Northwest Academy of Arms is located at:
About the School
Northwest Academy of Arms is located at:
1666 W 12th St Suite 206
Corner of 12th and Chambers
Eugene OR
541-221-1695
We are dedicated teaching and popularizing the arts of Classical Fencing and Historical European Swordsmanship.
Classical Fencing
The school employs the classical fencing pedagogy of Italy's great 19th century
Scuola Magistrale (Master's School) - the national school for fencing masters,
of which Maestro Hayes is a "descendant" (see Lineage).
This instructional method, developed by centuries of Italian fencing masters
and codified in 1884 by Maestro
Masaniello
Parise, Director of the Scuola Magistrale, in his book Trattato teorico-pratico
della scherma di spada e sciabola,
focuses
on the development
of
a full range of technical and tactical skills in the fencer, taught through carefully
devised skill drills and supervised fencing practice. Fencers are taught a complete
range of actions, starting with the relatively simple and leading to the increasingly
complex, so that they incorporate and internalize the necessary skills for a
lifetime of successful fencing and enjoyment of fencing. While we don't take
shortcuts, we do make sure we have fun. Classes include technical drills, tactical
drills, and supervised bouting practice, and we also include fencing games to
build skills and have some extra fun. While there is a greater balance of games
in our grade school and middle-school programs, our teen and adult programs also
cut loose a bit.
B&W Photo: Masaniello Parise & Agesilao Greco Color Photo: David Borland and Sean Hayes
Historical European Swordsmanship
We also study our fencing heritage, not just as armchair
reading of days gone by, but as physical practice: over 700 years of documented
European swordsmanship
and martial arts is practiced in our sala d'armi (hall of arms). Our primary
course of study is from a manuscript produced in 1409 by the Italian fencing
master Fiore dei Liberi as a tribute to his patron,
the powerful Niccolo
d'Este III, ruler of the principalities of Ferrara and Modena in Northern Italy.
Fiore left us an astonishing martial arts manual that covers hand-to-hand combat,
longsword, spear, poleaxe - both in and out of armour. These are the techniques
of late medieval knights, and they have been preserved in books by Fiore and
other Italian and German fencing masters. These sophisticated martial arts
manuals demonstrate that medieval swordsmanship was not just a matter of "the
heaviest sword and the strongest arm," but was instead based on rigorous
practice of established principles, just as Japanese and Chinese martial arts
are.
Another manuscript we work extensively with is the earliest fencing manuscript
known: a sword & buckler text from Germany,
1300 AD, known today as Royal Armouries Manuscript I.33. I.33 is a medieval
fencing instructional manual that makes key techniques of Europe's medieval
men-at-arms
available to us today. The manuscript shows a priest giving combat instruction
to a young man - and also to a young woman:
Images from Royal Armouries Manuscript I.33
For a glimpse of some of the techniques of Historical European Swordsmanship,
please see our Resources page.