A few months ago, we had our 16th annual Summer Weapons Retreat. This year’s retreat focused on fantasy weapons as well as melee teams that all had the same weapon.
What is the Summer Weapons Retreat?
The Summer Weapons Retreat is a 5 day sleep away camp for adults. Students spend five days studying weapons, playing games, learning and having a good time together.
This was our second year holding the camp at the Colombiere Retreat Center in Clarkston Mi.
Over the years we have covered many topics and weapons at the Summer Weapons Retreat including Sword and buckler, hand and a half sword, footwork, thrown spears, archery, steel test cutting unit formations and movements for melee.
Fantasy Weapons
For our fantasy weapon focus, we worked with light saber, Bat’leth, and Sting (Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit).
Rather than attempting to learn an entirely new weapons style, we took a look at the core concepts and techniques of each fantasy style, and asked our students to work to apply those ideas to the core weapons styles that are school focuses on regularly.
This approach allowed students to examine the potential strengths and weaknesses of fantasy weapons within the context of their understanding of weapons they already train in. It also pushed them to think about the weapons they were familiar with in new ways and try techniques that may not have other wise occurred to them.
Toward the end of the week, the students had a chance to design their own fantasy weapons and thing about how they would create plays or drill similar to historical manual examples. This was a fun exercise that allowed the students to play with form and function of a weapon.
Though fantasy weapons can be eye catching and flashy, they are also an interesting lens through which to analyze body mechanics and your understanding of martial arts.
Melee Focus
Every year at our retreat, we focus on larger group melees. This year’s melee focus was teams that had only one weapon type. Generally in our melees, we have a mix of weapons on each team, often ranging from knives, to shields, swords, and great weapons.
We started the week focusing on a single sword team against a sword and shield team. We worked our way up to a team of shields or single sword wielders against a team a glaive pole-arms.
Each team was asked to focus on tactics that maximized the effectiveness of their weapon and try different formations and movements.
Structuring the melee teams as single weapons teams allowed our student to continue the exploration of strengths and weaknesses of each weapon in a larger scale. It also pushed them to try different formations, that they may not have tried in a mixed unit.
The White Belt Track
At our Summer Weapons Retreat, students who are new to our school work through our white belt track.
The white belt track starts with knife the basics of knife fighting and progresses through sword and shield during the course of the week.
The white belt track starts separate from the upper belt lessons. By Saturday afternoon the white belt students are sparring with sword and shield and are fully integrated with the upper level.
This year we had two students complete the white belt track.
Up Next: Summer Retreat 2027
We’re already looking forward to our 2027 retreat which will be June 2-6, 2027 at the Colombiere Retreat Center. We’re still working on our themes and curriculum for the upper belts, but new students will be learning knife and sword and shield skills. Interested in joining us? You can sign up here!