Watch the Shadow Warriors walkthrough.
A guided look at the curriculum, the missions, and the app your training lives in.
Two things make us different from every martial arts platform online.
Most platforms have one or the other. We built both into the same $147/month membership (deliberately), because they only matter together.
The Light Sword.
A complete combat martial art built specifically for the light sword, not a generic curriculum that uses it as a prop. Designed by a 2× World Champion, a 3× WEKAF National Champion who contracted with the U.S. military, and a Hollywood stunt director on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Synthesized from twelve distinct martial arts traditions. Your form is reviewed personally by certified Shadow Council instructors. Your White Sash is the same White Sash earned across the LSTA academy network.
The Shadow Warrior app.
A complete fitness and wellness operating system, Body Vision 3-D body composition tracking, structured combat-conditioning workouts, nutrition planning with recipe library and restaurant meal presets, wearable sync (FitBit, Garmin), personalized assessments, and three mindfulness modules. The kind of platform other companies sell as a standalone for $39 a month and upsell to $200+. Yours is built in. Updated alongside the curriculum.
No one else has both. Online martial arts platforms stop at video lessons. Fitness apps don’t teach combat. Local martial arts schools don’t come with an app, a global rank, or a wellness platform, and they cost more. That’s why Shadow Warriors exists.
You Stop Being a Hobbyist. You Become a Practitioner.
A credentialed Shadow Council instructor watches what you do with your saber and treats it as a real martial art. Not a tutorial reaction. Not generic encouragement. A real coach, naming exactly what to fix, the way a real master would.
The corrections are now muscle memory. Your stance is grounded the way YouTube tutorials never showed you. You move differently when you pick up the saber. Like someone who's been taught, not someone who's been guessing.
You're inside the Shadow Circle. Other practitioners at your sash level. Engineers, operators, parents, the ones who also bought the saber alone in their garage: are talking with you about form, drills, and what their Council instructor told them this week. You are not the only one.
You've completed Phase 1 of Form I. You've earned it on video review by an instructor with credentials that would put a karate sensei to silence. The progress isn't in your head, someone with authority verified it.
Someone who's seen you before notices you move differently now. You explain. You don't apologize for the saber. You explain what you study, who you study under, and what rank you're working toward. With the same matter-of-fact tone a BJJ purple belt uses.
You earned your White Sash. Not for showing up. For demonstrating competence on video review against a written standard. The saber that has been a symbol for two years is now a tool you have the right to hold.
None of that happens by swinging it alone. You already know that, that's why you're still reading.
Day 30 is closer than you think. The avatar of you-with-a-sash is 30 days away.
Start Day 1, $147/moReal Form. Real Standard.
This Is What Your Sash Earns You.
Every form in the Shadow Warrior curriculum is documented to this standard. The techniques you'll be reviewed against. The flow your instructor is watching for. The level of practice that earns rank, not subscription length.
Not a Hobby. Not Cosplay.
A Real Martial Art With a Real Rank.
Built by world champions · Reviewed by certified instructors · Your sash earned the same way it would be on any academy floor
If you've owned a saber for more than six months,
you already know all of this.
The saber is more than a prop. You bought one. You know.
Swinging it alone has a ceiling. You hit it about three months in.
Most "training content" is the same five drills. You watched them. You're past it.
Real martial arts requires real coaching. You can feel the difference.
Here's what you might not know yet: a structured combat art for the light sword exists, ranked credentials carry international federation recognition, and the people who built it are reviewing form-check submissions every week. You can be one of them.
The Shadow Warrior Program,
Explained.
You've watched the YouTube tutorials. You've hit the ceiling of what swinging it alone can teach you. See what the next 14 lessons look like, and the path that earns the White Sash.
The Most Credentialed Team in Light Sword Martial Arts
Coached by champions.
Built by the people who created the system.
Every form review, every assessment, every Shadow Council broadcast comes from a team with credentials no traditional martial arts school can match.
The credentialing team behind your form review. The military trusts them. So can you.
Train Under These Coaches, $147/moBuilt. Betrayed.
Rebuilt by four masters.
In 2015, Edward Armstrong built a light sword martial arts academy in the United States: 68 students, Entrepreneur of the Year, featured on ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox.
In 2016, the franchise that gave the sport its only international structure betrayed the warriors it was supposed to serve.
In 2017, Edward and three other masters walked away at the top, and rebuilt from scratch, on their own terms, engineered against the exact failure modes they had collectively survived.
That organization is LSTA.
The Shadow Warrior platform: the form review, the rank system, the Council of certified instructors, came from that rebuild. Your master-coached form review exists because we know what it looks like when an organization stops coaching its warriors. We rebuilt this so it doesn’t happen to you.
