In 2007 we hosted the first Garabaldi Peak Accolade Tournament;

“When we decided to host our first major invitational event, we spent sometime debating about the format. We considered having a series of classes, and we considered having one or two well known instructors for a weekend retreat in our beautiful locale.

But when we really sat down and thought about it, we realized what we really wanted was something that would really appeal to us, to the reasons we founded Academie Duello in the first place, and the reason we’ve been involved in the WMA scene for so long.

It’s not the history; it’s not the study or analysis. It’s nothing more than the sheer, simple joy of a well fought bout. Nothing appeals to us, and our students, more than that.

We know a lot of our friends feel the same way.
So we decided to invite everyone to come spend a weekend fighting with us. We knew our various friends would all get along really well with each other, as they all shared that simple joy of combat and challenge. When we looked at the list of friends we collected together, we saw that they were amongst the finest fighters we knew. From there, it was only a small step to making the decision to invite the people who had a wide-ranging reputation for excellence in weapon combat, in many disciplines as well as new people who have an interest in Western Martial Arts.

There have only been rare gatherings like this before, and we thought that a simple free-form weekend, while appealing, just wasn’t quite enough to really showcase the potential of this weekend. To really do that, we decided to make the entire weekend an accolade tournament.”

In 2007 the first accolade tournament was held to great reviews; prizes were won, fun had and champions awarded.

We look forward to doing it all again!

Question or comments? Please call the office or contact the Garabaldi Peak 2009 Planning Team.