Our new site is www.TresEspadas.org

This will be our last post on this Blogspot page. Our new site is http://www.TresEspadas.org , and it is a Facebook page. If you want to "follow" us, then "like" our page on Facebook. Facebook will be easier for our club's administration to use than Blogspot.

Also a little while ago without any warning Google sold our www.TresEspadas.org URL to GoDaddy, who then held it for ransom with some outrageous fee of many times the price of what we originally paid for. We played it cool and acted like we didn't care, and then http://GameArtsGuild.com snatched it up for us when no one was looking for the original much-lower price. At any rate, we don't want to put our web site at the mercy of Google's anti-customer service, so hence this change.

 Our new site on Facebook already looks a lot better than this old site anyhow. Check it out at http://www.TresEspadas.org

After Videos

Here are Ben, Tim, and I doing our final After training video. We will comparing side by side to see if there was any changes in technique and overall performance. The badge system is not a ranking system but it does signify that the person has had the adequate training to use the weapon proficiently. We base most of the training techniques off of Cold Steel Warriors Edge videos as well as our previous and personal martial arts background and experience.
Tim's official "after" video:
Ben & Phil's official after video:

meetings on May 27 and June 1, 2013

We have two upcoming meetings this month and next, to be held at Evergreen Park in Bremerton WA:

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(We usually meet in the North West corner of the park.)

The first is on Monday, May 27th, 2013 at 3PM. There will be a heavy focus on the knife badge at this meeting.

The second will be on July 1st, 2013 at 2PM. We should be finishing up a few knife badges at this meeting and should be an otherwise normal Tres Espadas meeting.

Meeting in Seattle on February 16th, 2013

We are meeting this Saturday at 12:30pm at this location (we suggest you approach Dearborn Park from the direction of MLK rather than from Beacon Ave. South, because it's easier to find that way):

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Seattle Modern Arnis

When we were dealing with the internet troll a while back (an argument that ended up getting resolved on Bullshido,) I suggested that he "go train with Seattle Modern Arnis" so he could "learn some real Filipino Martial Arts." Last week I discovered that the lead instructor of Seattle Modern Arnis trained directly under Dave Bird (someone who I and others involved in Tres Espadas trained under at Tae Sho in Bremerton in the late 80's.) I did not know about the overlapping backgrounds or I would have been transparent about that at the time.

If I was serious about getting into FMA the very first place I would go to would be Seattle Modern Arnis. The reason why is because they take their sparring seriously:

In case you don't already know, Dave Bird was an activist promoting full contact martial arts long before the UFC made it popular. Here's an example of Dave Bird's level of expertise in FMA:

And just to be clear though we love FMA at Tres Espadas, we are much more casual and broader in scope with what we do. Here's an example:

New Club for the New Year

Hey guys it's been a while since I last posted but I am pleased to announce that we are starting a new chapter in Tres Espadas. This one is going to be based in Seattle and we are meeting this Saturday at 8:00 am at this location: http://youtu.be/D6oCSMjyFhA This is next to MLK and Othello area. So come on over check us out and bring a friend.

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9/1/12 7:30 AM, Forest Ridge Park

The next Tres Espadas meeting is at 07:30 AM on Saturday September 1st at Forest Ridge Park. We are meeting at the restrooms and will probably be practicing near there. What is it too early? Not enough notice? Is it your first day of work? Maybe your mom's funeral? No excuses, be there!

June 23 meeting cancelled

Hey everyone sorry to report this last minute but that is how much notice I got with my schedule for work. The meeting is cancelled due to scheduling conflicts and people having other projects going at that time. We will reschedule for another time so no worries. Also feel free to take advantage of a local arnis club in poulsbo area (details are on tres espadas admin on facebook).

Meeting June 23 Kingston Library

Ok everyone we are meeting at 6pm Saturday june 23 at the Kingston library. My guess is there is a ballpark across the street. We will only have 2 hours at most so we will be rushing things. This is also to test our ability to relocate when necessary. on a side note the sca demo was cancelled but we accomplished our goal by crashing a boffer tournament nearby and having continous full contact in exchange for using our weapons. Soon everyone no longer liked the boffer pillow fighting and much preferred real combat. The action especially drew onlookers which loved it when someone got face pummulled. Thanks to Jake and Sheena for helping organize this and to Jordan for sacrificing his body to be used as a punching bag.

New Weapons policy

Due to an injury at a non-club related event the long weapons will Not be permitted to be used unless you are certified to do so; ie: Polearm badge). This was mostly due to the length of the weapon as well as having no lessons in controlling blows. Also gloves will be required during All events involving tres espadas gear. We will be ordering a neck guard soon. One more good meeting donation shhould do it.

Tres Espadas Meeting May 2012

We will be meeting again at Evergreen park Saturday May 12 2012 at 12:00 noon going until 2:00 pm or so. Also we are closing in on completing the knife badge for those who have been working on it and will be moving on to baton badges next. For those that are wondering why the badges are so important, you cannot use any weapon you are not certified on using. This eliminates those people who want to powerbomb with greatswords all day with no skill or safety considerations. After an incident over at a friend's birthday party the polarms will not be allowed to used unless specifically certified to do so. No exceptions-the power generated from the naginata is astounding and someone's hand got injured.

Nate vs Daniel

We found out that Nate is just as fast charging and attacking as he is ready to strike.

Tim Vs Ben before knife video

We are filming the before video as a reference as part of the new knife badge training sessions we started recently. We will be filming an after video to see what skills the fighters learned and incorporated into their arsenal.

April 21st, 2012, 5:45 PM

The next Tres Espadas meeting will be at 5:45 PM on Saturday, April 21th, 2012. It will be at Evergreen Park in Bremerton: http://www.yelp.com/biz/evergreen-park-bremerton

March 24th, 2012, 3 PM, Evergreen Park

We are excited to announce that the next Tres Espadas meeting will be at 3:00 PM on Saturday, March 24th, 2012. It will be at Evergreen Park in Bremerton: http://www.yelp.com/biz/evergreen-park-bremerton

Tres Espadas vs. "sean michael"

OK "the1", or should I call you "sean michael", you have indeed messaged me on Bullshido. Let the fun begin, the thread for this debate of yours is here: http://www.bullshido.net/forums/showthread.php?t=115419&pagenumber=

Planting seeds for future fighters

This is a small portion of the demo we did for the local scouting group. We hoped to give a taste for possible future members and testing the waters for teaching kids on our part. The event went perfectly even though the camera failed 1 minute into the first fight. The older kids were much more aggressive and we even did a two on one match with the scout master. Yes the helmets were too big on these kids but we compensated and it worked out.

Mixed gender match

We have a new female member to our club and we were breaking her in so we were not going as hard as we normally go. But we were pleasantly surprised on her aggressiveness and ability to dish out shots. We hope to be able to get more women interested in fighting.

Tres Espadas vs Boffer fighter

Here we have a new member who has had only your typical larp fighting experience. He was totally unprepared for the onslaught of blows that our club experiences. After the fight he told us that we would be thrown out of any LARP event for our contact and brutal tactics. Key points to remember to all those that accuse us of larping because of the weapons being foam.

Seth and Ben before video on knife basics

It is good to see Seth back and he did an excellent job. If this teaching forum works then we will have video proof that we can train your average person with no martial arts history how to effectively defend himself with a knife very quickly.