Instructor Bio (only partially made up and imagined), Ken Pfrenger:
Ken began his martial arts carrier early, at birth, where his mother claimed "he came out with a shot of Jack, smoking a cigar, and carving his name on my belly." He then progressed to regular dust-ups with his siblings, all of which he won before even completing potty training (at the age of 4 months). In his early adult life, he took his natural fighting ability to a Filipino martial arts school where he quickly impressed the instructor and progressed through the ranks until he was teaching classes for the school. This led his interests to wrestling and Boxing. Continuing his interest in martial arts created in Western Civilization, Ken began study of historic Irish stick and cane fighting methods, eventually founding Cumann Bhata, the "Stick Fighting Society." Ken has been a regular guest instructor at Western Martial Arts seminars for the last 20 years, teaching at The International Sword Fighting and Martial Arts Convention (ISMAC), CombatCon, and Western Martial Arts Workshop (WMAW) as well as numerous single events. In 2004, Ken founded an annual Western martial arts weekend seminar which came to be known as "The Recreational Violence Weekend."
Ken is the authorized Navaja spanish knife fighting N.E. Ohio representative under Maestro James Loriega. Ken has been a leading member in research on Celtic large axe fighting methods, including the Lochabar Ax, and has been a pioneer in the resurgence of pre-Marques of Queensberry Boxing styles.
At his own school, Ken continues to teach martial arts of Occidental origin including Boxing, Wrestling, and Sambo. The weapons curriculum at his school includes various cane systems, focusing on Irish methods, knife work from Bowie to Navaja, sword systems such as Military Saber, Shaska, and "singlestick," and ax methods from Lochabar through tomahawk and to Carpathian Mountain Ax.
Notable words of wisdom from Ken include, "just hit him," "pointy end goes here," "there's lots of chewy martial arts goodness in modern boxing," and "Kirk has a beating coming."
(Actual note from Ken: "This is all fairly accurate
My write up would have been boring, factual but definitely not as entertaining.")