Over the past month we have raised $6970 towards our new library/art gallery/lounge (complete with a secret passage entrance) – well over $1000 more than our target goal!
Many thanks to all who contributed financially (enjoy your perks!) and by sharing the campaign via social media, etc.
Watch this blog for updates as we rehab our dusty old storeroom into a neo-Victorian clubhouse for the ladies and gentlemen of Forteza (and their guests) …
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Forteza Fitness and Martial Arts is a revival of the grand tradition of 19th century gymnasia, which were often centers of cultural, as well as physical, development. It’s also a labor of love that we’re building into a solid business with an enthusiastic community of clients. We’ve hosted open house days, martial arts seminars and action choreography sessions for video game and theater projects as well as our daily and weekly classes.
The past nine months have seen the completion of the main training floor, personal training area, reception area, changing rooms, a pro-shop and our unique “gymuseum” of antique exercise equipment.
The Forteza building also includes a large upstairs store-room, which hasn’t changed much over the past hundred years; it’s dusty and grimy, with an uneven concrete floor, rickety bannisters, etc. Our next remodeling project is to turn that room into a neo-Victorian style clubhouse (with a secret passage entrance … shhh!) and that’s where this fundraising project comes in:
Click on this link – Creating the Forteza Clubhouse – to go to our fundraising webpage, including a unique video, background information, contributor rewards, etc.!
The Forteza clubhouse will feature:
Transforming this ancient store-room into a steampunk library/gallery/clubhouse will be a big project, but luckily we already have some of what we’re going to need. Funds raised through this campaign will pay for the installation of a new wooden floor, cleaning, painting etc. Funding over and above the target level will allow us to build an even better clubhouse, faster!
Please help us by contributing (check out our great perks!) and by using the share tools below and on the Indiegogo page to help us spread the word; social media buzz is the best way to make this happen.
The Forteza clubhouse will be the heart of our studio and community, and a home-away-from-home for people who share our passions. We look forward to the challenge!
All best wishes –
The Forteza Team
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The Chicago Swordplay Guild is pleased to host this invitational, three day event in honor of Maestro Fiore dei Liberi and his Art.
In 1410, Fiore dei Liberi, an aging condottiero and master-at-arms to some of Italy’s most renowned warriors, presented a book to the bellicose Niccolò III d’Este, Marchese of Ferrara (1383-1441) containing the sum of four decades of knowledge won in the training hall, siege, battle and five duels with rival masters. He named this work Il Fior di Battaglia, the Flower of Battle, composed so that the “art might not be forgotten”.
Six hundred years later, a small circle of martial artists gathered from around the world to prove him right! This event, affectionately called “The 600: Prepare for Fiore!”, was such a success with attendees, that we decided to make it a recurring workshop! Since “The 602″ seemed to be missing some flair, the event has been renamed Armizare Academy. Each Academy session will have a central theme, but will also include a renowned instructor from a similar, outside tradition, to help put our art in context. This year’s outside focus will compare Arimzare to the German Kunst des Fechtens of the Liechtenauer tradition.
You can find out more here.
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This past weekend (April 22) Forteza hosted its first Playing of the Prize for the Chicago Swordplay Guild. Of course, for people new to Historical European Swordsmanship, the question arises…
What is a “Playing of the Prize”?
The Chicago Swordplay Guild utilizes a ranking system based on those of the medieval fencing guilds of England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, which included three to four ranks: scholar, free scholar, provost, and master. These grades are not really analogous to the “belt ranks” in modern martial arts, but rather are closer to the system of licensing found in classical Japanese martial arts. They reflected a junior and senior level of two different roles within the school of arms: that of student and teacher. A scholar was one accepted as a student in the school of arms. In the English tradition a second grade of free scholar denoted a senior student who had grasped enough of the art’s foundation, usually encoded in the sword, sword and buckler and/or two-handed sword, and now had the “freedom of the school” to move on to more advanced training. Particularly dedicated students might press on to the grade of provost. This was the lesser teaching grade: a provost was licensed to teach students, but only under the auspices of a master, who oversaw all advancement testing. A master at arms or master of defence was the highest rank, and referred to a swordsman who had attained a high level of both martial and teaching skill. They were able to maintain their own schools and promote their own students.
Chicago Swordplay Guild Bill of Challenge for a Scholar’s Prize to be fought at Forteza, 22 April 2012, adapted from its Elizabethan antecedents.
