A thousand thanks to everyone who contributed some of their precious long weekend time to our double-barrelled work party on Saturday and Monday! On Saturday our team augured post holes, and made concrete footings for the post saddles in preparation for Monday's framing team, which measured, sawed, drilled and bolted the bones of the shedrow…
Category: Community
Beer-based Sword Press
“You’re a mule, Brennan, fitted neither to a rustic life nor a professional one – a bloody anachronism – a social mule, public school educated, trained to appreciate Chartreuse in a world where you cannot afford beer, taught to use a rapier in a world where other bastards use guns.” Plummer, D. Brian. ‘Lepus’. Coch-y-Bonddu…
Raise the Roof!
You are invited to a good old-fashioned barn raising! Okay - we're not raising a whole barn, but we are building a new shedrow shelter for our horses and we need a whole lot of talented, strong, wonderful people like YOU to help us! If you haven't been able to join us for a…
Academie Duello Appears on CBC French
If you speak French or at least like watching moving pictures, take a look at this spot that appeared last month on CBC Television French about Academie Duello, Knight Camp, and me. They did a fine editing job to make my French sound semi-reasonable. Also appearing are Sabrina and Cartson, french speaking Knight Camp students,…
Magical Sword Press
Swords and magic have been consistent companions since blades were first born of fire from raw chunks of rock. Even today, the ‘magical sword’ – be it blessed or cursed – is a mainstay in modern day fiction writing - and no little featuring in computer games!. Accessorise, accessorise, accessorise! SCHWÄBISCHE ZEITUNG (Leutkirch,…
Swords from the Lubeck Museum
Following my trip to the WWOC event outside Hannover, I headed north to Hamburgh to meet up with my good friend Roland Warzecha who hosted me for several days at his lovely country house outside of the city. On the first full day of my visit we headed to the medieval town of Lubeck known…
Date Change for Mounted Tournament
We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming for this important announcement: Due to everyone being too mind-meltingly busy this month we have postponed the Mounted Games tournament till September 30th. However, since we have the time set aside this Sunday we will run a Practice TournamentSunday 26th August1pm - 4pmRed Colt Equestrian Farm Co-opcost: $5 (own…
Staged Sword Press
Show of hands – how many ‘originally’ came to their interest in swordplay from reading books such as ‘Yvain’, ‘Scaramouche’ or ‘Prince Caspian’? One – two – three … OK, hands down. And those whom were captured by blade work after watching television or movies such as ‘The Mark of Zorro’, ‘The Princess Bride’, Scaramouche…
CNAT Ate My Class
Just a brief reminder: Stage Combat and Bartitsu classes on Saturday 18 August are cancelled because your dutiful instructor will be at CNAT. See you next week! Comment on this post on our Posterous Blog.
Event Report: World Wide Open Championships Germany
Greetings all, I have been rather silent on the Academie Duello blog over the past 2 weeks as I have been away in Germany at the third World Wide Open Championship that took place just outside of Hannover. I thought I'd take a few moments to share my impression and experiences of this Historical European…
Read More... from Event Report: World Wide Open Championships Germany
Read Israeli Sword Press … in Russian
We love this job – We read Japanese-language blogs about German sword fighting; Estonian press about a Canadian ‘knight’; and now Israeli sword-press in Russian! Notwithstanding the problems of the Internet; it has provided significant resources to students and practitioners of the WMA art wherever they are – and more importantly, given us the opportunity…
Bartitsu Focus Fight Night
The second Friday of the month is upon us, which means it's Bartitsu Focus for sparring. See you at 8pm for walking stick, purring, pugilism and jujitsu. Comment on this post on our Posterous Blog.
More Holiday Show and Tell
Still on hols, so more photos this week. While the Royal Ontario Museum doesn't have cuddly herds of black horses (see last week's post on the Musical Ride museum), it does have a surprisingly decent collection of western arms and armour. Here are a few of the cavalry related pieces: This rather gorgeous cavalry sabre…
Civic Sword Press
During this day, Canada’s Civic Holiday – what better reason to post WMA/HEMA-related events supported whole-heartedly by … civic authorities? Yes, we’re going back to Russia! (Apparently, last weeks assertion that things were quiet ‘over there’ was sadly mistaken, to say nothing of completely wrong!} Russia: Big Place … Big Events МАНГАЗЕЯ (Tobolsk,…
Holiday snaps
I'm on holiday at the moment, and far too full of sun and food to stir myself into writing a proper post. But I thought you all might enjoy some photos of the RCMP Musical Ride Museum & Stables in Ottawa: See the full gallery on Posterous Three year olds enjoying turnout. The stables. A…
A Kinder, Gentler Sword Press?
Women – don’t mess with them! They’re out in force this week – thrusting, stabbing, falling off of things, falling onto things and taking a fall. If my modest experience with local WMA/HEMA groups is any indication, we have one of the few martial arts that encourages, nay – requires at times, both genders to…
Edith Garrud and Jujitsuffragettes
Tony Wolf, the author of the two volumes of the Bartitsu Compendium, has also written a related book called Edith Garrud: the Suffragette who knew jujutsu. He is currently developing a work of multimedia fiction inspired by the Suffragette Bodyguard stories. Suffragette Bodyguards This week, Tony's article on the Bartitsu.org website focuses on The Amazons…
Quiet, Responsible Sword Press
Its another quiet week for WMA/HEMA press, there’s nothing art-wise on the doorstep today. Even our Slavic and Germanic peers seem to be unnaturally quiet of late. Maybe somebody from the Academie Duello should fly over to Europe and report back on the state of play and study over there!We do however, offer a modest…