judo & Sombo are all great as they focus on fighting in the clinch (wrestling while standing) much like the Ringen shown in the fightbooks. Submission grappling or BJJ are also good as you'll develop a solid understanding of joint manipulation but the focus on ground work is rather different from what we see in the HEMAs.

Jeremiah Backhaus · Post by **Jeremiah Backhaus** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 10:41 am

Alan,

To start, you want to get to the "where to start" link on the top of the page, that will help you find a study group the is the closest to you. Also begin mining the webpages. There is a wealth of information in here to help one train solo from the beginning. And the best thing that you can do is make it to a NTP 1.0. These are the basic instruction classes. Those would work well. I don't know anyone in Southern California who train (doesn't mean they aren't there), but I would suggest getting in touch with Jim and Christine Churches they are with ARMA Las Vegas and run a pretty tight ship. Great people and good fighters. They could get you going very well.

-Jeremiah (GFS)

The Association for Renaissance Martial Arts

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