I've driven past that building on Sycamore a dozen times without knowing what went on inside — just another industrial-looking space south of 12th Street, the kind of block where you expect auto body shops and equipment rentals. Then I saw someone walking in with what looked like a fencing bag, and I had to look it up.
Turns out Sioux Falls has a sword academy. Not stage combat for theater kids — though that's part of it — but actual historical European martial arts. Longsword, rapier, saber, the weapons you see in museum displays but never imagine anyone still studies as living fighting systems. The kind of thing that makes you realize how much quietly unusual stuff exists in this city if you know where to look.
The classes run out of that Sycamore facility, and from what I can tell, they're teaching people how to move with steel in their hands the way it was actually done centuries ago. There's structure here — ranks, curriculum, sparring protocols — not just people swinging props around. It's a martial art, complete with the conditioning and controlled contact that implies.
I like that it exists in Sioux Falls specifically, where we have enough people to support something this niche but not so many that it would get swallowed by franchise gyms and commercialized into oblivion. It's the right size city for odd passions to take root.
The tricky part is probably the gear — historical fencing equipment isn't something you pick up at Scheels, and I imagine the startup cost is higher than signing up for kickboxing. But if you've ever watched a sword fight in a movie and thought "that's not how that would actually work," this is where you find out what would.
— Grace
Then I saw someone walking in with what looked like a fencing bag, and I had to look it up.