Kat Dunham is an instructor at Ars Gladii primarily teaching RDL Longsword. She started her sword journey with modern sabre, then Kendo, and eventually transitioned to HEMA in 2016. Her focus is on the trifecta of early KDF traditions – Longsword, Dagger, and Wrestling, however she has picked up Messer, Meyer Rapier and more recently, Smallsword. Loving the diversity of weapons, people and the intellectual pursuit that HEMA provides, she expects to be a lifelong practitioner.
Arik Mendelevitz, a fencing maestro in the SCA, has won over five dozen fencing tournaments, and is the author of the upcoming book, "Bolognese Longsword for the Modern Practitioner". He is excited to share with you his love for the Italian fencing tradition and help you get your game to the next level.
Between eight years of historical fencing and an even longer repertoire of crafting historical armor, Joan has developed a particular eye for ways the body can flex and move and, more directly, deduced what medieval people would considerboth simply important enough as well as absolutely necessary.
Workshops - Exact schedule tentative |
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Katina Dunham Distance at a GlanceIn this class, we will be going through distance management and how this concept can be applied to a wide range of weapons. We will be experimenting with distance requirements for each weapon and how different weapon pairings can affect your fight.
Gear - minimum is mask, gloves, gorget, heavy hoodie. |
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12pm Lunch at El Toro
Mexican Restaurant a 2 minute walk from the Crucible |
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Arik Mendelevitz Finding Your Area of Excellence for LongswordFlipping through manuals and figuring out which of hundreds upon hundreds of plays works best for you can often feel overwhelming. This class narrows that down and provides you a select few ways of approaching your fight in order to see what overall principles work best for you to consciously focus on. |
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Joan Keizer More than Footwork: Is your movement benefiting you?Even while sleeping, your body shifts and your heart beats. We can’t escape movement, so why not harness it into something useful? Beyond just how you move about the ring, there are many ways to enhance your fencing with intentional movement throughout the body which we will uncover and practice with a handful of games and training tools. |
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Downtown Champaign Pub Crawl - Subject to change - announcement will be made at the event.
Grab yourself some dinner, then we'll head to The Hounds rest a old timey tavern located in the middle of Downtown Champaign, in the event of spill over the Hounds Court, Pour Brothers and Barrelhouse 34 are also great options. |