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Happy & Joyful Imbolc!

Imbolc the celebration marking the mid-point between winter and the arrival of spring. Here in NYC we’re still in for a few more official months of winter but the days are slowly getting longer and we await that slim window of beautiful weather known as “Spring”.

Holidays such as Imbolc are reminders of the importance of milestones and checkpoints.  Without them, everyday would simply blur together.  This goes for training too!  Without identifying markers (big and small) we risk losing perspective and mindless practice.

Mindless practice is when you’re just going through the motions: sure, you show up, do the warm ups, do the drills, but you’re not really present.  You’re not thinking about what you’re doing or why you’re doing it.  This is both a waste of time and could lead to potentially dangerous situations.

A helpful tool for accomplishing proper mindfulness is to define an active purpose for your training and start making a roadmap on how you can go about achieving your goals.  Giving yourself large goals to work towards as well as smaller moments to celebrate along that path is key to keeping you alert and determined.

Today, don’t forget to take a moment to celebrate this milestone towards better weather and we’ll see you in the Fechtschule!

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We are super excited to announce to the HEMA-sphere that our friends at the Haitian Machete Fencing Project have released a book!!!  

You can order this beautiful book over on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Haitian-Machete-Fencing-Family-Method/dp/1948529246 

Written by Michael Dylan Rogers & Reginald Turnier Photography by Charles Espey

“Explore the heart of Haiti's cultural heritage through Haitian Machete Fencing: The Avril Family Method-a unique blend of history, art, and combat technique, passed down through generations. Haiti is a country rich in culture, though economically poor. In the countryside, where time-honored traditions thrive, a legacy of African ancestry continues in music, dance, spirituality, folk medicine, and-perhaps most intriguingly-martial arts.”

“In case you couldn’t tell, we adore these folks here at Gotham.  As many of you know we hosted Michael and Reginald this past August for an intensive two-day workshop.  It was an absolute blast, and ultimately encouraged me to refine our Bauernwehr program in new and exciting ways.  I highly recommend picking up a copy of this amazing book and support this important project today!” — Peter Haas, Program Coordinator, Senior Instructor, Gotham Swords.

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National Chocolate Cake Day

Dessert is celebration, a little reminder to savor life while working toward your goals. Celebrating your victories (both big and small) with a treat now and then is a healthy way to  fuel your momentum.  

Here’s two recipes we love for you to check out:

“Epic Chocolate Stout Cake with Chocolate Bourbon Sour Cream Frosting” from Domestic Fits.

Flourless Pumpkin + Chocolate Brownies from Erin Lives Whole.

Do you have a favorite chocolate cake recipe?  Share it in the comment below!

Cake photo by Julie Prisloe (IG: @prisloephotography)

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Forging beautiful relationships! Last week Peter Haas visited White Tiger Karate in Tilton, NH to led some Bauernwehr workshops. This was a truly wonderful opportunity to work with such an amazing and dedicated group of people!

Sensei Sharyl Geisert: Your students are incredibly talented, dedicated, and radiate joy. Thank you for for inviting Gotham Swords into your Dojo, we look forward to working with you again!

Shout outs to Steph, Dylan, and Will for all their help during the workshops!

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It's National Sticker Day — check out our merch shop and and show off your support for Gotham Swords today!

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Bauernwehr

Hello Friends, Peter here: I just wanted to take a moment and acknowledge all the fantastic work I witnessed yesterday in our Bauernwehr class! It was a day of many challenges and shaking off rust from the holiday season; no small task! 👏🏻

The work that’s happening here is absolutely amazing. Everyone, regardless of how long you’ve been training, put a focused effort into refining your practice and helping others to do the same… all while enduring and contributing the occasional Dad-Joke. The dedication and camaraderie is one of the many things I admire and appreciate about this group!

I applaud everyone’s spirit as well as their performance during cutting forensics (Papierzielenschneidenforensiken). For me, standing up before of a group of people that are silently watching me perform is one of the most intimidating moments in training martial arts. You all rocked it, and everyone should embrace that win. Remember — cutting isn’t a sport, it’s not a binary pass or fail, it’s not about competition: Target cutting is about feedback and learning to make new and more interesting mistakes. Here's to a fantastic start for 2025! 🥂🍻🎉

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Peter Haas and Kat Hamilton of Gotham Swords are excited to be presenting a Bauernwehr workshop at this year's Amici Armis Hema Symposium!  

Learn more and sign up at: www.amiciarmis.ca/

About Amici Armis: CAMHS invites you to the second edition of our HEMA Symposium in Sherbrooke. The objective of the gathering is to highlight the diversity of martial traditions and European sources. Two days of workshops, sparrings, and meaningful encounters are planned!

Workshop Description: The Peasant's Defense, Bauernwehr, invites students to experience a unique fencing system of Ringen (wrestling), Messer (machete), and Stock (Stick) outside the context of the “noble” historical duel; favoring defensive approaches to an engagement, aiming to minimizes the damage taken to one’s own body.  