Four things you can't get anywhere else.
Not features. Outcomes. The reasons people who already train switch over, and stay.
How personal form review actually works.
Recording, submitting, and getting reviewed takes about five minutes of your time. The instructor reply is where the breakthrough happens.
14 lessons. Your foundation.
The gateway to all 9 sashes.
Shadow Warriors delivers Form I, "Foundation Strike", the digital path to your White Sash. Master these 14 lessons under personal Shadow Council form review, then unlock the path to Forms II–IX. Click any phase below to see what's inside.
9 sashes. 3 levels. 12 traditions.
Each one earned, never assigned.
Each sash ties to one of nine combat forms drawn from twelve distinct martial arts traditions. Promotion requires demonstrated skill, evaluated by a certified instructor, not a calendar. Click any sash below to see its form, level, and what it unlocks.
Earned by: Completing all 14 lessons of Form I and passing the assessment reviewed by your Shadow Council instructor. Most Shadow Warriors test for White Sash within 4–8 weeks of consistent training.
What unlocks: LSTA Global Roster placement, physical White Sash mailed to your door, and the path to Form II ("Flowing Defense"), opens. Your Shadow Warrior rank also transfers to any Temple Warrior academy in your city when one opens.
Two paths forward.
Both inside the same recognized system.
Your White Sash isn't the finish line. It's the first sash of nine. Here's exactly how the journey continues, and you choose the path that fits your life.
Either path. Same standard. A rank earned digitally as a Shadow Warrior is the same rank recognized across the LSTA academy network. Your progress never gets locked to one place.
No guessing. No wasted weeks.
The 30-Day Cortisol Crusher onboarding kicks in from Day 1. Every session is mapped. Every milestone is reviewed by a real instructor.
Train alone.
Never fight alone.
Shadow Warriors don't train in isolation. The Shadow Circle network connects practitioners in your city for live sparring gatherings. Led by volunteer Hosts, governed by the same Code and curriculum you train with at home.
Achieve Form 3 certification and 90+ days of active membership and you're eligible to become a Host and lead your own Circle.
Find a Circle Near You Host a CircleThe sash is the beginning.
Not the destination.
Every rank you earn builds toward a competitive pathway that ends at the highest level in the sport. The founding Warriors set the baseline every future competitor has to beat.
The founding Warriors own the early records. No title has been claimed yet. No baseline has been set. The people who train now are the ones every future competitor gets measured against.
By Sash Three, You're Someone Else.
You've earned three sashes. Form II opens. The technical vocabulary you possess is bigger than what most people who have trained any martial art for two years can claim. You move differently in a way that doesn't fade when you're not holding the saber.
You're hosting a Shadow Circle for practitioners at lower sash levels. Newer Shadow Warriors look at your form on the broadcast the way you used to look at the Council instructors. Authority transfers. You are now part of how the system continues.
You're prepping for your first regional event. Real competition, real bracket, real opponent at your sash level. The thing you owned the saber for (the thing you wouldn't have admitted you wanted), is on the calendar.
You have a practice in the older sense of the word. A discipline. A thing you do that means something. The hour you train is not the hour you exercise. It's the hour you become more yourself than you are anywhere else in your week.
Your name is in the founding generation. There will be Shadow Warriors fifty years from now whose lineage traces back to people who joined in 2026. You are one of those people. The roster spot will outlast you.
What was an abstract symbol two years ago is now a destination on a map you've walked half of. Black Sash is no longer "someday." It's six sashes away on a path you've already proven you can travel.
None of this happens to people who scrolled past this page. All of it happens to people who started.
Training earns you real rewards.
Every level cleared, every mission completed, every rank earned deposits Bounty Points into your Rebel Credits wallet at the Trading Post.
1,000 Bounty Points = $10 off at the Trading Post.
Every Bounty Point you earn goes directly into your Trading Post wallet: spending power on gear, rank sashes, competition entries, and Pro-Shop limited-edition saber designs.
At three sessions per week plus one rank advancement per month, most members accumulate 600–800 points in their first 30 days, and 1,000+ by Day 45. Add the 300-point Cortisol Crusher bonus and your first gear discount typically arrives before your second billing date.
Warrior members stack this on top of the $50 Rebel Credits already included with every Warrior subscription.
If your wallet is already filling up by Day 30, the math has already changed.
Start Earning Your Sash, $147/moSix modules. One platform. Built into your $147.
The Shadow Warrior app, powered by AcadevoFit Martial Arts Pro, is a complete fitness and wellness operating system: not a video library, not a workout tracker, not a nutrition log. It’s all of those things in one platform, calibrated to combat training, and updated alongside the curriculum. Here’s what’s waiting for you on Day 1.
