Keith Beattie

I have always had a passion for dance, martial art and health and fitness. Karate taught me to harness and control excessive force, learning the importance of Self-Discipline in training. Besides training regularly in Karate, I was introduced to Modern and Latin Dance, which was later adapted to another exercise discipline, aerobic and gym instructor.

Within my career I was a qualified workplace Health and Safety officer, and a Sports Coach in martial art exercise and dance training, through this I became more aware of the importance of Health and Safety issues in all activities. My interest in a variety of human movements lead to a new fascination with bladed weapons, which I then applied to the sport of Modern Fencing.

Modern fencing taught me the importance of being able to utilise all of the principals of past martial and dance actions, without allowing their actual stances and footwork to obstruct the newly learnt techniques. I enjoyed many years as a sports fencer in all three codes (foil, epee, and saber), but my interest in bladed weapons led me to the discovery of "Re-enacted" weapons combat.

From experienced re-enactment swordsmen, I was introduced to a myriad of skills and arts, including armour manufacture and historical weapons combat, however, it was the swordplay itself which became my passion.

It was after a couple of years at training in broadsword in this manner that I decided to try training others in swordplay, for the activity of swordplay alone. I wanted to teach and train people in this western martial art, for the sheer enjoyment and exhilaration of swordplay with period accurate reproduction weapons. So began the rewarding road to the creation of Prima Spada School of Fence.

Applying martial skills to the newly learned combat techniques, I found I was able to develop structured training concepts, which aided in disiplined combat, essential when training with steel fasimile weapons. I was introduced to the application of documented period swordplay methods, which I then adapted to the modern sport of Prima Spada.

Prima Spada School of Fence was set up to back-engineer these adapted theories and interpretations from the 16th century masters. The masters' concepts were used as base for this style of swordplay, "Modern Renaissance Fencing", which was then applyied to a modern martial art environment.

Today, the Prima Spada Style is a modern approach to Renaissance Swordplay and one of the leading innovating Schools of Renaissance Swordplay in Australia today. The adaptations of a selection 16th and 17th century masters, especially the Spanish School techniques, are used to continually develop a safe, practical, and period accurate combat sword style, which has made it easy to teach and learn.