We've been building stronger bodies, minds and spirits since 2009.
Our 100% free programs do more than just promote self-defense, outdoor skills, physical fitness, and spirituality. They help cultivate individual integrity -- the union of thoughts, desires, actions and beliefs.
“Thanks for giving me the opportunity to share deeper things with my son.”
“The knowledge contained here has clearly been accumulated in intensive, extended, and deeply thoughtful study and practice of the martial arts...These exercises have, for me, become the foundation of an evolving spiritual practice...”
How Our Distance Learning Programs Work
Our American Rough ‘n’ Tumble program is open to adults aged 18 and up. Students train at home and maintain journals to document their work. At the end of each month they submit scans of their journals to their mentor for review. Mentors provide feedback, guidance, and new assignments.
Those enrolled in distance learning programs are encouraged to start training circles in their local area. Mentors provide guidance as needed.
When training benchmarks are met, students face self-administered tests for rank advancement.
Rank achievements are rewarded with bandanas of specified colors roughly analogous to the colored belts in other martial arts. The highest bandana rank is the buffalo check..
See below for more details.
What is American Rough ‘n’ Tumble?
Rough ‘n’ Tumble was a manner of no-holds-barred fighting that originated in the Southern Virginia backcountry during the Colonial Era. An amalgam of the varying techniques brought to America by colonists from all over the world, blended with the fighting methods of indigenous tribes, American Rough ‘n’ Tumble is perhaps the world’s most fearsome martial art.
Rough ‘n’ Tumble is hard to tease apart from it’s historical environment.
It’s hard to fight like an old-timer if you think like a modern person. And it’s hard to step into the old-time mindset without immersing yourself in that world.
This is why our American Rough ‘n’ Tumble program contains more than just self-defense techniques. It also contains historical lessons, fitness training, outdoor skills, and spiritual development.
preservation and reconstruction
Rough ‘n’ Tumble used to be a household word, and dedicated martial artists and researchers are diligently laboring to bring together the various sources and make it so once more.
It was never formally codified, but many of the old Rough ‘n’ Tumble fighting techniques and concepts survived within boxing, wrestling, and the mayhem-managing methods used by mobsters, policemen, soldiers, and citizens.
What we've Achieved
Thousands of hours of free martial, fitness and spiritual training provided to the public since our founding in 2009
Hundreds of pounds of weight lost by participants in our programs
Hundreds of lives changed for the better
Dozens of lifelong friendships formed
Countless moods elevated by our enlightening outdoor training sessions
“To be a man is to be responsible: to be ashamed of miseries you did not cause; to be proud of your comrades' victories; to be aware, when setting one stone, that you are building a world.”
~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry