Basic Information

There has been some questions about meetings and what to expect, bring, ect. so I am posting
some answers for FAQ.
When/where are the club meetings held?: We hold weekly meetings at Evergreen Park in Bremerton, WA from 3pm-5pm Saturdays.

What should I bring? : Aside from warm clothing in cold weather, please bring a water bottle for
yourself and you and your friends. All other gear is provided at the meetings.

Can I bring my own weapons? : No home made weapons (boffers) will be allowed in the fights. Rattan escrima sticks can be used only with drills as it presents a danger in full contact fights.
However we do encourage members to participate in tournaments such as Dog Brothers, keep
in mind that even they do not do their gatherings every week. They fight with padded sticks like we do as part of their regular training.
All other "manufactured" foam weapons must be inspected and approved by the ring master.

What are the rules? : The details of the rules will be given on a sheet given at the meetings but it encompasses the basic concept of respecting your opponent instead of telling you how to fight.
Surprisingly even members who attend regularly have trouble grasping all the avenues one can take during a fight that are allowed such as disarming the weapon and using it against your opponent or shield bashing, ect.

Are there any points given or declared winners? : We do not give out points, keep score, or have winners. Instead we do 2 minute full contact continuous rounds similar to what you see in the UFC or kickboxing matches. The biggest difference is we are using foam weapons as well. Fighting with this intensity takes alot of energy and we have not had one person who cared about who won at the end of the fight. This forces people to focus on technique and stamina rather than tally points.

What is the cost? : For the first two months there is no fee required except for the $20 initiation fee when first signing up. There is a $10 fee for every meeting afterwards to help with the cost of equiptment. We do encourage everyone to purchase and maintain their own weapon(s) and the best company to go to that has the most durable and realistic weapons is
http://www.calimacil.com/
They are pricey but they last a long time especially for full contact fights like ours and we fully
support and use them.

Florentine fighting with mace and cutlass vs stick and knife

Here I am fighting on of our faster fighters using a mace and cutlass. I found that using two longer weapons was a challenge but not impossible. I would not use this with two handers. My footwork was not all that great but it was impossible for me to match this opponent's speed. I think it went well overall.

Naginata vs Glaive

A very rare fight of dueling polearms. The other fighter got nailed in the throat at 0.32 so I made sure he was alright before continuing. Working on building neck protection for the front.

Mace vs Stick

One of our fighters is using a foam mace from Calimacil which Ben refers to as getting
hit with a solid fist. If this had been a real mace it would have broken everything
it hit.

Falchion vs Cutlass

Here we have two of our fighters we told to cut loose and try to kill each other.
One of whom was new to the club and he did pretty good for someone with no
martial arts experience. I'm really impressed with Calimacil's weaponry.
I used a Djembe during this fight to help keep pace. Yes I know I still need practice.

Weapons Upgrade

Recently we have realized that the more expensive Larp weapons from Calimacil were more durable than the martial arts padded sticks we were using so we put them to the test in combat. We were not dissapointed. Here we have one of our regular members fighting someone who had very little experience and was hesitant at first. But towards the end he really shined through. Great Job Greg!

Forge Party August 2010

This is a meeting with some members who are blade smiths and one friend learning to forge knives. This video is important because it shows that as a group we are not only interested in beating each other with padded sticks but we actually know how to make real knives and swords. This takes place at a friend's back yard with his workshop:

Basic Sparring

All the YouTube on this blog so far has been examples of what we would call "advanced sparring," where kick boxing strikes are allowed in addition to weapon strikes. This advanced sparring is important to do for two reasons: 1) to help people new to the martial arts learn a wider variety of self-defense techniques, and 2) to help people who have martial arts training integrate unarmed strikes with their weapons strikes.

As each round progresses these kick boxing strikes become more frequent. Our safety-weapons we spar with do not have as much impact as a kick or a punch, and as the fighters get tired they tend to do whatever they can to slow down their opponent. To make sure everyone has plenty of weapons-technique practice we recommend that all Tres Espadas fighters practice what we call "basic sparring" (even if they are also doing advanced sparring on the same day.) Basic sparring is basically the same as advanced sparring, only without the kick boxing punches, kicks, or knee strikes. Here is some YouTube of basic sparring from last weekend:

Knife vs. Knife (+ Liver Kick)

This is full contact knife vs. knife sparring, from the 2010.07.17 Tres Espadas meeting in Kitsap / Bremerton. Both knives are rubber, from Cold Steel. One fighter is intentionally trying to use an orthodox boxing stance instead of leading with his knife. There is a tai chi "ward off" trip at the end.




However our luck runs out with all those kicks to the body. The next round is ended about 30 seconds into the 2 minutes, due to a kick to one fighter's liver. (This is the first KO in the history of the club, which is focused on weapon kill-shots more than KO's.) The kick was delivered by someone who recently learned how to round kick at Tres Espadas, and is considered to be a lucky shot, though we are proud that he can kick well enough to land a shot like this:

Why so serious?

