Training & Formation
Each Knight undergoes a three-tiered, three-phase program of formation and training that touches on every aspect of manhood: physical, spiritual, and intellectual.
Formation and training is a three-year process.
Phase 1
The primary focus of Phase 1 training is the physical development of the trainee. During this phase the trainee undergoes rigorous physical Fitness & Endurance training, Movement & Maneuver training, and learns basic hand-to-hand combat skills incorporating a variety of martial arts.
The trainee also begins training in outdoorsmanship - mastering the basics of self-sufficiency, resiliency, grit, trust in Divine Providence, and simplicity.
Finally, the trainee learns basic Hospitaler skills - tackling First Aid & Emergency Medical skills, safety, and Lifesaving & Rescue skills.
To complement his physical training, the trainee is also formed intellectually and spiritually. Formation classes include
Intro to Chivalry and Knighthood
Intro to St. Louis de Montfort's The Secret of the Rosary
Guided reading through Genesis 1- 4 and the New Testament
Guided reading through The Love of Eternal Wisdom
Finally, the trainee commits himself to praying the Rosary daily.
Phase 2
Building on the training and formation of Phase 1, Phase 2 training introduces the trainee to more intense physical exercise and advanced manly skills, while also diving deeper into the Church's intellectual tradition and growing in prayer.
Advanced physical fitness
Intensifies the fitness program begun in Phase 1. Advanced fitness training may include Crossfit for those who are able to endure its rigors. It also includes advanced Movement & Maneuver training include climbing, elements of parcour, defensive driving.
Skills training
Includes skills every man should know. The trainee will learn basic mechanics, carpentry, engineering, homesteading, and bugout prepping.
Combat training
Includes intermediate hand-to-hand combat and introduction to melee weapons focused on Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA): Sword, Shield, Spear, and Hafted Weapons. The trainee will also learn to use improvised and alternative weapons.
At this stage, the trainee is introduced to basic firearm safety and use.
Intellectually
The trainee continues his journey into the Church's intellectual tradition. He completes his guided reading of The Love of Eternal Wisdom and begins studies in Church history, the theology of Grace & Sacraments, and Christian morality. Lastly he begins introductory studies in Philosophy.
In addition to his personal daily recitation of the Rosary, the trainee strives to introduce a daily family Rosary into his family's routine. He may also consider learning to pray the Rosary in Latin.
Phase 3
1) Formation class: complete Contra Mundum module, Course on Chivalry, Mariology, The Secret of Mary, & True Devotion to Mary (prepared to make consecration)
2) Goal: pray all 15 mysteries of the Rosary per day (5 mysteries prayed w/ family)
3) Continue/maintain personal Physical fitness training
4) Advanced firearms with maneuver, less lethal options, certification for state concealed carry permit, certified as an Armed Security Guard by the state
5) Tactics & battle drills (home defense, church defense, guarding a school, neighborhood defense, defense of Lifeguards and Eucharistic processions, dealing with rioters attempting to destroy/vandalize church property, communications plan, Situational Awareness training)
The Quest
Our Lady of Fatima
The word chivalry has meant at different times a good many different things--from heavy cavalry to giving a woman a seat in a train. But if we want to understand chivalry as an ideal distinct from other ideals--if we want to isolate that particular conception of the man, comme il faut (as it should be), which was the special contribution of the Middle Ages to our culture--we cannot do better than turn to the words addressed to the greatest of all the imaginary knights in Malory's Morte D'arthur. "Thou wert the meekest man", says Sir Ector to the dead Launcelot. "Thou were the meekest man that ever ate in hall among ladies; and thou were the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that ever put spear in the rest."
The important thing about this ideal is, of course, the double demand it makes on human nature. The knight is a man of blood and iron, a man familiar with the sight of smashed faces and the ragged stumps of lopped-off limbs; he is also a demure, almost a maidenlike, guest in hall, a gentle, modest, unobtrusive man. He is not a compromise or happy mean between ferocity and meekness; he is fierce to the nth and meek to the nth. When Launcelot heard himself pronounced the best knight in the world, "he wept as he had been a child that had been beaten".
What, you may ask, is the relevance of this idea to the modern world? It is terribly relevant. It may or may not be practicable--the Middle Ages notoriously failed to obey it--but it is certainly practical; practical as the fact that men in a desert must find water or die.[...]
The medieval ideal brought together two things which have no natural tendency to gravitate towards one another. It brought them together for that very reason. It taught humility and forbearance to the great warrior because everyone knew by experience how much he usually needed that lesson. It demanded valour of the urbane and modest man because everyone knew that he was as likely as not to be a milksop.
In so doing, the Middle Ages fixed on the one hope of the world. It may or may not be possible to produce by the thousand men who combine the two sides of Launcelot's character. But if it is not possible, then all talk of any lasting happiness or dignity in human society is pure moonshine.
If we cannot produce Launcelots, humanity falls into two sections--those who can deal in blood and iron but cannot be "meek in hall", and those who are "meek in hall" but useless in battle--for the third class, who are both brutal in peace and cowardly in war, need not here be discussed.
-C.S. Lewis