Not irregularly I have had people say to me: I’m looking forward to starting into swordplay, I just need to get in shape first. This makes me very sad. Not only is swordplay a wonderfully fun and fulfilling physical activity, it is also a great way to build physical health and to do so in […]
A good friend of mine is a special forces combatives trainer. I asked him how much of their training is devoted to full-speed and full-contact simulated sparring. He told me “no more than 5%”. For him it was a matter of balancing value and risk. Full speed, full contact sparring has the value of exposing […]
This past week, at our 50-hour instructor intensive, I introduced a new batch of students, who travelled in from various places around the world to the method and benefits of slow sparring. Slow sparring is exactly what it sounds like: sparring done slowly. It has proven itself to me to be a tremendously valuable training […]
A couple weeks ago at the closing ceremonies of the L’Arte delle Armi conference in Chicago I was asked, along with Duello Provost Matheus Olmedo, and Jacopo Penso and Moreno del Ricci of Sala Opera Nova in Italy, to put on a display of traditional Bolognese Assaults. Assaults are a type of martial form that […]
One of the most challenging things to deal with in sparring is the mental or emotional intensity of a very forward motivated opponent, someone who throws powerful blows, or someone who comes very ferociously. Commonly people respond in one of two ways: Freeze or pull away, failing to make a cover. Making a single simple […]
“Although military discipline and art may be noted plainly and clearly in many courageous knights and greathearted fighters, it can also be seen that they are unclear to many talented people, owing to their inexperience. Thus, sometimes in discussing or using arms, they fall short due to ignorance, rather than to malicious intent.” Achille Marozzo, […]
Tennis, one of the few internationally followed duelling sports, has four major tournaments throughout the year that are held in esteem above all of the others. These events, “the majors”, are hosted in four different countries and played on four different surfaces: Wimbledon (grass), French Open (clay), US Open (Decoturf), and Australian Open (Plexicushion). Each […]
I’m not a fan of brutality in modern martial arts practice. Aggression brings unnecessary risks and injury, overvalues intensity over grace, and makes martial art less accessible to the unarmoured (both physically and psychologically). Wasn’t Real Historical Fighting Brutal? I won’t argue that there is no historical precedent for brutal, cruel, and ruthless martial art […]
There are many types of partners you could end up sparring with. For example, if you had a sparring partner who always, consistently, threw cuts right as you stepped into their measure and stopped when you stepped out, then you could know that you could always go to them to practice your parries. Or, if […]
This post originally appeared on Duello.TV, Academie Duello’s online learning and training blog portal. At our recent Instructor Intensive, the topic of “training so hard that you lose the joy of it” came up. The people who come out to intensives are hard workers. It takes a lot of drive to come out to do […]
While I was doing some research for another article I came across this video, on the Funker Tactical youtube channel, that includes some advice from a Vegas police officer about close quarters covering and entry. There is a lot of merit to his approach and it shares a lot with to some traditional boxing forms […]
Years ago, I had the pleasure of riding in a boat with Canada’s Olympic rowing coach while he coached members of our Olympic team and some more casual rowers like me. One of the most compelling things about this experience was how little he gave to each of his students yet how impactful some of […]
At Academie Duello we have an ambitious goal: Make 1000 Masters. The challenge is that at this moment, we have yet to make our first. What is a Master? Within most European martial traditions, a master is someone who not only practices their art with a high level of proficiency but more importantly is able […]
In an online conversation with members of our instructor training program this past weekend, an interesting question came up, one that I encounter on a regular basis: How do I make the other people in my group drill and do exercises? The short answer is that you don’t “make” them do anything. Their training is their […]
If you want to improve, put improvement on a schedule. Don’t expect the schedule to stay the same forever. It’s normal and natural for a rhythm that worked last month to not work now. Life changes and renewal gives new energy. Here are some rhythms that work for others and might work for you. Train […]
A slightly different type of how-to topic for today—though it still involves swords! This past weekend we held a charity event at Academie Duello called Duelling with Cause. It featured a tournament, swordplay demonstrations, and a lot of cool audience participation. One of the things that the attendees got to try out was sabering a […]
I’m a big fan of sparring games and other exercises that help bring a skill from drilling into a more fluid and combative environment. The Five Things Exercise is a sparring game that allows you to focus on five different techniques or ideas with just this goal. Exercise Structure Set a timer for a period […]
There are two ways that I love sparring these days: With a simple jacket, light or padded gloves, gorget, and mask. In a full suit of plate harness. What I like about both of these environments is their close relations to how the martial arts we teach and practice were performed traditionally. A bulk of […]