#beth hammer

Beth Hammer of Lonin taught two workshops on essential longsword skills. All About That Base taught attendees how to use footwork and posture to generate power and resistance in any fight. Grab ‘Em By The Blade was an exploration of Fiore dei Liberi’s blade grabs, and covered how to build effective techniques from a few core principles.

Claire Wemyss of Vancouver Strength Collective‘s Kunst des Funkelns program brought her personal coaching background to her first-ever workshop, Design Your Good Time. Our attendees built important self-reflection and communication skills that allowed them to build training relationships and drills that served their own training goals.

Jon Mills of Vancouver Strength Collective and Kunst des Funkelns warmed everyone up after lunch with Breathing Around Corners, and taught attendees how to breathe effectively under both physical and emotional pressure. Everyone came away with a much deeper understanding of the mechanics of breathing and the relationship between breathing and emotion.

Kaja Sadowski of Valkyrie WMAA wrapped things up with Marozzo Surprise!, an introduction to Achille Marozzo’s gioco largo and gioco stretto, or wide and narrow play. Attendees got a feel for how the tactics and mechanics of a fight change with the distance between fighters, and played a bit with the relationship between fighting and dance.

Our attendees traveled from as far as Seattle to come to this event, and came from a broad range of backgrounds and experience levels — from fighters who’ve been at this for a decade or more, to folks who picked up a sword for the very first time in one of the day’s workshops. Thanks to our wonderful sponsors, Team Mimosa and Rogue Fencing, we were able to fully sponsor 3 low-income attendees. Thank you so much to everyone who supported this event, and everyone who came out to play. It was a great experience from start to finish, and shows that “niche” events that serve marginalized communities can be successful, technically rigorous and challenging, and economically viable even while maintaining accessibility. We’ll definitely be hosting this event again in the future, and we can’t wait to see the movement grow!

Date: November 3rd, 2018, 10am – 5:30pm

Price: sliding scale with three options. Pay what makes sense to you:

Accessible rate: $40 + GST

Standard rate: $60 + GST

Generous rate: $80 + GST

Who’s teaching? BGSD is a showcase of up-and-coming LGBT instructors in the Pacific Northwest. We’ll be featuring workshops from the following awesome folks:

Claire Wemyss is an educator, coach, brightly coloured good-time enthusiast, and an instructor with Vancouver Strength Collective. She brings her background in dance, yoga, and martial arts movement practices, as well as her drive for rich and meaningful learning, to creating spaces where people can build strong relationships with their selves, practice, and community.

Jon Mills is a weightlifting coach, historical martial artist, Quigong instructor, and self defense instructor. He runs Black Dog Strength and Nutrition and is a director of Vancouver Strength Collective, a community centred multi disciplinary fitness studio in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side.

Beth Hammer has been practicing a variety of martial arts for the last 4 years including escrima, Fiore longsword and dagger, wrestling, and boxing. She has been on the team of Fiore coaches at Lonin for the last 2 years and is one of the founding organizers of Swordsquatch.

Kaja Sadowski is a coach and co-owner at Valkyrie Western Martial Arts Assembly. She has been teaching physical skills for over 15 years, and has been a martial artist since 2010. Her current specialties include rapier fencing, unarmed striking and grappling, self defense, and stress testing and adrenaline management.

Who’s invited? you are! BGSD is open to students of all backgrounds, experience levels, and identities. Everyone is welcome, and there are no pre-requisites for any of our workshops.

How do I sign up? Register now by clicking the button below! If you’d like to attend, but the event is out of your budget right now, there are sponsored spaces available. Contact us today to get your foot in the door, regardless of ability to pay.

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The full event schedule is now available!

We’d also like to thank our fantastic sponsors, Team Mimosa, and Rogue Fencing.

Latosa Escrima is a Filipino martial art developed by Rene Latosa after years of study with renowned Filipino martial art instructors such as Angel Cabales, Leo Giron, Max Sarmiento, Dentoy Revilar and his own father, Juan Latosa. Latosa Escrima is a comprehensive system that includes sticks, knives, swords (kampilans, bolos and machetes), staff, spear, shield, palm sticks, whip and empty hand methods including Cadena de Mano and Filipino Boxing. Unlike most martial arts that strictly teach techniques, Rene’s system focuses on concepts. These concepts are applicable to any weapon or empty-hand application. In addition, they are so logical and pure that people already use them to accomplish tasks in their everyday life. These concepts include balance, speed, timing, distance, power, focus, and transition.

Andrew and Beth’s workshop covered the concepts of power, focus, and speed for a dozen great students of all backgrounds and experience levels. The workshop was a fundraiser for Dying With Dignity Canada, a non-profit organization that provides end-of-life support for people with terminal illnesses, and raised over $500. Thank you to everyone who participated!