The second checklist item in the Swordplay from the Falsemount section is: Demonstrate proper defences and counter-attacks to all attacks from in-front on the far and near side. In this section we are looking for the ability to deal with descending, rising, and horizontal attacks on either side of the horse, performing core defences of…
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
Friday 18 April at around noon we are planning to burn those piles of brambles. Providing the weather cooperates, those blackberries will be toast! Bring your work-clothes and your marshmallows and join us for some revenge! We also have several other chores on the to-do list, such as putting the lovely new trough in the…
Blue Spur Curriculum: Cutting from the Falsemount What is a falsemount? Our falsemounts are simply wooden horses from which we can safely work on perfecting techniques with steel weapons without the distraction of an animal with a mind of it's own, or the worry of injuring it. Falsemounts don't buck, bite or bolt, and most…
Last Friday night Academie Duello and the Social Concierge hosted an elegant tournament and demonstration of swordplay at the Vancouver Club in downtown Vancouver. The evening involved performances from the Vancouver Opera, Champagne Sabreing with various historical swords, a beautiful decked out ballroom, and an invitational rapier tournament of Academie Duello's senior students. The event,…
Read More... from Photos and Comments From the Duelling Arts Rapier Tournament
This Spring Academie Duello is bringing our Falconry program back! With a pirate twist! Academie Duello’s Parrot Taming and Training program is under development with our first course to be offered in June. Advanced registration will be opening up next week. Details to be announced. About the Program’s Origins For many centuries, the taming and…
Read More... from Bird Taming and Training Returns to Duello with a Twist
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
The weather is getting warmer, the horses are shedding their Winter coats, the days are getting longer and brighter, and Academie Duello along with Red Colt Equestrian Farm Co-op are gearing up for our next Introduction to Mounter Combat workshop. Experience the childhood fantasy of being a knight as you take the first step into…
Read More... from Spring Is Springing and A New Intro to Mounted Combat Is Beginning!
Our next round of Beginner's Courses are just around the corner! Celebrate the start of Spring by 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…
Read More... from Start at the Beginning: April Courses at Academie Duello
If you want to imagine your ability to fence as a rating out of 100, it would be impossible to pinpoint an exact score in any kind of meaningful way. To be able to say I’m a 75 and they’re a 70, thus I should be able to defeat them isn’t relevant because its impossible…
Swordplay from the Ground: Armed Grapples and Disarms Sometimes, despite having a yard of steel in hand, the best option is not to "stick'em with the pointy end." Whether its because you are too close for blade play, or because you're worried that slicing your opponent open will devalue him on the ransom market, the…
Have you ever experienced a supreme frustration with learning? The feeling that you’re just not getting something; that a concept or technique is just beyond your reach and challengingly so or perhaps just not coming fast enough? This state of frustration is a core and natural part of the learning process. I don’t know that…
In the media summer is the silly season, but in the northern hemisphere of the equine world, March is prime time for goofy, bizarre, and downright alarming horse behaviour. So this week we'll take a break from swordplay and wrestling to tackle the question of how to ride those spooks. Staying in the Saddle There's…
I have very specific ideas of how tournament training should figure into one’s overall martial development. I also don’t feel it is essential for all positive martial development; However you certainly can’t beat ramping up to a particular event, such as a tournament, for its ability to create an intense training environment. In a recent…
Read More... from Sparring Under Pressure: Staying Collected Using Scaling Speed Exercise
Swordplay from the Ground: unarmed grapples Wrestling was a large part of knightly combat, both from the ground and horseback. Not only did grappling provide a non-lethal method of taking hostages, it was sometimes the only option left when a knight had been disarmed, or when an opponent was too close for swordplay. In the…
Read More... from Up Close and Personal: Grappling from the Ground
One important component of how we train at Academie Duello is slow work. Slow work is a type of sparring practice where you fence freely against an opponent but at a speed that is slow enough that you can consider and be observant of your actions as you respond fluidly to the situation at hand.…
The month of March heralds the start of Spring and an extra hour of daylight! What better time to start learning a skill? Whether you're a practitioner looking to expand your horizons or completely new to WMA, start by checking out our various Beginner's Courses: Fight Like Sherlock Holmes Bartitsu is a complex martial art…
Read More... from March Beginner's Courses at Academie Duello
One of the primary challenges that I see my students face and that I have personally faced over years of practice is boredom. Most techniques take hours of focused time to improve and hone. Yet the mental discipline it takes to put in these hours does not come naturally, certainly not to our rapid fire…