One of the most important steps in the progression through the grades was the concept of Playing the Prize. This comprised of two steps. The first step occurs as an internal event, comprised of written and physical tests to assess the student’s skills. The second step was for the student to submit a challenge for a public prize playing (free fencing exhibition), for the grade being tested for. These Bills of Challenge were posted of the event and a wooden scaffolding was erected in a public square. A good number of formalities were observed. On the appointed day and time, following a procession of drums and flags the Player was paraded to the raised scaffold with much fanfare.
Usually fought on raised stages in inn yards or playhouses, Playings of the Prize were the precursors to the “prize fighting” that would become associated with boxing in the 1800s. They were boisterous affairs, including music, food, and rowdy, cheering (or booing audiences) who would throw coins (or if displeased, perhaps less savory “awards”) onto the platform.
At the start, a senior Master would declare the name of the Player, the rank being sought, and then announce “The first bout to be at [whichever weapon]”. Bouts were fought using blunted weapons and played to a number of ‘hits’ rather than to a ‘victory’. Although not real, the fights were not displays or exhibitions, but rather a sort of sparring tests to evaluate the Player. The bouts could sometimes be bloody, but never lethal. No armor was used and blows were limited to above the waist, but even the bare head and hands were targets. The job of the “answerers” or “challengers” was not to break or beat the Player but to seriously test them. The ‘Prize’ itself was promotion to the new rank.
Playing the Prize in the Chicago Swordplay Guild
Although this was the first Prize to be fought at Forteza, Playing the Prize has been part of rank advancement in the Chicago Swordplay Guild since 2001, and we proudly embrace the traditions of our ancestors. Family and friends of the candidates, Guild members past and present, and guests from other martial arts schools, are all invited to attend this public exhibition of arms. Much like the original Prize, ours are a combination of formality and raucous celebration. Refreshments and music entertain the audience before the Prize begins and during breaks between challenges. Rather like watching a tournament, spectators are encouraged to cheer good blows, and to boo wild, uncontrolled blows.
This cheerfully irreverent atmosphere offsets the formality of the Prize itself. The list (cordoned off combat ring) is decorated with heraldic banners representing the Guild and the virtues ascribed to the medieval warrior (if you’ve been paying attention to our website, you already know that these are strength – speed – knowledge and courage!). Guild instructors trade in their black Forteza t-shirts for our formal uniforms, which are a modern homage to the arts origins in the 14th – 16th centuries, much like the hakama seen in traditional Japaneses martial arts. The Prize begins with a formal opening ceremony, taken from their Renaissance precursor, and then each candidate is called forward one at a time, their challengers are announced, and combat begins.
Armizare students fight their Prize with the longsword, while Renaissance Swordsmanship students fight with the single rapier. Challenges at the Scholar level are fought under a set of rules somewhat more “permissive” than those of the 16th century, in large part because of access to additional safety gear:
Erin Fitzgerald performs a little “death from below” in her bout with Shannon Winslow
As this is not a tournament, but an examination, each Challenger is given a specific task for their match with the Prizor, based on the observations of the instructors. For example, if the candidate has trouble initiating attacks, one Challenger might be told to hang back, forcing the Prizor to pursue and open with attacks. Conversely, a Prizor who starts strong but tends to “stop and look” might find their opponent continuously presses in with an unrelenting barrage of blows.The purpose is to push the Prizor physically and mentally, under the added stress of the watching eyes of friends and family.
One place where we have decidedly improved upon the past is that Guild Prizes are distinctly co-ed. Weapons are a great equalizer in terms of strength and size, and female students face men and women Challengers equally. Guild membership has traditionally been about 1/3 female, but this past Saturday saw three ladies take the field as Prizors, out of six competitors in total!
The candidates await their judgement by the instructors and challengers.
Once all the bouts were over, if the Prizor was judged victorious by the four Masters, he would be declared “a well-tryd and sufficient man with divers weapons”. He would then (after collecting the change littering the stage) swear his oath of obligation, and be escorted by his new peers back to the school and from there off to do much drinking. Our modern Guild’s Scholar’s oath is adapted directly from the Elizabethan one, requiring the student to treat those above and below him or her with respect, to train diligently and with pride, but not vanity, to be sure that their actions and deeds in the list or the classroom bring renown, not shame, to their fellows and teachers, and to be a good citizen. Students kneel and swear this oath on the hilt of a sword, receive their license and are gifted with a green garter tied under the left knee – a symbol of their rank. Finally, they sign their names in the Guildbook – a custom-made, leather-bound volume containing the history, rules and doings of the Chicago Swordplay Guild. (One such guildbook is in Ghent, home of the oldest surviving fencing school in the world. While the modern guild is a sport-fencing club, the records and entries in its book go back to its founding in 1614!)
