By Sarah Buchert

If you go out to the courtyard piazza on a Monday afternoon you will see students wielding swords, stabbing, blocking blows, and attacking. You’ll see student against student, teacher against student.

“The spirit of sword fighting is a link to a whole bunch of time periods. It’s an interesting combination of self-defense and discipline. It requires balance of physical and mental skills. It is something that reaches a community of people who want to be active and learn skills but aren’t as interested in sports. It is a curious combination of confidence building for kids who haven’t the skill for traditional sport, can connect to historical traditions that still live on today.” That was what Mr. Bolt, the Sword Club teacher, said when asked why he learned sword fighting over more common activities.

He became interested in sword fighting in college, when he came from the filming of an adaptation of TPA’s favorite ancient classic, The Iliad. He sought tutorials from his college fencing teacher and studied books on sword fighting.

He believes that “Sword Club is a great opportunity to put what theory I’ve learned into practice.”  Sword Club came from a discussion in a Humane Letters class when the students had been reading a book about fighting and some students expressed an interest in learning how.  That discussion presented an opportunity to do an activity without having the competition that a sport would gather.

When sixth grader Elijah Garside was asked why he liked sword club, he responded: “It is fun, we learn a lot of techniques.” All that is required to join and learn is a $5 fee, a waiver, and a willingness to learn over the course of the school year. Sword Club meets in the new courtyard piazza every Monday after school from 3 to 3:45 or 4 p.m.