The Barbarian Athlete

	Here begins an experiment in athletic endeavor, drawing inspiration from Robert E. Howard's fictional character Conan, especially his fighting style and his special qualities of strength, power, speed, agility and quickness. Can a conditioning program develop a warrior-athlete with prowess approximating Conan's? The best known attempt at this was in a series of movies, starting with Conan the Barbarian, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Lo! There is much more to be discovered about this Cimmerian than is seen in mere... movies.
	Conditioning "His mail could not conceal his hard lines of tigerish strength. Everything about him was tigerish, elemental, untamed...." - Black Colossus We will delve into some training techniques that can bring your body up to Conan's legendary strength, speed and other attributes. What is a Barbarian? New! Black Stones to the Sky New! Bracket Training Shoulder Training Agility Training Abdominal Training Attribute Training Forearm Training
	Movement "His slightest movement spoke of steel-spring muscles knit to a keen brain with the co-ordination of a born fighting man...." -The Phoenix on the Sword. Conan's catlike agility has eluded filmmakers and roleplayers alike - until now. Here is the beginning of a methodical system that you can use to learn to move like a barbarian. Agility Training The Forward Roll (TBA) Stalking Night movements (TBA)
	Swordsmanship Through some of the original Conan stories, we have a pretty good idea of how the original author intended Conan to have fought. Techniques of Cimmerian Swordsmanship: This is an analysis of the swordsmanship as described in Robert E. Howard's original Conan "yarns". The Basic Techniques of the Barbarian Broadsword Coming soon! Features of a Good Sword NEW Test cutting A Few Places I Have Trained It's only fair that I tell you something about my background. I joined a medieval reenactment group back in 1975. In the midst of our swordfights, a friend gave me a copy of one of the Lancer paperbacks full of the stories about Conan of Cimmeria. I was hooked. I was also driven to reconstruct Conan's fighting style. So I learned about swords wherever I could. Here are some of my sources. Markland - This is the rabble with which I first joined arms. It was fun. Derobio Escrima - When I joined the US Navy, I was stationed at Pearl Harbor. I had the honor and pleasure of training under Master Braulio Pedoy in his Filipino art of stick-fighting. Schola Saint George - At an SCA event in northern California many years ago, I met Brian Price. He said that he was reconstructing medieval sword combat based on actual manuscripts from the middle ages, and that it would rival the Asian martial arts. We trained primarily in the longsword as taught by Fiore dei Liberi. Kenshinkan - In 1925, the Japanese imperialist army decided that giving their officers and NCOs western sabers to fight was a losing battle, so they gave them back their katanas. At the same time, a group of instructors assembled the best and most practical sword arts that had been preserved in the peaceful Tokugawa years adapted them to be taught quickly to their soldiers. Toyama Ryu was born and from it was adapted a number of different schools of swordsmanship, including Nakamura Ryu, which is the style taught at Kenshinkan.

Copyright Douglas Sunlin 2008