Prospective study group in Afghanistan...

[Keith Barron]

I'm a sergeant in the US Army deployed to Afghanistan. I spent a year with a medieval fight club out in Hawaii and really enjoyed it. The group was an offshoot of the SCA focused on combat rather than historical reenactment. There wasn't really an established training curriculum, just a few experienced fighters sharing knowledge. We mainly did a lot of free sparring. I learned enough to know how much I don't know. A number of my soldiers have approached me wanting to do something similar, I've got seven that have expressed interest and I know as soon as we start training I'm gonna find a lot more.

I'd like to set up a training program that my command will approve so I don't get lit up by some colonel or sergeant major for letting my soldiers "beat the crap out of each other with sticks". As a relatively inexperienced swordsman I'm going to need all the help I can get setting up and implementing the training. I haven't brought the idea up to my chain of command yet because I'd like to have at least a rough training curriculum ready to present when I talk to my platoon sergeant and lieutenant. Is there any way I could preview some of the training material? Or has anyone here done something similar? Any advice is appreciated.

[Jaron Bernstein]

Tim Sheetz is a a retired Army officer who might have some advice for you. I did a 2008 deployment and kept up with historical fencing at the time. (1) you can do footwork anywhere, (2) you are gonna need wasters if you want to train the sword side of it. Look into being able to get them there and see if you can ship them home later. (3) you might focus on the unarmed/dagger aspect of the Art if wasters might be a problem. There are any number of historical manuals that have more than enough unarmed/dagger material to keep you occupied. I can suggest a few if you would like.

[Jaron Bernstein]

Tim Sheetz is a a retired Army officer who might have some advice for you. I did a 2008 deployment (former Navy reservist) and kept up with historical fencing at the time. (1) you can do footwork anywhere, (2) you are gonna need wasters if you want to train the sword side of it. Look into being able to get them there and see if you can ship them home later. (3) you might focus on the unarmed/dagger aspect of the Art if wasters might be a problem. There are any number of historical manuals that have more than enough unarmed/dagger material to keep you occupied. I can suggest a few if you would like. You might have better luck selling the unarmed/dagger material to your chain of command, as I understand the US Army has put more emphasis on that in recent years