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
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 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
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 Habitus: Or Why SCA Rapier Is Awesome...And Why SCA Rapier Sucks. Clearly I’m a little proud of my SCA rapier background. I had access to a number of seriously talented fencing teachers and dedicated historians, and came from an
24 Blow Calling and Context When I started in the SCA, lo those many years ago, things were great. We had what felt like a unified approach to dealing with how to acknowledge hits from
Blog Posts On Making My Martial Arts School a "Safe Space" This post originally appeared on the author’s blog, Kaja(s)words. Kaja Sadowski is an instructor and co-owner at Valkyrie Western Martial Arts Assembly. I’ve been
23 Double Death Decisions I hate double kills. It annoys me to no end when I see students do it, I hate it when it happens to me, and I find it inexcusable when
167 Moving Past Quit She’s supposed to be searching me, but I’m just tired of it. So I turn, with everything I’ve got, and smash my elbow into
167 Assembly Been sick for over a week. Missed a lot of work, which is going to suck when the next payday arrives. But at least I’ve managed to catchup
Blog Posts Teaching Tempo and Deception My favourite part of teaching has to be those nights when the students figure something out on their own. We’ve been hitting movement a lot lately, discussing tempo
167 Cultivating Awareness When I demonstrate a technique, I do want you to perform it the way I do. Last night we did wrestling, and explored some pinning movements from a couple of
167 The Cost of Doubt Doubt costs repetitions. The time you spend thinking about how to do something, or what you have done wrong, or even if there is a better way to do something,
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
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
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
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.
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 The Long Path of Measure Control When someone comes to our classes with a background in unarmed martial arts, they’ve got a hard road ahead of them. Depending on the length of time they&
Blog Posts Power and Evil There will always be people who only see a sword as a means of ruling over others. They think less of the art of swordplay, and more of the visceral
