Nathan Brown
Pugilance Founder and Guiding Dragon, CEO

Nathan Brown has devoted his life to studying the Martial Way, not only in its physical aspects, but in its philosophies as well. Nathan believes that there is no “perfect” or “ultimate” martial art, but that only through opening one’s eyes and mind to all martial sciences can one find the best martial art for oneself. He has done broad, in-depth studies of warrior cultures across the globe and has a firm understanding of the warrior mind in history and present day.

In his competition years, Nathan placed third overall in his division for sparring at the Texas Invitational Tae Kwon Do Championships in both 1994 and 1995 before a knee injury took him out for several years. Nathan also took second place overall for his weight class/training-level division in both point sparring and continuous sparring at the Chinese Martial Arts Association World Championships in 1999. Soon after, Nathan was again benched when his hip was displaced due to years of high kicking and overstretching.

Nathan’s collective martial arts experience is extensive, and he has one of the most impressive and diverse arsenals of martial arts experience one could hope to encounter. Nathan currently holds a 3^rd (Sandan) degree black belt in Yamagishi-Ryu Budo, a black belt equivalent in the Punjab/Sikh martial art of Gatka (the art has no formal belt system), a blue belt in Tae Kwon Do, a 1^st degree (Shodan) black belt in Judo, and an orange belt in Aikido. Nathan has also received additional training in a variety of different martial arts—US Marine Corps’ Line Training and Close Combat, Capoera, Savate, Shotokan Karate, French and Italian Fencing (foil and epee), Spanish Rapier, Suburi (Japanese Bokken, wooden sword), Tai Chi, and Chi Kung. Nathan is also an active Hatha Yoga practitioner.

Near the end of 2003, Nathan took his martial education a step further, integrating what he’d learned over twenty years into a single system that he dubbed Age Kime Ryu Budo (meaning “Style of Rising Power”), and founded the Age Kime Ryu Martial Society. In teaching, he soon realized that his students had no applicable way in which to spar with long range weapons. In a pursuit to find a solution to this dilemma, Nathan spent months analyzing the physics of long-weapon combat.

At first, Nathan applied a simple system of rules and constructed padded, bo staff-like weaponry to make the game safer as well as challenging. These rules were then expanded and elaborated upon. A short time later, the combat sport/game of Pugilance was born. After witnessing how the game helped his students to achieve leaps and bounds in form, adaptation, aggression, control, and all around skill, he chose to begin directing his sole concentration on improving the sport. Since its conception, the number of Pugilance players has doubled, and continues to increase as more and more people are introduced to the sport. Nathan is known for saying, “I have never had anyone come to Pugilance once and never come back.”

It is Nathan’s sincerest hope that he will live long enough to achieve his dream of seeing Pugilance become a new combat sport to suit a new generation of warriors.

Sensei Nathan is a member of the International Karate Association's Yudanshikai.

For more information on Nathan Brown, see here.