One of the fears among city-dwellers in 1890’s London was being strangled by an unseen attacker from behind. And why not? That’s a pretty dangerous situation, and one that seems difficult to escape. That particular fear drove the development of Bartitsu. The neck feels particularly vulnerable, and for good reason. There are 3 types of…
Here at Academie Duello you will often hear us talk about the True Fight and the Adaptive Fight. Both are important to learn so one can transition and flow between the two of them using both to paint a full combative picture. In the True Fight the attacker and defender are in a dance of…
This post is the third in a series on Fiore's four animals and their relation to required traits in martial arts training and execution. “I, the tiger, am so quick at running and turning that I can’t even be overtaken by a lightning bolt." Tom Leoni translation - Fior di Battaglia, Getty Museum Though I…
We’re about halfway in our walk through the Blue Spur curriculum, and now it’s time to turn our attention back to Horsemanship. For the next couple of months the blog will look at the requirements for Horsemanship Level 3. Whereas Level 2 was simply a more in-depth version of the Level 1 topics, in Level…
As many of you know I recently attended the Rossfechten Symposium in Zwiebrücken, Germany. This four-day event brought together Mounted Combat practitioners and aspirants from all over Europe and even North America. Attendees hailed from Estonia, Hungary, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, the USA, and Canada. The event was held at the…
Here, read this, I’ll try to drop by later to chat … &^%$#@!! international situation! Unless stupid things explode overseas (or significantly more so than usual), We’ll be in Vancouver next week attending the 10th Anniversary ‘Duello Days’ and will not be updating the Press. 30 Shades of (registered) Swordplay JUNKEE (Sydney, Australia) 22 July…
This post is part of a series on martial development through the metaphor of Fiore's Four Animals. "No creature can see better than I, the lynx. And this virtue puts everything in its right place and its measure." Tom Leoni translation - Fior di Battaglia, Getty Museum A technique could be mechanically correct in its…
The script will inform the actor and the audience why two characters want to kill each other. However, even with the clearest scenes, as peaceful people it can be difficult to emotionally understand a fight to the death. So as a performer, how do we interpret and justify the stakes of a fight scene with…
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
Luck: Success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one’s own actions. (Oxford dictionary) And how lucky we are as HEMA/WMA students: Swords of iron and steel survive ‘centuries’ of abuse, neglect, climatic conditions causing near total structural decay, ‘resource recycling’, etc … and we still have many examples of what medieval and…
The requirements of service may have your paperboy posted near immediately into Stuttgart until the New Year, so We thought that we’d take a look in at what’s going on over there with swordplay, WMA/HEMA and related events. Full Metal Impact … in two directions! BADISCHE ZEITUNG (Freiburg, Germany) 05 July 14 So wie…
Happy Canada Day, and congratulations to all our Cavaliers who did Riding and Horsemanship tests last Saturday! For our bi-monthly Cavaliere assessment day we ran a total of 15 full and partial practical tests. Some people were doing partial tests, some challenging multiple levels, and we had four level 4 Riding and Horsemanship tests to…
It’s 28°C/83°C in your nations capital as We type … and somewhere nearby we have peers dressed in full armour, demonstrating what we do to an appreciative Canada Day audience. Honking huge falchions and arming swords, heavy shields, hot and heavy helmets protecting eyes full of dripping sweat, slippery gauntlets dripping with the same ……