I am not someone who defers to authority easily, but often the difference between success and failure can be our willingness to trust a professional. We waste a lot of time and a lot of headspace on self-teaching. This is an important and valid part of any process, but most people delay, hinder, or even…
Read More... from Bow to Authority! Seek Professionals to Maximise Success
Academie Duello is proud to announce our listing of official study groups and affiliate schools around North America! All of these groups are run by certified study group leaders or ranked instructors. If you’re keen on learning what we have to offer, but don’t live in Vancouver, now is your chance to connect with a…
This coming weekend is the Vancouver International Swordplay Symposium. This is a three day weekend of martial arts workshops, intensives, sparring, socializing, and more. Over the past 20 years, I have attended my fair share of conferences both as a student and as a teacher across disciplines of eastern or western origin. These events are…
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Happy Valentine's Day, from some of our favourite kissable faces. Photos taken at Red Colt Co-op by Double Exposure Photography (aka Is & El). A reminder that there is no swordplay at the barn this weekend due to VISS. However, Riding & Horsemanship classes are on! Upcoming Classes NEW! Ongoing Mounted Combat Skills Beginning…
Functional training is all the rage but how often do we actually question whether our training is, in fact, functional? Not “Functional™” but functional. Could you lift a log, climb a rope, throw a punch, carry a wounded person or wrestle an assailant to the ground if you needed to do those things in a life…
Read More... from Focus on Disaster: How to Use Impending Doom to Set Training Goals.
At the end of January, we finished up the fourth 30-for-30 Swordplay Challenge. The Facebook group this year had over 250 members with reports coming from at least 100 of them throughout the entire month. I enjoyed reading posts from practitioners throughout the world with varying levels of experience and coming from different backgrounds and…
Public registration for the Academie Duello Instructor Intensive taking place March 6th to 10th is now open! Join us in beautiful Vancouver, Canada for a fun and challenging 50-hour immersion in the arts of the rapier and longsword. If you have ever dreamed of being a teacher of Historical European Martial Arts or simply want…
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Riding Level 4: Transitions Before you read this post, review the Level 3 post on the Half Halt. You will want all this information to be second nature by now, as we look at the next Level 4 checklist item: 5. Effectiveness and use of Aids. Transitions. Halt. Salute At this level, we will not…
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Plants grow because the environment is right. Often a seed will sit waiting inert in the ground until the conditions are perfect to give it the best chance of success before it starts to grow. The only difference between you and that seed is that you can change your environment to create the best possible…
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I began my practice of Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA) without any personal connection to its original historical sources. My real connection was to movies and stories of swordsmanship. I had musketeers and knights running through my mind when I first connected with a group training in rapier fencing. Yet, what I really connected with…
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Riding Level 4: Rhythm and Independent Work Cast your mind back to many years ago on this blog when I first discussed the training pyramid and its base layer, rhythm. In your Level 4 exam we are looking for 4. All paces, feel of rhythm. Independent work. In Level 3 we wanted you to demonstrate…
When it comes to healthy living, what’s better: 100% or 80%? You probably immediately went with 100%. We all want to stick to the plan 100%, we want to hit the gym 100% of the time we are meant to, and we want to see 100% of the results. In fact, we tend to see…
When we read ‘press’, (yes, the ‘real news’ press), we must remember that any item offered by a newspaper is often restricted by column length … the journalist is only allowed so much space to present their story. And sometimes, these restrictions result in a quotation being taken out of context; misplaced in context; or…
Read More... from Selectively Quotable Sword Press: News for January 2017