Therrien and Rempel sparring before a longsword class at the Rotary Centre for the Arts to show students how it's done on Nov. 27.

(JESSE TOMAS / iNFOnews.ca)

If you are looking for a new hobby, workout, or historic education, you could pick up sword fighting.

Tyler “Murdoch” Therrien runs Ascalon Academy of historical swordsmanship. Therrien offers rapier and longsword classes in Penticton and Kelowna. He says anyone can learn and benefit from swinging a sword, and even work their way up to fighting in medieval martial arts tournaments.

“People come in different shapes and sizes and they say ‘I can’t do this, I’m too gangly, I’m left handed, I’m too heavy, my knees are messed up.’ It really doesn’t matter,” Therrien said.

For $25 you can walk into a lesson and Therrien hands you a real, blunted metal sword. During the hour-long lesson he walks you through the slicing and dicing motions, the footwork and can explain the history of swordsmanship at length.

Sean Kabanuk has been training at Ascalon Academy for the past year.

“I’ve been interested in swords my entire life. I hadn’t seen a lot of schools around. So I checked these guys out and thought this is legit. I’m 51 now so it’s kind of late to start a new hobby,” Kabanuk said after a sparring session with volunteer instructor James “Tobias” Rempel.

“It is a workout. I have a pretty sedentary job, I’m a software developer so I need something to get out and get the body moving. Even now my shoulders are screaming all the time,” he said. 

Kabanuk says it’s never too late to channel your inner Highlander, but it takes time.

“Just do it, these guys are set up to welcome anybody. Be in it for the long haul, it’s not an overnight success story. It’s a martial art, you have to put in the time,” he said.

Therrien started training with a sword 20 years ago, and started Ascalon Academy in 2021.

“I grew up watching sword movies as a kid in the 80s. Conan, The Princess Bride, all those sorts of movies. Swinging a stick around hitting anything that wouldn’t get me in trouble,” he said.

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Therrien found his mentor while working at a shop in Kelowna.

“It turns out the owner and manager at the time used to train rapiers,” he said.

“When I found out about that I said ‘can you teach me? can you teach me? can you teach me?’ For a month I bugged him. Finally he said ‘Ok, shut up, I’ll teach you.’ He pulled some swords out of his basement. They were mothballed up so he cleaned them and started teaching me. That was the first spark.”

Therrien says he kept at it and eventually started fighting in tournaments through the Society for Creative Anachronism, an international group that helps regulate sword fighting tournaments around the world.

He says once he strapped on the protective gear and started to actually fight, he was both terrified and hooked.

“It was so much different doing drills than stepping up to fight somebody,” he said. “I couldn’t get past his sword mentally to see where I could attack. After that (the instructor) pulled me aside and said maybe I should do something else and I said ‘no way are you kidding? This is a sword! I don’t have this opportunity often so I’m not giving up on this.’”

After years of experience getting bashed and bashing others with a sword, Therrien decided to pursue starting a sword fighting school of his own.

“It’s a mundane job, my regular job. No one really enjoys their regular job unless it’s their passion. I felt that what I do is not my passion, eventually I want to do something else,” he said.

Therrien teaches age-old techniques from The Foundational Description of the Art of Fencing written in 1570 by master swordsman Joachim Meyer. He says the history of sword fighting is like any other kind of history, it takes effort to preserve but is ultimately worthwhile. 

"It's part of our heritage," he said. "There is a history of your ancestors using a sword to defend themselves."

Therrien runs lessons out of the Rotary Centre for the Arts in Kelowna and the Trade and Convention Centre in Penticton, but hopes to get a dedicated space when more students enrol.

“Right now it’s still feeling out how we do things, how we structure things, we’ve got our class structure figured out for now,” he said. “It would be nice to have our own space and start to build a community because ultimately that’s what I want.”

Find out more about Ascalon Academy here.

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