At The Lyceum, describing our “curriculum” reminds me of what one of my teachers once called his curriculum: “The Big List of Shit We Do,” a living document, unfinished by design, and confusing to explain. Guro Rick Faye often shares that Guro Dan Inosanto encourages instructors to change their curriculum once a year. While that might not be literal, the spirit behind it matters: to refine, reflect, and redefine what we’ve created, what we’ve learned, and how we share those experiences.
The trouble is, the moment you put a method into words, it becomes static, frozen in a single time and place. The arts live in motion, and so do we. In all reasonable considerations, the list will be outdated by the time someone reads this.
We write not to limit, but to remember and to offer context, our goal is always to help others find their own way into the work. This isn’t the list, just a discussion of our influences. The systems we train provide structure and shared language, not a ceiling. They are starting points for exploration rather than destinations to defend. We hope to learn alongside everyone we train with and sometimes that learning happens through teaching and sharing. Sometimes we learn from stories that examine systems, and as The Expanse (a personal favorite) often illustrates, systems don’t fail because they’re wrong. They fail when they stop adapting to the conditions they’re operating in. Martial arts are similar and should adapt to the realities of the contexts or the person using it.
The Lyceum exists to individualize while blending, to help people find what speaks to them while offering options and shoring up weakness.
This doesn’t mean everything, everywhere, all at once.
Instead, some choose to stay within a single system for years, drawn by its depth, culture, history, or simple enjoyment of the practice; others move between arts to explore how they interweave and inform. We separate the arts to honor their traditions, and we blend them to innovate our methods. Through that process, we cultivate the people, ourselves and each other.
Your body changes.
Your needs change.
Your reasons for training change.
And that’s not only allowed, it’s the point.
Some train for health.
Some for survival.
Some for sport.
Some for the sheer joy of movement.
All of these paths are valid.
A strong sentiment in the MKG Ethos reminds us, “Everyone’s experience of martial arts is equally valid.”
So, while we talk about the arts individually, it’s for convenience, like course titles in a university catalog. You take the general studies first not because you’re lost, but because you don’t yet know which classes will transform you.
The Minnesota Kali Group - Milwaukee
Much of our foundation.
The MKG blend embodies Guro Rick Faye’s mission: “To build more functional, peaceful people for a more functional, peaceful world.”
From this background we explore:
Filipino martial arts of Kali and Panantukan - These martial arts teach coordination, rhythm, ambidexterity, and adaptability. We work with a variety of weapons and empty-hand concepts, learning how movement translates through ranges, from the stick to the blade to the hand. The lessons are simple and direct - defang, flow, and awareness.
Kali connects traditional martial frameworks with modern combative logic building: timing, spatial awareness, and creative problem-solving.
Muay Thai — the art of eight limbs, cultivated here for strength, conditioning, and respect for its living Thai tradition. We train for fitness, resilience, and clarity under pressure.
MKG’s Muay Thai practice focuses on understanding body mechanics, structure, and learning to generate power efficiently while maintaining composure. It’s as much about understanding limits and recovery as it is about kicking pads hard.
Blended Grappling — In our grappling program you’ll see influences from Judo in our throws and off-balancing, from BJJ in positional control and submissions, from CSW in transitional tactics, creative ground work from Silat and Tai Chi in how we manage force and intent. The aim is not to master everything, but to understand how everything connects.
We explore posture, leverage, and sensitivity through playful, game-based drills that focus on exploration and adaptability. Grappling, to us, is a conversation and one that rewards patience, timing, and awareness over brute strength.
Jun Fan / Jeet Kune Do Concepts — the thread that ties everything together. Bruce Lee’s philosophy of efficiency and self-expression still runs through what we do: direct, adaptable, and personal.
JKD’s greatest gift isn’t technique but permission, to question, to adapt, and to make the art your own.
Ergo Vita Martial Arts and Athletic Training
Tai Chi
Tai Chi at The Lyceum is practiced as a holistic martial art, developing structure, balance, and control under pressure. Though often associated with slow forms, its original purpose was to train leverage, timing, and body mechanics in direct relationship with another person.
We primarily explore Tai Chi as a standing grappling system, using Push Hands as a central training method to study balance, intent, and resistance through sustained contact. Pressure is met, organized, and redirected rather than avoided.
Traditional forms and solo practice support posture, breathing, joint health, and recovery, allowing Tai Chi to adapt to every season of training, supporting both longevity and effective expression of force.
Wing Chun
We train in the Wing Chun lineage of Sifu Francis Fong, whose synthesis of traditional mechanics, modern application, and combative understanding has influenced martial artists around the world. Wing Chun teaches directness and the ability to move where there is space, to stay connected, and to let structure rather than strength do the work. Through interactive drills and Chi Sao, we develop tactile awareness and learn to read tension, intention, and momentum through touch rather than sight.
The principles of economy of motion, centerline control, and forward intent are not only tactical ideas. They are lessons in presence, clarity, and the intelligent use of energy. Wing Chun becomes as much a study in decision making as it is a study in combat, a way of noticing what is essential and responding with precision rather than force.
Breathwork, Meditation, and Qigong
These practices train regulation, recovery, and awareness under load. Breathwork sets rhythm and output, shaping endurance, composure, and how effort is experienced from the inside. Meditation sharpens attention and decision making, building the ability to stay present and effective under pressure. Qigong develops body literacy through precise, low-impact movement, supporting joint health, recovery, and nervous system regulation.
Together, they balance intensity with sustainability, restoring what training depletes and refining how we move, recover, and adapt over time.
Athletic Training and Specific Fitness
We approach fitness as purposeful adaptation. The goal is to build a body that supports training, absorbs stress, and recovers well enough to keep progressing. Strength, mobility, and conditioning are developed to reinforce technical practice, not compete with it.
Training at The Lyceum extends beyond martial arts. We coach and train across a wide spectrum, from powerlifting and strength-focused work to endurance and ultra-endurance efforts. Our work develops resilient, adaptable bodies, applying structure, pacing, and recovery to support long-term performance. This supports how force is generated, how fatigue is managed, and how the body adapts over time. It is not separate from martial practice, but part of the same system, preparing people to move well and continue for years to come.
Milwaukee Savate Club
Savate
Savate, the art of French kickboxing, brings elegance and strategy into striking. It feels less like a brawl and more like a conversation, a game of movement shaped by distance, timing, and balance. It has a rhythm that is sharp without being tense and a style that is unmistakably its own. We use Savate to explore precision, learning how to move lightly, strike cleanly, and think one step ahead.
Its footwork develops coordination and control while its emphasis on accuracy refines mechanics and awareness in a way that carries into every other art we practice. Savate challenges you to stay sharp and to fight smart rather than hard. It teaches that every strike begins with balance, that strategy can be as compelling as power, and that skill expressed with clarity has its own kind of quiet swagger.
The Throughline
Every art develops attributes: coordination, timing, adaptability, awareness, intent. We practice them separately to see clearly, and together to move truthfully to ourselves.
We contextualize, individualize, and continually reimagine them to fit our bodies, our goals, and our season of life.
We don’t belong to the arts, nor them to us.
We borrow them. They refine us. We both return changed.
We call it practice.
We call it play.
We call it The Big List of Shit We Do.
And like us, it keeps evolving.