263 Heavy to Light It can get a little confusing for students when I lay out the prescription for the day’s class. I’ll explain what’s behind that. The
263 Warming Up for Class I’m an old fat man, so I have to put in a lot of extra to work to get myself ready for class. I’m the teacher,
167 Leaving the Past Behind I don’t know why Achille Marozzo wrote his New Work on swordplay. I know the result of it, but I don’t know what made him sit
167 Gun Not-Play When Danielle submitted this post, I wanted to talk to her about it first, to address some of her concerns, or to maybe encourage her to look at things another
167 Better Right or Wrong? What’s better: Aikido or BJJ? A classical Japanese martial art that puts a heavy emphasis on wrist locks, or a slightly more modern Brazilian art with an emphasis
167 Fort and Sally Forth I write a lot about frustration. Or at least, I feel like I do. Inability is what drives me to train constantly. It’s also what shoots my training
216 Stolen Gear Fundraiser A few weeks ago we had a big chunk of our loaner gear stolen…Masks, gorgets, one of the instructors swords, our first aid kit and all of our
40 Mothers Mothers. They’re so … tactful. I was a few days into the visit with my parents in June when my mother asked something that had clearly been on her
263 Growing Power Probably the number one reason people don’t come to our classes is fear of our workout. The language we use to talk about what we do at the
167 Bright Swords and Shiny Teeth The world is full of stupid people. A lot of them think they are smart, but it’s the thinking that’s the problem. I’ve been
Blog Posts Wizards and Warriors Breathe out. All the way out. Hold it. Fight the urge to breath in. Fight it as long as you can. This is how you rehearse for death. Some day
24 Overlooked Despite the lack of time, I’ve really been missing my blog posts here. I’m going to find a way to carve out a little bit of
24 Dying at the Hands of Babes-in-Arms I thought I would start this post off with a link to a funny video or two of people failing at chi/ki/energy flow martial arts, but I got
167 Teaching 3.0 It’s nice to grab a few minutes this morning to write a post. Nothing in mind today, like usual, but I’m in the mood to feel
Blog Posts April 2014 Student Profile: Danielle Rice The Valkyrie Western Martial Arts Assembly has started a new feature: Monthly profiles of students. Our first one is up, featuring the author of yesterday’s post Danielle Rice.
62 A lesson in exercise and mood. Photo Courtesy John Chan I haven’t been to class for a week, and I’m feeling low. Somehow, it didn’t occur to me until an
77 Valkyrie Women The Valkyrie ladies are getting tired of beating up men in class. They have decided we needed to recruit more women, and our current method of reaching students doesn’
24 Fighter 2.0 Now it’s time to get better. For better or for worse, today, you are the fighter you have made yourself into. It’s time to get better.
Blog Posts An Introduction This is my first-ever attempt at a blog post, so bear with me. A couple of days ago, it was suggested that we add the voices of one or more
22 Post Assessment First run of assessments done. Rapier sparring took up our entire night on the previous Monday, and the wrestling assessments completely destroyed the whole class and left us exhausted enough
40 Why Be Fit? Seems like a stupid question, doesn’t it? Why be fit? Why wouldn’t you want to be fit? Sometimes the answer that if given to that question
24 Working with Assessments Finished the first draft of our assessments over the weekend, and applied it to myself, Squeak and She-Hulk. We track thirty-six points of improvement, split over four categories. Each point
Blog Posts Metrics and Assessment Getting better is a nice feeling. It’s good to win more fights, it’s good to find techniques that were once awkward now flow easily. When you
167 White Eyebrows and More Half way to being the aged martial arts master, at least according to the common wisdom of aging. To my twenty year old self, I’m old and wise.
24 Cut and Thrust and Step Cutting was next up in our basics rotation last class. The idea was to spend the first five minutes or so of the rapier portion of class just doing a
