Forteza is proud to be hosting Maestro Roberto Laura  on November 17 – 18 for a seminar on Italian knife and stick fighting. Mestro Laura has been spending years trying to document and preserve living traditions of Italian combatives, some of which are quite old. This will be his first visit to teach these arts in the United States.

The first day of the workshop will include training in the knife system of two schools: i Cavalieri d’onore e d’umilita (Knights of Honor and Humility), an extremely old school of combat that  derives from Manfredonia, Apulia in southern Italy (15^th century). It is a highly specialised and elegant fighting system with the knife. Besides solo and partnered forms there are plenty of dueling positions which all have their respective tactical purposes. This school is NOT for self-defense! The intension is rather to survive or win dueling, to kill the opponent. The Cavalieri school also contains the fighting art with the shepherd stick and the straight-razor. The second is la Scuola Cielo e Meraviglia (the School of Heaven and Its Marvels) which also comes from Apulia, and is about two-hundred years old. This is a close-quarter fighting system which uses grips, joint locks, throws. As very old traditions these schools use  a wide variety of daggers and folding knives, including cloak and dagger techniques and improvised weapons.

The second day of the workshop will focus on using the Italian bastone – an approximately 4′ long walking staff/shepherd’s staff, as taught by in the Onore e d’Umilita school and in the modern Sicilian tradition.

This is a very unique chance to study actual, living martial traditions of Italy, and we are hoping to do our part to see that these traditions not only survive in the 21st century, but get off of life-support. Once Roberto is gone, we’ll be developing a small study group to continue working with this material.

Cost: $150 for the weekend, $100 for a single day. Please RSVP and register with info@fortezafitness.com ASAP, as spaces are limited. You can read more about Roberto and his work here: http://www.robertolaura.com/wp/english-site