The rest unfolds day by day, on the ground, as it was designed to.
That is deliberate. Part of what makes the week worth living is walking into each day without having rehearsed it in advance, reading the moment as it comes, and discovering what you do when you cannot plan your way around it.

The Forge did not come out of nowhere. It is built by Golem Academy, whose instructors carry 20+ years in international self-defence camps, first as participants, then as instructors, each from a different martial background, and several of them as elite instructors training the next generation of instructors, in programmes built for civilians, for women, for children, for law enforcement and for military units. We have run these weeks on several continents, and we have been the ones standing at the front of them. Four of us lead Forge I.

Those decades built us, and we have deep respect for them. The Forge is not a better version of what exists. It is not the same world. We created our own league, built for the people who come to it, and we live by the Golem Standard: a week outside the standard path of levels and grades, accessible to anyone, where nobody is working toward the next belt and everyone is simply tested, taught and taken further than they possibly would go on their own.

That is what we have built. Not a course in a syllabus, but the most demanding and most rewarding week we could design, for people who want an experience they will still be talking about in twenty years...

The work covers

1. Close-quarter self-defence, standing to ground, drawn from several disciplines
2. Striking and kicking: distance, timing, structure and choice of weapon, and what holds up against someone who is hitting back
3. Behaviour analysis: reading people and situations, recognising intent before contact, and knowing what your options are while you still have them
4. The anatomy behind it: how the body is built, where it breaks, and why a technique works or fails
5. Dogma breaking: why some of what is widely taught does not hold up, and what does
6. Extreme close quarter, where there is no distance left to use
7. "Street judo" for the moments a fight closes and goes down: sambo, judo, wrestling and BJJ, for the ground you take and the ground you did not choose
8. Blade work on both sides of the knife: defending against one, and defending yourself with one
9. Fighting from disadvantage, when you are already hurt, already down, or already losing
10. Scenario training that escalates from a single opponent to two, three, four

Fifteen participants, four instructors, and nobody training unobserved. 

Hard training and injury are not the same thing. An injury taken in training can stay with you for the rest of your life. You will live with the consequences, and there is nothing to be gained from it. The work at Forge I is demanding and carefully controlled: intensity is built deliberately, partners are matched, and nobody earns anything by hurting the person in front of them. You are expected to arrive home in one piece, and capable of more than when you left.

Skills are introduced with care, then carried into fatigue, discomfort and uncertainty, where the body has already given much of what it had and you must still think, move, decide, adapt and remain useful when clarity begins to disappear.

The combat training is not about aggression. It is about composure, keeping your head, and acting well under contact, the qualities that make someone genuinely capable, and calm, when it matters.

Self-defence teaches you to survive a fight. The Forge teaches you to win one, and to understand why.

It is a small, deliberately chosen circle, and that is exactly what makes it worth being part of. Every application is reviewed, and every serious candidate speaks with us before a place is offered.

The Forge is for people who want to be genuinely capable, not certified. Who would rather be tested than graded, and who understand that the difference shows up only under pressure.

Most people never find their own limit, because finding it alone is close to impossible. That is what we are for.

You do not need a uniform, a black belt or a background in the field. You need to arrive in genuine physical condition, able to train hard several times a day for seven days, and to do it again the next morning. 

What that means in practice is discussed at interview, and it is not negotiable. You need motivation, humility, emotional maturity and the willingness to be taken to the edge of what you can do.

The Forge takes people from every level. Some arrive with years behind them, some with smaller experience, and neither is an advantage. Training background helps you arrive prepared. It does not decide how the week goes for you.

It is demanding, and the demand is never the goal in itself. The difficulty is simply what makes the reward real: the skill you gain, the confidence you earn, and the memory you keep.

Acceptance is where the work begins.

How long you have depends on when you join. Those who come in early have months to build, and that time is an advantage. Those who come in late have less room, so they need to arrive already in condition. Either way the standard on arrival is the same.

The preparation is real, and that is the point. It gets you genuinely ready for the week, and it is the first sign of who is serious: the people who train, adjust and arrive having done the work.

You will also receive your own Forge dossier, with everything you need to prepare, what is expected of you, and what to bring, while the finer detail of the days themselves stays part of the experience you are about to live.

The instructor team meets you at the airport in person, and the week is looked after from there.

Included:

• Airport transfer on arrival and departure
• Accommodation for seven days, the location to the group alone
• All meals: breakfast, lunch and dinner
• Training and instruction, with all training equipment the week requires

Not included:

• Flights to and from Colombia
• Travel and medical insurance, valid for the activities of the week
• Personal protective equipment, including head protection. The full kit list, with the standards required, comes with your dossier once your place is confirmed

Before you arrive:

Every participant must hold travel and medical insurance. Standard policies often exclude combat training, so this needs checking rather than assuming.

Rooms are allocated by the team. Single occupancy can be requested at additional cost, subject to availability.

Dietary requirements are catered for where they can be. Tell us at interview what yours are, and we will be straight with you about what is workable in a rural kitchen in Colombia.

Everything is arranged so that your attention goes where it should: on the training, the people beside you, and the seven days you came for.

Most prices fall as the date approaches. Ours rise, because we know what this week is worth

30 July – 14 August — $2,850 / €2,500
15 August – 30 September — $3,500 / €3,000
1 October – 30 October — $4,000 / €3,500
After 30 October, access is by private arrangement only.

What follows is a conversation, not a transaction.

There is the training, and there is everything around it: the Forge experience. The flight south, the landing in a country most people never see, the week among people you would never otherwise have met, in a place you would not have found alone. Some of it is planned to the hour. Some of it will surprise you. All of it is part of what you are coming for.

Something shifts across those seven days, in the moments where you are tired and keep going, unsure and act anyway, supported by others and there for them in return, until it stops being an event you attended and becomes a private marker of what you now know you can do.

You leave with real skill, with confidence that was tested and earned, with people you went through it beside, and with the quiet knowledge that you were chosen, you showed up, and you came home changed.

Excellence or Nothing.
It is the entry requirement, and it is the standard waiting at the end.