Soapbox Scary Things Way before Valkyrie, I had the idea to start teaching people how to teach martial arts. Back in the Scatha Combat Guild days, we put a ton of work into
Soapbox Justice Justice means Equality. Stoicism is on a bit of trend these days. It’s mostly just dropped in as a word though, a vague catch-all for mindfulness, stripped of
Soapbox Gravitas and the Rainbow Moving my regular Thursday night sparring class online represented some challenges for me. My preferred style of coaching is not to present a formal lesson plan for students to receive,
Soapbox The Deep Groove and Change My handwriting used to suck. It still does. When I was approaching fifty, I had a new job that I really enjoyed. The company was relatively young and absolutely going
martial arts Ecosystems My neighbour hates my front yard. He’s got the standard yard. Neatly trimmed grass, the requisite boxed hedges, the feature plant by the front window. As you can
Covid-19 Hobbit Day I’ve made some changes to my process lately, and it’s been measurably successful for me. Three weeks ago I was in a rough place, with the
Soapbox Expectations and Categorizations If I had to chose one thing I really love about martial arts, it’s that I get to punish people for thinking that they know me. The human
Soapbox Starting From Scratch. Again. Hi folks! Been a few years. Let’s get started again. About two years ago I started to have some health issues, and went to see a doctor. Which
Blog Posts Fitting everyone into tournaments I want to talk about tournaments for a bit. Specifically, tournaments and segregation. The ideal of any martial art is that skill will win out over natural advantage. At the
Blog Posts Balancing Reality and Fantasy in Martial Arts Practice The UFC is the ultimate test of the value of any unarmed martial art. If your art doesn’t stand up in full-contact Mixed Martial Arts practice, it’s of no value. If you train with weapons, then your art and training
167 Good, Bad, and a Little of Both Saturday Valkyrie had to deal with an assault in the neighbourhood. We intervened quickly, and as a team. It was an unpleasant interruption to the afternoon’s teaching, but
Blog Posts In Search Of Real Self Defense Run away. That’s got to be the piece of martial arts advice I hate the most. It’s so full of smug assumptions about what constitutes a
167 Hard Starts Sometimes I don’t know how my students do it. Fencing is a damned hard thing to learn. It’s demoralizing. You have to be fit, and that&
167 Fat There is a current and recurrent thread amongst HEMA and other martial arts disciplines that mocks the fat instructor. It’s one of those things that everyone feels comfortable
Blog Posts Molar Equations And The Plastic Brain I wanted to be a science nerd really bad in high school. There was a problem with that for me. With my family’s frequent moves and the differing
Soapbox Balancing Skill Conlan, who is going to be running what looks like another fantastic workshop at Valkyrie weekend after next, asked me a question on facebook today. I’d posted one
24 Stripping Down To The Real Basics I was looking over an old notebook about a month ago, from back when I started rapier fencing. One day I had taken a bunch of notes after talking to
Blog Posts Fixes and Changes We’re coming to the end of another cycle of teaching at Valkyrie, and we’ve already started rolling out a new curriculum. For the coaches, it offers
167 Change and Mutation Hopping into the shower this morning, I saw a nice big long-legged spider sitting in the tub. As a life-long arachnophobe, this presented me with a bit of a dilemma.
167 500 Blows I’m reminded today that it was eight years ago that I fought 500 passes in two hours. I didn’t do it as a personal challenge. I
167 Devil On Your Back I read an article about a week or so ago that really bugged me. It was one of those feel good, overcome your failures sort of articles. It talked about
Blog Posts Red Team: Being a Better Bad Guy The future of martial arts training should lie in scenario work. I think it’s unlikely, though. I think we will see a rise in scenario based training, but
24 Sex and Swordplay Not talking about gender today. Had a fun class last Saturday. We are into our Mobility phase of exercise, where we work on assimilating a lot of the new muscle
24 Modern Ancient: Moving Forward with Historical Martial Arts What’s the point of training with a sword these days? Or, more accurately, what’s the point of training in the use of the sword as a
24 Protection and Pain: Finding the Balance In the picture above you can see two Valkyrie coaches going at with Cold Steel plastic Bowie trainers, and wearing partial High Gear body armour suits. High Gear suits are
