How do we break out of traditional martial arts show ritual and from sports combat, to develop practical individual and group combat ability?
The Modern Agonistics answer has been to use creative sports combat as an intermediary step towards a less compromised form of survival training.
The first answer is to do away with the karate lineup and air training against the invisible uke. Pairing off, drilling and sparring is where learning happens, and is how ancient boxing wrestling and pancration, as well as early modern fencing and boxing were learned. Class settings are imposed combat retardation for profit.
I will address each of the three disciplines in order.
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Weapons
At Man Weekend 2026, we will have the largest collection of experienced contact weapon fighters to meet, in North America, since sometime in the 1840s. Coaching and learning weapons is easier than the unarmed arts, but is plagued by lack of gear, lack of will, and the monopoly of extension and edged weapon knowledge by grifters such as karate, kung fu and FMA instructors, to include the Dog Brothers. This is our first chance to ever do this right. The biggest fighter meet to date was 10 men and 4 boys in 2006 in East Baltimore. But half of the stick fighters would not touch the blades and sat out most of the meet.
Currently, 70+% of criminal attacks against men are by groups, which calls for an armed response. 30 to 50% of these groups are armed, depending on ethnicity. Roughly 90% of individual attackers enjoy a great size or youth advantage and/or are armed. If, you are not looking for the movie brawl in a bar or the low IQ beef-brain dick measuring contest in some municipality of color, if you are defending your home, you are in an extreme disparity of force, and therefore defacto armed, encounter situation.
Yet boxing/grappling/MMA men avoid weapon training and weapon men avoid the more physical arts that are required to make certain that those extension weapons are not crutches, but force-amplification tools.
Sean wants 90 minutes in three segments. He will announce the parameters in a big circle, then we will break into 4 small circles. Charles, our best stick and knife coach, will rove from circle to circle for the first cycle, instilling the basics. Each circle will have a fully kitted coach-sparring partner, gear for unequipped fighters, and the weapons to be employed. Charles will drift from circle to circle helping with the novice and intermediate stick fighters.
1st Cycle: Single Stick
This basic cycle will offer a time and measure evolution that will form the basis for the numerous weapon sets to follow. Various speeds will be used. Contact will be as light as possible.
Circle A: First Time Basics
James LaFond, Snake Guard
Slow stick sparring with evil runt, focus on constant motion.
Circle B: Novice Sparring
James Anderson, High Guard
Moderate speed sparring focused on dominating the combat space.
Circle C: Advanced Sparring
Oklahoma Joe, Four Stroke Guard
Quick sparring, focused on combinations.
Circle D: Hard Sparring
Sean Glass, Left Guard
Slow sparring again, using longer, heavier sticks.
Have fun hitting a lefty with a stick without getting clipped.
2nd Cycle: Mixed Weapon Evolution
Charles will now stay with Joel for the duration to develop the novice and first time stick fighter into knife fighters, with the knife being the premier weapon threat for the boxer/grappler and the best had-to-hand tool against an unarmed pack.
Circle A: Club Fighting
James L
Sparring with 24 inch aluminum bats, with and without light sidearms, such as knives, belts and jackets. This is the best blunt extension weapon for interior home defense, and mechanically equal to a machete in combat.
Circle B: Unarmed against the Stick
James Anderson will take turns being the armed and unarmed party with each fighter. The reality is almost no self-defense combat features two parties armed with blunt extension weapons, though that class of weapon is the most common [13% of all attacks] with edged being #2 [12% of all attacks] and firearm #3 [10% of all attacks.] (1)
Circle C: Wooden Knife Round Robin
Charles & Oklahoma Joel
Duel to a clean kill, winner stays up, mutual kills sets both men to the side advancing the next two. This is more fun than anything combative you have done. This hones the time & measure developed with the stick for the closer range necessary for operating with and against blades.
Circle D: Shields
Sean will spar with small and large shields. The shield, when present, is the primary weapon. The weapons will vary from bat, to machete, to axes and heavy tools. This must be a slow sparring set. Leave your ego on the floor. Doing this will help widen your idea of defense tools of opportunity such as chairs, pillows, coats, trashcan lids and small tables of all kinds.
3rd Cycle
This is the set that gets you from the basics to murder on one end and fun historic dueling on the other.
Circle A: Machetes
JL will slow spar with whatever weapons in his array the fighters are curious about: various machetes, canes, umbrellas, belts, jackets, sand hammers, wooden knives and bats.
Circle B: Long Swords
James Anderson will be assisted by Adam Swinder and his fighter in long sword. All three of these swordsmen hail from Virginia. Hopefully this goes better for the Gray than Gettysburg.
Circle C: Knife Round Robin
Charles and Joel will employ the shorter varieties of training knives to continue the shank-fest.
Circle D: Defense against the Knife
Sean will work one and two-step gun draws against the knife, knife draw stops, and knife attack escapes. GRAPPLERS, spend your time here. This puts your skill set into survival play.
Grappling
As a small man, my two years as the worst wrestler on the Loch Raven Junior High team netted me three success in self defense: power-bombing some other punk at 13, for starters.
Then, in my early 20s, while wheeling a dolly of cat litter, I was attacked from behind by two men, tackled. The primary was trying to break my neck over the blade of the upturned dolly from a side headlock, while his buddy tried to get by us to the pipe they had set out for my demise. Those five matches I spent being ridden for maximum points without being pinned, enabled me to survive and reverse this.
Again, at age 44, finding myself rescuing an old lady from a notorious crack head who was smaller, quicker and much stronger than me, I sprawled and head-butted.
Since my very poor wrestling helped me so much, it kills me that some self-defense people still avoid it. Also, since serious back injuries began at age 30, my boxing partners who trained for MMA have declined to work grappling with me for fear of injuring me. My request is that Sean, Alex and James structure something for us weak-ass gimps to use against a Skinny at the ATM. My legs are dead, even for boxing. But I have strong forearms. Do you have something for me? I’m two damn slow to avoid anything. Some young buck is going to grab me at some point. Just help me get to my knife or find his nose so I can bit it off. I really want to see full participation in grappling. The fact that you dedicated grapplers are such gorillas and fitness studs puts a lot of the boxers and fencers off. Please find a way to bridge that gap.
Boxing deserves its own section.
Notes
1.) The Logic of Steel, 2001, The Logic of Force 2011, with knives gaining from 11% to 12% as of 2008, when pack attacks increased three-fold. My original research in 1600 plus encounters surveyed between 96 and 2000. Since then pack attacks are WAY up, knife threats up, with gun and extension weapon threats flat.
