Esko Ronimus

Esko started training purposefully around the age of fourteen with Choy Lee Fut Chinese boxing, and at 2005 he started training Qi Xing Tang Lang Quan (Seven Star praying mantis boxing) Chinese boxing, which he still trains and teaches today. Before starting training martial arts in elementary school, he also trained Aikido and Taekwondo as a child in addition to other sports such as football, volleyball, basketball, and athletics to name a few.

His historical fencing career started at 2018 with Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA) club practicing after Italian Fiore dei Liberi’s teachings. However, the club did not meet his requirements for training a serious martial art and he departed to found his own club Tampere School of Arms in 2020. At the change of training groups he changed the system he wanted to specialize into the tradition of 16th century Bolognese fencing tradition after Manciolino, Marozzo, dall’Agocchie and Anonimo Bolognese.

For most of the time of his martial arts training career, he has also been an assistant instructor. He has also trained and taught children’s classes since 2007 and is teaching a class now as well.

Esko has lived his life so far in Tampere, Finland. He has been training, competing and teaching in countries such as Spain, China, Germany, Poland and France. He lives with a spouse and a dog in Tampere.

Esko’s approach to martial arts is guided by values he sees essential for both the traditional and historical martial arts. His goal is to train, teach, and promote martial arts from their historical premises. It is his understanding that all martial arts are born in very specific circumstances and environments. Thus it is imperative that the arts are not separated from their original contexts in order to not lose the qualities that make the arts functional and realistic. The guiding principles for him are that the arts trained and taught must be martially realistic and they must be functional – this is gained through following the traditions of the arts and adhering to the contexts in which the arts were originally practiced. This is essential especially when practicing the traditional and historical martial arts in modern times.

The training must be consistent and it must require hard work – there are no shortcuts in learning the traditional and historical way of fighting.

Esko’s goal is to bring both the traditional and historical martial arts forward so their value – both as martial arts and historical heritage – can be better appreciated for study and training. In order to learn to use the arts as they have been intended to be used and to make them functional again, it is important that the training is rooted in the historical context and the tradition of learning from one’s teacher.

Esko considers having three major teachers, who have influenced the most to his training, life and professional career.

Along the three major influences presented above, Esko has had the honor and chance to learn from master Yu Tianlu, who was Esko’s teacher’s master’s brother; master Wang Xiuyuan who is a brother to Esko’s teacher’s master, master Zhou Jingxuan who was a friend to Esko’s teacher.