And then, it was time for a celebratory Guinness….
Or course, it would be quite foolish to preserve all of these Renaissance customs without including the celebratory drinking at an inn! And so, with all due diligence, the tired, and bruised newly-minted Scholars were escorted by their colleagues to O’Shuaghnessy’s Public House for a pint or four. Slainte!
Our hearty congratulations go out to Christina, Erin, Heather, Jake, Robert and Nathan and our thanks to Shannon, Dan, Davis, Jacques, John, Phil and Trey for serving as Challengers!
Here are a few videos of the day’s combats:
Longsword
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uRTWw17e-4]
Rapier
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qumit6DFfPQ]
One of the centerpieces of the Forteza curriculum is historical European swordplay. There are a number of traditions of swordsmanship, which can be divided by period: early modern, Baroque, Renaissance or Medieval; and by nationality: English, French, German, Italian or Spanish. As the home of the Chicago Swordplay Guild (and as the Italian name of our studio might suggest), we focus on Italian swordsmanship of the 14th – 17th centuries.
By the late Middle Ages, the Italian peninsula had become an ever-changing patchwork of petty kingdoms and free cities. Wars to gain, hold, and influence other cities put the peninsula in a state of nearly continuous, small-scale warfare, as political goals were carried out by force of arms. Dominating the field were the condottieri, mercenary knights who fought the despots’ wars, and had to be versed in a multitude of weapons including the sword, spear, and axe, in or out of armour, on foot or horseback, and against any number of opponents. In the process, they developed a martial art of a richness and complexity to stand beside any other in the world.
Half a millennium later, the doorway to that martial art stands open to you.
FIORE DEI LIBERI, OUR TRADITION’S FOUNDER
Our medieval martial arts curriculum comes from the 14th century Italian master-at-arms, Fiore dei Liberi, son of a minor nobleman from Friuli in northeastern Italy, who has been called “the father of Italian martial arts”. A wandering swordsman, soldier and fencing master, after fifty years or study he composed a series of detailed, illustrated manuscripts, all entitled il Fior di Battaglia (the Flower of Battle).
Maestro Fiore gave no formal name to his school or his martial art, simply calling it Armizare (are-mee-TZAR-ay), which means “the art of arms”. He divided Armizare into three principle sections: close quarter combat, long weapon combat and mounted combat. Within these subsections, dei Liberi taught his art through a series of zoghi (“plays”) —formal, two-man drills akin to the kata of classical Japanese martial arts.
Scrimia (literally “fencing”, ie: “swordplay”) begins with the sword, but forms the technical, mechanical and tactical basis for fighting with all other long weapons in Armizare, such as the spear and poleaxe. The system also includes the use of several unusual weapons, such as monstrous, specialized swords for judicial combat, a slashing, winged-spear called a ghiavarina, and hollow-headed polehammers, filled with an acidic powder to blind the opponent!
Scrimia includes:
Abrazare (Italian for “embracing”) is the unarmed system contained within dei Liberi’s fighting art. The goal of the system is to get the opponent onto the ground as swiftly and effectively as possible without going there yourself. Much like classical jujutsu, the fundamental principles of abrazare include:
These strategies are applied through a diverse range of techniques, including throws, holds, joint locks, breaks, binds, and disarms, all of which are applied both unarmed and when wielding or confronted by the dagger.
The medieval dagger was a large weapon, often the length of a man’s forearm, and designed for both self-defense, and as the call of last resort on the battlefield, where its sharp point could puncture the weak-points in armour. Dagger fighting and unarmed combat are closely intertwined in Armizare, and together form the basis of fighting with all other weapons, especially in armour.
It total, medieval close quarter combat is used in or out of armour and includes:
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MOUNTED COMBAT (A Cavallo)
Finally, the knight was first and foremost a cavalryman, and his fighting art was equally adapted for combat on foot or horseback. While we currently do not practice mounted combat, the mounted techniques contain many interesting insights into the other sections of the art of arms:
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ARMIZARE AT FORTEZA
Through the study of Armizare, you will learn:
IS THE ARMIZARE PROGRAM RIGHT FOR ME?
This program will especially appeal to you if you:
HOW DO I BEGIN?
Mastery is difficult, but beginning is easy! Just enroll in our Taste of the Knightly Arts introductory class and let your journey begin