It’s 1 p.m. on a latest Thursday in San Jose, and Steaphen Fick is intently watching two grown males swing unsharpened metal swords at one another.
One in every of them is seemingly not putting the opposite with sufficient drive. Fick interrupts.
“Don’t be afraid!” he says, like a personality going into battle in “Lord of the Rings.”
Fick jabs a finger on the different man’s headgear and neck guard — referred to as a gorget, French for “throat” — and turns to his opponent. “That’s what that’s for!”
The press-clacking of swords resumes.
Fick isn't any stranger to those swords. He began practising Historic European martial arts (HEMA) greater than three a long time in the past in his yard in San Jose. Now, just like the prodigal son so typically mythologized in medieval artwork, he’s returning to town after 14 years at varied areas all through Santa Clara County.
On March 4, Fick’s Davenriche European Martial Artes College had a grand opening within the metropolis’s Japantown neighborhood; it expands his footprint to 14,244 sq. toes, a fourth the dimensions of a soccer discipline. It’s a far cry from his first college in 2000, which was positioned within the again room of a packaging plant that smelled like onions and pineapple and was dwelling to a household of bats.
“We’ve been working our tails off,” Fick says.
The big warehouse at 395 East Taylor Avenue is an emporium for the medieval-minded. A dragon figurine adorns the ceiling, European work and tapestries dangle on the brick partitions and there’s sufficient area to deal with a complete armory and library — plus a reproduction trebuchet catapult. On the foot of the steps main as much as the college is a big swimsuit of armor that Fick as soon as wore in France at a reenactment of Henry V’s Battle of Agincourt in 1415.
“It is a very well-known battle,” Fick says whereas his finger tinks towards the armor’s metallic. The Polish-made helmet is gentle metal, which helps disperse the vitality if one thing impacts it. There’s a two-inch dent on the left facet of it above the attention gap the place Fick acquired hit. “I used to be on the sphere with two squires combating towards the French. English longbowmen (had been) taking pictures arrows over my head. It was time.”
Fick was a child when he acquired his first likelihood to wrap his arms round a sword, albeit a plastic one which his mother and father purchased him.
“I beloved that sword, ” he says fondly. “I carried it in all places.”
By the point he exited highschool, he went to his first Renaissance Truthful. “I made my very own costume,” he recollects. “It was rubbish.” Within the late nineties, as Fick was in search of a approach to pay the payments, he was fascinated about a profession as a firefighter — however finally selected the trail of a swordsman.
“I made the choice,” he mentioned. “I (initially) began my college in my yard.”
Standing stout with a barrel chest and a silvery beard that might simply get him solid in a “Recreation of Thrones” episode, Fick appears the a part of a HEMA guru.
Looped via his brown belt are a sword and dagger of German design. A 3,000-year-old dagger that was found in modern-day Iran and “used someday between the Trojan Battle and King David of the Bible” is displayed in his workplace. On the within of Fick’s proper forearm is a tattoo, “Gladi meus professional ceter,” Latin for “My sword for others.”
The ink provides to the quirky but assured air that surrounds Fick. He’s somebody you’d most likely wish to name when you ever acquired your self in some kind of pickle.
The varsity itself is a plethora of Medieval martial arts weaponry coaching. Fick teaches grappling and dagger work, archery, axe and knife throwing. Different actions are extra lighthearted. This month, Fick helped host a Make-A-Want occasion for a 7-year-old. Fick and 6 others dressed up as pirates and let the kid, James, sit atop a 1700s-era cannon that was hauled up from the Mediterranean Ocean.
“An excellent buddy of mine, her son was identified with childhood leukemia and Make-a-Want despatched their household to Hobbiton in New Zealand. He beat the leukemia and he’s even performed lessons right here with me. I’ve at all times needed to be part of Make-a-Want as a result of it’s such an enormous factor for these children.”
For a few of Fick’s college students, the weapons coaching is therapeutic. Roughly the size of a wrapping paper roll and weighing as much as 4 kilos, the swords really feel gentle at first, however arms can tire rapidly after a few minutes of swinging.
“There’s no higher approach to dwell within the second than defending towards someone hitting you within the head with a sword,” says 50-year-old Niall Doherty. “We’ve all acquired our busy lives occurring. However whenever you’re right here, you’re 100% residing within the second.”
For others, like 23-year-old Kevin Ryan, the college affords essential life expertise.
“Studying this sort of stuff is an efficient confidence increase out in the remainder of the world, as a result of whenever you present up someplace willingly to have a metallic sword, like, swung at your head, different conditions don’t appear as scary,” he mentioned.
As the category on a Thursday in March involves an finish, Fick and his 4 college students collect round, placing their swords collectively in a circle after which individually saluting each other. At one level, one in all Fick’s college students extends an arm for a handshake, however he’s rapidly reprimanded and informed that he should first take off his protecting gloves.
“It’s not huge, dumb thugs swinging tight irons,” Fick explains about his college. “‘Conan the Barbarian’ lied to us. There’s a lot extra than simply swinging an enormous, heavy stick at folks.”