Body Vision
3-D body composition mapping. Visualize your current state, log every shift, and see the physical transformation that consistent training produces. The data behind “I can see it now in the mirror.”
Combat-Conditioning Workouts
Video-led programming you can run alone, with a partner, or alongside a personal trainer. Strength, cardio, and mobility built for the demands of saber combat, not generic fitness app content.
Warrior Nutrition
Detailed meal plans calibrated to training output. A recipe library with reference photos. Restaurant meal tracking so eating out doesn’t derail your week. The nutrition layer that makes the rest of the work compound.
Wearable Integration
FitBit, Garmin, and other trackers connect directly. Heart rate during sessions. Recovery between sessions. Sleep correlation with training output. Real data, not vibes.
Goal Setting & Tracking
Set the milestones that matter to you: sash advancement targets, body composition goals, weekly training volume. The app organizes them, tracks them, and reminds you why you started. Plan the work, then put in the work.
Health Assessments
Tell the app your starting point, your training style, your fatigue patterns, your medical history. It calibrates workout programming, nutrition guidance, and recovery protocols to you specifically, not a one-size curriculum. The platform meets you where you are.
The mental layer experienced martial artists build for themselves over decades. Built into your membership from day one.
Real voices. Real training. Real transformation.
You've heard us tell you what Shadow Warriors does. Now hear it from the people doing it. Military service members trained at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, and LSTA academy students from across the country.
This is what the work looks like from the inside. The cohort that came before you. The next compilation will include Warriors who started on the page you’re reading right now.
Three moments. You haven’t had any of them yet. You will.
Most platforms stop at video lessons. Yours doesn’t. Underneath the form work is a complete fitness and wellness platform that’s about to put you inside three specific moments over the next twelve weeks. Read them and decide for yourself what $147 is actually buying.
You catch yourself in the mirror.
You’re in the bathroom brushing your teeth. The angle of your shoulder catches the light wrong. You stop.
You lean closer. The shoulder is different. Not bigger, set differently. Like someone who trains.
You open the app. The Body Vision module shows you what you already saw. The 3-D model has been logging the shift in shoulder line for three weeks. The traps are tighter. The lats are starting to flare. The data has been there. Your eyes just caught up.
The week is already there.
You open the app on the couch after the kids are down.
Monday, saber drill block, 30 minutes. Tuesday. The new conditioning circuit Sifu Council added last week. Wednesday, recovery and form-review submission. Thursday, strength block plus the new deadlift progression. Friday, open. Saturday, sash review.
Underneath the training, the meals. The grocery list is already written. Three meals tagged “batch tonight, eat all week.” Two tagged “Tuesday’s leftovers.” One tagged “eating out, tap here for restaurant order presets.”
It used to take Sunday night to plan the week. Now Sunday night is for whatever you want it to be.
The graph stops you.
You opened the app to check something else. The new graph catches your eye.
Tuesday’s drill block, your heart rate during the third round was fourteen beats per minute lower than the same drill three weeks ago. Same sword. Same drill. Same effort. Lower heart rate. Higher work output.
You stare at the graph for a second longer than you mean to.
Nobody told you that you were getting fitter. The app just showed you, with data, that something is working. You’re not imagining it. The work is real and someone is recording it.
What we haven’t walked through. Three mindfulness modules dropping in around week six, form-correction notes that compound across months, integration with your sash progression so the app knows what you’re training toward, those land too. By the time you’ve felt the three moments above, the rest doesn’t need explaining.
Companies that build wellness platforms with this stack charge $39 a month, lock you into annual contracts, and upsell trainers and meal-prep packs until you’re paying $200+ a month for less than this.
Yours costs zero extra. It’s already in your $147. The price section is next. You’re going to think it’s missing a zero.
The four answers that close the deal.
The questions every Shadow Warrior asked before they joined. Skim these, then decide.
"Is this serious enough for me, or is this another fan-club ranking system?"
If you have to ask, you're our person. The curriculum was built by Sijo Nathan Young (2× World Champion, Olympics performer), Sifu Julliana Armstrong (3× WEKAF National Champion, former military contractor for Langley AFB and Fort Eustis), and Sifu Nick Benseman (Hollywood stunt director, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3), and synthesized from 12 distinct martial arts traditions including classical fencing, Chinese broadsword, historical European swordplay, Korean sword arts, and Filipino Arnis. The U.S. military relied on this team to train service members. Your sash is reviewed against the same standard. It is a real martial art that happens to use light swords.
"Who exactly will be reviewing my videos, and how fast?"