This workshop offers an introductory survey to the Bauernwehr program at Gotham Swords. Beginning with core body mechanics and the concept of Fühlen (feeling), participants will learn and practice the core principles of fencing with the Farmer’s Knife and a brief introduction to intermediate techniques.  The final third of the class focuses on applying the skills: students are given the opportunity to take turns working one-on-one with instructors to further refine the principles and techniques.

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Thanks to everyone who came out for our Longsword Workshop with Arto Fama! What an exciting way to start the new year!

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National Motivation & Inspiration Day

So we’ve somehow already reached the second day of January!  It’s that time of year when we begin to evaluate how we want to spend the next twelve or so months at the Fechtschule.  To help you out, we’re celebrating National Motivation & Inspiration Day!  Whether you are new to swordplay or a seasoned student here’s some tips to help keep you on track to achieve your goals for the upcoming year:

Remember to celebrate all the progress you’ve made!  If this is your first class: Welcome! You already made huge progress by taking initiative and showing up.  Swordplay is wicked fun and you’ve started yourself off on a new wild journey!  Is this your 50th class? Congratulations on the dedicated effort: you found a hobby you enjoy and hopefully are benefiting in all sorts of wonderful ways from your training.  This idea extends to individual class sessions as well, because each little success is a stepping stone to reaching larger goals.  Did you pull off a really excellent piece of footwork during a sparring session? Remember to think about it in the context of other goals and celebrate with an extra sip of beer at the Taco Bell after class.

Approach your training with purpose, thoughtfulness, and accountability — remember that training any martial art can be both fun and incredibly rewarding work but it is not without its own set of challenges! It’s important to understand when and why things aren’t going how you planned so you can make a plan to practice and improve.  There are going to be some days when you feel unstoppable, and others that feel impossible and downright frustrating. Always remember to forgive yourself, move on from difficult feelings and remember you’re surrounded by people who want to see you succeed.  We get it.  We all have had our difficult days.  How can your comrades and mentors help?  Go ahead and ask!

Most importantly: the learning never stops!  Day 1 or 100, foundational exercises or advanced techniques, every training session is a new lesson in some way or another.  Embrace the mindset that martial arts is a lifelong pursuit and always approach class with a humble attitude, willingness to learn, and you’ll get something out of each day on the training floor!

In the comments below tell us what motivates and inspires YOU to train!

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Happy New Year!

It’s that time of year to celebrate the wins and reflect on the challenges of the past 12 months!  This is also an opportunity to contemplate how we want to move forward with our training and resolve to set goals for and make changes in our practice for the year to come.  Stay motivated, be safe, and we look forward to seeing everyone on the Fechtschule floor in 2025!

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Playing the Game — Jeremy takes hits from Peter.

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Arzang Takes Hits from Peter (2024-11-22)

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Bauernwehr Class Plan (2024-12-21)

Fitness

Kat is out this weekend so I'll be taking on that time slot currently labeled sword fitness! Kat's final class of the year (last weekend) was a fantastic review of small work outs you can do any time.

My goal for this session is to give people space for guided practice, think of it as personal trainer time... but with swords! It's going to be a fun class, I promise!

Skills

Last weekend we discussed BAITING, an action that invites an opponent to strike us, and, having successfully fooled them, allows us to take advantage of their decision.

This week we're going review Baiting and begin to explore FAKING, makes use of actions which threatens an opponent, causing them to react.

Since this week is our final class of the year — I want to leave plenty of open floor time to field questions, or work on something you feel like you want to practice.

Applications

Let's end the year strong! We'll be playing The Game and putting those skills to work!

There will be rum and further Gemütlichkeit.

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Side sword with gauntlet and Bauernwehr blocks!

We have a workshop coming up on Sat., Jan 4th:

Avanced Longsword Skills with Arto Fama.

This four-hour workshop will be broken into two two-hour blocks, with an half-hour break in between.

Fool, Fighter, Fencer — Use simple patterns to remain safe and gain the opportunity to use techniques.

A Structured Approach to Sparring and Tournaments — Go deeper into the foundational concepts of longsword and take the next step in applying them in the messy environment of sparring and tournament matches.

Register on our BookWhen page.

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Max takes Hits from Peter (2024-11-22)

A one minute session of The Game during an Applications class. Here, the Scholar (Max) is tasked solely with defending themselves against incoming hits from the Mentor; forcing them to respond to a variety of stimuli while focusing on the correct responses. The game comes to our practice of Bauernwehr by way of the Haitian tradition of Tiré Machét, to which we owe our core curriculum.

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Reading Range Drills

How close can you get without being struck? Can you read/size up your opponent and their reach?!

Range: Mensur, Measure; The important distance between you and your adversary that delineates safety from danger. See also: Out of Range, Near Range, In Range, Wrestling Range.

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We are very excited to share that Gotham Swords was featured in @timeoutnewyork 🤩!!! Instagram Reel & Article:

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