6th Annual RMA Student Symposium at BYU - March 24

[John_Clements]

6th Annual RMA Student Symposium at BYU - March 24-25, 2006

Our recent two-day Renaissance martial arts symposium in Provo, our 6th such one there at the BYU campus in Utah, was tremendous. As before, it was a rewarding and physically challenging event. Preceded a day earlier by the successful senior free-scholar Prize Playing of Eli Combs for longsword, it set the PROVO Study Group as the ARMA’s leader in number of senior free scholars. Eli fought over 120 separate bouts to earn his ranking.

I look forward to the Provo event every year and the quality and knowledge of the students there has continually and steadily improved. This year Stewart Feil’s & Brian Hunt’s MSI.33 sword & buckler class was even more impressive than ever and their skills in it even more polished. I have no doubts their interpretation and understanding of this source material is second to none. Truly cutting edge. Robert Hyatt also showed the development of his grappling combatives is now poised to provide the ARMA with a complete sound foundation for our unarmed Renaissance martial arts curricula. Well done.

The attentiveness and aptitude shown by everyone to my sword & dagger class was first rate. Thanks also to everyone for the compliments on the single-sword class. It was a great opportunity and seeing how readily the material was absorbed is very rewarding.

I want to thank everyone there, especially Stew, for putting on a great event that was a pleasure to attend. It was a joy to see all the familiar faces and meet new ones. I only wish we could have had more time. I very much enjoyed being able to provide so much feedback and direction in helping student’s progress and in return leave with more than when I arrived. The free-play I enjoyed at this event, both single and group combat, was demanding as well as personally very satisfying.

We will post some photos and maybe some videos f the event on a special page very soon.

JC

[Erich Wagner]

I concur. Very well done Provo! I'm hoping I can make this a yearly trip.

[Allen Johnson]

I'm sad to have missed it. I really have enjoyed this event the last few years. Congrats Eli! You are alright- no matter what anyone else says! <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />

[Mike Van Dusen]

I just wanted to hop on and say thanks again to everyone who made it happen. It was a great event. The intensity of a two day event helped get some of my confidence back (which kinda disapeared from a couple of years in Spain out of practice.)

The group sparring was absolutely increadable. It's not very often that this many highly skilled ARMA folks are together, and I'm glad we took advantage of that time to spar, especially as a group.

Congrats to Eli, he did very well. I was surprised by the general consistancy of skill he displayed. That is something I admire and need to work on.

I've never worked with the single sword / buckler / dagger so much, and it was great to see the many similarities and also the differences in fight with said weapons, compared to eachother and to the longsword. John did a great job (as he always does) of making things incredibly clear and simple. I did used to think sword and dagger was some very complicated weapon combination, but John made it so simple and easy, I was pleased to see how a understanding of a few general concepts can open up a gamut (sp?) of possibilites, even with the allegedly difficult use of two weapons.

Mike, GFS

[Will Thompson]

This was my first ARMA event, and I absolutely loved it. Thank you to everyone involved, and John in particular. And, of course, congratulations to Eli!

[Mike Chidester]

It was indeed a great event (like every year). John's classes were amazing, and I especially enjoyed learning more about single-sword (which has come in handy since I brok my arm two weeks ago). The interesting thing is that John doesn't teach a hundred things in his classes like others sometimes do--he only teaches like five things, but you walk away having learned a hundred things anyway. A truly talented instructor.

Stew's classes were great as well, though I've seen his S&amp;B before (I'm one of the unfortunates who has to spar with him).

And congratulations to Eli for a Prize well Played. That makes four Senior Free Scholars we've turned out here, and we've two more possibilities in the semi-near future. I think the rest of you need to step things up and catch up. <img src="/forum/images/icons/tongue.gif" alt="" />