Every form review is done by a certified Shadow Council instructor. Credentialed by the founding team and trained directly under them. You record on your phone (Apple or Android, no special hardware), submit through the app, and a real instructor sends you a personal video reply with specific corrections. 72-hour turnaround on every weekly form check, returned by your assigned Shadow Council instructor. Not an algorithm. Not a score. A coach, by name.
"I'm not 22. I have a job, family, limited time. Is this realistic?"
Most members are 28–45. Sessions are 20–30 minutes. The 30-Day Cortisol Crusher onboarding maps every session for you so there's no decision fatigue: open the app, train, done. You don't need a partner for solo drills. You don't need special hardware. You don't need to be in shape. The avatar this is built for is the person with $147 and 30 minutes a few times a week, not the unemployed teenager with infinite hours. The system is designed for the life you actually have.
"What's the worst case if I sign up and decide it's not for me?"
You cancel anytime. No contracts. No commitment beyond the month you're in. Worst case: one month at $147, 30 days of full curriculum access, your first instructor-reviewed assessment, and one first mission that earns you Bounty Points on Day 1. The floor is low. The ceiling (White Sash to Black, Shadow Circle to the World Games), is not. Most people who try one month stay because the path is real. The cancellation rate is the lowest tell of whether this is real.
What you’re actually getting. By the dollar.
Strip away the marketing for a second. Here’s what each piece of the membership is worth as a standalone product, and what you’d pay if you bought them separately.
All of That. For $147 a Month.
$0 Rebel Credits Starter Wallet · Spend at the Trading Post Day One
One tier. One price.
The Full Dojo, from day one.
Personal form review by a certified Shadow Council instructor, weekly live class for your current sash, the full path from White Sash to Black: no upgrades, no upsells, no tiers. Train in the system that produced a Team USA world-championship competitor.
A traditional martial arts school runs $150–250/month for two to three in-person sessions per week, but only with one local instructor, in one local style, with a rank that doesn't travel. Shadow Warrior is $147/month. Full curriculum access, weekly form review, weekly sash-level live class, level-gated dojo rooms, certified instructors trained directly under a 2× World Champion and a 3× WEKAF National Champion, rank recognized across the LSTA academy network, Shadow Circle competition access, and a pathway to the World Games. The price is lower. The instructor team is unmatched. The ceiling is higher.
$147/mo is less than half what a local martial arts dojo charges. For instructors with credentials no local school can match, a recognized rank that travels, and training that fits a 30-minute window in a working schedule. The math is the answer. It's the cheapest serious martial art available to a working adult.
Train for 60 days. If you haven’t earned your White Sash Phase 1 milestone, every dollar comes back.
And we keep coaching you free for another 30 days while you decide if it’s right for you.
This isn’t a hedged refund policy buried in fine print. This is the same Shadow Council instructors who built the curriculum. Sijo Nathan Young, Sifu Edward Armstrong, Sifu Julliana Armstrong, Sifu Nick Benseman. Staking their personal reputation on whether their system works for you.
If you submit your weekly form check videos, follow the Day-1-to-Day-60 progression, and still haven’t hit Phase 1 of the White Sash assessment, the math is simple: we failed to teach, not you failed to learn. Full refund. Plus 30 more days of coaching while you figure out where to go from here.
More questions, more honest answers.
"I've hit a plateau training alone. Will this actually break me through it?"
The plateau happens because no one is watching your form. You correct what you can see, but the things that hold you back are usually the things you can't see in yourself. When a certified Shadow Council instructor watches your video, they catch the back-foot drift, the elbow bend, the timing flaw, the off-axis chamber. The four or five things that have been quietly capping your progress. You'll know within the first form-check reply whether this works for you. Most members say their first instructor video reply taught them more than six months of YouTube did.
"What happens after my White Sash? Where does this actually go?"
Two paths, both inside the same recognized system. Path 1: if there's a Temple Warrior academy in your city (academies operating across the U.S. and internationally, with new locations launching every quarter), your rank transfers and you train in person. Path 2: stay at the Shadow Warrior tier ($147/mo) and continue toward Form II "Flowing Defense" and your Yellow Sash entirely from home, coached by the same instructors. Most members stay at Warrior even after a local academy opens. The Full Dojo is your permanent home.
"How do I know my rank actually means something outside this app?"
Because it's the same rank earned at every LSTA academy across the U.S. and internationally, including the founding Norfolk lineage. A White Sash earned digitally as a Shadow Warrior is the same White Sash earned in person at a licensed LSTA academy. It travels with you. It seeds you into Regional tournaments at Purple Sash. It's the ticket to the World Light Sword Games at Black. It is not a badge in an app.
