Horsemanship Level 4: Stable & Pasture The Stable & Pasture assessment for Level 4 requires you to: 2. Identify good & bad features of setup, emphasizing safety. Clean a stall, choice of tools. This means you now need to apply judgement to your knowledge. Very few stables are ideal. We often wish our pastures, paddocks,…
Stage combat and Method acting don't mix. What do we mean by "Method acting"? Here's part of what Wikipedia has to say: Strasberg used the term “Method” to describe his philosophy of acting and his techniques of training actors, which built upon some of Stanislavski's early ideas. Strasberg's method is based upon the idea that…
The health and fitness industry is insane. There’s no denying it, and it’s at its most crazy every January to coincide with the world’s outpourings of New Year’s resolutions on the back of the world's mass influx of calories over the holidays. There’s also no escaping it, from bizarre fad diets to esoteric exercise devices-cum-torture…
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When you're standing in front of your students you have an opportunity to not only convey martial arts technique but also to positively shape thinking. The psychology with which we approach learning and practice is incredibly influential over our success at that practice and our energy to keep at it long term. Here are some things…
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Horsemanship Level 4: Turnout Horsemanship 4 is the first level in our program in which you will be examined on your appearance. 1. Candidate’s turnout. Safe, tidy, clean, AD shirt, footwear, hair, gloves. At first glance it may seem superficial or trivial to have a dress code. Indeed, at earlier levels we only require that…
The single most important factor in learning any new physical skill is general strength, or the ability to press and pull with different parts of your body in all directions. By conditioning, we generally mean the endurance to perform work over an extended period of time. Both general strength and conditioning are essential elements to…
Sometimes -- just sometimes -- on a nice summer day, one likes to sit quietly on their own at a wee Bistro table with a view of the street, sipping at one’s coffee (black, thank you very much), and concentrate on looking at pretty things. This book qualifies as that "pretty thing". Ken Mondschein has edited the…
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Academie Duello's Spring and Summer Camp, Knight Camp (for kids), is coming up in March so I wanted to share a video of a talk I gave in 2014 about how the camp changed from its early beginning as Sword Camp, more than a decade ago, to a camp focused not only on swords but…
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As with its cousin rank, the Red Cord, the Red Spur requires a concerted training and study effort to achieve, and will probably take you about three years to get there from the point at which you win your Blue Spur. However, it is the journey itself that is rewarding whether it takes you two…
Do you get stage fright? Have you ever delivered a performance, and thought that the audience hates you? Today, I want to remind you that it’s not about you. It's about the performance. The audience isn't judging you. Think about a clown. Laughing at a clown is not insulting to the clown. You’re not laughing…
This past Tuesday night, I got home from the school at about midnight. After class, which ends at 10pm, I spent another hour and a half with Greg committing more rapier and sidesword exercises to video. This is our third week of shooting this particular content. To support this month’s 30 for 30 Swordplay Challenge,…
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The final item on your Blue Spur checklist is: Read and demonstrate an understanding of Xenophon’s On Horsemanship. Written around 300 BCE by Xenophon the Greek, On Horsemanship is the oldest known complete work on the care and training of riding horses. (There is an older Hittite treatise on conditioning chariot horses, and an incomplete…
It's both emotionally satisfying and productive to summarize the previous year and take stock. In this blog, it can also have a benefit to the reader to gather the links and events from the previous year in one place. So, I hope this retrospective benefits you as much as compiling it benefits me. Articles In…