For Parents

Your son is learning to hold a weapon, face another person, and make decisions about when and how hard to strike, and then to read Aquinas, Homer, and Malory about what those decisions mean. This is moral formation using the body as the site of the lesson.

Not Combat Training

This is not combat training. A boy does not need to be genuinely dangerous to understand the just use of force. He needs to have held a weapon, faced another person, and felt the consequences of his decisions in his body. Boffer-level competence is sufficient because the goal is not lethality but the embodied understanding of proportionality, restraint, and fortitude. The foam sword is enough to create the moral experience.

For other things this is not, see the homepage.

What School Sports Cannot Reach

A good football or lacrosse coach teaches fortitude, teamwork, and sacrifice. Your son may already be learning these from a coach. Arma Liturgica does not replace sports. It does four things sports cannot:

• Textual integration. A coach teaches courage; he does not connect it to Aquinas or the Iliad. The training floor and the seminar table are two modes of the same formation.
• Liturgical rhythm. Athletic seasons follow the conference schedule. Arma Liturgica follows the Church year: penitential seasons, joyful seasons, feast days that change the character of practice.
• No external competition. There is no other school to beat, no cut list, no bench. The boys are formed together.
• Examination of conscience. No coach asks whether you enjoyed hurting the kid on the other team. The moral dimension of violence is invisible in athletics. Arma Liturgica makes it explicit.

Safety and Supervision

A background check is on file with the school. Two adults are present at every session. Parents are welcome to watch, and welcome to participate; a father fighting alongside his son is formation for both of them. Weapons are boffer (foam) only, with negligible injury risk.

A clear conduct policy is stated on day one: a boy who cannot control himself is asked to step away, and the door is open when he is ready. For the full policy and safety detail, see Safety.

Accessibility

This program is not for the athletic. It is for the willing. Every boy starts as Percival, the fool who begins in ignorance and learns through persistence. The boy who has never been good at sports is welcome here. Showing up honestly is the first qualification.