In Six Months, Two Saber Owners Will Look in the Mirror.
Six Months From Today, What He Sees
- White Sash earned. Yellow Sash within reach. He says "I study under" with the same matter-of-fact tone a black belt uses.
- His form looks different enough that anyone who's seen him before notices. He doesn't apologize for the saber anymore.
- He's part of a small lore. The founding generation of a martial art, with a roster spot that will be there in fifty years.
- His Shadow Council instructor knows his form by name. The relationship is real. The credentialing is real. The rank, when he wears it, is real.
- He picks up the saber and his body knows what to do. The hesitation that lived in his hands for two years is gone.
- The thing he secretly wanted (to earn the right to hold the object he already owned), he earned it. Quietly. On video review. Against a real standard.
Six Months From Today, What He Sees
- Saber in the closet. Same place it's been since February. He moved it twice when he was looking for something else.
- Still the guy who owns a $400 saber and watches tutorials. Still privately suspects he's a hobbyist pretending to be a martial artist.
- Saw the LSTA post about another Shadow Warrior earning their first sash. Recognized the feeling immediately. Scrolled past again.
- The Discord he joined in February has 47 unread messages he'll never open. He stopped lurking three months ago.
- His form looks identical to the way it looked when he bought the saber. Same five drills. Same plateau. Same ceiling.
- The thing he secretly wanted (to earn the right to hold the object he already owned), is still a thing he secretly wants. The window is still open. He still hasn't walked through it.
The questions you’d ask if we were face to face.
The unsaid objections. The ones that keep saber owners on the sidelines for years. Here are honest answers.
“What if I’m completely out of shape?”
Most Warriors come in out of shape. The combat-conditioning workouts inside the AcadevoFit app are calibrated to your starting point through the Health Assessment module. Not to a hypothetical athlete you’re supposed to already be. Form I is designed to be physically accessible. The work is the path to fitness, not the prerequisite for it.
“What if I look stupid on the form review videos?”
You will look stupid on your first form review. Every Warrior does. Your Shadow Council instructor has reviewed thousands of clumsy, awkward, embarrassing first attempts: from people who later earned their White Sash, their Yellow, their Green. The point of form review isn’t to perform. It’s to be coached. Vulnerability on camera is the entry fee. Everyone pays it.
“What if I don’t have a partner to train with?”
No partner required. The entire Form I curriculum (your White Sash path) is solo work. The combat-conditioning workouts are solo or partner. You choose. The Shadow Circle community lets you find virtual training partners if you want one, but it’s never required. You can earn your White Sash, Yellow Sash, and Green Sash without ever sparring another human in person.
“What if I quit after a month like I did with Peloton, P90X, and CrossFit?”
Honest answer: this is the objection we lose the most sleep over. Here’s why we think it’s different. Those programs gave you a workout. Shadow Warriors gives you a rank. The difference between “I missed three workouts” and “I haven’t earned my Yellow Sash yet” is the difference between giving up on a routine and walking away from an identity. The 30-day mapped schedule, the assigned instructor who notices when you stop submitting, and the milestone-based progression are designed specifically for the avatar who’s bounced off three fitness apps already.
“What if the people in my life don’t take it seriously at first?”
Fair. A light sword can read as a toy until you see the system behind it. Two honest answers. One: the credentials do the explaining. A 2× World Champion, a 3× WEKAF National Champion who trained U.S. military service members, and a Hollywood stunt director built this curriculum. That context lands fast with anyone skeptical. Two: this doesn’t have to be something you defend. Total Saber Fit gives a partner their own way in, and families train the forms together all the time. The practice speaks for itself. What people tend to notice first is the steadier, stronger version of you a few months in.
“What if I sign up and life gets in the way?”
Cancel anytime. No contracts, no commitment beyond the month you’re in. Pause the membership, come back later, your rank progress is preserved. The Sifu Promise (60-day milestone-or-refund) covers the worst case. Life gets in the way; the system doesn’t punish you for it.
If your question isn’t here, your Shadow Council instructor will answer it within 24 hours of your first message. The conversation starts on Day 1.
You bought the saber.
Now become the warrior who deserves it.
The plateau is behind you. The masters are waiting. Your first form-check video is one upload away. Pick the path that fits your life, and start training tomorrow.
⚔ Each Shadow Council instructor takes 25 students max. Capacity is currently open.
Worst case: You join, try it for a month, and cancel. You pay $147 and get 30 days of full curriculum access plus personal form review from a certified instructor on your first rank assessment. That's the floor. There is no long-term commitment. And the Sifu Promise stands over all of it: White Sash Phase 1 in 60 days, or every dollar back.