25 Sep

Creating the Forteza Clubhouse!

Posted under: Armizare - The Knightly Arts, Bartitsu, Combatives, Events, Fitness & Physical Culture, Martial Blade Concepts, Renaissance Swordplay

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:

a boutique library of both antique and contemporary books on Western martial arts, fencing, fitness and related topics
an art gallery showcasing our collection of rare, original edition 19th century newspaper prints of combat sport athletes, historical fencers and gymnasts
a multi-media learning center featuring WiFi, training DVDs and a discussion lounge and research area
we cannot stress this enough, a secret passage entrance …

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

11 Sep

Introducing the Forteza Combatives Method

Posted under: Bartitsu, Combatives, Fitness & Physical Culture, Martial Blade Concepts

Join us tonight for the official first class of Forteza’s newest martial arts offering, the Forteza Combatives Method (FCM).

The term combatives originates with the military close quarter methods of WWI and WWII were men like Rex Applegate and Col. Anthony J, Drexel Biddle devised simple, direct fighting methods with empty hands, sticks, knives and bayonets that soliders ould learn fast and apply in a wide variety of situations. Combatives weren’t about dueling or competition fighting, but about “getting the job done”.

Today, the term combatives has expanded beyond military combat, but still describes eclectic fighting arts aimed at practical self-defense. In this sense it can be seen as the post-World Wars inheritor of Barton-Wright’s “New Art of Self-Defense”, Bartitsu.

Inspired by these predecessors, the Forteza Combatives Method is an eclectic blend of proven fighting arts designed to meet the needs of today’s martial artists and self-defense enthusiasts. We offer a well-rounded approach to take your fighting skills to new heights, by combining boxing, kicking, clinch fighting, ground fighting, edged weapons survival, and physical conditioning into one cohesive system.

Closed Fist Combatives: a blend of old school Western bare knuckle boxing, combined with the devastating knees, kicks and elbows of Muay Thai and old school Korean Tae Kwon Do.
Ground Survival: the FCM’s’ ground fighting techniques are a mix of military ground-fighting combatives, jujitsu, and American Catch Wrestling. Our Catch Wrestling curriculum comes from Dr. Les Moore, in the lineage of Billy “Pops” Wicks. Ground survival training teaches throws, holds, submissions, and escapes to give you the skills needed when a fight goes to the ground. This is decidedly not grappling for sports competition, but rather for reality of the street.
Empty Hand Combatives: practical unarmed combatives training focuses on gross motor skills that you can use to brutal efficiency in the chaos of an actual violent encounter. This includes open and closed fist strikes, joint locks and breaks, throws, and trapping skills.
Edges Weapons Survival: learn the defensive and offensive use of the knife. Our edged weapons program is based on the world renowned Martial Blade Concepts system as taught by MBC founder Mike Janich.
Combatives Conditioning: get into top fighting shape with a blend of pad work, kettlebells, body weight exercises, and sprints, and more. You may not be a professional fighter, but you’ll be in shape like one!

If you are like to train hard, this is the class for you! No experience in martial arts are necessary – we’ll train you from the ground up, but the program is also designed to strongly appeal to students coming from a background in Krav Maga, boxing, Muay Thai or MMA who are specifically interested in integrated training and sparring focused on self-defense, rather than competition.

The Forteza Combatives class will be running on Tuesday evenings from 7:30-8:30, right after the Bartitsu class.

Bring a water bottle, a towel and enthusiasm and we’ll see you there!

03 Sep

August Round-up – It was one busy month!

Posted under: Events, Fitness & Physical Culture

August was a busy month for Forteza, filled with workshops, special all-day bootcamps and our first adventure into the realm of viral media!

2012 Temple Burning – yes, we took the photo at the end of the day’s training and they were still smiling! Now bring on that Spartan Race!

On August 12^th, we had our annual Temple Burning workout. Long before there was a Forteza, even before their was a Chicago Swordplay Guild, there was Jesse Kulla’s Temple Burning: an annual “push yourself to the brink” day of training, training and more training. Over the years, and with Keith and Jesse getting their personal training licenses, the Temple Burning has become a great deal more scientific, but in the end, this yearly event remains the same: a day spent running around, getting dirty, push our bodies to the brink of complete exhaustion, and have a whole lot of fun doing it!

This year’s TB was going to be the official kick-off of training season for our Spartan Race team, so we thought we’d start them off slowly….wait, no we didn’t! The course this year featured a 4 mile course that combined kettlebell circuits, hill sprints, sand sprints, a pull-up contest, and of course, burpees up hill.

We’ve learned that Fortezans are happiest when you keep them training, so on August 26th, Greg ran four hour workshop called Coming to the Close: Infighting with the Medieval Longsword. After a quick warm-up with a 23 lb medicine ball, stick-wrestling and …why yes….burpees, Greg explained the theory behind coming to grips with the two-handed sword: when you seek to grapple or hilt-strike, and why. With the theory done and out of the way, we spent the next three and half hours disarming, wrist-locking, pommel-striking and exploring a host of other horrible forms of medieval mayhem. Fortunately, one of our students was on hand with his video camera, so we can give you a sneak peek at some of what went on:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4DbyOOI00E]

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXwkGg2legg]

Switching gears from medieval Italy to 21st century America, on Friday August 31^st, Guro John Kovacs taught a focused two-hour session on combative joint locking techniques. We had a mix of Bartitstuka and Combatives students who gathered to learn the effective application of joint locking techniques, joint lock flow, and counters to various locks and holds.

