Staff
Meet Our Team!
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Glengarry Broadsword has a fantastic team of volunteer instructors and club officers who deliver outstanding classes and other support, enabling our fencers to develop to a high standard in a safe and family friendly environment, with a excellent training equipment.
Head Instructor
James Drummond Fraser - Founder, Head Instructor
Drummond has been teaching Historical Fencing since 2015, primarily focussed on Single Stick, Highland Broadsword and Small Sword, and recently qualified the first instructional level of the Antrim Bata system of Irish Stick. Drummond's original martial disciplines are Judo, Aikido and Boxing. He is also an avid instructor in a number of outdoor education activities, team and individual sports. Drummond retired from the Canadian Armed forces in 2017 following a 30 year career, including deployments overseas.
Instructors
Keshava Archibald - Instructor
Keshava Archibald first began training in Martial Arts in 2008, at the age of 5, in Boquete Panama where he trained in Taekwondo for 4 years, getting his red belt at 9 years old. Then in 2013 when he was 11 he began training in kickboxing and jiu-jitsu. He got his blue belt in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu in 2018 and he continues to actively compete at local grappling tournaments. Keshava always had an interest in historical fighting, especially in archery and swordfighting . So he and his brothers jumped on the oppurtinity to participate in the annual Ann' Crudiachadn fencing workshop at the Glengarry Highland Games in 2022 where he also competed in the Singlestick tournament. Having thoroughly enjoyed the experience, he continued to train seriously in singlestick, smallsword and highland broadsword under head instructor Drummond Fraser, and is currently enrolled in the instructor developement program.
Bhima Archibald - Instructor
Bhima Archibald first began training in Martial Arts in 2009, at the age of 3, in Boquete Panama where he trained in Taekwondo for 3 years, getting his green belt at 6 years old. Then in 2017 when he was 11 he began training in kickboxing and jiu-jitsu. He got his blue belt in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu in 2021 and he continues to actively compete at local grappling tournaments. Bhima and his brothers always had an interest in historical fighting, especially in archery and swordfighting. So he and his brothers jumped on the opportunity to participate in the annual Ann' Crudiachadn fencing workshop at the Glengarry Highland Games in 2022 where he also competed in the Singlestick tournament. Having thoroughly enjoyed the experience, he continues to train seriously in singlestick, smallsword and highland broadsword under head instructor Drummond Fraser, and is also currently enrolled in the instructor developement program.
Rainy Willis - Instructor
Rainy willis is the 15 year old second oldest daughter of Dan and Amy Willis. She first started fencing in 2019 at age 11 at the glengarry highland games where she developed a growing interest in highland broadsword. Over the course of 2019 and 2020 she continued training with local families under the instruction of Drummond Fraser. She and her siblings regularly went to classes throughout the summer of 2021. Training continued until the 2022 highland games where at age 14 Rainy won bronze medal in singlestick and silver medal in smallsword . Over the last year she had enjoyed learning more about her scottish heritage and about highland broadsword. In January of 2023 she became a part of the instructor development program and now continues training as both a student and instructor.
Pillar Willis - Instructor
Pillar is an extremely talented and dedicated dancer in multiple styles, including years of study with MacCullough School of Dance. She has competed in fencing since 2022, and instructing since 2023. Unsurprisingly, given her dance background, Pillar demonstrated remarkable footwork and is a very fast study of technique.
Pearson Fraser - Instructor
Pearson entered the junior sport fencing program at the RA Centre (Ottawa) at age 5, achieving his Yellow Badge by age 6, competing with a peer group who were age 8 to 12. He decided that he preferred to study historical fencing, and has been helping to demonstrate and instruct since 2016, and competing since 2022. Pearson has medalled at An Cruinneachadh in 2022 and 2023 in Single Stick and Small Sword, and is looking forward to competing further afield. He is also a Highland Dancer (MacCullough Dancers since 2015), and an avid athlete and outdoorsman.
Meredith Fraser - Instructor
Meredith has been fencing since 2018 and competing since 2021. At the 2019 Highland Games she was a crowd favorite, demonstrating incredible assertiveness in the ring, even against the almost entirely older and taller opponents. Meredith is a passionate Highland dancer who has trained with the MacCullough Dancers since 2014, and her dance skills have translated into remarkable footwork. She particularly enjoys teaching fencing to young children, and also leads our club practices in Highland dancing, used to sharpen up the footwork of our fencers.
James Cowan - Instructor
James came to Glengarry Broadsword with a background in German Longsword from several years of training at Ottawa Swordplay. He competed well in An Cruinneachadh 2023, his first HEMA and first Broadsword Tournament, and has placed in a number of club tournaments. James has been a strong addition to the Glengarry Broadsword Instructional Staff due to his very strong fencing fundamentals, infectious sense of humour, patience in his approach to teaching, and very high ethical standards.
Club Officers
Benoit Mallet - Club Armourer
Benoit has been fencing with Glengarry Broadsword since 2023, along with his son, acquiting himself well when competing in his first tournament at An Cruinneachadh 2023. Ben is an extremely gifted fabricator, and has enthusiastically embraced his role as Armourer, ensuring our training equipment is kept in top shape.
Amy Willis - Promotion
Amy Willis is a mother, the owner and founder of Full Bellies, has a two daughters instructing with Glengarry Broadsword, and a number of others studying fencing. In the small amount of time available to her between running a large family and being an entrepreneur, Amy has lent her remarkable design and marketing skills to support the club, producing promotional material that is artwork in it's own right, and drawing community awareness to Glengarry Broadsword.
Cheryl Fast - Tournament Administrator
Cheryl Fast balances a large family with community leadership in a number of capacities. She has two wonderful children in the club fencing program, and has become the resident expert in managing the administration of tournaments, from registration to directing competition pools. Cheryl may have missed her calling as an air traffic controller, and is extremely adept at making managing the complexity of a tournament look easy.
Instructor Development Program
Glengarry Broadsword runs an instructor development program that involves two years of study in order to be fully qualified. A select number of intermediate fencers are invited to participate, based on their demonstration of a solid technical foundation, leadership potential, good character, and strong interpersonal skills. Participants in the program undergo a combination of in-house training, external certification, and study. Instructors in training are expected to certify in first aid, learn method of instruction and elements of the psychology of learning, study and demonstrate an understanding of the treatises of historical masters, and help to run classes. All this while continue to develop their own fencing skills.