Students of the Way undergo three primary stages of training: Discipleship (private instruction with a teacher), Fellowship (group classes with peers), and Mentorship (passing on what they learn), adding each onto the next toward the status of KNIGHT.

Read more on what each of these stages look like through the menu above! At each stage, students engage with the philosophies of nobility, the practice of service to our community, and with the spiritual disciplines that tether these all together. Occasionally, members also partake in swordsmanship and weapons martial arts training, adding a fun, wholistic, exercise as an accompaniment to the inward moral life. Take a look below to see more about what each of these entail.

PHILOSOPHY of the WAY

The ultimate goal of our academy is to train students in the arts of nobility. Martial training does this indirectly, yet our dialectical methods (good conversations) bring these truths to the forefronts of our brains in a direct manner. Importantly, we reverse the focus of most martial arts schools: instead of discussing behavioral virtues as a bonus to training, CrossSwords makes this is primary focus. We are a school of Philosophy. The moral life has center stage for us. All students are students of nobility in soul as much as students of the sword.

• Members train soul-development through a variety of arts: mindfulness meditation, empathetic awareness, goal orientation, and temperance of virtuous aptitudes. Through approaching philosophy, theology, and ethics in a similar way to the sword, students train the expansion of their cognitive-emotional-relational faculties as the central mark of their progression.
• Students ranks and progression are accordingly marked by seasons of being poured into by a teacher (discipleship), coming alongside others in practice and communion (fellowship), and finally turning back to take on an apprentice of their own and pass on what they’ve learned (mentorship). In these three arenas, we grow and nurture the whole individual, believing that everyone needs all three of these in order to attain the Knighthood.

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SELF-DEFENSE and SWORDSMANSHIP

At different seasons, CrossSwords students will take reprieve from their moral and spiritual studies to develop other physical competencies. These include hand-to-hand combat arts through boxing, kickboxing, grappling, and physical endurance. However, the primary martial art practiced by members is that of the Sword.

• CrossSwords students practice a modern style of blade training, gaining a sound basis of both contemporary and medieval swords, weapons, & martial arts: katanas, longswords, knife & short blade work, bo-staffs, pole arms, stick fighting, and more. This basic training in “Cruciform” swordsmanship is a unique foundational system launching them into specialized weapons trianing at higher levels.

• Swinging swords around can not only offer great exercise, but allows or members to engage with something tangible and real that is united with traditions ancient, mythic, and of tremendous meaning. It’s also, of course, extremely fun!
• Our weapons rraining incorporates heavy practice (with hardwood training weapons), Sparring and Drilling, Forms & Combative Practice, and eventually graduating into Steel at higher levels. (This is not modern sport fencing.  With influences from ancient systems across the globe such as Kenjutsu, Armazaré, Escrima, and more, we are modern warriors in a unique style of the complete sword)

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KNIGHTHOOD

This composition of training for CrossSwords students finds its nexus in the image of the KNIGHT. The Knight (essentially: a CrossSwords Black Belt) is one marked by heroism, grace, humility, conviction, and integrity.  The way to this kind of Knighthood is not only in steel or in spirit, but with the whole self: the whole soul. The sharpening of this soul is more than about wielding a body as a weapon… its about wielding their weapons as tools for cultivating nobility in themselves and in their world.