Being able to mechanically conduct a technique is important for establishing a combative base. However, being successful with a given technique requires a much greater level of understanding of its application. Every combative technique must be placed into its proper context with an awareness of time, space, and feeling (not intuitive but physical). To successfully strike…
Read More... from Cueing and Consequence: Creating a More Accurate Training Environment
This is one of our biggest barriers to growth. Who doesn’t fear looking like a failure in front of judging eyes? Who doesn’t see all eyes as potential judges? Even brand new students who have never held a sword before share experiences of feeling like they look stupid during their first class. Many resist ever…
I revisit the question “Why do swordplay?” on a regular basis. Many people ask me what my reason is for practising something that is arguably esoteric and a few centuries past its true usefulness. The answer may not be what people are expecting. At the end of the day, I feel that hundreds of years past its…
Today is the first day of Kwanzaa. Many of us know of Kwanzaa, but not many of us know its origins and how it is celebrated. Today, I would like to talk about what the holiday truly means, and how we can apply its core principles to our lives as martial artists and practitioners of…
Read More... from The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa and How to Apply Them As Martial Artists
Regular practice is more important than quantity of practice. 5 minutes a day can be more profound for your long-term growth in a skill than 5 hours, once per month. Keeping a new skill in the active portion of the brain allows you to return to serious study of that skill (for example in a…
A new year is coming so get into our next round of Beginner's Courses! Prepare for swinging swords and pulling punches. We offer three different courses which cover different avenues of Western Martial Arts: Fight Like Sherlock Holmes Bartitsu is a complex martial art with many interlocking skills. Our four-week Fight Like Sherlock Holmes course gives students…
Robert Borsos, my horseback archery instructor, raced down the lane and planted 12 arrows in the target. An impressive feat from horseback. As he rode past me back to the starting gate to do a second run, I noticed that he had passed his bow into the other hand and was going through a series…
I’ve recently become more aware of a helpful person in my classes at Academie Duello. This person is so helpful that they want to make sure that their partner never fails, never feels bad, and is successful in all that they do. One place I see this person in action is in target drills. In…
Read More... from Help Your Training Partner Discover Failure
This is a pretty common question. Often when we start into something new, we’re eager to get past that first awkward and potentially embarrassing stage and get onto looking like a badass as quickly as possible. I have two answers to this question: 1. About one year. This isn’t when you’ll be a complete badass,…
Working at the front desk of the world’s largest western swordfighting school for half a year has led me to observe something. When it comes to most weapons and styles, people have preferences that are based on a number of different factors, ranging from their training background to their childhood fantasies. Generally speaking no one seems to particularly dislike one…
Sometimes a lot of failure can be easier to deal with than a little. Failing at something that you feel you "should" be able to do can have some sting to it. Failing at something that is downright "impossible" to do is expected and can thus seem less risky from a psychological or social perspective.…
Read More... from Taking on a Ridiculous Challenge May be Easier Than a Small One
Today while teaching a class on falling I had a funny exchange with one of my students; we talked about how much toddlers fall down in the process of learning to walk and be stable. Each time they fall, they get right back up again. Generally there’s no crying or interruption, except if they’re tired…
Read More... from Be As Resilient as a Child When Dealing with Failure
It can be tempting in your school or practice group to hide your martial weaknesses and keep a book of the holes in your partners’ defences. The more secrets under your belt, the easier it is to stay on top. But this is a limited view that keeps you from truly expanding your ability as…
Read More... from Reveal Your Martial Weaknesses to Improve Faster
Martial Arts have meant many things to me over time. Here are some of the excellent outcomes I feel are found within the Western disciplines we practice at Academie Duello: Personal Growth Martial arts help us test our capabilities, push our limits, build our confidence in our physical and mental selves, and face challenges of…
Within his 1409 manual Fior di Batagglia, Fiore dei Liberi provides us with an effective guide for reviewing our successful execution of martial technique: surrounding his diagram of blows are a series of 4 animals, each representing an essential quality of successful execution in the art: The Lynx - Positioned above the figure’s head represents…
Read More... from Fiore's Four Animals - Achieving Martial Success
The drone of uniformly delivered content to rows of kids locked into desks is the initiation into formal learning that many of us come from. A system designed to output little industrial cogs who are themselves uniform. This is a system that is unfortunately devoid of passion and builds a habit for learning that places…
In my post on Training the Ranges of your Ability I shared the idea that if you were to measure your martial ability on a scale of 100 you would never be able to pin point an exact value in a meaningful way because we all fluctuate on that scale based on our fitness, mindset,…
Read More... from Training the Top; Training the Bottom - Part I
This afternoon we finished up our final day of training for the Duelling Arts Rapier Tournament at the Vancouver Club. This is part tournament and part spectacle; a hand picked roster of 8 senior Duello students will be fencing in a series of matches over the course of an evening of fine dining and cocktails,…
Read More... from Finding Your Centre - The Day Before the Tournament