According to Doc Fai Wong (http://plumblossom.net/ChoyLiFut/formslist.html) here is the list of "Two Persons Combat Weapon Forms 兵器對拆" for Choy Lay Fut:

• Empty Hands vs. Double Daggers (Hung Sau Yup Seung Pei Sau) 空手入双匕首
  
• Single & Double-Ended Staff Two Man Form (Seung Gup Dahn Gwun Dwei Chuck) 双夾单棍對拆
  
• Eighteen Yin and Yang Staff Two Man Form (Sup Bot Yum Yeung Gwun Dwei Chuck) 十八陰陽棍對拆
  
• Chau-Sot Staff vs Twining Dragon Staff ( Chau-Sot Gwun Dwei Chuck Chin Lung Gwun) 抽摋棍對拆纒龍棍
  
• Double-Ended Staff Two Man Form (Seung Tau Gwun Dwei Chuck) 双頭棍對拆
  
• Single-Ended Staff Two Man Form (Dahn Tau Gwun Dwei Chuck) 单頭棍對拆
  
• Umbrella vs. Double-Ended Staff (Yu San Dwei Chuck Seung Tau Gwun) 雨傘對拆双頭棍
  
• Double-Ended Staff vs. Horse Bench (Seung Tau Gwun Dwei Chuck Kiu Dahng) 双頭棍對拆橋櫈
  
• Broadsword vs. Red Tassel Spear ( Dahn Do Dwei Chuck Hung Ying Cheong) 单刀對拆红纓槍
  
• Double Broadswords vs. Red Tassel Spear (Seung Do Dwei Chuck Hung Ying Cheong) 双刀對拆红纓槍
  
• Red Tassel Spear vs. Red Tassel Spear (Hung Ying Cheong Dwei Chuck) 红纓槍對拆
  
• Commander Sword vs. Monkey King Staff (Ji Fai Do Dwei Chuck Hang Jeh Pang) 指挥刀對拆行者棒
  
• Commander Sword vs. Broadsword ( Ji Fai Do Dwei Chuck Dahn Do) 指挥刀對拆单刀
  
• Three-Section Staff vs. Red Tassel Spear (Sam Jit Gwun Dwei Chuck Hung Ying Cheung) 三節棍對拆红纓槍
  
• Red Tassel Spear vs. Kwan-Do (Hung Ying Cheung Dwei Chuck Kwan-Do) 红纓槍對拆関刀
  
• Double Broadswords vs. Horse Bench (Seung Do Dwei Chuck Kiu Dahng) 双刀對拆橋櫈
  
• Double Broadswords vs. Nine-Ringed Long-Handled Broadsword (Seung Do Dwei Chuck Gau Wan Do) 双刀對拆九環大刀
  
• Seven Star Long-Handled Knive vs Rattan Shield and Broadsword (Chat Sing Tiu Dwei Chuck Dahn Do Dip) 七星銚對拆单刀碟
  
• Rattan Shield and Broadsword vs. Trident (Dahn Do Tahn Pai Dip Dwei Chuck Dai Pah) 单刀籐牌碟對拆大耙
  
• Double Copper Cudgels vs. Trident (Seung Tung Gan Dwei Chuck Dai Pah) 双銅鐧對拆大耙
  
• Tiger's Head Shield and Broadsword vs. Kwan-Do (Dahn Do Fu Tau Pai Dwei Chuck Kwan-Do) 单刀虎頭牌對拆関刀
  
• Long-Handled Two-Section Staff vs. Rattan Shield and Tonfa (Dai So Ji Gwun Dwei Chuck Tahng Pai Gwai) 大梢子棍對拆籐牌枴
  
• Farmer's Hoe vs. Horse Bench (Chor Tau Dwei Chuck Cheung Kiu Dahng) 鋤頭對拆橋櫈

(And that's just the two person weapon forms, there are far more one person weapon forms. This is just one style of kung fu, there are hundreds of others. Obviously there are also hundreds of weapon arts outside of kung fu.)

Notice that "Rattan Shield" is mentioned multiple times. The reason why we spar with a wide range of weapons is because there ARE a wide range of weapons. This is not just about a Katana, or just about a knife, or just about a staff. If you have to take out someone who has a hand to hand weapon, you may not have a huge choice of weapons to choose from to take them out with, and you should be proficient in a variety of weapons if that is what you are training to do. "Janitor's broom vs. balisong" is a possible situation security professionals can run into these days.

Staff vs. Buckler

We got in some heavy contact sparring with Staff vs. Buckler, and have video footage of it up on YouTube:


We both agreed to no leg kicks for this one, as we wanted to focus more on the weapons technique (Western and otherwise,) and less on the Sanda. You'll notice every time the staff gets low enough to try a trip the staff fighter takes a head shot, sometimes with the buckler.

What is Tres Espadas?

Hello and welcome to the Tres Espadas blog. So you might ask yourself what is Tres Espadas? As the name translates into english meaning "Three Swords", it is a combination of Eastern, Western and Filipino martial arts.

Unlike most schools, Tres Espadas is a full contact fight club that uses weapons fighting as a mainstay and we encourage members to research and study the techniques that suit them best.

I founded Tres Espadas after years of researching the safest way to do full contact weapons sparring, while giving a realistic approach to the fight through uninterrupted timed bouts. This club is based in Bremerton, Washington. I can be reached through FaceBook.