Cold Steel Training Gladius Test vs Cinder block

I have decided to introduce training with ancient weapons, from Roman Gladius, medieval swords, tomahawks and at some point also sabre fencing which is tons of fun, I have never lost a match the year I was training foil fencing, I lost interest as I never lost a match, so I decided to train something that would challenge me and lose. 

That I found in MMA and BJJ, I really did experience to be completely dominated for the first time in my life and feel that I had no living chance, the only reason that I didn’t quit even if I had bent the ribs on both sides, was that I improvised a submission the first day and didn’t know what the hell to do but managed to get a tap out from a more experienced student. Getting pawned for weeks non stop and only when someone new stepped in was the only victories the first 6 months, when I reached the level that I didn’t get submitted before 10 seconds, could defend myself for a round and once in while submit others who had trained at least the same amount of time as me was what made me come for training, but the discovery of having a huge lack of skills was the primary motivator.

There is as far as I know only one DVD on the market for combat with the Gladius, I didn’t like it as it was FMA with a Gladius, nothing wrong with that but it didn’t show me anything new, or had a historical reference which is impossible as there are none for the use of the Gladius in combat from ancient Roman text as far as I know, only that the biggest problem was that some general was concerned with his soldiers using it for slashing instead of stabbing, which kills a lot faster. So it will be using AMOK!™ methodology combined with my previous training with sport fencing, European medieval weapons, to not recreate but to rediscover and innovate how to use it to its best potential, that was the reason for creating the Kratos Combatives Combat Laboratory, to learn by Guided Discovery™ how to fight with ancient weapons that have no use in today’s arsenal of weapons for combat.

The Cold Steel Training Gladius is unbreakable and a relative safe training weapon, I like steel but it cost a lot more and if the gladiators used wooden swords for training, I see no point in using a steel training model. I have broken 4 steel swords, and one of them was a heavy high quality Lancashire sword that was created to be unbreakable as it was very heavy, but it broke when I blocked an attack that was delivered with maximum force and I applied maximum force to match that. So to keep the cost low and safety high, it is IMHO the best choice, as a broken sword depending on the angle does not stop the attack unless one can control and stop before impact and the piece that is broken can fly anywhere and by accident hit some ones eye. But we need proper protection, as look at the video and think what would happen if a slash hit bone.