This past Sunday, March 9th, 2014, Mister Jim Frederick hosted a memorial service for his teacher and spiritual father, Hans Kliemisch, at his Towson, Maryland Kenpo School. On Saturday, as Erique and I finished up our training, Mister Frederick said, “I think it would be fitting to honor Mister K. like the ancient Romans did, with a fight between gladiators. We are going to have a lot of high level martial artists here.”

We had a brief discussion about the ancient practice, called a munera, meaning ‘rites due the dead’, and agreed to do gladiatorial and FMA bouts after the Navy color guard presented the flag to Mister K’s daughter.

At 3:30 pm, after a Kenpo demonstration, Cory, Erique and I were called to fight.

Erique and I fought with small shield and roped rudius [wooden sword].

Cory and I then fought with the same weapon set.

The third bout had Cory and I fighting with the nasty Cold Steel polypropylene gladius. When I sent his blade plunging toward the octogenarian minister I thought we were toast. The blade fell before his feet and the old guy took it as a divine sign, coming over later to congratulate us, and also excuse the pagan aspects of the combat.

Next Erique and Cory fought to a draw with long and short escrima sticks, as that weapon set is the closest to the ancient Roman brand of stick-fighting we could reconstruct with the equipment on hand.

Erique and I then went at it with the sticks for Bout Five.

Not satisfied that I had taken enough punishment, Mister Frederick called for a final bout between Cory and I; a brutal affair that went a little over a minute.

The fights were well-received by the friends, colleagues and loved ones of Mister Kliemisch in attendance. I was really proud of Cory and Erique; Cory for his toughness, and Erique for wading into the deep end against ‘Diablo Mano’ for the first time, braving that urban-Anglo chi without Michael Jai White in his corner.

On a competitive note, I think we have arrived at the proper format for minimal gear stick-fighting: a second attends the fighters who begin on a stick-tap. He then makes sure to remove dropped sticks, keep the fighters in the fighting area, and call the bout a draw if it drags on. Victory should be determined exclusively by submission, according to the standards each fighter holds for himself. This worked out better than any format thus far, with double-stick or short & long stick preferred by the spectators.