It’s 1 p.m. on a recent Thursday in San Jose, and Steaphen Fick is intently watching two grown men swing unsharpened steel swords at each other.
One of them is apparently not striking the other with enough force. Fick interrupts.
“Don’t be afraid!” he says, like a character going into battle in “Lord of the Rings.”
Fick jabs a finger at the other man’s headgear and neck guard — called a gorget, French for “throat” — and turns to his opponent. “That’s what that’s for!”
The click-clacking of swords resumes.
Fick is no stranger to these swords. He started practicing Historical European martial arts (HEMA) more than three decades ago in his backyard in San Jose. Now, like the prodigal son so often mythologized in medieval art, he’s returning to the city after 14 years at various locations throughout Santa Clara County.
On March 4, Fick’s Davenriche European Martial Artes School had a grand opening in the city’s Japantown neighborhood; it expands his footprint to 14,244 square feet, a fourth the size of a football field. It’s a far cry from his first school in 2000, which was located in the back room of a packaging plant that smelled like onions and pineapple and was home to a family of bats.
“We’ve been working our tails off,” Fick says.
The enormous warehouse at 395 East Taylor Street is an emporium for the medieval-minded. A dragon figurine adorns the ceiling, European paintings and tapestries hang on the brick walls and there’s enough space to house an entire armory and library — plus a replica trebuchet catapult. At the foot of the stairs leading up to the school is a large suit of armor that Fick once wore in France at a reenactment of Henry V’s Battle of Agincourt in 1415.
“This is a very famous battle,” Fick says while his finger tinks against the armor’s metal. The Polish-made helmet is mild steel, which helps disperse the energy if something impacts it. There’s a two-inch dent on the left side of it above the eye hole where Fick got hit. “I was on the field with two squires fighting against the French. English longbowmen (were) shooting arrows over my head. It was a good time.”
Fick was a kid when he got his first chance to wrap his hands around a sword, albeit a plastic one that his parents bought him.
“I loved that sword, ” he says fondly. “I carried it everywhere.”
By the time he exited high school, he went to his first Renaissance Fair. “I made my own costume,” he recalls. “It was garbage.” In the late nineties, as Fick was looking for a way to pay the bills, he was thinking about a career as a firefighter — but ultimately chose the path of a swordsman.
“I made the decision,” he said. “I (initially) started my school in my backyard.”
Standing stout with a barrel chest and a silvery beard that could easily get him cast in a “Game of Thrones” episode, Fick looks the part of a HEMA guru.
Looped through his brown belt are a sword and dagger of German design. A 3,000-year-old dagger that was discovered in modern-day Iran and “used sometime between the Trojan War and King David of the Bible” is displayed in his office. On the inside of Fick’s right forearm is a tattoo, “Gladi meus pro ceter,” Latin for “My sword for others.”
The ink adds to the quirky yet confident air that surrounds Fick. He’s someone you’d probably want to call if you ever got yourself in some sort of pickle.
The school itself is a plethora of Medieval martial arts weaponry training. Fick teaches grappling and dagger work, archery, axe and knife throwing. Other activities are more lighthearted. This month, Fick helped host a Make-A-Wish event for a 7-year-old. Fick and six others dressed up as pirates and let the child, James, sit atop a 1700s-era cannon that was hauled up from the Mediterranean Ocean.
“A very good friend of mine, her son was diagnosed with childhood leukemia and Make-a-Wish sent their family to Hobbiton in New Zealand. He beat the leukemia and he’s even done classes here with me. I’ve always wanted to be a part of Make-a-Wish because it’s such a big thing for these kids.”
For some of Fick’s students, the weapons training is therapeutic. Roughly the length of a wrapping paper roll and weighing up to 4 pounds, the swords feel light at first, but arms can tire quickly after a couple of minutes of swinging.
“There’s no better way to live in the moment than defending against somebody hitting you in the head with a sword,” says 50-year-old Niall Doherty. “We’ve all got our busy lives going on. But when you’re here, you’re 100 percent living in the moment.”
For others, like 23-year-old Kevin Ryan, the school offers important life skills.
“Learning this kind of stuff is a good confidence boost out in the rest of the world, because when you show up somewhere willingly to have a metal sword, like, swung at your head, other situations don’t seem as scary,” he said.
As the class on a Thursday in March comes to an end, Fick and his four students gather around, putting their swords together in a circle and then individually saluting one another. At one point, one of Fick’s students extends an arm for a handshake, but he’s quickly reprimanded and told that he must first take off his protective gloves.
“It’s not big, dumb thugs swinging tight irons,” Fick explains about his school. “‘Conan the Barbarian’ lied to us. There’s so much more than just swinging a big, heavy stick at people.”
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