On Saturday, Mike was asked to teach a special block of instruction on German Kampfringen (Combat Wrestling).  Here he is seen demonstrating the front head lock and some of its associated neck cranks, chokes and escapes.  The class was well over an hour of high energy, hands on training, with each drill building off the ones before.  The class was very excited to learn these drills and skills, and seemed to enjoyed the sheer physical challenge of the training as well.  Afterwards many participants told us that it was physically the toughest class of the weekend, but that they would all want to do it again in a moment, and I think that says it all.

    Later on Sunday I taught a class on Medieval German and Italian dagger fighting, unarmed defense aginst the blade, unarmed combat, and folk games and sports.  Developing the European style of kicking and striking were explored, including a section on kicking the downed opponent (which proved quite controversial - people who think about sticking you with a 3-foot piece of steel calling that "too dishonerable"...), hand strikes along the segno, power of the wave, and Russian mass "Wall Fighting" were covered.  With the daggers, time was spent exploring the options once the fight closes into a grabbing / grappling situation while either one or both of you are armed.  Stand-up drills were shown also on the ground to how the same principles apply.