Whoa, buddy! The first question is, “Do you want to learn RMA, or are you just here to try and show off?”

Reenactment groups are a lot of fun, and so is watching movies and television. Sport fencers, kendo masters, and karate experts are great athletes and have a lot of cool moves.

But it isn’t what we do.

While we strongly encourage our members to learn other martial arts, the best thing you can do when taking our classes is like Stephen Covey says in “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”…

“Seek first to understand and then to be understood.”

The difference between sport fencing and RMA longsword is akin to the difference between riding a bicycle and a motorcycle; one does not make you an expert on the other. Once, one of our members was discussing longsword with a fellow who was a self-proclaimed “self-taught expert.” The “expert” demonstrated a totally worthless guard that in a real duel would have gotten him killed in ten seconds. He insisted that it was “the only guard you would ever need,” and refused to listen to our member trying to point out that his “guard” left his entire right side and half of his left side open to attack. That is the kind of foolishness we are trying to avoid.

If you are an accomplished martial artist, reenactor, or sport fencer, great, we will welcome you with open arms. All that we ask is that you clear your mind of what you have been previously taught, and learn what we are teaching you. Once you have achieved a degree of knowledge and skill in RMA, and understand what we are doing and where we are coming from, you can then put your prior training to good use, and become a real help to us. (“Hey guys, I know what this freaky German dagger move is; we have the same move in Leaping Lizard Kung Fu. Watch…”)