In the early morning hours of Saturday September 25th, 25 people from all over the Tri-State area gathered at the Martial Strength Training Academy in Branchburg, NJ for a Mace Training Certification Seminar. The group was made up of martial artists, fitness professionals, and regular folks alike who all had 2 things in common – a love of mace training and the desire to plumb the depths by learning from the best in the world, Rik Brown aka Mr. Maceman.

As I got out of my car making sure to grab the 2 maces I brought for the day plus my cup of coffee, I ran into 2 veteran mace swingers in the parking lot. Fred Mohr (Steel Mace Nation) and Andrew Emsley (Sleepy Monkey Training Academy) who, between the 2 of them, were carrying at least a dozen different maces of all shapes, sizes, and weights. With all these great people and tons of different maces in attendance, I knew it was going to be a great day!

The real highlight of the day though was meeting Rik Brown in person after years of talking to him online and on the phone. 

Rik’s engaging manner and incredible depth of knowledge on all things mace, allowed everyone at the seminar to, not only be comfortable and have a great time, but work hard and learn all the finer points of the techniques, coaching cues, and how to fix common mistakes.

In fact, everyone, and I mean everyone, was not only put on the spot to demonstrate their mace swinging technique, but also how to properly coach someone else through each point and quickly fix any errors in the movement (THE WALL!!)

An Inch Wide and a Mile Deep

At the beginning of the seminar, Rik promised us one thing. That he would teach us all he knew about traditional mace swinging. He would not show us dozens of techniques or exercises but he would show us a few things going an “inch wide and a mile deep”.

Mastery is not the product of learning many things superficially but it is the product of learning a few things deeply. 

To start off the seminar, Rik led us through a series of mace specific warm-up exercises designed to prepare our grip, shoulders, core, and cardiovascular system for the rigors of mace training. 

Rik then began to instruct us on the finer points of mace swinging. As he promised, “an inch wide and a mile deep.”

We began an extremely detailed and exacting look at 2 exercises I was familiar with from clubbell training, but that were taken to an entirely new level by Rik with the mace: The Mill and The Bullwhip.

From there we got into the meat of the training, the Mace 360 and the 10 to 2. Two handed, one-handed, standing, sitting, and kneeling. These exercises are the essence of mace swinging. For when it comes to the mace, there is nothing new under the sun. In fact it is old. Extremely old. And in this ancient practice lie all the secrets of training the body for warriors.

Why the Mace?

As a lifelong martial artist as well as a strength coach by profession, what drew me to the mace originally was its long history of specific physical preparation of wrestlers and warriors for the rigors of both armed and unarmed combat. Anything that has stood the test of time and been successfully utilized by so many, in my opinion, deserves our full attention.

The mace is a multi-joint, multi-planar 3 dimensional strength training tool. This is just a fancy way of saying that it builds both strength and mobility together throughout the entire range of motion while also improving the practitioner’s resistance to injury. The long handle and displaced center of gravity of mace create a leverage disadvantage which means one can use a relatively light weight to achieve phenomenal results without the usual wear and tear on the joints and susceptibility to injury that often accompanies the lifting of heavier weights.

At the end of the seminar each of the newly certified Mace Coaches was called upon to showcase all that they had learned to train a group of people who had little to no exposure to the mace. This final test cemented the lessons Rik had taught us all day and allowed us to be even more confident in our ability and skills to pass on the training we had received.

Honored to be a fully certified Mace Instructor!

My professional opinion of the day?

Rik is a highly skilled teacher with an enormous love for the mace and an incredible depth of knowledge. After swinging clubbells for over 15 years and being a strength coach for over a decade, I learned a ton from this seminar. If you have a chance to attend a mace training workshop with Rik, go for it!

History of the Mace (taken from Rik Brown’s Mace Training Manual)

The Mace is at least 1,000 years old and has been used as a war weapon by numerous cultures. In India, the Mace is called the Gada, and has been used as a war weapon, but is also used as a training tool by the Wrestling Gyms (Akhara).

In the world of sports, India has used the Mace (Gada) to develop strength for wrestling, the worlds’ oldest sport, and has appreciated the Mace’s enormous benefits so much that Mace swinging competitions are held in India still.