You might have caught a mention about our dabbling in “viral marketing” as well this month. Just in case August wasn’t packed enough, we also pulled together the entire Forteza family – Asylum Stunts, Bartitsu Club of Chicago, Chicago Swordplay Guild, FightingFit, and members of the new Forteza Combatives Method for an extended photo shoot for our new website (watch this space for the announcement). But more than just getting good shots for the new page, we also shot video for a new project, via Indiegogo.

You guys do all of *that* at Forteza? Yeah, we really do!
(Sometimes it surprises us, too.)

What is this mysterious project? What better way to find out than to subscribe to this blog and be the first to see the big announcement.

24 Jul

How “Old School” is Old School? Personal training for fitness – and survival – in the 15th century

Posted under: Fitness & Physical Culture

Sweating to the Oldies, 15th Century-style: Fencing, weight-lifting, stone-throwing, wrestling and tumbling were all considered excellent ways for members of the Renaissance upper and middle classes to stay in shape and gain “a nimble and elegant body in concord with a healthy spirit”.

You may have noticed that at Forteza we talk about “going old school” quite a bit. After all, our martial arts classes cover subjects that are 100 to 600 years old, and our Gymuseum is comprised of a wide collection of working,19th c training apparatus. Nor is this just “retro-geek-cool”; much of what are now considered to be the height of modern training regimens is based around a new understanding, appreciation and application of “old school fitness”: body weight exercises, kettle bells, performance-based training, etc. But to most people, “Old School Fitness” probably means “before Pumping Iron came out.” Most people probably do not realize just how “old school” the notion of systematic functional fitness training and cross-training, especially in conjunction with the martial arts, really is. The Olympic Games are about to begin, so everyone will be reminded of the Ancient Greek interest in the gymnasium, where wrestling, running, javelin and discuss throwing and vaulting were all cultivated and practiced as part of building a natural, athletic body, But somehow, in the popular mind, we went from naked Greeks wearing laurel wreaths to Arnold Schwarzenegger and now to Cross-Fit, without much in between.

In truth, the Greek idea of the gymnasia was carried forward, and its martial aspects emphasized, in the Roman palestra, or public training ground, which combined gymnastics with boxing, wrestling, swordsmanship and javelin throwing. The palestra was essentially the ancient world’s precursor to the modern fitness studio.

It turns out that, as people who lived much more physical lives than we do today, our ancestors knew quite a bit about how to train for functional strength, so we take our inspiration in this from 14th – 16th century texts on health and fitness, which advise the following activities as being the idea set of exercises for achieving health, endurance and grace:

Running – cross country, over-hills and in sand.
Tumbling
Lifting, carrying and tossing heavy stones.
Throwing javelins.
Wrestling
Fencing

While it is clear that throughout the Middle Ages, interest in regimented training exercise, based on the Greco-Roman model never truly disappeared amongst the European warrior elite, the idea of “exercise for exercise sake” did not begin to reappear until the 15th century, when the Renaissance obsession with Classical culture gave the palestra a new lease on life.

The 15th c fencing master, Hans Talhoffer also recommended these same exercises, along with recommendations on diet and creating a specific training regimen, for someone who found himself forced to prepare for a judicial duel. This advice has been translated and presented in a short, evocative video by the fine folks at Blossfechter, a medieval swordsmanship and traditional martial arts club in Germany. The guys put a lot of heart into this clip, do yourself a favor and take three minutes to watch it!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pwHK2n44OA&w=420&h=315]

Seem like it would be a challenging way to get fit? And more fun that more time on a Stairmaster? (At least, if you didn’t have to fight a duel at the end.) We think so! Since this same idea of the palestra was at the heart of the Victorian physical culture movement, particularly at Barton-Wright’s Bartitsu Club, how could we not?

Our historical European martial arts classes all begin with a combination of various calisthenic exercises, that would have been at home in any medieval training hall; amongst the most popular (with the instructors, if not the students!) being throwing medicine balls, stick-wrestling, rolling and falling and tug of war, then followed by the actual sword, dagger or wrestling classes themselves.

While many of these training methods are warm-ups for our martial arts classes, for those who really want to push themselves to lose weight, tone muscle and develop coordinated grace by going really old school, these same activities, combined with Indian clubs, kettle bells and a variety of fitness games, is at the heart of our FightingFit! program: our 2012 answer to 1512 physical fitness! And since, no one is going to make you fight a duel at the end, you can just enjoy swinging swords, throwing javelins, pulling ropes and basically doing all of the things you loved doing when you were ten…only now with a focused way to get in shape and stay there.

You may be fit, but are you FightingFit? Only one way to find out….

(Oh, and you don’t have to wear the “tights”!)

12 Jun

Gymuseum 1: Indian Clubs

Posted under: Fitness & Physical Culture

Circa 1900, schools of “physical culture” offered a wide range of tools and machines to develop strength, endurance, agility and flexibility. Sadly, many of these devices have been lost over the generations, but some have survived in working order. The Forteza gymuseum includes both a unique “living museum” of antique exercise equipment and an inspirational gallery of 19th century prints portraying combat sport athletes in training. One of the most readily noticed parts of the museum is a large collection of odd wooden bowling-pin shaped objects, known as “Indian clubs”.

The exercise of club-swinging was first introduced to Europe during the late 19th century, by British soldiers who had observed similar exercises performed by wrestlers and other athletes in India. By manipulating the clubs in complex swinging and flourishing patterns, exponents were able to develop their co-ordination, strength, endurance and flexibility.

Club-swinging spread throughout the Western world via public gymnasia, military physical training courses and physical culture classes offered in schools. A “flourishing” trade also developed in home study manuals, further establishing Indian club swinging as a fitness craze that lasted through to the early-mid 20th century.

Some of our gymuseum clubs are modern and some are antiques dating back to circa 1900. All Forteza members are welcome to make use of them during their training; and remember, it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkFtaw9LB6I?rel=0]

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