If you are interested in joining our society or would like further information before making a decision please feel free to contact us and we will do all we can to answer your questions.

In the meantime here is a list of the most frequently asked questions about membership and our society.

We are a group historical players specialising in the Gladiatorial Combat of the 2nd Century AD, Stage Combat and the soon to be announced the fait d'armes of the 1360s! Based in Fareham, Hampshire, UK; we meet regularly each Thursday to practice our skills and carry out research. The society is formed primarily of stage combatants. The group has additional skills in fight choreography, leather work, jewelry making, blacksmithing, fletching and presentations.

Do I need any equipment or costume?

To begin with no. We will supply all equipment and costume required to get you started. After time and your decision to join the society you will be expected to equip yourself with certain pieces of costume. However, we have full details on these, their cost and how to even make them yourselves. Sadly, there are no millionaires in our society yet, so everything is done with consideration to budget restrictions.

Do you train?

We do, as all our fighting is rehearsed to enable us to use many of the lethal techniques we see our historical counterparts having used. We meet to train every Thursday in Fareham, Hampshire from 7.15PM to 9.15PM. Anyone is welcome to come and watch or join in with the training, all you need to do is contact us at least a week before hand so we can make sure that we have everything ready for you to join us.

Training follows a similar pattern each week and is taken by one of our team of FISC certified instructors.

Warm up
Basic stage fighting techniques
Theatre exercise or Historical technique
Break
Advanced classes/continued basics
Cool down

None at all, be it living history, stage combat or any other part of the hobby we accept people of any level of experience. 

Will it cost me anything?

To begin with no. We encourage people to come to a few training sessions and where possible, a single show before making any payment to be sure it is something you enjoy, but this is not always possible particularly over the winter. After this, annual subs are £15 for individuals or £20 for a family and training is £1 per session. Your subs pay for the upkeep of all the equipment, membership and insurance, as well as frequent subsidised outings with the group.

Why do you use stage combat?

There are several ways to demonstrate ancient combat arts, we have chosen to use stage combat as we believe it allows us to better demonstrate the often lethal techniques used by our original counterparts. Attacks and counter attacks which we might not otherwise be able to safely display are the mainstay of the groups demonstrations. It also means that we can repeat sequences for camera over and over again, allowing one or two camera teams to get multiple takes for edit.