Austin Warrior Arts

Austin Warrior Arts teaches African, African Diaspora, and Middle Eastern fighting arts out of Austin, TX. Da'Mon Stith runs it. He's an Austin native with over 30 years of martial arts experience, and he started early. His father gave him his first sword at age 6. Formal training began at 9 in Asian martial arts, and by 17 he had moved into African and Middle Eastern traditions. He has spent the past two decades researching fighting arts across Africa, the Diaspora, and the Middle East to better understand their cultures and histories.

In 2010, Da'Mon created the organization Sefe Dekote (the Silent Sword) and its youth sword group Battle Camp. Both groups work toward excellence through martial arts, movement, and self-expression. He is the Chief Instructor at Austin Warrior Arts and the Guild of the Silent Sword, and formerly served as President of the Historical African Martial Arts Association.

The list of disciplines taught here is long and specific. Austin Warrior Arts covers Ikiri Ada, which is machete fencing from the African Diaspora. They teach Colombian machete and staff (Esgrima y Machete y Bordon), Haitian machete from the Avril family tradition (Tire Machet), and Kokobale, the Afro Puerto Rican stick and machete system. There's Shotel and Abyssinian warrior arts from Ethiopia, Takouba sword fighting from the Sahel region, Algerian stick, long stick, stick and shield, and Nakhtu-aa fighting arts from the Nile Valley. They also teach 52 Blocks, capoeira, and HAMA fundamentals. You won't find most of these at any other school in Texas.

Their programming includes offerings like "Rooted in Resistance: 2026 Summer Intensive," which connects martial practice to cultural roots. This is not a strip-mall karate studio. The training draws from specific lineages and regional traditions that Da'Mon has spent decades tracking down and studying firsthand.

When he's not teaching, Da'Mon builds training weapons by hand from high-density plastic, hardwood, aluminum, and steel. He also instructs during summers at BookPeople's Camp Half-Blood, the literary camp run by Austin's independent bookstore. The range here is real: a guy who started with a sword at age 6, built an organization to preserve fighting arts most people have never heard of, makes his own training weapons, and still finds time to teach kids at a bookstore summer camp.

Austin Warrior Arts is one of the only places in the country focused on African and Diaspora martial traditions. If that's what you're looking for, this is where to go.