Gladiator Training

[frosty84]

Hi Guys (Ave!),

New here to RAT, have been reading posts during research for about the past month but finally decided to sign up and pick brains if anyone is able to help me!

I live in Northern Ireland and there seems to be zero Roman reenactment groups, or more interestingly to me, Gladiator reenactment groups.

I come from a sporting background having studied Jujitsu, Taejitsu, Kickboxing and I currently play rugby for a local team, and the Gladiators of Rome have always interested me.

As i like fitness & contact sports, I have been toying with the idea of trying to recreate how ancient gladiators trained. My googling of this subject has not returned anything of worth apart from all the spartacus & 300 workouts! Has anyone found any references as to how they would have really trained along with weapon drills?

I have a vision, that if I can find out some information on how they would have trained (sparring with the rudis, striking a palus aside) I could then start my own group, incorporating authentic training (using modern weights etc if need be) and even possibly going as far as recreating as close as possible the bread they would have ate along with the gruel (except add a bit more protein).

The area of the gladiator has always fascinated me, and I would even go as far as trying to recreate the "Games" as close as possible, especially where the combat is concerned, but of course safely. If anyone could also point me to any UK businesses/websites where I could buy equipment such as the rudis, a heavy shield, and blunted steel gladius's (gladii?) to get me started as I'm not sure of what is good gear and what is crap and would break after a few blows!

I know this might seem ambitious for a beginner, but I do enjoy having a lot of information so i can then research more.

Any help anyone can give me is massively appreciated and I apologise if a thread like this has been similarly covered but I could not find one.

As a side note, do any of the current gladiator reenactment groups (preferably UK) run skills & drills courses in gladiatorial combat? I'm talking like an intense course over say 2-3 weeks that establishes fitness aswell as combat skills?

Again, any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

[jvrjenivs]

Well, Brittania does some very nice gladiator combat and are based in the UK. Same goes for the Deva group from Chester. Recently Comitatus also put up some gladiator shows.

I think this forum is already a good start and a big source of information. Read, read and read. There are topics here describing reproductions (which items to get, which to avoid) as well as discussing books. I would start with 'The world of the gladiator' by Susanna Shadrake.

[frosty84]

Thank you very much for the info!

[richard robinson]

I have a friend who is flying to UK on the 1st August to be with his true love. He will be residing in Manchester and is a mad keen gladiator who also favours exploring pankration and other forms of traditional martial arts. He will gladly meet up with reenactors in Ireland, UK, and Europe. On his last trip he trained and performed with Ars Dimicandi.
As an Australian he does not think anywhere in UK is too far to travel.
Look out for Matthew Bryant and make him welcome! He is an excellent human being !!

regards
Richard

[cn.caelius]

Salve, Paul! We're doing the same thing here in Kentucky. I wish you much fun and success!