Happy Canada Day and Fourth of July to our friends in Canada and the US, respectively. We just finished marching our way through the streets of Vancouver with 65 of us showing off our swordplay skills for a very enthusiastic crowd. Let me tell you, this gives me no small respect for our historical brethren who fought broad moving battles with these weapons. Fighting for 15 city blocks in the blazing sun is exhausting!

This week on Duello.TV we are continuing our work on collection in our unit for the longsword focus class, and our other programs are moving into a new month of content including: "Approaching" with the rapier for level 1 (Green), Rapier and Dagger for level 2 (Blue), and Rapier Disarms for level 3 (Red). This week is of course establishing the foundation for each of the sections of this exciting month. Enjoy your training!

Longsword Focus

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The final guard we examine in our month on collection is Finestra. Through Finestra we can create a secure and broad defence of the body against descending blows and safely collect the opponent's weapon in the cross.

Green Cord (Level 1)

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Gaining control of the opponent can be considered through two simple attitudes of movement: 1. As you move toward your opponent (approaching), and 2. As your opponent moves toward you (receiving). This month the focus is approaching. As we usually do, we're going to start with fundamental mechanics of movement and the core understanding of measure (the distance between you and the opponent).

Blue Cord (Level 2)

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In our return to the rapier this month, we are expanding our attention to include a dagger in our offhand. This week we look at the positions that the dagger takes in relation to the sword and how to gracefuly transition between those positions where both weapons seek to defend together.

Red Cord (Level 3)

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Sometimes we don't want to kill our opponent but simply neutralize them. One of the most effective means of doing this is the disarm. This month we look at methods to take control of the weapon and exploit mechanical weaknesses of the hand to strip the weapon from our opponent's grip.

Devon Boorman is the Co-Founder and Director of Academie Duello Centre for Swordplay, which has been active in Vancouver, Canada since 2004. Devon’s expertise centres on the Italian swordplay tradition including the arts of the Renaissance Italian rapier, sidesword, and longsword, as well as knife and unarmed techniques.
Read more from Devon Boorman.