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  • My name is Jan Krüger, and I am a gladiator. You could believe that we are in Italy, but

  • we are not. We are here in Germany, in Trier, the "Second Rome" of the ancient times and

  • just a part of the Italian gladiator school called Ars Dimicandi and we are here the German

  • school. We have trained about fifteen years in Gladiator fighting and we are not a re-enactment

  • group. We are fighting real. To be a gladiator means to me to learn the real way of fighting.

  • If you stand in the arena, in the sand, the guy on the other side, he's not more your

  • friend. He's your enemy. You have to focus and you have to fight for glory. After the

  • show, you take together beer but in the fight we are enemies. I use this kind of sport because

  • I came from a fighting sport. I did twelve years in kickboxing. It's the same style but

  • here you fight with weapons and you fight for a philosophy. We try to train like the

  • original gladiators did, five to six days a week, and up to twelve to fourteen hours.

  • And, in the ancient times, people were fighting for his lives. If they fight twenty times

  • per year, in the arena, he is fighting three or four times for his life. Most of the people

  • don't get older than thirty. Many many people die in the first year. Gladiator means "sword

  • man, sword fighter." It's nothing specialized. It just means there's a man with a sword...he's

  • a gladiator.

  • We have a gladiator camp two times a year. It's only one day to learn.

  • "Go go go! Come on! You be too slow! Come on, come on! Let's go!"

  • Boot camp is not like Mickey Mouse. You have a hard training. When you have the helmet

  • on, you have the feeling that you don't get any air. You breath like this. When you do

  • it five times, and use the secuto helmet, you don't get any other air other than these

  • two holes. And when you come back after the third time you just go... Imagine. You have

  • to train what you train now, fifteen seconds, twenty seconds, thirty seconds...again, again,

  • again... when you fight four minutes, it's really really hard. It's called conditioning.

  • We need a lot of conditioning. We need a lot of strength. And we need a lot of weapon skills.

  • We switched Frederic into provocateur class, and he has the protection on the heart. We

  • have protection on the weapon arm like most of the gladiators have and we have protection

  • on the legs that's most time in front. And this arm is going out here, against the....yes.

  • The important things are safe but he don't need much more protection so that means he

  • can go very very fast in the sand, in the sun and into the fight. And also he can fight

  • long.

  • Okay, so this class they are running fast... like this... and the shield is not used for

  • protection, it is used like a sword. You use it like a fist, you push...but my goal is

  • not the shield, it is the head. That's why many many gladiators are found in the graveyard

  • with damage to the skull and the heads. Because this is my goal. You can try it with me now

  • together.

  • "Harder, harder!"

  • [laughter]

  • Gladiators, they are not just used for the arena, they were used for fighting in the war. Because they were

  • really good at fighting man to man.

  • Okay, secuto class have just a small dagger, and he goes close, close, close... come on

  • now, it's my turn, and the other guy, runs runs runs... that's why the people like it.

  • Okay.

  • But if you like, you can come here and really learn gladiator fighting...but you need to

  • stay two or three years. Twenty fights to call yourself a gladiator and one hundred

  • fights to call yourself a veteran, that means you will be

  • a teacher.

My name is Jan Krüger, and I am a gladiator. You could believe that we are in Italy, but

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